The problem is that babies dirty diapers for just one reason: they are babies, and that’s what babies do. It’s the nature of the beast. We are sinners. We screwed up the wonderful country that God gave us because we are sinners. If He restores America again, should anyone in his right mind think that we, or some future generation of Americans won’t do it again?

The history of man shows us over and over again that what man controls, man corrupts and ruins. I heard a preacher once that said that God gave each of Noah’s sons the opportunity to rule the world. It was Ham’s turn first, with Egypt. Then was Shem’s turn. The Arabs and Israeli’s are all Semites. The world experienced the glory of Babylon and of the kingdoms of David and Solomon. Then, ph-t-t-t. For the last two millinnea, Japeth has been ruling the world. In giving America to humanity, God gave a greater gift than He has given any other people, for we had the finished work of Jesus Christ under-girding our nation — not a promise, as David and Solomon had, but a finished work.

The purpose of human rule of the earth is to demonstrate for time and eternity that man without our Lord Jesus Christ can’t rule himself or his world. Those who are praying for the restoration of America are praying “Give us another chance.” Why should He? Haven’t we proven His point? Indeed we have.

One other point. Many of those who pray for God to give America another chance are not praying so because they want the glory of God exhibited in their lives and in the life of their nation, but are praying a prayer of repentance because they fear losing their toys. They want God to lavish the blessings on them that He has lavished upon our forefathers. Those who pray for America’s restoration do not have a vision for our Lord’s soon return. Otherwise, they would not pray as they do.

I’ll continue to pray with increasing earnestness, “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If there is time before the rapture to (re)establish a nation that fears Him and He wishes to do so, I’ll be grateful and will want to move there. But my focus is on His promised return.

I just don’t understand the hullabaloo. The missiles, rockets and such were supposed to go to Syria, who would send them over land to Hezbollah who would fire them into Israel. So the final destination of those arms was Israel and they are in Israel. The only thing that Israel did was to lower the carbon footprint of the transaction by getting the weapons into Israel without them being fired. Iran wanted those weapons in Israel! So, why are they complaining?

Environmentalists should be rejoicing that Israel was helping to reduce “climate change”. Instead, these same people are upset.

The “Religion of Peace” controls the politics of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, so I know that they rejoice that these weapons won’t be used to conduct war.

Can someone explain this to me?

At our breakfast table this morning, my wife and I were discussing how a man who has been regarded as responsible for his company’s success for thirty years said something he shouldn’t have said. People contacted the company and said, “I’ll never buy your product again.” The offender was fired. The offender was wrong. He should not have said what he did. He has been judged. But those who demanded his “execution” — are they not aware that they have set themselves up before the Almighty to be condemned for one misstep after years of good behavior?

Have you determined that a person in your life doesn’t deserve to be forgiven for pain they have caused you? Then God will judge that you don’t deserve to be forgiven for pain that you have caused.

It is not by your standard — “I’m as good as the next person.” — that you will be judged. It is by God’s standard — “For whoever shall keep the whole (Ten Commandment) law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all”.

When you are about to judge someone, whether that person has offended you, or whether you have read about that person in the papers, ask yourself whether you are willing to have God judge you in the same way.  If you would not be condemned, then don’t condemn.  You are probably already guilty of having condemned others.  Pray to Him who paid the price for your sins on the cross.  Ask His forgiveness.  Acknowledge Him as your Lord.  Then, go and sin no more.

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie!
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by.
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

How many centuries, millenia really, did the Jewish people look forward to the coming of Messiah? Some (the Sadducees) had ceased believing that He would literally come. The leaders among the Pharisees knew that He’d come, but they had fixed ideas of how He would come and what He would be like. Jesus did not fit their preconceived ideas, so they rejected Him.

The simple people, who heard and believed God’s Word every Sabbath continued to hope for Him, but they didn’t have the Pharisees’ preconceptions, so they were open to Whomever God might send. Still, under Roman oppression, they feared that He would not come or that He would not come in time to deliver them.

Imagine the joy of the shepherds when they were told that the Object of their hopes and fears was fulfilled in Bethlehem. That He was lying in a manger meant that He was accessible to them, the lowest caste of Jewish society in that day. The Lord said nothing to the spirit of the High Priest, but He did to the spirit of Simeon, who had been promised that he would see the Lord’s Messiah as well as to Anna, an otherwise unknown prophetess. (Reference Luke 2)

In the years that followed, people received Jesus on the flimsiest evidence. Nathaniel acknowledged Jesus because the Lord saw him before Nate was within Jesus’ vision. People rejected Him who got the strongest evidence. The Pharisees, who could not deny the resurrection of Lazarus, thought to deal with the situation by killing Lazarus.

Fast forward two thousand years (give or take a few years) — to now. There are great theologians who deny that Jesus will come again. Do you think that the pope or members of the college of cardinals are sitting with baited breath waiting for Jesus to come and occupy St. Peter’s throne? These and other amillennialists aren’t looking for Him. They have things under control. Evangelical leaders who teach that the Bible is God’s Word aren’t looking for Him. Pre-tribs believe that He’ll come some day, but they have no idea when. Mid-tribs and post-tribs know that we’re not in the Great Tribulation, so He can’t come now. They exercise their ministries as though He weren’t coming.

So, who is looking for Him? The nobodies. The simple folk. Those who believe that something is true just because it’s in the Bible. Those who long for God’s righteousness to rule in their world. Those who love Jesus as a bride does her groom. We know that He will come. We hope that He will come soon. We fear that He won’t come soon. The world that we know is so much like the world that Jesus came into. Some things just don’t change.

Maranatha!

We wrote a letter that we distributed to our friends, business contacts and social contacts.  We asked them to receive Jesus as Lord, so that they might be raptured and thus avoid that terrifying period called by the Bible, the Great Tribulation, the Big Trouble.  Some folks replied saying that we were crazy.  As far as I know, none turned to Christ.  But their blood is not on our hands.  We did what we could.

Now, we’re at a point almost a year later.  The conditions that made us think He might come last year are even more pronounced this year, namely the fact that Israel stands alone, with no friends among the nations, but with many enemies who have every intention of destroying God’s people, if they are able.

We think that there’s a good argument to be made that the time of Jesus appearance will be at this time of year, but that’s not what I want to discuss now, for arguments are, in the final analysis, useless.  We should all be ready now.  We should be ready, not in order to escape the terrible time to come, but because we love our Lord and Savior!

One of the things that many believers are doing is to put references on the Internet so that those who are shocked into reality by the disappearance of their loved ones will have some idea of what they might do.  Here is a video that addresses itself to people left behind.

At the time I left America, I was living on my Social Security retirement because an ex-wife had cleaned me out financially. I was poor.

I’m still poor. The dollar is worth less than the euro, so my buying power is reduced. But we do have socialized medicine here. We get a housing allowance from the government. My wife gets unemployment insurance. I believe that she gets more here than she would with the same work history in the States. Moreover, she’ll get it for a longer period of time. If we moved to the States, life would be much rougher financially. So, why should I complain about life here?

I think that a part of the reason is that I do not feel that I have a right to the money that other people earn unless they voluntarily give it to me. According to God’s law, to take a man’s money by coercion to give it to another is still theft, even if the civil law makes it legal. When I look at a governmental policy, I don’t think solely in terms of how it will effect me. I look at how it will effect all of those governed.

Getting back to my dissatisfaction with Finland, I should note that salaries here are approximately half of what an American worker doing the same job would get. But the taxes are much higher. People here don’t complain about what their government is doing. They may not even understand that their nanny state government is taking more from them than their money. They plod through their existence here doing the best that they can. One can understand why Finns are heavy drinkers.

A local joke says that, if you see a man on the street smiling, you know that he is crazy, drunk, American or all of the above. Stated another way, a sane, sober, Finnish man does not smile, nor does he look you in the eye. On the streets, he looks past you or, more likely, at the ground. The welfare state has robbed him of his manhood. Men are, by nature, risk takers and innovators. Here, risk taking is discouraged. Life is so regulated that one’s ability to try something new is severely limited. In the Finnish language, “safety” and “security” are the same word. These two things are very important to women, so the Finnish women I’ve spoken with think that the state does very well with providing these things. Men aren’t really needed to provide what is most important to women. Men are not all that significant. Yet significance is one of the greater needs of men.

Because the state is the Great Provider, the church in Finland is quite insignificant also. What’s worse is that people extend their attitude about the church to the Almighty.  He is insignificant.  About 81% of the Finnish people belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Finland. Most go to be baptized, to be confirmed, to be married and to be buried.  A minister here told me that confirmation is a social custom having little to do with one’s convictions.  Marriage means little here. What Americans call “shacking up” is just as respectable here as marriage. Another minister told me that the state’s provision of the people’s needs has eliminated the necessity for people to love one another. So, they don’t. They keep to themselves and expect others to do likewise.

I am aware that America has been edging toward socialism for most of my nearly  seven decades. Obama has put this move into high gear so that people are finally able to see what socialism is going to mean for our country. Americans are beginning to stand up to fight this abomination. But they are fighting primarily on the economic front. The real problem is spiritual. We want to be provided for by an entity we can see. We’d rather be cared for by government than by God. Our minds and hearts must be changed. I want to add my voice and ideas to the call for change back to what our founding Creationists gave us.

America has a vision that Finland and other countries don’t have. Americans must fight for that vision, or it will die in America, too.

So, why is my heart in the Land That I Love, my country? Because I’m a Christian. Because I’m an American. And because I’m a man.

I have some understanding of why my marriage is successful and I’ve heard my friends say things that really should be addressed. I decided to write to them, because what I have to say is generally applicable to both.

I found these words very difficult to write because I don’t like to put myself into a position where my words, and perhaps, myself, may be judged or rejected. Nevertheless, brotherly love requires that I share what I believe that God has taught me.

As you ask the Lord for a wife, immediately a question comes up. Why should He answer your prayer? What are your reasons for making such a request? An obvious, and very general, answer might be, “To meet my needs.” It is true that God created man to need a wife, but is this a good enough reason for a Christian man to request that His Lord give him a wife?

To ask this question another way, consider the admonition in Ephesians 5:25,

Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ also loved the church and gave Himself for her,…

“Lord, give me someone for whom I might lay down my life.” Can you, from your heart pray this prayer? I might remind you (for you’ve already been taught this), the admonitions of Scripture are not suggestions; they are commandments. I, as a married man, am subject to judgment in ways that single men are not, and I tremble, for I know my failures. (My wife does, too.)

I saw a cartoon when I was young, where a teen-aged boy was boasting to a girl, “I’d die for my faith!”. To which she replied, “Then why don’t you live by it?” One of the things that made this exchange memorable is that time has shown me just how very good women are at reminding men of their shortcomings.

One of the things I’ve noticed about those admonitions in Scripture that relate to Christian maturity is that they seem to tell people to do the opposite of what our sinful, human nature would direct us. The natural thing to do is not necessarily sinful in the normally accepted sense, but it causes us to fall short of what our Lord would call on us to do, which is the Biblical definition of sin. Here are examples:

It is the natural tendency for men to find their interests outside their homes and to use their homes as places of rest and refreshment before going out again. Most men do that. But, if a man is going to love his wife, giving himself for her, he’s going to have to focus much more on his home for that is her primary sphere of interest. He’s going to have to be pro-active in showing his love, i.e. in cleaning up messes and taking out the trash. Women are wierd, I know, but they actually see those things as expressions of love.

Remember the cartoon where a hubby is reading the newspaper and his wife comes down the hall behind him asking, “Honey, does this dress make me look fat?” Without taking his eyes or mind from the paper, he answers, “Yes, dear.” As he digs his way out of his crumpled paper, he asks his furious wife, “What?” You must not do that.

Women need communication. Sharing information at the emotional level is something that is a part of female human nature. She wants to talk with her husband. She needs to explain her viewpoints even when she and her husband are agreed. She needs him to listen to her and to engage her sincerely.

Conversation is something that men are almost universally poor at. Can we do it? Yes, but it’s easier to say that we can’t, for if we can get our wives to accept that as a fact, we can park in front of the TV or computer and forget our homes and families. Let me ask this: You are church and you need to share your heart with your Lord and Saviour. Our faith tells us that He is always there to hear our prayers. Suppose He was available for us in the same way that most men are available for their wives. Would your faith be the same as it is now?

Brothers, I’ve suggested that you write blogs to get practice in sharing what is on your mind and heart. To say that you can talk about the Lord, but not about yourself, doesn’t cut it for that makes you a lecturer, not a communicator. If you cannot tell people of any practical experience you’ve had with the Lord, how can you convince anyone else that our Lord is ready to minister to them? One thing I know. If you keep your thoughts and feelings bottled up now, you are not going to open up to your wife as soon as you stand before the preacher and say “I do.” I’m certain that it is more difficult for some than it is for others. You cannot meet your wife’s need if you refuse to make the effort. The question that you need to answer is how important it is to you that you meet the needs of the wife you want God to give you.

Some men, when considering a woman that would be acceptable to them as a wife, eliminate from consideration certain categories of women. I once said that I’d never marry a woman who was older than I. The Lord gave me just such a woman and our marriage was a Heaven on Earth, thanks to her. Had I stuck to my guns, I’d have lost so much! (I lost her to cancer.) Do you not want any woman who already has children? It could be that the woman the Lord has for you does have children and by refusing to consider her, you eliminate God’s choice. Will you examine yourself and see whether your refusal of such a woman might be because of what such a marriage might cost you? If “self” is the reason, why would you expect God to give you anyone?

The English word “husband” is loaded. To suggest that I am my wife’s husband is completely different than saying that I am her man. Those familiar with the Authorized (King James) Bible have seen the word “husbandman” and understand it to be “farmer”. Observe the farmer at work. He does whatever is necessary for that over which he is responsible, be it crops or cattle, to become the best that it can become, sometimes at great cost to himself. So is the husband to be toward his wife. He is to do whatever is necessary so that his wife and family might become the best that they are able to be. Will they always cooperate? As one who has cared for goats, I can affirm that they do not.

As I was growing up, I often heard Ephesians 5:22-24 preached:

Wives submit to your own husbands, as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, as also Christ is the head of the church; and He is the Saviour of the body. Therefore, just as the church is subject to Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything.

I have heard men excuse themselves from loving their wives as they ought because their wives were not subject to them.

The fact is that most women today see the whole concept of submitting themselves to their husbands as some sort of oppression and respond with an implied, “Dream on, big boy.” I had a wife once who declared that she could not be subject to me because she judged me to be an inadequate husband, so this is a two way street. (That marriage didn’t last.) Are there any women who practice a life of submission to their husbands? I can say unequivocally, “Yes.”, but it takes a special grace for a woman to be one, just as it takes a special grace for a man to love his wife as Christ loved the church. Would we want our Lord to excuse Himself from caring for us because of the degree to which the church is, in practice, subject to Him? My question for guys is, “Dare you ask God for a wife who will be subject to you, if you will not love her as Christ loved the church and gave Himself for her?” Mind you, if you can declare that you will be a Christ-like husband by creating your own definition of what that means, then your wife is entitled to create the definition of what being in submission to you means. To have a wife that will bring you joy, you must be a man who will bring her joy.

When God brought Pirjo into my life, it soon became apparent that He had been working for a long time to prepare us for one another. We needed to do very little “adjusting” to one another’s ways, for we fit each other as though we’d been reared in the same village, even though we had been reared one third of the way around the world from each other. These “ways” include some very important things, but also many little things that make life together pleasant but would not make or break a relationship.

Now, go and tell God why He should give you a godly wife.

There’s a difference. Printed money has no value of its own. Money created by the production of goods and services is in circulation.  If the government put white strips of paper the same size as money into circulation, anyone given a strip of paper would be able to tell what is real money and what is phony money because they’d look different.  They’d reject the white strips of paper.  If however, the strips of paper are made to look like money, those taking money can’t tell which strip is real money and which is phony money.  They have to take any piece that they are given.  Each piece, therefore, has the same value and the money that is earned by the production of goods and services has less value.   The money supply is inflated by nothing of value. That’s why it’s called inflation. Because the money that is earned loses value through inflation, the printing of money is just another way of taxing the production of goods and services.

All people are consumers. We consume the value of money by buying those things that we need and that we want. Some consumers are also producers. These people produce things that people consume. People whose income depends on others being taxed are pure consumers. In this group are many government employees, people on Social Security and other forms of welfare.

Those government employees who provide a service that has value include those in the military and those who maintain our infrastructure. Government employees whose task is to redistribute money taken in taxes to those who don’t produce goods or services are in the same category as the welfare recipients, for if the non-producers didn’t receive taxpayer money, those government employees wouldn’t be needed either.

Whenever goods and services are taxed, for whatever purpose, that tax money cannot be used to produce the goods and services that they otherwise would have produced. When the government provides jobs, even when those jobs provide a service to the community, the money generating part of the economy suffers because of the tax money that is required to pay for those government jobs. Government can only redistribute the money that other people earn.

When the solution to unemployment in the productive sector of society is for the government to provide jobs, we begin the following cycle:

Money to pay for government jobs must be taxed from those providing goods and services, thereby reducing the money available to provide goods and services. This will create more unemployment in that sector. More government jobs are created which will require the raising of taxes either directly or through inflation. This causes the money available to produce goods and services to recede. We call that a recession. The recession depresses the ability of consumers to buy goods and services and of the productive sector of society to produce them. Eventually, even those who receive taxpayer funding will find it difficult or impossible to buy what they need. This is called a depression. If you see that the solution to unemployment is more government jobs or handouts, go to the beginning of this paragraph, which says…

Otherwise, vote those who support Keynesian economics out of office. This includes all Democrats and most Republicans.  And, yes, there are other options.

Sandra felt as low as the heels of her shoes when she pulled open the florist shop door, against a November gust of wind. Her life had been as sweet as a spring breeze and then, in the fourth month of her second pregnancy, a “minor” automobile accident stole her joy. This was Thanksgiving week and the time she should have delivered their infant son. She grieved over their loss. Troubles had multiplied.

Her husband’s company “threatened” to transfer his job to a new location. Her sister had called to say that she could not come for her long awaited holiday visit. What’s worse, Sandra’s friend suggested that Sandra’s grief was a God-given path to maturity that would allow her to empathize with others who suffer. “She has no idea what I’m feeling,” thought Sandra with a shudder “Thanksgiving? Thankful for what?” she wondered. “For a careless driver whose truck was hardly scratched when he rear-ended me? For an airbag that saved my life, but took my child’s?”

“Good afternoon, can I help you?” Sandra was startled by the approach of the shop clerk. “I . . . I need an arrangement,” stammered Sandra.

“For Thanksgiving? I’m convinced that flowers tell stories, ” she continued. “Are you looking for something that conveys ‘gratitude’ this Thanksgiving?”

“Not exactly!” Sandra blurted out. “In the last five months, everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.” Sandra regretted her outburst, and was surprised when the clerk said, “I have the perfect arrangement for you.” Then the bell on the door rang, and the clerk greeted the new customer…

“Hi, Barbara, let me get your order.” She excused herself and walked back to a small workroom, then quickly reappeared, carrying an arrangement of greenery, bows, and what appeared to be long-stemmed thorny roses. Except the ends of the rose stems were neatly s nipped: there were no flowers.

“Do you want these in a box?” asked the clerk. Sandra watched – was this a joke? Who would want rose stems with no flowers! She waited for laughter, but neither woman laughed.

“Yes, please,” Barbara replied with an appreciative smile. “You’d think after three years of getting the special, I wouldn’t be so moved by its significance, but I can feel it right here, all over again,” she said, as she gently tapped her chest.

Sandra stammered, “Ah, that lady just left with . . . uh . . . she left with no flowers!”

“That’s right,” said the clerk. “I cut off the flowers. That’s the ‘Special’. I call it the Thanksgiving Thorns Bouquet. Barbara came into the shop three years ago, feeling much as you do today,” explained the clerk. “She thought she had very little to be thankful for. She had just lost her father to cancer; the family business was failing; her son had gotten into drugs; and she was facing major surgery. That same year I had lost my husband,” continued the clerk. “For the first time in my life, I had to spend the holidays alone. I had no children, no husband, no family nearby, and too much debt to allow any travel.”

“So what did you do?” asked Sandra.

“I learned to be thankful for thorns,” answered the clerk quietly. “I’ve always thanked God for the good things in my life and I never questioned Him why those good things happened to me, but when the bad stuff hit, I cried out, ‘Why? Why me?!’ It took time for me to learn that the dark times are important to our faith! I have always enjoyed the ‘flowers’ of my life, but it took the thorns to show me the beauty of God’s comfort! You know, the Bible says that God comforts us when we’re afflicted, and from His consolation we learn to comfort others.”

Sandra sucked in her breath, as she thought about what her friend had tried to tell her. “I guess the truth is I don’t want comfort. I’ve lost a baby and I’m angry with God.”

Just then someone else walked in the shop.

“Hey, Phil!” the clerk greeted the balding, round man. “My wife sent me in to get our usual Thanksgiving arrangement . . twelve thorny, long-stemmed stems!” laughed Phil as the clerk handed him a tissue wrapped arrangement from the refrigerator.

“Those are for your wife?” asked Sandra incredulously. “Do you mind telling me why she wants a bouquet that looks like that?”

“Four years ago, my wife and I nearly divorced,” Phil replied. “After forty years, we were in a real mess, but with the Lord’s grace and guidance, we trudged through problem after problem, the Lord rescued our marriage. Jenny here (the clerk) told me she kept a vase of rose stems to remind her of what she had learned from “thorny” times. That was good enough for me. I took home some of those stems. My wife and I decided to label each one for a specific “problem” and give thanks for what that problem taught us.”

As Phil paid the clerk, he said to Sandra, “I highly recommend the Special!”

“I don’t know if I can be thankful for the thorns in my life” Sandra said to the clerk. “It’s all too . . fresh.” “Well,” the clerk replied carefully, “my experience has shown me that the thorns make the roses more precious. We treasure God’s providential care more during trouble than at any other time. Remember that it was a crown of thorns that Jesus wore so we might know His love….Don’t resent the thorns.”

Tears rolled down Sandra’s cheeks. For the first time since the accident, she loosened her grip on her resentment. “I’ll take those twelve long-stemmed thorns, please,” she managed to choke out.

“I hoped you would,” said the clerk gently. “I’ll have them ready in a minute.”

“Thank you. What do I owe you?” “Nothing. Nothing but a promise to allow God to heal your heart…The first year’s arrangement is always on me.”

The clerk smiled and handed a card to Sandra. “I’ll attach this card to your arrangement, but maybe you would like to read it first.”

It read: “My God, I have never thanked You for my thorns. I have thanked You a thousand times for my roses, but never once for my thorns. Teach me the glory of the cross I bear; teach me the value of my thorns. Show me that I have climbed closer to You along the path of pain. Show me that, through my tears, the colors of Your rainbow look much more brilliant.”

Praise Him for the roses; thank Him for the thorns.

Please note that Texas is the only state with a legal right to secede from the Union . (Reference the Texas-American Annexation Treaty of 1848.

We Texans love y’all, but we’ll probably have to take action since B. Hussein Obama won the election.  We’ll miss you too.

Here is what can happen:

#1: Barack Hussein Obama becomes President of the United States , Texas immediately secedes from the Union .

#2: George W. Bush will become the President of the Republic of Texas .

So what does Texas have to do to survive as a Republic?

1. NASA is just south of Houston , Texas . We will control the space industry.

2. We refine over 85% of the gasoline in the United States.

3. Defense Industry — we have over 65% of it. The term “Don’t mess with Texas” will take on a whole new meaning.

4. Oil – we can supply all the oil that the Republic of Texas will need for the next 300 years. Yankee states?  Sorry about that.

5. Natural Gas – again we have all we need and it’s too bad about those Northern States. John Kerry will have to figure out a way to keep them warm….

6. Computer Industry – we currently lead the nation in producing computer chips and communications–small companies like IBM, Texas Instruments, Dell Computer, EDS, Raytheon, National Semiconductor, Motorola, Intel, AMD, Atmel, Applied Materials, Ball Miconductor, Dallas Semiconductor, Delphi, Nortel, Alcatel, etc, etc. The list goes on and on.

7. Medical Care – We have the largest research centers for cancer research, the best burn centers and the top trauma units in the world, as well as other large health centers.  Dallas has some of the best hospitals in the United States .

8. We have enough colleges to keep us going: University of Texas , Texas A&M, Texas Tech, Rice, SMU, University of Houston , Baylor, UNT ( University of North Texas ), Texas Women’s University, etc.  Ivy grows better in the South anyway.

9. We have a ready supply of workers. We could just open the border when we need some more.

10. We have essential control of the paper industry, plastics, insurance, etc.

11. In case of a foreign invasion, we have the Texas National Guard and the Texas Air National Guard. We don’t have an Army, but since everybody down here has at least six rifles and a pile of ammo, we can raise an Army in 24 hours if we need one. If the situation really gets bad, we can always call the Department of Public Safety and ask them to send over Chuck Norris and a couple of Texas Rangers.

12. We are totally self-sufficient in beef, poultry, hogs, and several types of grain, fruit and vegetables, and let’s not forget seafood from the Gulf. Also, everybody down here knows how to cook them so that they taste good.  Don’t need any food.
This just names a few of the items that will keep the Republic of Texas in good shape. There isn’t a thing out there that we need and don’t have.

Now to the rest of the United States under President Obama:

Since you won’t have the refineries to get gas for your cars, only President Obama will be able to drive around in his big 9 mpg SUV. The rest of the United States will have to walk or ride bikes.

You won’t have any TV as the Space Center in Houston will cut off satellite communications.

You won’t have any natural gas to heat your homes, but since Mr. Obama has predicted global warming, you will not need the gas as long as you survive the 2000 years it will take to get enough heat from Global Warming.

Signed, The People of Texas

P.S. This is not a threatening letter – just a note to give you something to think about!

SLEEP WELL TONIGHT THE EYES OF TEXAS ARE UPON YOU!!

Here is my reply to my brother.

Where does the idea come from that Texas is the only state with a legal right to secede from the Union?  The compact whereby Texas was annexed to the Union does specifically give it the right to split into as many as five different states and may reserve to it the right of secession.  But do the other state compacts specifically prohibit them from seceding?  I doubt it.  The Tenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America says that any power not given to the federal government by the Constitution is specifically reserved to the states and to the people.  Does the Constitution forbid the right of a state to secede?  No.  This is why the secession of the southern states in 1861 was legal according to the Constitution and why Lincoln trashed the Constitution by declaring war upon them for seceding, or, as he put it, to preserve the Union.

Do you want as President of the new Republic of Texas the man who has fought for open borders and who has imprisoned Ramos, Compean and Hernandez for doing what they were hired to do?  I sure don’t.

You must keep in mind, dear brother, that Texas has a bunch of flaming liberals within her borders.  I doubt that the freedom loving people of Texas have the cajones to stand up to the entrenched powers in Texas or any other state.  (I would love to be proved wrong!)

The first things that would have to be done in any new free state would be to limit the vote to those who understand and agree with the Constitution.  You will also have to outlaw any socialist institution, including, first and foremost, government schools.

God has given human beings 6,000 years to show that we can govern ourselves.  Human government has totally failed, whether in the political arena or in the church or in non-church organizations.  (I’ve been in contact with a couple of members of the Ichabod Community this past year, so I’m reminded of how even those who see themselves as godly can and do screw up big time.)  There is one, and only one, really constructive thing that we can do.  Pray, and pray earnestly, from the depth of your hearts, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

I’ll bet that you can’t even get that done in your own Church.  Oh, Christians have prayed that from rote memory for centuries, but few, very few, have prayed it as though it was their only hope for survival.  The very reason why the Christians in America won’t pray “Thy kingdom, Come!” is the same reason why we can find no hope in a new Republic of Texas.  (Oh, how I want to be wrong!)

But, if I am wrong, I’m moving to Texas, too.

Happy New Year, kid.

Your big brother,
Al the Terrible