Armageddon. It's coming but not tomorrow

As you will probably have read Judgment Day has been set for tomorrow at 4:00 PM Eastern Standard Time.

I confidently expect that you will be receiving a post from BWI
on Monday 23rd May and I will then give you ten good reasons why.

However, let's get past May 21 first.

In the meantime sleep well and remember Proverbs 3:5-6.

Ian

The Culprits

Astonishingly news broke on the same day, that two of the world's most powerful had been brought to public disgrace. 

Both family men, both the fathers of four legitimate children.

One the governor of California, the other the head of the International Monetary Fund.

Both had sordid encounters with maids and both, it turns out, have a rancid history of sexual exploitation.

Strange also that these two men would throw away (like Tiger Woods, John Edwards and Bill Clinton) family, fame and career for a few mad minutes of gratification.

Proverbs says:
"The man who is able to control himself is greater than the man who conquers a city."

Arnold Schwarzenegger and Dominique Strauss Kahn will have plenty of years ahead in which to think about that simple truth.

Gentlemen, love your wives.

Ian

Cradle to grave. Oh the joy of it all.

While in Cuba I was talking to one of the hotel staff.

He was telling me of the joys of life under Castro. "Just think," he said. "We have free education, free medical coverage, free dental and a free funeral when we die."

What could be better?

I suggested "Freedom of speech, freedom to travel, freedom to choose a career and freedom to worship God. Without these you have a free funeral BEFORE you die."

The conversation came to an end.

"You shall know the truth and the truth will make you free." John 8:32.

Enjoy your day.

Ian

May Day May Day. Problems in Paradise

While Pauline and I were in Cuba we met Marty and his wife.

They had come over from England, a land of free enterprise, for the big May Day parade in Havana. They were there to celebrate 52 years of communist rule in Cuba.

Marty was an avowed socialist.

I asked Marty whether he found it odd that he was able to afford three weeks vacation to come on his pilgrimage, but that 90% of the Cuban people could only afford to ride a bicycle.

I then asked him what was there to celebrate in the May Day parade.

He was honest enough to confess that he did not know.
I then quoted Michel Gorbachev, former head of the USSR, who said " Communism has the most wonderful ideals in the world and would have transformed mankind WERE IT NOT FOR PEOPLE".

In the middle of a busy hotel I was able to pray with Marty that he would find peace with God through Christ, and enjoy power  to live a life that was based in reality not pure theory.

He has my email and I'll let you know if he calls me.

Ian

The Republic of Cuba

Pauline and I are back from our "Island in the Sun".

Fifty years after the revolution this little country is in penury.

This has been brought about not by the American embargo but by a bankrupt ideology, sterile of spiritual life and bereft of the innovation and initiative that brings prosperity to any people.

We found, as we always do, that the Cuban people are warm, generous, open-hearted, friendly and hungry for news of the wider world beyond their shores.

However, their universal lot is to be repressed by a regime that promised equally shared wealth but which has delivered equalised  poverty.

Ah that we who live in the West might connect the liberty and affluence that we enjoy to the goodness of God and to the immaculate gospel of Christ that emancipates and dignifies all who receive it!

Enjoy your day.

Ian

Osama Bin Who?

 

Osama Bin and Gone.

Every generation has had it's public enemy #1. Whether Al Capone, Lord Haw Haw, Adolf Hitler, they  come and they go.

The latest terrorist is now resting on the sea-bed in the Gulf of Arabia; gone in a moment from a 'So Great to a So what.'

In the 18th century Lord Byron wrote a poem about a public enemy #1. Ozymandias.

Psalm One, with brilliant precision, concludes with these words:

"The wicked are like the chaff which the wind driveth away.......... but the way of the righteous abideth forever"

So live your life now that your legacy will be a godly example for others to follow.

Want to read about Ozymandias? Here he is.

Ian

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert … Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,            
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:                  
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay 

Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare

The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Lord Byron