Oh Lord, I do enjoy this time of the year! Cutting wood today about the only thing on my mind was some of the old ways that the oldtimers had as far as faith goes. That has to be one of my favorite subjects. It interested me thirty years ago and it interests me more now than ever. I used to read about faith healing, about getting the Holy Ghost in little rural churches. I used to read about folks that got so converted that it just blew everyone else away. I love those old stories yes I do! I love the old songs them little congregations would sing, I love reading about how they would pray through with an honesty that’s rarely seen today. Of all the things that I ever think about, this is and always will be one of my favorites. It is kinda hard getting allot of information on this subject just because it took place in forgotten rural areas and it never made much news to more sophisticated folks in the cities. I love reading about Holy Ghost meetings where the church was literally rocking back and forth and folks that where scared to go to them old Holiness meetings would get terrified when they seen the power of God laying hold of those little congregations. And I want what those old Holiness folks had!

And I do think it can be had! I really do. There’s so much religion holding things back though, even in the Charismatic church, that its durn rare there’s a real move of God like back in those days. I think the Charismatic church has gotten to sophisticated, lost the simpleness that those folks of old had. I think there’s way to much of one foot in the world and one foot trying to stand on the church. And it doesn’t work in the least. Folks get that one foot in the world and the other foot will follow right along. Can’t serve two masters and the world wins and there’s nothing but a regular church service with folks wondering how to get closer to God, but not ready to let go of the world for anything. So then in order to compromise with the worldly way a religion develops that says God wants me rich. God wants me to have stuff. God is there to supply me with all I ever desired if I have faith. And if I don’t get it that means my faith ain’t strong enough yet. That’s a lie from the pits of hell itself!

Them oldtimers that had the faith didn’t have the worldly distractions so they didn’t have to develop a dead religion to make things go easier on them. They had the real thing! They didn’t need every new toy that came out on the market, and they didn’t have hellivision to keep them in the world. This might make me seem lunatic, but there is no excuse for any Christian to watch TV, none. Sports, news, nothing. I always wonder about Christians that are watching the big games and the commercials are totally from hell itself and they see not a darn thing wrong with allowing satan right into their homes and giving him full authority in their lives. And what’s disturbing is that its sucked in most preachers, and they wonder why the ineffective ministries and luke warm churches. No exceptions either. “Oh Tom, it ain’t that bad, we don’t watch anything bad, well, not to often anyhow”. That’s a lie, short and sweet. Nothing but a lie.

So we allow satan full rights to ourselves and our families and wonder why nothing happens spiritually like years ago when folks lived for God. But the new religion says that we should have all of this stuff. The new religion is a lie and nothing short of it. One foot in the world is both feet. They can have their dead religion with maybe an occasional tickling of the Holy Ghost. Nope, I want the full deal! I want God, not the world! I want the Holy Ghost to rule, to take over, to heal and to lead the way! I want God, not this miserable mess, this weak faith, this entertainment oriented religion that helps us feel better about ourselves or at least says it does.

In almost every account that I’ve read it seems God left when television came into play. Gone were the days of miracles and healings, gone was simple faith that could move mountains, gone. Then it just became “church”.

I’m so far behind in what’s happening in this world and in this country its almost embarrassing! But then again I ain’t going to worry about it either. To wet to go into the garden and get things done in there so I stay on the high ground and make wood in my spare time. No radio, no nothing. Just a chain saw making noise part of the time, then the quiet time of loading, bringing it home and putting it on the pile. Those are the part I like, the quiet time! Time to think and dwell on stuff. A person needs those times and in Minnesota the winters are long enough to give a person plenty of quiet time stacking wood in the fall preparing for winter. My daughter bought me an MP3 player and I never used it yet working. In fact that little thing gets me so confused its still sitting here on the desk after two months. The idea was to download sermons on the thing and I could listen to em while working, but an old time farmer like me just don’t get along with that kinda stuff. Must be rough on them young’uns having such a hillbilly for a dad! I can’t help it, that’s the way I am. Now they’re even saying they can download the audio Bible on the thing and I could be immersed in the Word all day. Naw, that don’t cut it either. I carry that old KJV pocket Bible and if I take a short break I can read it during that time with no noise.

That’s about it in this neck of the woods. Just plugging along is all. About the only thing special that happened today is I am now in the ministry as of today. Got the license to preach the Gospel today and I guess at this point the only thing I can’t do in Minnesota with it is to marry folks off. Oh well, who’d want to get married off by an old grumpy hillbilly preacher anyhow. But more than likely I’ll be able to preform weddings in a couple of years or so. Yup, marry em and bury em and preach that Gospel all the time. Them cows are going to be my practice audience and I hope they don’t crash the fence, (trying to get away )

Something must be up though. I was dwelling on the last post for the last few days and it seems every direction I turn it gets expanded on. I won’t write about the bankers and all the other gurus of greed, no I won’t. Seems folks get offended by the truth, so I’ll write the truth cause there’s always some that need offending. Sound Christian? Well, let’s see. Nowadays it is an excepted rule that we’re not supposed to offend folks. Now in my last post Andrew Jackson sure didn’t make the bankers have a “feel good day” with his remarks to them! Nope, he told the truth. Now some might say, “Tom, we all sin so we’re not supposed to offend folks”. Well, then John the Baptist was sure on a bad course when he called the religious leaders a bunch of vipers to their face. Or Jesus confronting the self righteous, again not a feel good session.

Now Andy Jackson got confronted a while before he became president. The man confronting him was Peter Cartwright, a Methodist circuit rider,(picture above). Once Cartwright warned General Jackson (future President of the United States) that he would be damned to Hell just as quickly as any other man if he did not repent. A timid preacher apologized to Jackson for Cartwright’s bluntness. The general retorted that Christ’s ministers ought to love everybody and fear no mortal man, adding that he wished he had a few thousand officers like Peter Cartwright. First I notice that a timid preacher got his nose involved and apologized to Jackson, sounds allot like folks today, not wanting the truth to be set forth. Worried about offending folks and all. And with such a luke warm church as is in this country today this is the norm. Never offend anyone, try to get along. We look away from abortion and a host of other atrocities and think we are being “Christian”. Well, we’re not. Second thing I notice is Jackson’s reply that Christ’s ministers ought to love every body and fear no mortal man. Oh how we could use some folks like that!

I have been told by numerous folks that I don’t stomp and snort like I used to on this blog, and that’s partly true. I mellowed out for sometime compared to years ago. But there was a reason for that. I was studying, studying the Word of God, and didn’t want to end up doing all the wrong things. I started wondering about stomp and snort posting, hellfire and brimstone writing and wondered if I was a little overboard. I’ve come to the conclusion that I wasn’t. Made plenty of mistakes along the way, but the messages were never out of hate, they were always out of concern for folks that were taking the wrong road. Always concerned about a materialistic society that was bound for hell. It couldn’t get much plainer than that.

Will it continue? You bet! I figure there’s nothing easier than the internet if folks get offended here, just click out and bye, bye. But I will tell the truth here, whether folks like it or not. And I can safely say I won’t back peddle, I’ll call a spade a spade and that’s it. When I look back at the ministries of those who did make a difference I see a pattern, a pattern that shows they never backed down from proclaiming the Kingdom. All the way from Bible times to now. The most opposition they would get would be from folks that called themselves religious but were nothing but vipers. Folks that are totally at ease with the system, wanting it to continue because they figure they’ll come out ahead with it. But it doesn’t work that way. In the times coming up if anyone has faith in the system I believe they will get the just reward for the direction their faith is pointed. Not as a judgment of God, just a self imposed end. One that a person gets by following the world and not trusting in the Lord. And that’s just here and has nothing to do yet with eternity!

I don’t ever want to have to answer for being timid in this respect. I don’t ever want to have to “please” man in order to feel good about myself, which wouldn’t work anyhow. Nope, just do what’s right, speak the truth and keep on plugging.

“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”

I just came in for some supper after working out in the pastures and meadows all day, cool and windy out, and I heard the latest news about the “get richer” package for the bankers and Wall Street. I was thinking what could I even write that would go with today’s events and I came across this quote by Andy Jackson. Now I’m telling you, this is my kinda quote! That’s what’s needed in this country today, some folks that ain’t scared to offend someone and just belt out the truth! Times haven’t changed, greed still rules in the banking industry. And as always they want the regular working families to make them richer. You know, money don’t just vanish, somebody got it, and those somebodies want a whole lot more from the regular folk that have a whole lot less!

I’m a little hot under the collar about all of this but I feel a whole lot better after stumbling across that Andy Jackson quote. At least I ain’t alone.

And having food and raiment let us be therewith content. 1 Timothy 6:7-8

We had us around 3/4 inch of rain this morning. Surprised me, I didn’t really expect it. At least not that much. But around noon the sun peaked out and it was generally a pretty nice day. Little bit muddy but more than enjoyable. Put up more electric fence across the county road for fall pasture in the lower lands and then went a half mile north and took down an electric divider fence in the empty pasture over there. I need the posts in the low land pasture because its quite a bit of fencing over that way to put up. There’s about forty five cows over in the chopped field of Goliath silage corn, cleaning up every last bit and eating the grass out of the fence lines. Tomorrow I’ll let them down into the first fenced meadow, bet they’ll like that. There’s still a herd around two miles south of here to tend every day, but I’m getting ready to bring them home shortly, plus bring all the watering equipment home from there before we get a freeze with some bite to it. Don’t need a busted pump from freezing. Went to town three miles away and got a truck load of old tires because I know that the covering on the silage pile wasn’t quite secure enough to withstand a sustain gale force wind. It should be in much better shape now.

A good day all in all. This evening before supper when I got home I was a little beat, teaching Children’s Church sometimes does that to me and I taught the night before. Sat down for a couple minutes and I don’t know what happened but I got some supercharged power and headed right back outside and was straightening things up around the place for fall. The chicken tractors are empty now and I got them all straightened up. Brought the waterers and feeders to the front yard to put away tomorrow. Rolled up water hoses for the year and just generally did a bunch of stuff that I never seem to get to. And while doing this I got joy! It just came! I was walking around the backyard and to me its like a little paradise. The productive gardens, the strawberry and raspberry patches. The evergreen wind breaks, the chicken pasture. The hazel nut bushes that were planted this past spring are alive and well. The flock of ducks following me around always curious about what I’m up to. The temps were probably in the seventies, just plain nice out.

I wondered why the joy when all one hears on the news is disaster. And it came to me, the reason why. Because I really have no concern about the current events that are happening. If all goes very bad, well, we will adjust, simple as that. A few years ago we pulled everything out of the “system” and there ain’t nothing there to be affected by any of this. And that age old wisdom about tending your own piece of land, raising your own food, supplying your own heating fuel came to mind. That’s how we live, even when things were “cheap”. We don’t pay for TV, heck I don’t even watch it. We don’t have “toys”. And to top it off, we don’t have debt. Not even easy debt, the kind that’s offered anyplace a person buys anything these days. To sum it up, we weren’t “tempted” to live normal. When the time comes to buy a car its paid cash, a four or five year old model, barely broken in, and that way there’s very little car insurance to pay on that. Supper a little while ago was our own taters, our own hillbilly pork and everything else from the garden. The pantry is filling up with jars and jars of better than anything a person could buy juices and foods. Four big freezers are full of vegetables, meats , sausages, chicken. you just about name it. But you’d have to look pretty hard to find much store bought in them four freezers! And all of this from honest work, nothing less.

As it got dark tonight I came down here to write something and as always I had not even the slightest idea what I was going to write about. That’s the way its always been so why change now! Sat down and opened an e-mail and the verse; And having food and raiment let us be therewith content, popped up. Funny how that works! Here I was the most content I’ve been in a long while and what pops up but that. I really believe we don’t need what society says we need to be happy. I know deep down there’s millions of folks that can’t hardly dream of the couple hours I had here before sitting down to write this. It is real, a content life. Worry free, no, but there ain’t nothing on this side of the old River Jordan that is. But we just hand them worries over to Jesus our Lord and every once in a while a person is struck, even in these days and times, how blessed we are! Its not an easy life, it don’t have the glamor that society says we are supposed to be having living like they say we should live. No, its quiet, peaceful, sometimes to the point of being dull, but I appreciate dull more and more. Dull is a state of mind I figure. Society calls what we do “dull” and it carries over even into our mindset. But I must say, I love those dull evenings in summer working in the garden, pulling weeds or something till the mosquitoes chase us in after dark. Dull, doing the same old chores everyday for months at a time, seven days a week, no matter what the weather, yup, dull. Dull, wake up in the morning to no commute except around the farm here and there. Dull, eating three meals a day at home in the dining room. Yup, dull. And I praise the Lord for it!

We got clothes that are good enough. Heck, I even buy my church clothes at the local co-op and they ain’t bad either. Why should I battle traffic in some city to buy the same Wrangler jeans I could get out here? For less here to boot! There ain’t no designer cloths in this house unless they’re from a garage sale, by then I figure they’re sanctified and we’re just saving them from the landfill. There won’t be enough left of them by the time we’re done with em to even make it to the garbage. Any rags make it to the farm shop where they do get used.

Glory, I don’t know, the world is worried, but I ain’t! We got food and clothing that’s good enough or better than most, the Lord provides for His people. We are content!