28 July 2023

"the Lord hath reserved their blessings,..."

God promises us blessings for our obedience. Sadly, we often forego our blessings in favor of something else we want. Sometimes, those blessings are of a physical nature - like a house or a piece of land. If we choose to be wicked, such things will be given to others who are more willing to be obedient.

In the Book of Mormon, Mormon the prophet witnessed how evil his formerly righteous people had become and shared what could have been done to retain the land of prosperity that they had once enjoyed.

Mormon 5:
19 And behold, the Lord hath reserved their blessings, which they might have received in the land, for the Gentiles who shall possess the land. 
20 But behold, it shall come to pass that they shall be driven and scattered by the Gentiles; and after they have been driven and scattered by the Gentiles, behold, then will the Lord remember the covenant which he made unto Abraham and unto all the house of Israel. 
21 And also the Lord will remember the prayers of the righteous, which have been put up unto him for them. 
22 And then, O ye Gentiles, how can ye stand before the power of God, except ye shall repent and turn from your evil ways?
We know that this was a true prophecy - the white man came to America and "scattered" the "Indians" that lived in the land.  If they had chosen to obey the Lord and repent, America would still be enjoyed by the people we call "native Americans".

The same is true for us - if we become wicked, and many people in the West are choosing wicked ways today, the things that we enjoy now will be taken away from us and given to other people more obedient than we are. Many people we look down upon from the middle and far East traditionally live more moral lives than Westerners now do, so it would not be surprising if God helped them to dominate us, just as God helped our ancestors dominate the American tribes.

What should we learn from this?

As a people, we need to return to God's morality. Our lives of freedom and our enjoyment of the lands of America depend on it. "Repent and turn from your evil ways" as Mormon suggests.

16 July 2023

The Demanding Christ


Christ loves us enough to make some demands of us leading toward a life like his with the Father. They are not heavy demands, no matter what Laman and Lemuel from the early part of the Book of Mormon say..

1 And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had made an end of speaking to my brethren, behold they [Laman and Lemuel] said unto me: Thou hast declared unto us hard things, more than we are able to bear.

2 And it came to pass that I said unto them that I knew that I had spoken hard things against the wicked, according to the truth; and the righteous have I justified, and testified that they should be lifted up at the last day; wherefore, the guilty taketh the truth to be hard, for it cutteth them to the very center.

3 And now my brethren, if ye were righteous and were willing to hearken to the truth, and give heed unto it, that ye might walk uprightly before God, then ye would not murmur because of the truth, and say: Thou speakest hard things against us.

God will turn from us if we don't make good on the demands of righteousness.  The blessings we might have received will be given to others.

16 For behold, the Spirit of the Lord hath already ceased to strive with their fathers; and they are without Christ and God in the world; and they are driven about as chaff before the wind.

17 They were once a delightsome people, and they had Christ for their shepherd; yea, they were led even by God the Father.

18 But now, behold, they are led about by Satan, even as chaff is driven before the wind, or as a vessel is tossed about upon the waves, without sail or anchor, or without anything wherewith to steer her; and even as she is, so are they.

19 And behold, the Lord hath reserved their blessings, which they might have received in the land, for the Gentiles who shall possess the land.

 I happened to find this webpage that gives some wonderful insights to the demands that Jesus makes on us and the reasons why people reject this and court "Divine Alienation":  https://blog.truthforlife.org/divine-alienation-when-and-why-god-turns-his-face-away

14 July 2023

969, or How the New World Order Faced Lucretia and Failed - The Fourth Episode: Flight


In all of her years of work, she had never found herself so flustered. She had used up all the time that could be stolen from her duties in the crew rest compartments. She sighed deeply and slapped another nicotine patch over her collarbone but so much wanted a long drag from a cigarette a few thousand miles away. She heaved herself up and slogged her way back to her assigned station.

She hated being called a flight attendant. Once upon a time, she was a stewardess with a miniskirt on smoke-filled planes full of businessmen, choosing her next boytoy from among them, secure in the fact that her looks and charm claimed every eye and opened every wallet. She has seen rooms and laid in beds in every airport hotel on two continents. It went without saying that every woman on every plane either loathed her or wanted to be her. Those were happy times.

She still stays fit with aerobics and no one suspects with her east asian perfection that she is now something over 40 years old. She would have never felt the need to break this cardinal rule in the past but something ruins her sultry composure today and she has spitefully checked the itinerary of the female passenger in 32B. The journey this passenger is taking simply makes no sense and that makes the flight attendant hate her all the more.

Everyone near row 32 let out yet another collective groan as the sound of heaving and the splatter of vomit hitting the bottom of yet another air-sickness bag. A previously sallow-faced young man is now white as a sheet except for a green sheen about the eyes and mouth. If there was ever a way to escape the dreaded window seat and distance himself from the woman to his side, he would have paid any price. From the look on everyones’ faces, no one is willing to accept the offer.

The flight attendant squeezed her mascaraed eyes shut and took in a slow breath as she took another small stack of sickness bags to row 32. She was the vision of graciousness by the time she leaned over the bulky bear of a man that occupied the aisle seat and exchanged the empties for newly-filled bags. The bear had been talking non-stop since San Francisco in a none-too-quiet voice and surely there were a close passenger or two who could quote several statistics from the humanprogress.org database as he was on his way to Pitcairn to expand its deficient data entry. She deserved a finely-sculpted Adonis but the full-bearded and thickly pony-tailed beast steadfastly ignored her in favor of the hated woman in 32B, far too engrossed in a book to be listening to her seatmate. The former stewardess only snarled slightly and threw a packet of peanuts into the transiting woman’s lap and moved off.

“In spite of all the press from child abuse cases, there have also been reports of an expanded access to the internet,” the bear offered to the interest of no one in particular. “They even enticed a man to move in and set up shop.” His voice never modulated past a slight Scandinavian accent. “Our data needs to better reflect current conditions, so I need to do a survey from the ground as it were.”

Lucretia responded by turning a page in her book. She will be connecting at Papeete to a puddle-jumper to Noumea in New Caledonia, allowing both the men in her row to move on with their lives. A further ticket is held there going to Auckland then Kuala Lumpur. There was a direct flight between San Francisco and Kuala Lumpur, but the woman (or rather Antonio) must like hanging out in seedy backwater transit lounges, because she won’t be seeing much else on this bizarrely elongated voyage. One book to read is probably insufficient.

This is irrational, the stewardess tells herself. This bag-woman who looked incapable of buying a ticket to Tahiti should have been easily overlooked by the smoothly automated labor of serving drinks and showing off safety features. Yet, there was no denying the prickly hatred, as if this creature was some sort of competition to her man-hunting.

“The boat ride will be nearly two weeks and I haven’t done a boat for a while. I hope I don’t have much sea-sickness,” the big man said under his breath. As if to punctuate the sentiment, the man on the far side of Lucretia heaves again. To the joy of all, the stomach of the man in the window seat is finally empty and dry-heaves are heard instead.

Our flight attendant shuts her eyes again with spasms of anger and spins about on her stylish heels, racing back to the drinks station. She nearly throws aside a woman coming out of the lavatory, locks it fast behind her and tears out a packet lodged under her bra. Swearing quietly, she shakily lights up a hidden cigarette with her secreted lighter and thanks the gods of flight that the sound of the misaligned auto-flush mechanism’s near-constant and useless triggering was covering the noise of her hyper-ventilations and some considerate passenger had already dismantled the toilet smoke alarm.

05 July 2023

Without Christ and God

We all hope desperately that God will not abandon us. There are plenty of scriptures that say that we can put our trust in the Lord and he will accept and help us if we turn to him in humility. From my perspective, the Lord's forgiving nature is real.

However, any of us can go too far and have Christ turn his back on us forever. I know, it doesn't sound right, but you have to understand the concept of repentance.  If we change our evil natures toward the good, Christ will forgive us and help us in our changing. You can depend on this, of course.

What I am talking of is those who reject Christ and do NOT repent (or make a change for the better). This doesn't apply if we are just wanting to avoid punishment without changing our natures. I worked in a prison once and I am very familiar with people who just want to do or say *anything* to get out of prison. Many will insincerely act good and try to "game" the system to get what they want.  These don't actually change and don't want to. They only want to trick you.

You need to understand that Christ isn't a soft-hearted sucker, ready to be fooled. That doesn't take away from the generosity of God is accepted those who really change in their hearts, but you can't "trick" him by acting like you might change (without really doing it).

16 For behold, the Spirit of the Lord hath already ceased to strive with their fathers; and they are without Christ and God in the world; and they are driven about as chaff before the wind.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/bofm/morm/5?lang=eng&id=p16#p16


The spirit stops striving with people at some point. If someone isn't going to change (and Christ can know this), he will "cease to strive" with them. The idea of "driven about as chaff" is not pleasant, but it is the fate of those who God "hath already ceased to strive with".

So, my warning is this:  Don't think that you can walk away from Christ and he will come running to redeem you anyway. It isn't true. You must turn to him, and thank goodness, he will give you more than ample time to do this and will reward efforts to change in his direction.  Don't put off the day of your repentance too long - It is not an unlimited, never-ending offer!


01 July 2023

Obituary for Don Lancaster

I spent many of my young adult years reading Don Lancaster in several technology magazines, I bought and devoured his TTL Cookbook as a teenager, and kept up with his website over the years.  He was a constant source of inspiration in electronics. He passed away today.

https://gilaherald.com/obituary-for-don-lancaster/