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Hey Andy Griffith Show fans! I have recently been looking into the life of Hal Smith, the (in)famous Otis Campbell. He was also known as the beloved Mr. Whittaker in Focus On the Family's radio series Adventures in Odyssey.
Turns out he has had quite a career including voice work for Hanna Barbarra and Disney as well as parts on various TV shows and commercials. He even had his own local children show in the Los Angeles area called The Pancake Man.
Here's a little gem I found on my new favorite web site, "Youtube."

No Substitute for Knowing Where Your Going

I found this story on Fox News' website tonight (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,581303,00.html). I'm sometimes amused at all the gadgets folks carry around these days; I-pods, I-phones, blackberries, GPS, satellite radio receivers, cellphones, etc. There are even small gadgets that serve only to be used as books. These gadgets are convenient but they can bite you sometimes, like the couple in the news article. I was working once out in Carissa Plains, which is about 50 miles from the nearest anything, when a gentleman stopped to ask me where the nearest gas station was. It seems his GPS told him that Highway 58 was the shortest route to San Luis Obispo from wherever he was and somehow led him to believe there would be somewhere to fuel up his Pontiac on the way, which was by then running on fumes. Thankfully for this Texan (interestingly, I had a fellow from Texas riding with me that day), I was able to find a local rancher who had a fuel tank behind his barn and gave this gentleman enough fuel to get to town (thank you Mrs Twisselman!).
You don't need new-fangled gadgets to get you into trouble, however. I once got myself into a predicament with an good old-fashioned Thomas Guide east of Sonora one winter. Time prohibits me from sharing the details, but the "shortcut" I hoped to use ended up gaining me a mile and a half walk uphill in a snow storm and Ma Bell a $400 tow bill.

No Real Depth Here.

My all time favorite car. Isn't Youtube great?

The Cost of Christianity Today in America

FYI: Being a beliver of Jesus in the United States can cost you more than ridicule.


Florida Principal, Athletic Director Could Go to Jail for Prayer Before Lunch at SchoolSaturday, August 15, 2009


A principal and an athletic director in Florida could be charged with crimes and spend six months in jail after they prayed before a meal at a school event, the Washington Times reported.

Pace High School Principal Frank Lay and athletic director Robert Freeman will go on trial in federal district court Sept. 17. They're accused of violating the conditions of a lawsuit settlement reached last year with the American Civil Liberties Union, according to the Times.

Local pastors and some students and teachers are outraged that Lay and Freeman face criminal charges, and they have protested during graduation ceremonies, the newspaper said.

"I have been defending religious freedom issues for 22 years, and I've never had to defend somebody who has been charged criminally for praying," said Mathew Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel, the Christian-based legal group that is defending the two school officials.

But an ACLU official said the Santa Rosa County School District has been guilty of "flagrant" First Amendment violations for years, the Times reported.

"The defendants all admitted wrongdoing," said Daniel Mach, ACLU's director of litigation for its freedom of religion program. "For example, the Pace High School teachers handbook asks teachers to 'embrace every opportunity to inculcate, by precept and example, the practice of every Christian virtue.'"

The case stems from a Jan. 28 incident in which Lay, a local Baptist church deacon, asked Freeman to offer mealtime prayers at a lunch for school employees. Staver said no students were there and the event took place on school property after hours.

Mach countered that the event was held during the school day and Lay has admitted in writing that there were students present, according to the newspaper.

The ACLU contends that the allowance of the lunchtime prayer was a breach of last year's settlement, in which the district promised, among other things, to prohibit all school employees from promoting prayers during school-sponsored events, espousing their religious beliefs and trying to convert students.

Psalms

I have really enjoyed my time in The Book of Psalms this year. Its blending of history, prophesy, and praise in a uniquely poetic form makes this a challenging read for a meat head like me, but the richness of the text in relation to both the rest of scripture and the human experience is worth the challenge. Here are a few good lines from chapter 119. I have pulled them out of the poem and transformed them into regular sentences:

5&6- Oh, that my ways were directed to keep Your statutes! Then I would not be ashamed when I look into all Your commandments.

7- I will praise You with uprightness of heart when I learn Your righteous judgments.

9- How can a young man cleanse his way? By taking heed according to Your word.

11- Your word I have hidden in my heart that I might not sin against You!

14& 15- I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies as much as in all riches. I will meditate on Your precepts and contemplate Your ways.

18&19- Open my eyes that I may see wondrous things from Your law. I am a stranger in the earth - do not hide Your commandments from me.

67, 68& 71- Before I was afflicted I went astray, but now I keep Your word. You are good and do good- teach me Your statutes. It is good for me that I have been afflicted that I may learn Your statutes.

Psalm 119, more than any other Psalm, exhibits the tremendous passion that David had for the mind of God; to know it, to obey His Laws, to declare His ways to others. I am challenged by his passion for God and His perfect ways!

Fuel Sniffers and Tazers Don't Mix

I admire policemen. They have one of the most difficult jobs in the world. They have to make split second decisions that may mean life or death and never know when some jerk with a video camera is going to feed the media only half of the story. I've been told that police work can be 99% boredom and 1% fear. I think the following article may be in the 1%.

Man Tasered After Sniffing Gas Bursts in Flames
Tuesday, July 21, 2009


SYDNEY — A man whose relatives say had been sniffing gasoline burst into flames after a police officer Tasered him as he ran at officials carrying a container of fuel, police said Tuesday.

The man, identified by his family as 36-year-old Ronald Mitchell, was in critical condition at a Perth hospital in Western Australia state following Monday's incident in Warburton, an Aboriginal community 950 miles northeast of Perth.

Western Australia police said they were responding to a complaint at a house when Mitchell ran outside the house carrying a cigarette lighter and a large plastic bottle containing what they believe was fuel. When he refused to stop running toward them, one officer Tasered him, police said in a media release.

The man was immediately engulfed in flames. The officer threw him to the ground and smothered the blaze with his hands, the statement said. Mitchell was charged with assault to prevent arrest and possession of a sniffing substance.

An 18-year-old woman threw rocks at the officer as he tried to help, and he was later treated for a cut on his head and burns to his hands, police said.

The woman was charged with two counts of assaulting an officer, police Sgt. Graham Clifford said. Two others at the house were charged with possessing a sniffing substance.

Mitchell's sister, Morinda West, told The Australian newspaper that her brother had been sniffing gasoline and that when he ran out of the house he was carrying a lighter and an orange juice container full of gasoline.

Police spokeswoman Susan Usher said Mitchell appeared to have received third-degree burns to about ten percent of his body.

The officer who Tasered Mitchell was not suspended, Clifford said

Acts 20:27

I am often troubled by the tendency to attack one another in the church. I'm using the term church in the broad sense. If you view the church as a family then I suppose it is not unusual to fight amongst your loved ones, but in the family of God this ought not to be.

What am I talking about? There is a tendency for individual churches to view themselves as the last bastion of faithfulness to scripture and to point out the perceived evils of other churches. There is the tendency for one system of theology to set up arguments against another by either willful mischaracterization or finding an extreme view and representing it as mainstream. Both of these examples are unconscionable. I believe we play into the devil's hand when we do not take an honest account of another's view and measure it against... our own view? No. Scripture! In fact, measure not only your opponent's view, but hold your own up to the light of Scripture. Get rid of presuppositions; you might just as well read a book about the Bible that you know you will agree with if you're not willing to let the Bible speak for itself.

Easier said than done? You're right. It is much easier to read a book or listen to a preacher or theologian then formulate an opinion based on other's study and teaching with your own dabbling here and there in the Bible. Unfortunately, the conclusions you draw will not be your own if you rely solely on others for biblical knowledge. Only by a careful study of the entire counsel of Scripture guided by the Holy Spirit, supplemented by the studies of others, can one be able to "rightly divide the word of truth." A large part of the human race has been blessed with access to the Holy Bible for the last 400 years. What a shame to shrink from the task of studying this immense book that others before us (and even today!) could only dream of doing.

I would encourage my friends and kinfolk to go to the following link: http://kimriddlebarger.squarespace.com/a-reply-to-john-macarthur/ and carefully read this reply to an attack made by John MacArthur on amillenialism. Eschatology is one of those areas in my opinion where the church has engaged in hyperbolic attack instead of fully understanding the case for a particular doctrine and then holding it to the light of Scripture. Read this essay, then avoid the temptation to reject it because of a book you read or "party affiliation." Reject it because you searched the entire counsel of Scripture without presupposition and found his case wanting.

Hang 'Em High

I really enjoy the Old Testament. When I first began reading the Bible through every year, the Old Testament seemed daunting, like a huge desert to travel through before I got to the green pastures of the New Testament. But the trip didn't seem that bad. In fact, the Old Testament is ripe with valuable material for the christian to absorb.

Most folks are familiar with the story of Esther. I was really struck this year with the irony of Haman. Esther chs 2-7 record the detailed account of the story, but I'll give the brief phone-guy version. Haman is promoted above all the other princes in the kingdom of Persia. Full of pride in his elevated state, he struts about while everyone bows before him; everyone but the Jew Mordecai. Even though the king commanded everyone do so, Mordecai would bow before no man, and this really ate Haman up. What follows is a classic case of over reaching. Haman, a man of Amalekite ancestry (read 1 Samuel 15 for one of many accounts of the people of Amalek), decides not to destroy just Mordecai, but to use the occasion to convince the king to destroy the entire race of the Hebrews living within the kingdom.

Haman successfully convinces the king to decree that the Jews be eradicated from the land, but didn't know that the kings new queen is in fact a Jew (it was a secret, no one in the kings house knew). Esther, the queen and our heroine, discovers Haman's plot against her people and risks her life to approach the king uninvited (women didn't have the rights we are accustomed to) to tell the king...."please come to my banquet, and bring Haman with you." Well, attending a banquet with just the queen and king really stokes the already inflated ego of Haman and he leaves the banquet with an invitation to come back the following evening. His pride turned to rage when once again Mordecai refused to bow to him as he strode past. Haman could wait no longer, he ordered a gallows built to seventy five feet high in order to hang Mordecai and be rid of him for good; he only needed to let the king in on his plans.

The king had a dilemma, Mordecai had foiled a plot to assassinate the king and had never been duly honored. He wasn't sure how to reward Mordecai but who should show up at just the right time to help but Haman. Believing the king intended to honor him, Haman told the king that such a one should be arrayed in the splendor of the king and lead about on a magnificent steed by the kings most noble prince, who would shout, "This is what you get if the king really likes you." Things begin to turn sour for Haman at this point as the king loves Haman's suggestion and informs Haman that he'll be leading Mordecai about in the manner in which he just suggested. Ouch! But it gets much worse for Haman.

Haman's friends and counselors told him at this point that he was doomed and they were right. At the second banquet with the king and queen, Esther reveals to the king a plot to destroy her and her people and fingers Haman as the source. I can imagine that Haman must have turned white as a sheet. The king left the room furious, obviously stunned by the turn of events. When he returns, Haman is touching the queen in some way, probably grasping on to her to beg for mercy, but no matter what the reason, you don't touch the kings harem no matter who you are. Haman has sealed his fate. The gallows constructed by Haman for Mordecai would be used to execute Haman.

All throughout scripture, indeed through history, we see God's provision for his people. God has sent punishment in the form of invaders and conquerors, but has always preserved a remnant. The Jewish race with us today is just further evidence of a God that keeps his promises. God has also promised his care to those of us "grafted in" by the gift of grace, Jew and gentile (Jn 10:27-29; Lk 12:22-34). Of course, there is another great lesson here; Pride comes before a fall. Or a hanging.

Juxtaposing the Gospel

Is the gospel relevant in our country today? Is it relevant outside our boarders, say in India? I suppose that depends on your understanding of what the gospel is. The following two videos are both gospel presentations but, I believe, are from two very different G/gods.

No Bible Study Without a Permit

I haven't been on the blogosphere for a while, but I decided to break in for a moment when I read the following article. Many of us have watched our freedoms as US citizens slowly erode over the years and lately, they seem to be in flames as they disappear over the horizon. Furthermore, there is a not so veiled assault on biblical Christianity. When a nation rejects the authority of the scriptures and the God who authored them, they have no foundation on which to stand and anything goes. Whoever thought we would be seriously debating the definition of marriage? Instances of open hostility towards Christianity are becoming more commonplace. Are you ready?


Couple Ordered to Stop Holding Bible Study at Home Without Permit
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Fox News Website

Pastor David Jones and his wife Mary have been told that they cannot invite friends to their San Diego, Calif. home for a Bible study — unless they are willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars to San Diego County.

"On Good Friday we had an employee from San Diego County come to our house, and inform us that the Bible study that we were having was a religious assembly, and in violation of the code in the county." David Jones told FOX News.

"We told them this is not really a religious assembly — this is just a Bible study with friends. We have a meal, we pray, that was all," Jones said.

A few days later, the couple received a written warning that cited "unlawful use of land," ordering them to either "stop religious assembly or apply for a major use permit," the couple's attorney Dean Broyles told San Diego news station 10News.

But the major use permit could cost the Jones' thousands of dollars just to have a few friends over.

For David and Mary Jones, it's about more than a question of money.

"The government may not prohibit the free exercise of religion," Broyles told FOX News. "I believe that our Founding Fathers would roll over in their grave if they saw that here in the year 2009, a pastor and his wife are being told that they cannot hold a simple Bible study in their own home."

"The implications are great because it’s not only us that’s involved," Mary Jones said. "There are thousands and thousands of Bible studies that are held all across the country. What we’re interested in is setting a precedent here — before it goes any further — and that we have it settled for the future."

The couple is planning to dispute the county's order this week.

If San Diego County refuses to allow the pastor and his wife to continue gathering without acquiring a permit, they will consider a lawsuit in federal court.

"A Phone Company Willing to Kill"

I remember being offered $50 to switch long distance carriers years ago. Here is a phone company willing to do what it takes to get your buisiness.

Being Called (Out) by God

Moses endured many hardships as the leader of God's people in the wilderness. As a humble servant-leader, I suppose a challenge to his authority was inevitable. After hearing the 10 spies negative report of the promised land, Moses was nearly stoned to death for, in their view, leading them to be slaughtered by the land's inhabitants. After a few more direct challenges to Moses' leadership, God finally settled the matter of leadership and the priesthood once and for all by causing Aaron's rod to bud while the other eleven tribe's did not. You can read these fascinating accounts in Numbers 13-17.

Possibly the worst challenge from Moses' point of view came from his brother and sister. I wonder how this attack from Aaron and Miriam must have affected him. They were jealous of Moses' position and used his marriage to Zipporah, an Ethiopian, as the basis of an attack on his authority. "Has the Lord indeed spoken only through Moses? Has He not spoken through us also?..." (Num 12:2) Who did this Moses think he was to assume this authority over God's people? He is not so special, he has even married a foreigner! What transpires next is possibly one of the most fearful texts in all of scripture or at least in the top ten.

"...And the Lord heard it." (Num 12:2) Uh-oh. "Suddenly the Lord said to Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, "Come out, you three, to the tabernacle of meeting!" (Num 12:4) When I read this, I have the same feeling in my gut I used to have when my dad sent me to my room and I knew I was going to get it! I imagine that Aaron and Miriam felt quite a bit worse than that. Although Aaron and Miriam are receiving their what-fors here, the words of the Lord offer a powerful look into His relationship with Moses. "Hear now My words: If there is a prophet among you, I, the LORD, make Myself known to him in a vision; I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; He is faithful in all My house. I speak with him face to face, Even plainly, and not in dark sayings; And he sees the form of the LORD. Why then were you not afraid To speak against My servant Moses?" (Num 12:6-8)

What an incredibly unique relationship Moses had with God. Moses enjoyed what amounted to an ongoing dialogue with God. When he inquired of the Lord, the Lord spoke to him. He was one of the very few allowed to see the form of God Himself. How much more incredible is verse 3 "[Now the man Moses was very humble, more than all men who were on the face of earth]" Moses realized long ago his inadequacies and understood his authority came from God's call alone. Aaron and Miriam's pride and arrogance directed at Moses were actually a rebuke of God and His plan. I think I'd rather be call of God than called out by him.

Quail: It's What's for Dinner.

Moses had a difficult job. You people in management think you have it bad, imagine managing a group of about a million former slaves. When reading about the ministry of Moses, I often feel very sorry for him. Moses was not a typical CEO type personality. The bible describes him as the humblest man on earth (Num 12:3).

Numbers 11 gives an account of Moses' exasperation over a pity party the nation of Israel was having over their menu. As we see many times during the exodus, the Israelites were grumbling about their situation and wishing to be in Egypt where they had it so good. The manna God had provided had become distasteful to them and they longed for meat, so much so that the scriptures say they sat in the doorway of their tents weeping. I imagine Moses at his wit's end as he cried out to the Lord,
"Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, 'Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child,' to the land which You swore to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep all over me, saying, 'Give us meat, that we may eat.' I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now-if I have found favor in Your sight-and do not let me see my wretchedness!"

A couple things stand out to me in this story. First, Moses relationship with the Creator. How familiar their relationship must have been to feel like he could address God this way. In fact Moses seems almost kind of snarky. Interestingly, the Lord responds similarly when Moses asks the Lord how He can provide enough meat for the Israelites to eat for a month, "And the LORD said to Moses, "Has the LORD'S arm been shortened? Now you shall see whether what I say will happen to you or not."
Secondly, these men and women in the camp who had witnessed God's extraordinary and powerful works on their behalf turned so easily to doubt and distrust when things became difficult or uncomfortable.
While it is easy for me to marvel at the faithlessness of the Israelites, I am not much different. Having been given the gift of grace through faith, I still doubt the Lord by my actions. Often I pray along with the man who asked Jesus to heal his demon possessed son in Mark 9:24, "Lord I believe, help my unbelief!"

Union Humor

Mabey you've seen these but we do not watch television so they are new to me. My employer and labor union have been negotiating a new contract and the process has been less than pleasant. Feeling like a pawn in someone's sick game of chess, finding a little humor in this childish game played every three to five years brought a little relief.