He says, “Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.”   (Psalm 46:10 -- NIV)

New "CAREtoons" at www.StevertS.com . . .

My photos on istockphoto.com . . .

Barns & Sheds:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/4079913#d45c1d5
Cattle:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/4079889#1b01f347
Horses:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/4079874#1f86c3f
Rural Scenes:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/4121979#183f38ce
City Scenes:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/4178858#1c0fee76
Wild Animals:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/4085652#153fb1f2
Backgrounds:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/4089679#1704a1af
Structures:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/6284286#90878f0
Road Signs:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/4121930#1f24bc44
Sheep & Pigs:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/6976610#16729d40
Windmills:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/10914786#d8fb3d4
Objects:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/13020606#3cb73a7
Churches & Cemeteries:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/4085672#98d1d97
Vacation Destinations:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/9556288#181288a5
Dogs & Cats:  http://www.istockphoto.com/search/lightbox/12594518#1aceb1c9

And Jesus said unto them, Come ye after me, and I will make you to become fishers of men. 

(Mark 1:17 -- KJV)

1. Oh, for a thousand tongues to sing
   My great Redeemer’s praise,
   The glories of my God and king,
   The triumphs of His grace!
2. My gracious Master and my God,
   Assist me to proclaim,
   To spread through all the earth abroad,
   The honors of Thy name.
3. Jesus! the name that charms our fears,
   That bids our sorrows cease—
   ’Tis music in the sinner’s ears,
   ’Tis life, and health, and peace.
4. He breaks the pow’r of canceled sin,
   He sets the pris’ner free;
   His blood can make the foulest clean,
   His blood availed for me.
5. He speaks, and, list’ning to His voice,
   New life the dead receive,
   The mournful, broken hearts rejoice,
   The humble poor believe.
6. Glory to God, and praise and love
   Be ever, ever giv’n
   By saints below and saints above,
   The church in earth and heav’n.

(by Charles Wesley)

+Look unto Him, ye nations, own
Your God, ye fallen race;
Look, and be saved through faith alone,
Be justified by grace.

+See all your sins on Jesus laid:
The Lamb of God was slain,
His soul was once an offering made
For every soul of man.

Then he will say to those on his left, "Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels."   (Matthew 25:41 -- NIV)

Are we fearing the Lord and serving and obeying Him, and not rebelling against His commands?  

 

A horse is a vain hope for deliverance; despite all its great strength it cannot save.  (Psalm 33:17 -- NIV)

www.StevertS.com

". . . if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land."   (2 Chronicles 7:14 -- NIV)

Excerpt copied below is from a speech by Abraham Lincoln in New Haven on March 6, 1850.  Which wrong is unspeakable in 2014? 

" . . . there is no place where you will allow it to be even called wrong! We must not call it wrong in the Free States, because it is not there, and we must not call it wrong in the Slave States because it is there; we must not call it wrong in politics because that is bringing morality into politics, and we must not call it wrong in the pulpit because that is bringing politics into religion; we must not bring it into the Tract Society or the other societies, because those are such unsuitable places, and there is no single place, according to you, where this wrong thing can properly be called wrong!"

"May We Thy Precepts, Lord, Fulfil" by Edward Osler, 1798-1863
1. May we Thy precepts, Lord, fulfil
And do on earth our Father's will
As angels do above;
Still walk in Christ, the living Way,
With all Thy children and obey
The law of Christian love.
2. So may we join Thy name to bless,
Thy grace adore, Thy power confess,
From sin and strife to flee.
One is our calling, one our name,
The end of all our hopes the same,
A crown of life with Thee.
3. Spirit of Life, of Love, and Peace,
Unite our hearts, our joy increase,
Thy gracious help supply.
To each of us the blessing give
In Christian fellowship to live,
In joyful hope to die.

The last message of the Old Testament . . . (Happy Father's Day)

"See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.  He will turn the hearts of the parents to their children, and the hearts of the children to their parents; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.”   
(Malachi 4:5-6 -- NIV)

And God said, “This is the sign of the covenant I am making between me and you and every living creature with you, a covenant for all generations to come:  I have set my rainbow in the clouds, and it will be the sign of the covenant between me and the earth.  Whenever I bring clouds over the earth and the rainbow appears in the clouds,  I will remember my covenant between me and you and all living creatures of every kind. Never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.  Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth.”
So God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant I have established between me and all life on the earth.”  (Genesis 9:12-17)

What lies are we being told today? 

While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened.  When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, telling them, “You are to say, ‘His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.’  If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble.”  So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day. 
(Matthew 28:11-15 -- NIV)

Ready for this global warming / climate change? 

"But the day of the Lord will come like a thief, and then the heavens will pass away with a loud noise, and the elements will be dissolved with fire, and the earth and the works that are upon it will be burned up."  (2 Peter 3:10 -- RSV)

When a land falls into the hands of the wicked,
he blindfolds its judges.
If it is not he, then who is it?  (Job 9:24)

 "My sheep hear my voice."   (John 10:27)

Remembering D-Day (+ 70 years) . . .

Not Yours to Give

(from the book LIFE OF COLONEL DAVID CROCKETT by Edward S. Ellis,

and summarized in THE BOOK of MAN by William J. Bennett)

One day in the House of Representatives, a bill was taken up appropriating money for the benefit of a widow of a distinguished naval officer. Several beautiful speeches had been made in its support. The Speaker was just about to put the question when Crockett arose:
“Mr. Speaker–I have as much respect for the memory of the deceased, and as much sympathy for the sufferings of the living, if suffering there be, as any man in this House, but we must not permit our respect for the dead or our sympathy for a part of the living to lead us into an act of injustice to the balance of the living. I will not go into an argument to prove that Congress has no power to appropriate this money as an act of charity. Every member upon this floor knows it. We have the right, as individuals, to give away as much of our own money as we please in charity; but as members of Congress we have no right so to appropriate a dollar of the public money. Some eloquent appeals have been made to us upon the ground that it is a debt due the deceased. Mr. Speaker, the deceased lived long after the close of the war; he was in office to the day of his death, and I have never heard that the government was in arrears to him.

Every man in this House knows it is not a debt. We cannot, without the grossest corruption, appropriate this money as the payment of a debt. We have not the semblance of authority to appropriate it as a charity. Mr. Speaker, I have said we have the right to give as much money of our own as we please. I am the poorest man on this floor. I cannot vote for this bill, but I will give one week’s pay to the object, and if every member of Congress will do the same, it will amount to more than the bill asks.”

He took his seat. Nobody replied. The bill was put upon its passage, and, instead of passing unanimously, as was generally supposed, and as, no doubt, it would, but for that speech, it received but few votes, and, of course, was lost.

Later, when asked by a friend why he had opposed the appropriation, Crockett gave this explanation:
“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown . It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

“The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

“I began: ‘Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and–’
“‘Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett, I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.’

“This was a sockdolager . . . I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

“‘Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest. . . . But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.’

“‘I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question.’

“‘No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown . Is that true?’

“‘Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.’

“‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be intrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown , neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week’s pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington , no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution.

“‘So you see, Colonel, you have violated the Constitution in what I consider a vital point. It is a precedent fraught with danger to the country, for when Congress once begins to stretch its power beyond the limits of the Constitution, there is no limit to it, and no security for the people. I have no doubt you acted honestly, but that does not make it any better, except as far as you are personally concerned, and you see that I cannot vote for you.’

I tell you I felt streaked. I saw if I should have opposition, and this man should go talking, he would set others to talking, and in that district I was a gone fawn-skin. I could not answer him, and the fact is, I did not want to. But I must satisfy him, and I said to him: 

"Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it full. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said there at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote; and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot."

 

 



Point us to the skies.

Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; Shine through the gloom and point me to the skies. Heaven's morning breaks, and earth's vain shadows flee; In life, in death, O Lord, abide with me.

 

(from the last verse of the hymn, "Abide with Me" by Henry Francis Lyte)

 

Supposedly, the earth and everything in the universe evolved from nothing, but we humans now have the capability to change the climate on earth with what we do (or don't do).  So we're not supposed to believe there is a God who created everything, but it's okay to believe that we are all ourselves gods with the ability to create climate.  Sounds fishy to me . . .

Can goats pray?