A Time of Firsts     

   Does the first born always feel superior to siblings? When God favored his younger brother's offering, Cain took it hard. 

   Then the Lord said to Cain (and to all of us), 'Why are you angry? If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.' (Genesis 4:6)  

   Cain stubbornly held to his attitude and killed his brother Abel. There was no Focus on the Family in those first days. 

   God banished Cain from the land, but when Cain cried to the Lord: I will be hidden from your presence (Genesis 4:14), God put a mark of protection on him. 

   Enoch, the seventh generation from Adam, walked closely with God in faith, trust and obedience - becoming the first prophet (communicator) in an ungodly generation. God eventually took Enoch into his presence, bypassing human death. 

   In Hebrews 11:5, the faith chapter, Enoch pleased God. In Jude verses 14-15, Enoch had prophesied that the Lord is coming to judge and convict the ungodly. The Spirit must have conveyed that to Jude. It is not in Genesis. Decades later, John received that same communication from above (Revelation 19). 

   Back to Genesis. Humans, free to act (and the devil free to deceive), became so wicked and full of violence that it "pained" God. (When the Spirit withdraws, this will happen again.)  

   There was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time, and he walked with God. Communicating to Noah alone, the Creator exercised his prerogative and started over.

   Cue the rainbow.

Monday: Terms of the agreement

Let's Get This Straight    

   When your house is ablaze and a certain fireman is your only hope, would you wave him off if you didn't like his looks or his language?

   When Gen. McClellan and others led cautiously for three stalemated years, why did President Lincoln replace them with U.S. Grant, an officer accused of drunkenness? "Because he fights," Lincoln answered. 

   Grant had an "iron will." His aggressive strategy cost some 150,000 Union lives, but it brought an end to a bitter "civil" war. Historians now consider Grant a "military genius." 

   Thanks to a Views reader/friend of Mrs. Donut, we have comments by author and speaker Karen Vaughn, whose son was among Navy Seals killed in 2011 when their chopper was shot down in Afghanistan. 

   Titled Salty Sailor, Vaughn's remarks make clear she does not worship President Trump, nor hope to emulate him. "He's not like us, and we're not like him," Vaughn says. 

   "God may not admire him," she adds, but maybe Trump "is needed for a time like this." 

   We're happy to see someone express what we've been thinking.

   Trump "acts with heart rather than calculated and scripted," Vaughn said. Despite unprecedented political adversity, he takes on problem after problem that conventional leaders have failed to solve, or sometimes even try.

   She thinks his election gives America one more chance to restore itself, while providing hope for world peace.

   Yesterday, the country recalled D-Day, June 6, 1944, when resolute Allied forces launched the great, but bloody, invasion at Normandy. 

   Few mothers would have their sons adopting the language of outspoken Gen. George Patton. Following D-Day, during the Army's drive across France into Nazi Germany, Patton was the only Allied general who worried the German high command. 

Results! 

      Jimmy

  Wednesday    

But My Word     
Two Voices; One Choice       

   So God created man in his own image... male and female 
he created them (Gen. 1:27). That was the easy part.

   Some 3300 years later, Isaiah testified before God: We are all the work of your hand (64:8).

   Communicating with men made from dust - from true realm to finite realm - while allowing them choice, and giving Lucifer access ... that should be interesting.

   We don't know if the devil expected company - inferior beings at that - but he must have welcomed this opportunity to deceive God's lesser creatures. Humans, he must have known, would follow their own desires, unwittingly serving him. 

   The first man and woman may have been very intelligent, but not wise. As yet, there was no mental illness, nor diseases of the body. Among other wonders, God provided trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.

   Now comes the real beginning - of communications and covenants:

   God blessed them and said to them, Be fruitful...    I give you every...
They will be yours...   I give every...  But, to the man he said, You must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.    

   Then God waited. The devil's choice that day was to appear materially as a (friendly) serpent and counselor. He deceived. First the woman and then the man ate themselves out of paradise.  

   It had been very good, until God cursed the ground. 

   After He exiled Adam and the woman, He provided a measure of grace and mercy. 
He also had a plan.

   Almighty God determined that He would come to us as one of us, letting cruel men nail him to a dreaded cross. As the world calculates, it would be 4,000 years from Adam's fall until Redemption came. For God, it was no time at all. 

Friday: Words for Cain, Enoch and Noah

   

But My Word    
Preface         

   The Eternal Almighty - He is three in one - exists in his own realm. Whatever the realm is, it is not physics and chemistry, and it does not decay.

   The Almighty has many attributes. In his realm He is best described as Spirit. He wants to love and be loved. He can be pleased, and He can be angered.

   For his own purposes, He created thousands of beings - called angels - with characteristics of the realm. They cannot die. While angels were created to serve the Almighty, He permitted them choice. 

   They can please him. Or anger him - once. Being in his presence, they were expected to know better, and be perfect. 

   Then the Almighty created a material realm with billions of suns, planets and mysterious other chemistry, none of it eternal. The Almighty created a special planet called earth, with a particular moon and a life-supporting sun of a particular size and distance. And He made water.

   Back in the eternal realm, the most special angel, Lucifer, sought worship for himself. There are no second chances. One third of the angels were exiled to earth, while retaining their other-realm characteristics. Odd.

   When his earth was ready, the Almighty created new, living beings, called man, "a little lower than the angels." Inferior man was to take care of the earth, believe, trust and obey his unseen Maker, and all this while superior, angry, hateful, unseen angels - now called demons - opposed every truth with lies and deception.

Wednesday: Let the communications begin

It's Outrageous    

   During all my years in high school, college and the army, I don't recall guys using obscenities and launching vicious attacks on others. Maybe I just didn't run with the foul crowd. 

   There were "swear words," a few of them from my own mouth. But the vile, indecent stuff heard on television today is outrageous.

   And these "comedians" are women! The fair sex! Attacking other women! 

   They profane others on taped shows; producers and others in authority go along for the ride. They claim to be free and strong females, yet they insult women who are wildly successful, if the politics doesn't suit.

   If the gig fattens the wallet - or purse - be atrocious. Attract attention. Win an award. Apologize later. 

   Remember the mock, severed head of the president?

   As we fear for our culture, we turn to words from higher authority. 
Three thousand years ago in Psalm 5, by David:
 

You are not a God who takes pleasure in evil;

With you the wicked cannot dwell.

The arrogant cannot stand in your presence;

You hate all who do wrong. You destroy all who tell lies.

Not a word from their mouth can be trusted;

Their heart is filled with destruction.
Their throat is an open grave;
With their tongue they speak deceit.

But let all who take refuge in you be glad;
Let them ever sing for joy.
For surely, O Lord, you bless the righteous;
You surround them with your favor as with a shield.
 

   Those are outrageous words to unbelievers, but Jesus still offers grace to those who turn from their ways.

       Jimmy

Constitutional Wish Lists?   

   Supposed something you say is called "hate speech." Could a court convict you on constitutional grounds?

   Your defense is the freedom of speech amendment.

   An annual Pew Research Center survey revealed that a majority (55 percent) of Americans now say courts should view the U.S. Constitution by current times and meanings, rather than as originally written. Some Democrats (78 percent) and Republicans (30 percent) want to see the Constitution interpreted with current meaning. 

   Michael McConnell, a former judge, now Stanford professor, questions the wording of the survey, not the Constitution. He thinks, "Most people think the Constitution should be interpreted to mean what it has always meant."

   Some judges already use "current times," he said. Too often, judges don't apply "current meaning" but rather, "wishful thinking." 

   There is a need for civic education, McConnell said, but it doesn't have to be conservative education. "Teach them from the writings of the great progressive jurists. They understand that we have a fixed Constitution with enduring principles." 

   Meanwhile, the term, "hate speech" is an example of the slippery slope. It has no legal definition. Hate speech regulations are popular on college campuses, the illusion of force of law.

   If young people continue to push for unconstitutional concepts, McConnell said, their ideas will creep into the courts.

   First Amendment speech can't be censored even if it may be offensive to some. But, the professor says, young people reject that principle.
 

WORLD

   Speaking out for Jesus would be considered "hate speech" by some. 

      Jimmy

   

But My Word...   

   Who said that? What about it?

   Today we preview for you a new series, a laborious endeavor for me because our topic - communications - is not in a concordance. Our focus is on how God used many forms of communication over 15 centuries to roll out the story that ends with our - each of us - salvation or condemnation.

   We think that understanding his methods enriches our confidence in his Word, his Truth and our relationship with him. Of course, it is the Holy Spirit that does this for us - not me. He inspired all Scripture that we freely receive. 

   Most of my working career involved sharing information in some form or another. I'm still interested in the topic - and here we are with the most glorious information, far above earthly knowledge. 

   What if there is an Eternal God? How might He impart knowledge and reveal himself to us in our natural, temporary realm on earth? 

   We begin at the beginning. And God said... Let there be...

   This pattern repeated several times in Genesis chapter 1, revealing that God created matter and substance - out of nothing! By his Word. 

   Evolutionists have no such communication to inform them.

   As for another major, world faith, one man wrote his book, claiming he was instructed by an angel. No one else was there in the cave. Where is the corroboration? Where is the testimony of two or more witnesses? 

   Well, think that over, and come back Monday for the awesome war in heaven, and conversations involving God, the first people and a sly serpent.
   
   We plan to "communicate" this series on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays over the next five weeks. 

      Jimmy