This is chapter two, but really, it’s part two of chapter one. This is the completing story of the dead Smartian, which as we’re about to see is directly opposite of the story of the good Smartian. There’s a good chance you have heard of the story of the dead Smartian but didn’t realize it because right now it’s not known as the dead Smartian, no right now it’s simply known as Trump’s snake poem. But this is a book about the teachings of Jesus so what is a story being taught by Donald Trump has to do with the teachings of Jesus? Because Trump’s snake poem is really a parable and Jesus taught in parables. Now here’s Donald Trump comes along in 2015, with what many religious leaders called at the time, including former presidential candidate Pat Robertson, a mandate from God. If Donald Trump has a mandate from God, then it’s reasonable to assume, and many have assumed, that Donald Trump was sent by God just like Jesus. The old men in my previous Sundy school class would tell that there’s no question about it, not a single doubt, God definitely sent Donald Trump to be the president. Then early in his campaign rallies he begins to tell the parable of the snake. Yes, here’s a man “sent by God ” that teaches in parables, just like Jesus did! But what is the parable that God sent Donald Trump to deliver to the American people?

I will explain Trump’s Dead Smartian Story, if you haven’t ever heard of it, there are many examples of Trump telling the story on the internet because he told it countless times many of the videos contain the cheers and yells from the crowd, who are complete agreement. Trump told the Story of the Dead Smartian from his campaign, throughout his presidency, even now he still tells this story today at his rallies. And yet I don’t believe there’s been one single conservative preacher who has said anything negative about this story, oh their quick to disagree with Jesus on the Story of the Good Smartian, but not a word about Trump’s story of the Dead Smartian.

So, here’s Trump favorite story that he loves to tell over and over, maybe because it’s a story “inspired” from God just like the Bible. Back when I was a little boy our church hymnal didn’t have Victory in Jesus, so our music director pasted a copy in the back of all the hymnals. Maybe that’s what all the conservatives should do, take a copy of Trump’s Dead Smartian and paste it in the back of their Bibles, you know, where their Bibles are now complete. So if you haven’t had the great pleasure to hear Trump tell the story I’ll will now tell it to you in my own special way: A silly woman, I mean that was the dingiest blonde to ever live, walks down a path and sees a half frozen snake lying on the side of the path, instead of going to the far side of the path, like people that have sense would do, the silly, dingy blonde picked up the snake and took it to her house. Then the silly, dingy blonde gave the snake Milk and Honey. What did she read that snakes love Milk and Honey somewhere on the internet? Then the snake woke up and gave the silly, dingy blonde a vicious bite. Then the blonde says why did you bite me now I will die. Then the snake says, yes it’s a talking snake! The snake says, and Trump doesn’t tell this part, the snake says, I hate Milk and Honey! Then, as Trump says the talking snake tells the blonde you knew I was a snake when you took me in! In some versions Trump also says the talking snake says I bite you because it’s my nature! So there you have it, I hope you now see why you should paste this in the back of your Bible. Yes that defiantly belongs in the Bible. And, this is sad part about, there are many white Southern Baptist Pastors who would not object to doing that.

Why should this parable of the snake be renamed the dead Smartian? Because as I discussed in the first chapter Jesus didn’t finish the story of The Good Smartian. After the Good Smartian took care of the beaten man all night, he had to go the next morning, so he gave the innkeeper money, out of his own pocket, and told him, upon my return if you should need more money, I will pay you more money upon my return. But that’s the end of the story, according to Jesus, so God must had sent Donald Trump to finish Jesus’s story. So, this is as Paul Harvey used to say, The Rest of the Story. The Good Smartian returns to the inn, just as he said he would, he walks into the inn and finds the innkeeper lying dead behind the counter, he then enters the back room and waiting behind the door was the injured man that the Good Smartian saved, but it turns out the injured man was really a snake who gave the Good Smartian a vicious bite. The Good Smartian was shocked and said to what was now a snake why did you bite me now I will die? And the snake replied You knew I was a snake when you picked me up, that’s my nature! So, there you have it the Rest of the story of the Good Smartian. Praise be to God for sending Donald Trump to finally finish the story of the Good Smartian! The Preist and Levite were right, just as conservatives believe today the Preist and Levite did right by passing the man on the other side because they knew he was a snake! That makes the story of the Good Smartian so much easier to follow if you believe the new meaning then you never have to help anyone, they could turn out to be a snaked. The Preist and Levite saw the injured man and most importantly, they heard him begging for help in a language other than Hebrew, so they knew the man had to be a a snake and probably got exactly what that snake received was what he deserved!

Milk and Honey is important as a theme for the Story of the Dead Smartian and nothing else is more important to understand than the meaning and importance of Milk and Honey in this story. It may be a minor part of this story, but what Donald Trump did in his first week of being the President of the United States, is, as they say is a game changer. As part of the decoration of the Oval Office Donald Trump made the choice, some say in was Steve Bannon’s idea, but as Harry Truman Placed the plague that reads “The buck stops here” on his Oval Office desk, it’s Donald Trump’s responsibility what is placed on the walls of the people’s Oval Office. Hanging in a place of honor, The Oval Office of the President of the United States, is the portrait of Andrew Jackson and it appears it’s hanging on the same wall that Richard Nixon took his picture with Elvis. Yes Elvis Presley, look it up. So what’s wrong that after all Andrew Jackson was a war hero of the War of 1812 and he didn’t get captured! He was the 7th President of the United States and is on the twenty dollar bill. But Trump didn’t place a portrait of Jackson because he was a war hero or on the twenty dollar bill. Jackson’s portrait was placed there for only one reason. Andrew Jackson signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and is responsible for the most racist, immoral, un-American action in the history of our nation that was founded on the principle that all men are created equal. Notice The Indian Removal Act of 1830 is not called The Native-American Removal Act of 1830? That’s because the Indians living in the United States were not citizens of the United States. But if your born in the United States aren’t you automatically a citizen? Isn’t that in the US Constitution? No, becoming an US citizen by birth was not the law of the land until after the Civil War during Reconstruction in 1866. But these two events, The Trail of Tears and the Civil War are related to the whole idea of citizenship. It was feared by Northern legislators that the South would retaliate against the now freed slaves by repeating the same disgraceful actions as Jackson. They were afraid, and I believe their fear was totally justified, that the southern states would round up all the black people and march them out of their state, how many would die like the Indians did? Black lives didn’t matter! So The Civil Rights Act of 1866 was passed to prevent after years of a bloody Civil War history would not repeat itself and have how many death marches in the United States of America? The Civil Rights Act of 1866 stated that anyone born on US soil was a citizen, well everyone except Indians! Yes Indians were still the 19th century “illegals”. Where does Milk and Honey come into this story well OK right now.

In the Bible God made the Hebrews, the Jews what is known as God’s chosen people. Not that the Hebrews were any better than anyone else, nor did God love the Hebrews more than other groups. For God so loved the world, that includes everyone, but God’s chosen people were chosen as an example how to follow God and more times than not how to disobey and turn away from God. It’s a simple explanation there’s a lot more to God’s chosen people and the promised land, but not to be get bogged down here, and you can find a lot more people better than me at explaining this relationship. So, let’s just leave it like this: In the Bible, the Old Testament, God has his chosen people The Hebrews, Israelites, Jews, all the same people, and he promised they a promised land flowing with Milk and Honey, which is now known as the nation of Israel. Now I want to make this Crystral clear in the Bible, in The Old Testament, in The New Testament including the book of Revelation, does the Bible say that God has another ” chosen people” and another promised land for this other group of God’s other “chosen people” with another promised land. However, Conservatives have no problem believing these what the Bible refers to as false teachings. Every 4th of July the conservative’s pastors, including mine pastor, will proudly proclaim these false teachings saying that the founding fathers founded the United States as a “Christian Nation” and the founding of the United States was totally build on the Bible. Every year it seems we find even more sighers of the Constitution that are now, not over two hundred years ago, are now proclaimed to be Christians. Now isn’t that special! The false teaching that the United States of America is God’s promised land to the white Christian, not Catholics, white evangelical Christian people, is alive and well today. Never forget, our white evangelical Christian nation is being invaded, yes as Republicans will say there’s no other word to describe it than invasion, by brown Catholic snakes!

If you could look at the Face Book posts from the 1830s, and they are really hard to find, you wouldn’t find much difference between them and today’s posts. The whole idea of America being the land of Milk and Honey goes back to the founding. God created America where white evangelical Christian, not brown Catholics, people had a homeland and just like the Promised Land in the Bible there were people already living here. What to do about these people, well really savages who mostly murder and rape our white women come to think about it their really snakes just waiting to give us vicious bites if we help them and then we would die. You would find many posts with this theme and just as much hatred as today’s conservative posts. Just like the savages the Illegals of today are hated for being in a country that God had providence, designed especially to be the homeland of white Christian people. Now when I refer to white Christian people it’s understood that doesn’t include Catholics because God didn’t mean The United States to be a “Catholic Nation” no it’s a “Christian Nation”. Just as the white Christians of the 1830s saw no problem with Andrew Jackson use of the US Army to march Indians out of our Christian nation, today’s white Christians see no problem with Donald Trump sending the US Army to the southern border to stop Catholics from coming to our white Christian nation. Today’s US white Christians firmly believe that: For God so loved the world, but God’s love stops at the southern border. The white Christian nations says to the invading Catholics: for they were hungry and feed them not, they were naked, and we clothed them not, they were thirsty, and we gave no drink, they were sick and we ministered not, they were strangers, and we would not let them in. And many will say to Jesus: did I not cast out these illegals, these murderers, these rapists, yes these DEMONS out in thine name. Did I not separate the children from the parents in thine name? I have done all this to keep the United States a white Christian Nation just as God The Father wanted!

Trump’s story of the Dead Smartian goes right along with these false teachings of the United States as another land of Milk and Honey and the conservative pastors of the United States see no problem whatsoever with going along with, and no way will they say anything, not one single word, against the Dead Smartian parable because they are very much aware if they preach against this parable that would collide with their other false teaching that God sent Donald Trump just like God sent his only begotten son, Jesus. Complete silence is complete agreement, you can put that on a T shirt. I’ll give just two examples of how conservative pastors are changing their sermons in order to indulge the political believes of their congregation. Summer of 2021 the 4th of July happened to be on a Sunday. My pastor did the usual 4th sermon with all the Christians that founded our great nation as a Christain country. Then he must had changed the sermon to what’s wrong with America today. What is wrong with America? How about Black Lives Matter? My pastor did start out with what happened to George Floyd was wrong but then those Black Lives Matter people started all these riots and right there is where it begun all over the congregation begins shouting AMEN! AMEN! people sitting by me Tell them preacher Preach ON! I was almost sure a couple of people almost ran to the pulpit to hug the preacher. My pastor kept going on and on about all the terrible things that Black Lives Matters does, me, I just sat there thinking SHOULD I SHOUT OUT JANUARY 6TH? No, I didn’t I waited for the pastor to say something about it. It may be hard to believe but my pastor who had such strong conventions about Black Lives Matter had absolutely nothing whatsoever to say about January 6th, imagine that! Just less than six months later when the Capitol of the United States was attacked, and five Americans died that day, but not one word about that day? Remember how I said I had two examples of conservative preaching today? My sister and our daddy live with me, and Daddy requires full-time care, so we take turns going to church, I go one week then my sister goes the next week. When I home with Daddy on Sunday morning, I usually watch First Baptist service on TV. One Sunday a while back the First Baptist pastor, whom I like a lot and my older brother was a deacon at First Baptist before he had to move to Texas because of his job, so I have no problem with First Baptist or with anyone who attends there. It was time for First Baptist to have what us Baptist call The Lord’s Supper; others call it Communion. You should not partake in The Lord’s Supper if your heart is not right with God or your fellow man. The sermon was going just fine the Pastor’s regular incredible explanation of scripture. And then the sermon changed suddenly, the pastor I don’t think had a clue that sermon that he was leading into dangerous territory but was because he said just one word, ten years ago no problem with this one word, but that was ten years ago not today. The one word he was about to preach to us was a word called TRUTH! What is truth, how do you about the truth, is there a difference between truth and a lie? The Pastor was doing great following scripture a good talk about truth and then I thought are going give an example about truth or a lie, and just then he gave his example about the difference between truth and a lie. He told a joke about Oprah Winfrey, yes Oprah, why I haven’t a clue maybe Oprah made a promise about releasing her taxes or said elections are rigged. I didn’t get the joke maybe because I don’t watch Fox News. But what lie could he use as now being accepted as a truth? Nothing from Donald Trump, it’s obvious this is another conservative pastor who accepted the Dead Smartian as truth sent by God. As tragic as these statements from two proud conservative pastors preaching behind the pulpit what is posted on Face Book is even worse. Just today a conservative Southern Baptist pastor who is now the pastor of the Southern Baptist Church I grew up in, posted a drawing of a donkey Kneeling in prayer beside his bed praying something to the effect of, “Lord please make everyone forget for what we have done to America”. Below the drawing was the caption; Let us bray!

I think these examples are what: unbelievable, unimaginable that these three pastors apparently are not any different from the vast majority of conservative pastors across the United States of America. Maybe more disturbing is all the laughs the Amens the likes and comments of agreement and the shares on Face Book. Yes, pastors are more concerned with how many likes and shares than how many people will come to know Christ. Why did my pastor say nothing about January 6th? The simple answer: he wanted to keep his job and he knows he cannot say anything that does not agree with conservative politics. I read an article that claimed there are more pastors leaving the ministry today than ever before, the main reason is that they are afraid of saying anything to contradict conservative politics, they are afraid to say what they believe so they choose to leave their ministries instead of standing up for what is right. The First Baptist situation was different, he has ready announced his retirement so since this was one of his last sermons why did he choose to use a black woman as an example, instead of, for instance what is known as the “Big Lie” where on January 6th four people who believed the “Big Lie” gave their very lives for that lie, and others murdered a Capitol policeman for the same lie. And yet nothing is said behind America’s pulpits. I really don’t understand why these pastors said nothing and other’s post on Face Book for the whole lost world to see.

Could the answer be that the conservative pastors have scripture to back their acceptance of Trump’s parable? The basic believe is that America is being invaded by poisonous snakes and if we do nothing then they will bite us and we will all die. Where in scripture is there a description of people being bitten by poisonous snakes and dying? In the book of Numbers during the 40 years wandering in the wilderness this occurs:

NUMBERS 6-9

⁶ And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died.

⁷ Therefore the people came to Moses, and said, We have sinned, for we have spoken against the Lord, and against thee; pray unto the Lord, that he take away the serpents from us. And Moses prayed for the people.

⁸ And the Lord said unto Moses, Make thee a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall come to pass, that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it, shall live.

⁹ And Moses made a serpent of brass, and put it upon a pole, and it came to pass, that if a serpent had bitten any man, when he beheld the serpent of brass, he lived.

This might be an obscure passage that few people that go to church all the time would know about but that’s not the case. Not because of John 3:16 no it’s because of John 3:14 when Jesus said:

As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness so shall the son of man be lifted up

There has always been only one explanation of John 3:14. Jesus is referring to himself upon the cross and to have life you must look towards the cross for salvation. To understand what’s going on in third John, and why Jesus used a story about being bitten by poisonous snakes, the reason why Jesus used this story, instead of the many other stories he could had used is because who it was that Jesus was telling this story to. In third John verse one describes a man named Nicodemus who was an important Pharisee, a ruler of the Jews, who came to Jesus at night, because he didn’t won’t anyone seeing him talking to Jesus, and this is what Nicodemus said to Jesus: verse 2 Rabbi, we know that thou art a teacher come from God, for no man can do these miracles, that thou doest, except God be with him. Nicodemus was aware there was something very different about Jesus, how he spoke with someone has authority, and did great miracles. Since Nicodemus was a ruler of the Jews and a Pharisee there was one thing Nicodemus new well, in fact, he more than likely he memorized most of the Old Testament which was all they had at the time. Yes, Nicodemus new the story of poisonous snakes biting the Israelites and the meaning of the pole Moses placed in the center of the camp. Now this is just my idea here, but could it be that the previous Sabbath, Did Nicodemus actually preach on this very story about the poisonous snakes at the Temple. See that’s what we call today a God thing. More evidence for Nicodemus that indeed Jesus was a teacher sent by God.

Have we been teaching the Old Testament story wrong? We have always taught in Sunday school, Bible studies, and even in sermons that when Moses placed the pole in the center of the camp, that people when bitten by a poisonous snake would ran as fast as they could to the center of the camp and look upon the snake on top of the pole and would not die. But that was before Covid. We know now that no, people didn’t run to the pole, oh know what about their freedom? Was this a mandate from that liberal Moses? They were told by our conservative leader that these poisonous snakes were a hoax the liberals made up it order to make our conservative leader look bad. There really weren’t people dying from snake bites they were dying from something normal, and the liberals were lying about poisonous snakes. Would God make us do something that we don’t want to do? Certainly Not! God believes in our personal freedom! It doesn’t matter that people who got bitten and go look at the pole live, while others got bitten, refuse to lose their freedom and look at pole then they all died! No, we will not lose our freedom and stand for a mandate to look at a pole We’ll will die first! And they did.

My next chapter deals with Jesus being tempted by Satan. Jesus and Satan are on a high place and Satan uses scripture to get Jesus to jump in order to prove his faith in the scriptures. Jesus reply to Satan is that it is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

Can the story of the Good Samaritan exist alongside the story of the Dead Samaritan? Jesus said in Matthew 6:24: No man can serve two masters: either he will hate the one, and love the other ; or else he will hold to one and despise the other. There is no possible way these two stories can coexist. They are complete opposites of each other.

A while back I attended Sunday School class with a group of old men like me and one said that God sent Donald Trump and the teacher replied well there’s no doubt about that and all the other six or eight men shook their heads in complete agreement. I thought about asking them if they believed Donald Trump was God’s other only begotten son but I just sat there and took all this conservative talk in, you think if I asking them that what kind of responds would I received? Well of course God sent Trump, his other only begotten, but I supposed God must had sent Trump in order to correct Jesus about that whole Good Smartian story and how he spent his own money for someone’s else health care. Now that’s what conservative’s really despise about the Good Smartian, spending his own money, and what’s even worse he might had spent even more of his own money. I’m sure everyone has noticed that I did not finish Matthew 6:24 I left out the last last line, Jesus said: you cannot serve God and money. When you get down to the nitty gritty with conservatives it’s always about the money: If your hungry I feed you not, it would cost me my money, if you thirst, I give no drink, it would cost me my money, and if you are sick there is no way I’m spending one penny and definitely not spending two days wages, like the Good Samaritan did! This is not the only story that contains the use of money Jesus has a lot to say about money. This is my first draft on this study to determine if Jesus should be considered a Conversative like most Christians of today believe or could it be that Conservatives have allowed their beliefs to become much more political and have clouded their reading and understanding of scripture.

It was only yesterday that I received a great example of my point to write this entire book. Our outstanding governor, that’s what most of the church members who go to my church think, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as she wants to be know as, you know, like Hillary Rodham Clinton, was here in Fort Smith to dedicate the new National U. S. Marchalls Museum downtown at the Riverfront, The dedication was by invitation only and somehow my invitation must have been lost in the mail or something. So all I saw was on the news reporting on the dedication and her announcement of ordering Arkansas National Guard troops to the Southern border. According to what she said on the news, she was sending the troops to the Southern border to protect America from these poisonous snakes crossing our border killing over 100,000 Americans a year with Fentanyl. Now if you will recall, Donald Trump’s Dead Smartian story only warned us that these snakes were crossing our Southern border to murder and rape our women, but now, years later, the Republican’s also blame these snakes on America’s drug problem. America’s drug dependency is totally blamed on these snakes invading our white Christian, non-Catholic, country. Yes Sarah Huckabee Sanders is a true believer of the story of the Dead Smartian, if you will recall as Donald Trump’s press secretary, Sarah defended the separation of children from their parents at our Southern border saying it was “Biblical”. What scripture was she referring to? Was it the Story of the Good Smartian or was it the new “conservative believe” of the Dead Smartian? Just today a saw on MSN news that Sarah was on Fox News claiming all she did was because of her faith. I won’t question her faith, however I do wonder what her faith is supposed to be. I know she is the daughter of Mike Huckabee the former Governor of Arkansas and current conservative commentator, but here’s the problem I’m having. When Sarah became the Governor of Arkansas she was voted for, I know for a fact, that she was expected to follow in her father’s footsteps. However, Sarah put a stop to that belief from the very beginning of her governorship. One of Sarah’s inaugural events was a Bourbon and Cigar Gala, now when her father was governor he maintained a strict policy not to permit alcohol in the Governor’s Mansion. Mike Huckabee was former Southern Baptist pastor and as you might be aware of, Southern Baptist do not believe in drinking alcohol period. When I was growing up in Haven Heights Baptist Church, and we never missed a Sunday morning, Sunday night or Wednesday night service, our congregation and pastor were serious about following Southern Baptists believes, so when a member of our congregation brought a restaurant and was planning on serving beer we had a fit. Southern Baptist have what is know as a Church Covenant, all Southern Baptist should have a copy of the Church Covenant placed somewhere on a church wall, my current Southern Baptist Church that I attend has it’s copy of the Church Covenant in the hallway just outside my Sunday School classroom and I read it often. The Church Covenant states: to abstain from the sale of, and use of, intoxicating drinks The family insisted upon selling beer and the church voted to remove them from the church role as members. Our church refused to start down the slippery slope. So Sarah can say she’s a Christian and does everything according to faith, but I still believe that a Southern Baptist cannot drink Bourbon and smoke cigars and continue to call themselves Southern Baptist. How many Southern Baptist preachers said anything about Sarah’s Bourbon and cigar party? My guess would be the same number that said anything about Donald Trump’s story of The Dead Smartian.

This is the table of contents for the rest of my book with a brief, well kind of a brief description:

Chapter 3

Jesus is tempted by Satan

Matthew 4:7 Jesus says to him again, It is written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.

To tempt God wouldn’t be something a conservative Christian would ever think of doing but that was before Covid. During Covid the government said Thou shalt wear a mask and as I will discuss in this chapter and following chapters no one, including God dares to tell conservatives what they shalt or not shalt not do. I will tell my own story of how my Southern Baptist Church made the decision to tempt God. The Arkansas Governor, Asa Hutchinson, on a Thursday decided since only 15 people died that day the state would lift the mask mandate. Now let me make this perfectly clear Asa Hutchinson claims to be a good Christian man, back in the day when my older brother, Mike Mann, was a deacon at First Baptist of Fort Smith, Asa was also on the deacon body, in fact as a U.S. attorney Asa was regarded as the legal expert of the deacons. Nonetheless Asa choose The Republican party over the word of God. The churches of Arkansas now had to make a decision weather or not to require masks. By Sunday morning another 20 people in Arkansas had died of Covid making the “death toll” 35 total number of people who died from Covid since great announcement ending the mask mandate. What did my church do about masks? I would describe it this way, there are a lot more people who go to my church that watch Fox News than reading their Bibles. I think what God saw from my church that Sunday was a congregation ripping off their masks shaking their fists at God saying I dare you to give me Covid! Then God sent the Delta variant.

Chapter 4

The Woman Caught in Adultery

Jesus was at the Temple outside in the outer court teaching to a group of people when suddenly, the Pharisees drags a woman before Jesus claiming they just happened to recently caught this evil woman in the very act of committing adultery. They asked Jesus what should they do with this evil woman, should they follow the law, written in Leviticus 20:10? This scripture plainly states that both the adulterer and the adulteress are to be put to death, however they place only the woman not the man in front of Jesus so they caught her in the very act by herself? After much research, I have discovered why the conservative Pharisees only blamed the woman. It turn’s out the woman’s name was Stormy! A few Bible scholars might say I’m just making that up, but it does explain the absents of the man. The Pharisee say that the law reads that she, the adulteress Stormy, should be put to death, but said the Pharisee to Jesus, What sayest thou? Are you going to go against the Law? Jesus did not answer them right away, like they were expecting, instead, Jesus stooped down to the ground and wrote something on the ground and did not answer. After a little bit of time passed, Jesus stood and said Ye who is without sin cast the first stone. Did Jesus tell the Pharisees to cast the first just because they were asking about adultery or does that reply to anything else? Like what you may ask? Because you see the most famous verse in the 20th chapter of Leviticus is not the 10th verse it’s the 13th verse. You may claim that you have never heard of the 13th verse of the 20th chapter of Leviticus, but have you ever heard someone say, with great pride: They used to kill homosexuals in the Old Testament! Well that’s coming from Leviticus 20:13, that’s just two verses away from the law that these Pharisees were tempting Jesus with. The 11th and 12th verses also delt with adultery, but verse 13 that’s conservative’s favorite! What would Jesus if instead of a woman caught in adultery, they brought two gay men in front of and asked the same question, the law says such should be stoned, but what sayest thou? Would Jesus say Ye who are without sin, cast the first stone? Just like he did with the woman or would he done something different since these men were gay? Maybe Jesus would had taken the stone already in his hand and said “I’ll show everyone what to do to a couple of gay boys” then Jesus threw his stone at the 1st gay man hitting in the forehead, bounced off of the 1st hitting the 2nd gay man also in the forehead, then Jesus says “that’s what thou callest killing two gays with one stone”. I will go in length on how it appears that conservatives somehow believe that they must be without sin and it’s their duty to throw rocks at the gay community. I can assure you I have a lot more to say about that in this chapter.

Chapter 5

Stand Your Ground

A couple of years ago the Arkansas General Assembly passed a law, just like the other red states making Arkansas a Stand Your Ground state. The bill was signed into law by former Governor and former deacon of First Baptist Church of Fort Smith, now a presidential candidate, Asa Hutchinson. There are two central issues with all Stand Your Ground laws. First, if a person believes they are in danger in their own mind looking through their own eyes then they have the right to use deadly force against whoever they feel, looking through their own eyes, as long as they believe they are doing right in their own eyes. Second, all Stand Your Ground Laws remove what is called the duty to retreat. That’s the position of the main contributor to ALL Stand Your Laws, the NRA. Republicans always do whatever the NRA tells them to do, including Arkansas former governor and deacon, Asa Hutchinson. Conservative pastor ALWAYS support Republicans. Conservatives believe that God is a Republican and they support Republicans over scripture always no matter what they do. In this important chapter I will go over how many times in the Old Testament scripture says like in 2 Chronicles 1 and 2: 1. Josiah was eight years old when he reigned in Jerusalem, one and thirty years. 2. And he did that which was right, IN THE SIGHT OF GOD and walked in the ways of David his father, and declined to the right hand or to the left. The Bible is perfectly clear that looking through your own eyes to do what you think is right is not the same as doing right in the sight of God. Second: All Stand Your Laws are based entirely on the concept that the person is looking threw his own eyes now no longer has what is know as a “Duty to Retreat”. No duty to retreat? What did Jesus say about your “Duty to Retreat” Jesus said, and I believe each single lawmaker in every single state that has passed such laws have at sometime in each of their life’s have heard what Jesus said about a duty to retreat. Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5 38-40 Ye have heard it said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, 39. But I say unto you, that ye resist not evil, but, whosoever shall smite thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. 40. And if any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also. 41 And if a man compels thee to go with him a mile, go with him two. The way conservatives read this scripture must be whosoever shall smite thy right cheek, stand thy ground, knock his teeth out and while he’s down on the ground poke an eye out

Chapter 6

Render Unto Caeser

Is is right for a Christian to cheat on his taxes? Can a Christian use Jesus as an excuse to steal from the government? Should a Christian justify not paying taxes by saying the government is unjust, like allowing abortions, supporting the gay agenda (whatever that is) giving to the poor, allowing poor brown Catholics into God’s white country or whatever else conservatives declare to be wrong? After all God would not us to support anything we thought was unrighteous? That makes perfect sense, but is that what Jesus said? In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, all three of these Gospels tell the story of the Pharisees asking Jesus if it is lawful to pay taxed to Caesar? Jesus asks for a coin and asks them whose inscription is on the coin and they replied, it is Caesar. Then Jesus said, Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s and unto God the things which are God’s. Jesus said you can’t use your religion, which includes Christianity, or particularly not your greed, as an excuse not to pay taxes. It appears conservatives do not believe nor follow the words of Jesus, and yes render unto to Caesar, is not a suggestion of Jesus, it’s another example and one of Jesus commands, so when someone cheats on their taxes they are not only breaking the laws of the Ten Commandments by bearing false witness, lying, and by stealing, they’re also breaking a commandment of Jesus. I will write, in detail. Donald Trumps repeated lies about his promises to the American people about releasing his taxes and also lying about paying millions and millions of dollars in taxes after it was revealed he paid less than $500 the year that we now know of.

Chapter 7

The Rich Young Ruler

This is story that conservatives hate the most. When is the last time that you can remember your pastor preaching on the rich young ruler? Or maybe the better question is Has your pastor ever preached on the rich young ruler? The best way conservatives can explain this scripture is to skip it altogether. Jesus told the rich young ruler to sell everything he owned and give it to the poor then take up his cross and follow Jesus. But conservatives always say Jesus wants you to be rich and Jesus hates the lazy poor people as much as they do. Putting a conservative spin on this scripture is difficult, but it doesn’t stop them from turning Jesus words around.

Chapter 8

The Rich man and Lazarus

What could be worse than a story of Jesus telling a rich young ruler to sell everything he had and give it to the poor? Well it’s a rich man who in Hell lifted his eyes up seeing that sorry beggar Lazarus up in Heaven! Now let me get this right, conservatives believe God sent a rich man who fared sumptuously every day, as a savior of the United States of America!

Chapter 9

The Widow’s Mite

People at my church time after time would make posts on Face Book claiming the liberal media was not praising Trump each time he would donate his salary. apparently Fox News must make a big deal about Trump’s unbelieveable generosity but the liberal media ignores it. Trump should be praised, and it’s impossible to praise him enough. But is praising the rich for how much they give something that Jesus instructs us to do? Did Jesus praise the rich for their very public giving? In both Mark and Luke the story of the widow’s mite is told where Jesus says she gave more than the rich who only gave to be praised by men. Which is the reason why Trump gave his salary to be praised by men and his church base and his base couldn’t praise him enough, it seems to me they have never heard the story of the widow’s mite or maybe they just don’t care.

Chapter 10

Where Does Jesus Tell us to Pray?

The big thing in the past and is once again becoming more popular with conservatives is the notion that what America needs and would make everyone live happily after, is the idea that they would put prayer back in schools. Is that a good idea? Is that idea coming from Jesus? What did Jesus say about public prayer? Matthew 6:5. When you pray be not like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by men, truly I tell you they have their reward. What’s the difference between forcing schoolteachers to lead a prayer and the hypocrites that stand on a street corner and shout out a prayer? According to Jesus the conservatives have receive their reward, they will receive nothing from Heaven.

Chapter 11

An Eye For An EYE

What’s the most ignored scripter by conservatives? No it’s not the rich young ruler nor the rich man and Lazarus it’s found in The Sermon on the Mount. Jesus said Ye have heard it said, notice when Jesus was tempted by Satan he told him For it is written, a big difference form Ye have heard it said, Just like today An eye for an eye is a lot more a saying than God’s law. In the time of the Old Testament there was so many people that became and there might not be anyway to describe this better than to say that the people became so bloodthirsty, they went crazy killing people and poking out people’s eyes so God set up sanctuary cities also known as cities of refuge. I will give one example of this for there are several passages of scripture similar to this; Deuteronomy 4 41.42: Then Moses set apart three cities on this side of the Jordan toward the sunrising, That the slayer might flee there, who should kill his neighbor unintentionally, and hated him not in times past, and that, fleeing into one of these cities, he might live. In the sermon on the Mount Jesus compared an eye for an eye with evil, I’ll describe why I think Jesus compared an eye for an eye with evil.

Chapter 12

Does Jesus Know You?

Matthew 7: 18-23.

¹⁸A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. ¹⁹Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. ²⁰Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. ²¹Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. ²²Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? ²³And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. Anybody can claim to know Jesus but. the question that really needs to be answered is Does Jesus know you?

The good Samaritan has now become just another expression. Whenever there’s a news report and the story has anything about some one coming to some one’s aid or rescue the reporter most of the time will call the rescuer a good Samaritan. There’s a good chance that the reporter or even the reporter’s audience know the story of the good Samaritan or where the story came from. All they know is if you rescue someone then you can be called a good Samaritan. Many don’t know that the good Samaritan came from the Bible and that the person telling the story was Jesus. Sometimes it seems that today’s Christians just assume that the world knows the story and more important that the world understands it’s meaning. The sad part is that many in the church don’t really understand the story of the good Samaritan. If they did understand the meaning , it would change many of their attitudes and prejudices.

Why did Jesus tell the story of the Good Samaritan? Jesus was answering a question asked to him by a Jewish lawyer. His question was quite simple and Jesus answer still applies today. He asked: Who is my neighbor? It would appear to be a simple question followed by an equally simple answer. But Jesus didn’t give him a simple answer, no Jesus made him think about it and answer for himself. Instead of answering by saying something like your neighbor is someone who lives by you, thinks like you, dresses like you, looks like you, and most important votes like you. That is the right answer to the question, who is my neighbor isn’t it? No this is how Jesus answered who is my neighbor?

Luke 10 30-37

30. And Jesus, answering, said, A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his raiment, and wounded him, and departed, leaving him half dead. 31. And by chance there came down a certain priest that way; and when he saw him, he passed by on the other side. 32. And likewise a Levite, when he was at the place, came and looked on him, and passed by on the other side. 33. But a certain Samaritan, as he journeyed, came where he was; and when he saw him, he had compassion on him, 34. And went to him, and bound up his wounds, pouring in oil and wine, and set him on his own beast, and brought him to an inn, and took care of him. 35. And on the next day, when he departed, he took out two denaril, and gave them to the host, and said unto him, Take care of him; and whatever thou spendest more when I come again, I will repay thee. 36. Which, now, of these three thinkest thou, was neighbor unto him that fell among thieves? 37. And he said, He that showed mercy on him. Then said Jesus unto him, Go, and do thou like-wise.

So that’s the whole story of the Good Samaritan just 7 verses and it tells a simple story of two religious men a priest and a Levite who saw a injured man begging for help, but both refused to stop and help him. Then came by a Samaritan and helped the man. Not only did he bandaged him up he put him on his own donkey, which meant the Samaritan walked. He took him to an inn and took care of him through the night and if that wasn’t enough he gave his own money and paid the innkeeper to take care. But that wasn’t all, he promised the innkeeper that when he returned and he would return, if the innkeeper needed more money the Good Samaritan would pay him once again out of his own pocket. Everything seems to be simple nothing to disagree about here. But the question is Jesus story conservative or liberal?

When I was growing up my dad taught the young married Sunday School Class. It was a successful large group. We had cook outs with horse shoes and softball games, bible studies, Halloween parties (that was back when we didn’t know Halloween was evil). It was a close group that you could tell they all loved each other and had a deep love for Christ. Back in 1971 my Mom was once again sent to the sanatorium in Booneville Arkansas, she didn’t have tuberculosis, at that time we didn’t know the reason for Mama’s lung trouble, as she always called it. The class got together and took up an offering and put the money in a small blue plastic car, that was brought at a dime store. On the roof of the car was written Let’s give John gas money to go see Barbara. We kept that little car on our bookcase for years until it was so old the writing on the note was gone. We thought of what they did for us every time we saw that little car. But it’s another gift that the class gave daddy is my reason for writing about daddy’s Sunday School Class. On June 29 1975 the class presented daddy with a copy of Wycliffe Bible Commentary published by the Moody Press. Eighteen of them signed the book and wrote they brought it for daddy’s personal study. Daddy was really proud of it and when he took it to show the pastor he was told by the the pastor that members of the class asked him what was the best commentary to buy. The pastor said that the Wycliffe Bible Commentary was the best one to buy because it was a conservative Bible commentary and not one of those liberal commentaries that was full of “false teachings”. I was just 13 years old back then but I still remember what the pastor said and since then I’ve always looked out for those liberals and false teaching. Since this is the best conservative Bible commentary I’ll use it throughout this study to give the conservative version.

Maybe the best place to start on the story of the Good Samaritan is to explain who the Samaritans were and most important to the story is why did the Jews hate them so bitterly. Yes this is a story of hate and the Jews had an intense hatred towards the Samaritans. The Jews did not consider the Samaritans as true Jews because of the Samaritans intermarrying Gentiles. This was the main reason that Jews during Jesus time would give, but their problems with the Samaritans goes back centuries before Jesus came to Earth.

Who is my neighbor was the question Jesus was answering in the story of the good Samaritan. According to Jesus who is your neighbor is totally up to the individual. There’s a choice in the answer of who is my neighbor not just through ?? The priest who came upon the injured man made a choice to be a neighbor to the man but the priest decided not to be the man’s neighbor, that was this “Man of God” choice. Then came the Levite, a leader in the church, a man as religious and being considered good by most people who without a doubt help the man, but he also made the choice not to stop and be a neighbor to the man. Then along comes by the Samaritan a man who was not welcomed to worship in the Temple at Jerusalem where the priest and Levite were both from. This division between the Jews and Samaritans is described by the Samaritan woman at the well. When Jesus asks the Samaritan woman for a drink at Jacob’s well she replies to Jesus in John 4:9, Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, who am a woman of Samaria? For the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. then she says in verse 19 and 20: 19 The woman saith unto him, Sir I perceive that thou art a prophet. 20. Our fathers worshiped in this mountain; and ye say that in Jerusalem is the place where men ought to worship. And yet it’s a Samaritan who helps the man.

The story of the Good Samaritan is just 7 verses and it’s not complicated a man is attacked and robbed three people passed by two walked by on the other side of the road and did not stop to help, but one stopped and helped. How could there be more than one interpretation of such a simple story. That’s why I choose to use the Good Samaritan as the first chapter of my book, as you are about to find out there’s a huge difference between what a conservative believes compared to what liberal believes. Now it’s time to see how the conservative Wycliffe Bible Commentary has to say about the Good Samaritan. According to this conservative book the priest and Levite did absolutely nothing wrong, the book claims that the reason the priest and Levite did not stop and help was they thought the injured man was dead and the book says they did not want to “defile themselves” by touching a dead body. Are you serious? as one tennis player is famous for yelling. This commentary is now more than 50 years old and do conservatives still believe that the priest and Levite did nothing wrong? I ‘ve looked up what conservatives believe today on the internet, and it turns out today’s believes agree and now are even more extreme. One commentator on the internet claims that the Levite saw the priest far off in the distance, which doesn’t seem to be the best place to rob someone, since he saw the priest go to to the other side and past by the injured man so when he made to that place he just did what he saw the priest do. Another commentator claims that the injured man was a Jew and that it was Samaritans that robbed him, because that’s just what Samaritans did back in the day, and the Good Samaritan was one of the robbers who felt guilty and came back to help the man. Of coarse the money the Good Samaritan gave the innkeeper was not his own, rather it was the injured man’s money that the Good Samaritan stole from him. Why do conservatives come up with such crazy ideas? We have come to the difference between Conservatives and Liberals: Liberal believe that words of Jesus are 100% true and what Jesus said is exactly what he meant. On the other hand conservatives believe in what in politics know as “spin”. Jesus words are always up for interpretation and what Jesus words means to one person could be interpreted by another person completely different. Just like in the story of the Good Samaritan, Jesus just doesn’t know how to tell a story right.

Conservatives believe that the priest and Levite didn’t know the difference between an injured man pleading for help and a dead body. Jesus said that the man was left half dead and stripped of his clothes. There’s something interesting about why they took the man clothes, first they took the man’s clothes because his clothes were much better then what they were wearing. There’s many passages of scripture that refers to fine raiment. Just like today, clothing has a lot to do with who you are. Everyone knew both the priest and a Levite by the clothes they were wearing. Second, since they took his clothes he was lying there naked, this means anyone could defintally tell if the injured man was circumcised because if he wasn’t that meant one thing, he was a gentile. And here’s something else Jesus says they left him half-dead not looking like he was dead totally silent. When the Priest saw him he passed on the other side of the road. That means the Priest had to see the man before he made it beside him. What got the priests’ attention could it be the injured man was yelling for help. That would go along with the description that Jesus gave, they stripped him and left him half-dead. But that brings up another question: what language was the man yelling for help? The priest and Levite answered that question when they passed the man on the other side of the road removing themselves as far as possible from him. There’s no doubt the man was not yelling in Hebrew or that he was uncircumcised. If the injured man did not look like them, did not speak like them, did not believe like them, did not vote like them, and most important did not have the same color of skin like them. Yes in Bible times there would had been people of serval races walking on the road to Jericho. The injured man could had been black or even worse than being black he could had been white. But wait wasn’t the priest and the Levite white? If you believe conservatives of coarse they were white, just like Jesus was a six foot two inch white man! I will go in detail in a forwarding chapter of what the Bible says about how God became flesh and what color that flesh was. Therefore, as Paul would say, if the injured man was white that meant he was the most hated persons by the Jews, it meant that white man was a Roman!! Well almost the most hated, nothing compares to the hatred the Jews had for the Samaritans. And yet it was the most hated Samaritan that Jesus uses as our example.

When Jesus finished the story of the Good Samaritan, he asks the Jewish lawyer who between these three was a neighbor to the injured man. The answer to that question would seem to be quite simple, yet the Jewish lawyer, standing in the Temple, couldn’t bring himself to admit that a Samaritan did right while two Jewish leaders of the faith did not. He could only reply the one who showed mercy on him, without saying it was the hated Samaritan.

How does the story of the Good Samaritan apply to us today? I’ll take a simple example kind of similar: Let’s say you’re driving down a lonely two-lane highway on the side of the road is an abandoned car a little further down is a black man walking in the 100-degree heat beside the highway carrying a small gas can. Would a neighbor pull over to the side of the highway, no worries about a head on collision on the untraveled highway and keep going saying maybe the next driver will stop and help him. It’s just not that simple you can say, if I stop then I’ll have to drive to the next gas station which could be 20 miles away and then I’ll have to drive him back the 20 miles and after that I’ll have to then drive the 20 miles I’ve already drove for the third time, I don’t have the time to do that and what about all that gas I’m burning? He’s not going to pay me for that and by the way he looks I’ll have to end up paying for his gas too. If I did stop, I would tell him to put the gas can in the trunk and while you’re at it you get in the trunk as well.

Now would be a good time to discuss just how much the Good Smartian really did for the man. In verse 34 Jesus describes all he did. Jesus says the first thing he did unlike the priest and Levite, was he saw him and had compassion on him. When the Good Smartian saw he didn’t see a man that didn’t look like him, didn’t talk like him, didn’t vote like him, no! When the Good Smartian saw him he didn’t see like the priest or Levite saw those their eyes filled with hatred for people different from them, when the Good Smartian saw the man, he could imagine seeing himself lying there, helpless it need for someone to help him. That’s what true compassion for someone is, the ability to see yourself in the same situation. The priest and Levite had no compassion because they just couldn’t imagine themselves helpless.

How much did the Jews really hated the Smartian people? When Jesus is done telling the story of the Good Smartian Jesus asks the Jewish lawyer which of these three was a neighbor to the man? The Jewish lawyer did not reply it was the Smartian who was the man’s neighbor, instead he said it was the one who showed mercy. The answer from Jewish lawyer tells why the priest and Levite passed on the other side of road.

After the Jewish lawyer answered Jesus with the one who showed mercy Jesus says five very important words: Go and do thou likewise. These words are not a suggestion of Jesus they are known as one of the commands of Jesus. When Jesus says If you love me keep my commandments, this is one of the commandments that Jesus meant. Jesus had a lot of his own commandments, for example Love one another which was a commandment that the priest or Levite cared not to follow. To see the injured man moaning or even asking for help and passing him by on the other side of the road, going as far as possible away from him, is not an example of loving one another. The whole story of The Good Smartian begins with a command. It’s sometime referred as the greatest commandment: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind, and thy neighbor as thyself. that is how the lawyer answered Jesus in Luke 10:27; Jesus said that this was the right answer, then the lawyer asked what turns out to be a great question, he asks and who is my neighbor? Is everyone my neighbor or just the people who live by me? Your neighbor can’t be someone living in another country, could it? The Good Smartian lived in Samaria, the priest and Levite would consider another country. And are poor people your neighbors? That’s what we’re going to look at next.

It seems to me the biggest difference between a conservative and a liberal is what they believe about money, the difference between rich and poor. A lot of this study will deal with the whole idea of money, who deserves money, and most of all does Jesus want Christians to be rich. If a person is poor does that mean that the poor are poor because of their lack of ambition or is it Jesus just does not like the poor. It seems that is what conservatives believe.

The best example of how conservatives believe about helping the poor is to go all the way back to the late 70s and the Carter administration. There’s a quote from Jimmy Carter that best describes what I’m talking about: ” If you don’t want your tax dollars to help the poor, then stop saying that you want a country based on Christian Values, because you don’t!!” Was the injured man in the story of the Good Smartian rich or poor? At the time that the priest, Levite, and Good Smartian encountered him, he had nothing Jesus said they stripped him of his raiment, leaving him naked with no possessions, just imagine no possessions! But they stole his clothes, it could be the clothes he was wearing were very fine silk, or at least whatever he was wearing it was better than what the thieves were wearing. Or the man may have only appeared to be rich to the thieves and they stripped him and almost beat him to death because they were mad. We’ll never know but could it be that Jesus was making a point here that the experts on the internet never thought of. Suppose Jesus put the victim in this story totally helpless without anything including clothes, and all he had was hope, that someone would show mercy on him. Imagine that could be the reason the priest and Levite passed him on the other side. They didn’t see how helping this man that they did not know, could do anything for them, except creating a great inconvenience for each of them. Besides they were busy, in a hurry, they had a whole mass of people to take care anyway they didn’t have the time to help just one man they were taking care of God’s business! That’s the question what is God’s business? Is it God’s business to take care of those who cannot take care of their selves? Is that really the whole point of the story of the Good Smartian?

Perhaps the greatest difference between conservatives and liberals is what they believe about the poor. I’m referring to what conservatives call welfare. First, from what I’ve seen on Face Book posts and other conversations conservatives do not have a clue how “welfare” works or for that matter they really don’t know what “welfare” is all about. But that doesn’t stop any one of them from considering themselves experts on the subject. One of the quotes from the TV program Criminal Minds, the episode involved a killer targeting the homeless, here’s the quote: “Of all the preposterous assumptions of humanity over humanity, nothing exceeds most of the criticisms made on the habits of the poor by the well-housed, well warmed, and well fed”. That was a quote from a man named Herman Melville who wrote a little book entitled Moby Dick. It can also describe most of the people that go to my church, they think they are most definably experts on the poor and no doubt about it they know everything every detail about welfare.

I know these people at church quit well, they’re not any different from other conservatives anywhere in the country. I know them so well I can even tell how some of them will live the last few months or years before they die. I know how that sounds, but let me explain what I’m talking about.

In the later years of my dad’s life, he changed careers, went back to college at the age of 47 and became a nurse. Daddy worked at a nursing home for over 15 years, as a nurse and for his last few years there he was the social director and still worked as a nurse on weekends. As the social director, one of his duties was basically to make sure the nursing home got paid. I know that don’t sound very good, and I’m sure his job description wouldn’t explain it that way, but yeah that was part of his job. I will give an example. It’s that time when there’s nothing left to do but to put Uncle Joe in the nursing home. Yes, Uncle Joe is moving really, really, slow now. But the family believes he want last much longer and Uncle Joe worked hard all his long life and although Uncle Joe always said he would never end up in a nursing home there was no other choice than to put him the nursing home. Turns out Uncle Joe was really conservative and when the time came to get Medicare, Uncle Joe refused to get on Medicare, because just like a lot of conservatives like Daddy dealt with, Uncle Joe considered Medicare to be the same as Welfare, besides Uncle Joe owned a hotel, really it was more like a bed & breakfast, he had plenty of money to last the rest of his life without relying on anything from the government. (I think this maybe is sounding very familiar to some). So, without any other options, daddy placed Uncle Joe in on what is termed private pay. No problem the family said Uncle Joe had no problem paying the two hundred and something dollars a day, seven days a week, and besides it really won’t matter much poor Uncle Joe is not long for this world anyway. So that two months the family was kind of counting on, before you realized it, there we are four years later, Uncle Joe is still in the nursing home, but the family is long gone. Over the last four years things changed Uncle Joe hotel, The Shady Rest Hotel, was hit with hard times, it was really going downhill for years but when Sam’s son started Drucker’s Hotel and Casino that was the tragic end to The Shady Rest Hotel. All of Uncle Joe’s assets are now gone, his savings are gone and four years of taking two hundred and something dollars out of his bank account every day for four years emptied all his money. That left Daddy with only one choice, he took Uncle Joe off of private pay and applied him for Medicaid. You remember how Uncle Joe thought Medicare was welfare. No Uncle Joe was wrong Medicare is not welfare, but Medicaid is welfare. So there’s Uncle Joe left in the nursing home alone the family is long gone Uncle Joe stills loves to talk all those lazy people on welfare and the evil liberals, until one day Uncle Joe dies and his only possession he left behind was his Trump Won flag. But Uncle Joe is far from the only one, there are hundred of thousands, if not millions of people in the U.S. who are in the same predicament, they are just as arrogant and self-righteous as ever, but they will live the end of their lives dependent on public money, welfare.

After working over 15 years at the nursing home, Daddy went to work for a company named The Area Agencey on Aging. Daddy’s new job was to visit people in about a four-county area that were on government programs and make reports on each person making sure that whatever program they were on was working as it should. For instance, there’s a program where a wheelchair bound client (that’s what they were referred as) could receive a wheelchair ramp. A crew would build the ramp and Daddy’s job was not to inspect the construction of the ramp, someone else did that, Daddy’s job was to ensure the client could use the wheelchair ramp. That just one example of a government program there are many more all helping people who cannot help their selves. The conservatives I’m sure would complain saying that new wheelchair ramp built to government standers, just doubled the value of a shack wasting our tax dollars. Did the Good Smartian waste his two days of pay on the injured man?

These are examples of what conservatives call welfare, but welfare is not their only excuse to refuse Jesus’s command to Go and do likewise, there’s another phrase that conservative’s and all Republicans agree on, but it’s nothing new. I can describe what’s worse than welfare in just one statement made a long time ago by President Jimmy Carter: ” Many fervent Pro-Life activists do not extend their concern to the baby who is born, and are least likely to support benevolent programs they consider to be “Socialist”.” Oh yes conservative’s and Republicans favorite word Socialist. Every conservative knows almost everything about Socialist, you might even say they know as much a Socialist as they do about welfare. First off in a true Socialists country they could care less about a poor elderly person getting a wheelchair ramp.

Several years ago, I was watching Larry King Live, his guest was Jimmy Carter. Larry asked Jimmy Carter on his record on abortion when he was president and Jimmy Carter replied I asked what the main reason for abortions was in America? It was determined that the main reason women had abortions was the sad fact that they believed they could not afford to have another child. Jimmy Carter explained that the best way to reduce the number of abortions was to help the mothers of these children provide for their children, so the Carter administration implemented a new program, WIC: Women, Infants, Children. The WIC program has one purpose: to feed the hungry, women with children up to the age of five. Because of the conservatives the WIC program was set up from the start that no one “take advantage” of the conservative’s money. Women were given a book of vouchers that listed everything that WIC would accept. Here’s how it worked in the real world. A woman along with her two or three small children would go to a grocery store and when they went to the checkout now here where’s it’s different from everyone else. There were only certain lanes that would accept WIC, this served the same purpose as it was when I went to school. Every morning the teacher would call each of us to pay for our lunch, the kids who were on government free lunches were shamed every morning. The same thing with women on WIC yes the conservatives were say, if we have to give you free food, we will shame you first. The woman with her children in toll would finally make it to the WIC checkout, usually register one, the cashier would take the voucher book and check off all the items one by one. And this always happens especially if your in a hurry and the WIC woman is in front of you, the cashier will say no this is the wrong brand or no this is the wrong size package, this happens all the time because WIC or the food company changes what is accepted and it changes every month. But imagine if you can behind the WIC woman that is taking so much time to checkout that behind the lady behind her is getting very annoyed. But who is this woman behind her that’s in such a hurry? She’s the local First Baptist’s pastor’s wife, who is very involved in her church, she teaches the Womens Sunday Class, sings in the choir, is the WMU director and most of all she is proudly pro-life, attends pro-life rallies always the one holding up the sign that says Abortion is Murder! But today she is in a big hurry she has a lot of important church business to get done. What are her thoughts as she’s being delayed from her important schedule? What is she thinking to herself as she is looking (more accurate word may be as she is judging) the WIC woman? Look at this girl so young to have three children, although she was the same age when her children were these ages, but just look at her trying to raise three children all alone and it’s obvious just by looking the three children do have the same father! And then the pastor’s wife says to herself, well if she doesn’t have the money to raise her children then she shouldn’t have had them in the first place! She should had waited until God found the perfect man for her and after they were married and they could afford to have children then they should start a family. I’ll give you a moment to let that sink in, to think for a moment what the pastor’s wife is really thinking. She’s not the only one with these belief that thou shalt not have children unless thou can “afford to have children”. Money not something like “faith” should be the deciding factor to start a family.

Today gone are the voucher books replaced by what appears at first glance to be a credit card. Just the other day I was checking out at Wal Mart and at the register beside me was woman with three children obvious having trouble checking out. The Wal Mart associates, there were three of them by now, took all of the woman’s groceries to the next checkout and begun to check her out all over again. I said to the guy checking out my purchases, are you having problems with WIC again? And he rolled his eyes and said we have nothing but problems with WIC! What would the pastor’s wife think if she behind this woman? Would she think the woman was paying with food stamps, which would be welfare, or would she recognize in was WIC then it would be socialism? I think it would be confusing being a conservative, trying to be keep everything straight on which category to put things in just where there’s an excuse not to help someone. Besides that, the whole point of the Good Samaritan is religious people making up excuses not to help others. This whole idea of socialism is nothing more than a very poor excuse not to follow Jesus’ command to go and do thou likewise, there are not any verses, no not one, that gives followers of Jesus an excuse to deliberately disobey a direct command of Jesus. Jesus never said, if you love me, keep my commandments, unless thou thinkest my commandments are socialist, then fight my commandments with all thine hearts. In the conservative’s opposition to Jimmy Carter’s WIC program, they are really saying: the baby’s hungry and we gave no food-Welfare!! the baby’s thirsty, we gave no drink; Welfare! the baby’s naked, we clothed it not: giving that poor baby diapers would be socialism!!! The baby’s sick, and we will not minister to it: socialism!! worse than socialism ministering to the sick would be Obamacare!! The baby is a stranger, we refused to take him in: Immagration Laws!!!! Did I just mention Obamacare? If conservatives hate Women Infants Children, they literally cannot stand Obamacare. Of course, there is that verse in the conservative translation of the Bible where Jesus says: Thou shalt not let a black man tellest thee what to do. Truth be told that’s the biggest problem conservatives have with Obamacare. This also explains the conservative view of the meaning of the Good Smartian, the priest saw the man gasping for help on the side of the road, but the priest passed by on the other side saying to himself “I can’t help him, that would be welfare”. Likewise, when the Levite came by, he passed on the other side saying to himself “I can’t help him, that would be socialism”. Conservatives would be quick to point out that following Christ and his commands is not what the government should do. Somehow Conservatives believe that the government is separate from their beliefs and this belief separates from doing right by its own people. This is the first major question I have for conservatives. If conservatives are Republicans and claim to believe as Republicans, then they must explain away what the founder of the Republican Party, Abraham Lincoln said in the Gettysburg Address, the fact that the United States of America is government of the people, by the people, for the people. How can they explain away that this government of the people, for the people, by the people can literally pass by the people that this government is made of, and leave them on the side of the road, when there is no excuse whatsoever not to help them? Their reply I am sure, would be to say that the Bible teaches against socialism, well OK what scripture are they referring to? Where exactly is it written that you should leave someone beside the road?

Normally when someone writes a book, before the first chapter the author writes a preface. The reason behind writing a preface is to explain to the reader why and what is the purpose of the book they’re about to read. I didn’t write a preface because first I don’t think many people actually read a preface, and besides I think the best place to put a purpose in mine book is right here, at the end of the first chapter because this is the best place to put it and putting it at the end of the first chapter most people will read it.

I graduated high school in the election year, 1980. I was 18 years old in the spring that year, which meant that I could vote in the presidential election of 1980. The candidates that year was the incumbent President Jimmy Carter, a democrat, running against the republican Ronald Reagon. I didn’t really pay attention to politics when I was in high school. There was no such thing as social media nor cable news, all I knew was to listen to others. It seems everyone at church was against Jimmy Carter, I don’t really know why they were so much against Jimmy Carter, they must have good reasons for turning so against him, after all it just four years ago that these same church people were happy to have a man that was unashamed to call himself born-again Christian. I remember back when Jimmy Carter was running for president, on the cover of Time magazine was Jimmy Carter with the caption- What does it mean to be born-again? Oh, people at church were so happy that “the world” wanted to know how to become born-again. But just 4 years later they changed their minds, Jerry Falwell started the “moral majority”, they then changed their minds and believed that God didn’t want a born-again Chirstian to be our president. I now know why they were so upset, in Jimmy Carter’s first term he would on occasion visit Plains Georgia and if it was on a Sunday, he (Jimmy Carter the President of The United States) would teach his old Sunday School class. There’s no wonder why the conservatives were so upset, God made Sundays where the president could play golf! So, when election day came around in November of 1980, I went to my polling place, which happened to be my old elementary school, and I placed my first presidential vote for Ronald Reagon, I didn’t know any better! The church people all said that Jesus is a republican and Jesus is a conservative. The problem here is that I was raised a Southern Baptist and from what I learned growing up a Southern Baptist, all beliefs are to be based totally on scripture, if you don’t have the scripture to back up what your beliefs, then your belief does not come from God. The belief that Jesus is a conservative and your most important belief is your “God Given” second amendment rights. That is why I’m writing this book, I don’t believe that Jesus is in any way a conservative and your second amendment right is Not God Given. Jesus once told a rich young ruler to sell all he had and give it to the poor, how in any way is that being a conservative? Yes I’ll have a chapter devoted to the rich young ruler and what Jesus had to say about the rich. And what Jesus said about the rich is in no way whatsoever conservative. So I’m writing this book to answer the question: Is Jesus a conservative or is he a liberal?

Luke 18 10-14

10 Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a tax collector; 11. The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. 12 I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I possess. 13 And the tax collector, standing far off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner. 14. I tell you, this man went down to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone that exhalteth himself shall be humbled; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.

On my last post I said this post would have a song about power. Looking for a song about power I thought of this song that was on a K-tel album we had way back in 1972. When I look at all the laws that are coming out of the Arkansas State legislature they are not only power hungry their power crazy! It appears they have gone totally berserk. But it’s not just here in Arkansas Republicans all across the United States are passing laws that are not only unconstitutional they are just plain crazy. One of these laws I’m talking about involves our schools and a problem, if you call it a problem, with transgender boys playing sports as girls, which is unfair to all the girls because as everyone will agreed boys are so much better than girls at everything! The fragile female needs the protection of the Republican men of the Arkansas legislature. The girls and women need the protection of the superior men of the Arkansas legislature because the school boards across the state won’t protect the fragile female. Oh that’s right we do have school boards in each school district in Arkansas but the Republicans have gone power crazy, stripping all local laws declaring the schools are no longer under local control by the local elected school boards. The power crazy Republicans have overtaken our public schools and I guess they have appointed the governor to be the supreme superintendent of schools. Other than a naked power crab, the republicans are claiming that they are making these laws to protect women. The law only serves one purpose that is to attack the LGBTQ community. They may have a religious reason for making this law. What would Jesus say about this law? Here’s what I think he would say and I base this upon scripture.

Two men went up into the Temple to pray: one a Republican Arkansas Legislator the other a transgendered volleyball player. The Republican Arkansas Legislator stood and prayed to himself, God I thank thee that I’m not like these evil LGBTQ people, liberals, illegals, Democrats, people who tell the truth like that Cheney woman! And I thank thee, God that I’m not like this transgendered volleyball player! And the transgendered volleyball player, standing far off, would not lift his eyes toward heaven, as the Republican Arkansas Legislator does, and smote himself on his chest saying God forgive me for I have taken advantage of the inferior female I know that now because that phony Republican, Bruce Jenner told me how much all men are truly superior to women in every way and these state laws are right. I’m so sorry but you see I really don’t like football!– Well that explains everything.

The righteous Republican Arkansas State Legislator has gone totally power crazy and taken over all local control over our local schools shamelessly stealing control of all Arkansas schools from the local school boards and superintendents who are elected by the local people to ran their LOCAL schools! This is not only a crazy power crab it is an assault on democracy itself. If this is a problem in our Arkansas schools then why hasn’t anyone gave an example of this even happening in Arkansas schools. If this an issue at an Arkansas school then the local elected members of the local school board that has the true power can look at this problem and can take care of it in any they, the ones who are duly elected to run each local school should take care of it, NOT the Arkansas State Legislator.

This is not the only example of the Arkansas Republicans crazy power grab. They also passed another bill that banned doctors, that right doctors the Arkansas Republicans believe they have the power to tell doctors how they can treat their patients. This law removes the right for doctors to prescribe hormones to their transgender patients under the age of 18. Now I ask this question and I know it won’t have the same effect on Prince Charles as it does the Republicans in the Arkansas legislator but: who died and made you King? The Republicans must believe they are royalty able to pass any law they please while claiming that the people voted for this. The law takes away all doctors rights to treat their patients as their years of Med school and years of experience and let’s not forget their Medical License gives them the right to do. The law is now in the courts and for now this law cannot take effect.

But there’s more The Arkansas Republican Not only hates the LGTBQ people but they extend their hatred to all Arkansas residents who believe in the Coronavirus. They passed a law banning the governor, cities, schools or any one else from passing a mask mandate. Yesterday 12 people died in Arkansas today 15 more people died. And yet the Crazy Arkansas Republicans, who will brag how pro-life they are, could care less how many people die and refuse to change the law. A group of Democrats have made a plea to the governor to call a special session and end the law, but so far our beloved pro-life governor refuses to do that. But with the opposition to these Republican laws I can say we’er not ALL crazy now!

Today I’m still writing about Arkansas new Stand Your Ground Law. As everyone can see by my choice of today’s song shows how serious of a matter this is as I have chosen a song from such a high quality group as the Grateful Dead. But I’m not saying I haven’t looked at the Grateful Dead before. Went I was talking about Confederate monuments I almost choose Touch of Grey but then I found the Monkees Shades of Grey which worked out better for my post anyway. That’s the post where I started out I’ve heard there are fifty shades of grey but today I’m only talking one shade of grey-Confederate grey! Well anyway I thought that was one of my best lines so far.

Me and my sister are big fans of Lieutenant Joe Kenda Homicide Hunter, which is a longtime program and yes I know they are TV shows not programs and I did look at Wal Mart for a sign that says live, life and love but I didn’t find one! With our steaming service, no more cable EVER, we started watching every episode from the beginning, I think we’re in season four or five. The other night the TV show was about a man that was stabbed, lying dead in the living room floor. The man that stabbed him was in the kitchen so young Joe, I really like young Joe he’s so serious all the time, the man went on and on about how he was so innocent the other guy was attacking with a knife and him was defending himself, it was self-defense!! As you may know Lieutenant Kenda doesn’t just take people at their word he investigates, maybe that’s why he’s called the homicide hunter. Went he goes talk to the coroner, the coroner tells young Joe the vic, that what they would call him on CSI, he didn’t have one or maybe two stab wounds, he had a total of 28 stab wounds! MY, MY,MY No way was this self-defense it must had been a homicide. If you commit murder Kenda will find you. Of coarse this murderer wasn’t real hard to find since he was right there in the apartment covered in blood and said he stabbed the man, but still Kenda found him! After much investigating Kenda determined what happened. Turns out the vic was the ex- boyfriend but the problem was the suspect was the husband. The vic thought it was a great idea to go talk her back after midnight while she was in bed with her husband. Turns out that wasn’t the brightest idea that man ever had. Upon entering the apartment the husband rans into the kitchen grabs the nearest knife and attacks the ex-boyfriend stabbing him 28 times. That answered the question will his wife take him back? That would be a No! Yet another successful case solved by Joe Kenda. But wait there’s more! A couple of months later Kenda receives a call from the DA telling him that they were dropping the murder charges and letting him go free. Why? Kenda explained that the state of Colorado passed a law known as the Make My Day Law, in which if someone comes into your house you now have the complete and total right to stand your ground and kill anyone however you see fit. In Colorado the homeowner is always right. But if you live in Colorado and you invite someone over to your house, make sure you have a good plan to overtake him after all–A man got to know his limitations! So you have to ask yourself–Do you feel lucky? Hey wouldn’t the young Joe make a great Dirty Harry? As I said it my last post the Stand Your Ground and now the Make My Day is just making murder legal. It’s like those Purge movies where they take away all laws for a day or maybe more, I didn’t see Purge 2, but like the current movies Republicans with their Stand Your Ground and Make My Day laws have made a Forever Purge.

There’s an old hymn entitled What a Friend We Have in Jesus, thus today’s song. Your either a friend of Jesus or your a friend of the Devil. The Republicans have made their choice, Thou Shalt Not Kill has now become Thou Shalt Not Kill UNLESS thou seeth someone thou thinkest needs killing. (That’s the King James Version) Isn’t it the Republicans that are so proud that they call themselves pro-life? While their claiming how much they love and protect life, they will shake their Bible under your nose and say something like My Bible says Thou Shalt Not Kill–and the crowd goes wild. But it appears to me that just like mask wearing, Thou Shalt Not Kill doesn’t seem to apply to them.

I assume (there’s a saying about that word assume I wish I could think of what it was) but I assume Stand Your Ground and Make My Day laws are pretty much the same. I know the basic change in the Arkansas Stand Your Ground Law was to remove what is called the ” duty to retreat” just from name make my day sounds like its now lawful to say “Go ahead make my day I double dog, no I triple dog dare you! There’s no doubt that the members of the Colorado State Assembly have at least one time in their life have stuck their tongue to a frozen flagpole. And I’ll bet they were all pro-life Republicans just like here in Arkansas. This is a good example of these laws you have a mob (state legislatures) standing around a flagpole taunting the kid who knows it’s wrong, but the mob dares are so powerful that the good kid gives in to the mob.

Make My Day and Stand Your Ground Laws are not to be confused in any to the self-defense laws. These are new laws that Republicans have passed over several states and have no relation to self-defense or justifiable homicide laws. These laws are not intended to preserve life but rather these laws only purpose is to justify the taking of more human life. And yet the church going people who vote for these very Republicans will claim that they are voting Pro-Life.

Matthew 5: 38-39

38. Ye have heard that it hath been said, an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth:

39. But I say unto you, ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other side.

The other day the Republican controlled Arkansas legislature passed a “Stand Your Ground Law”, basically telling Jesus and his teachings to go to hell. Thus today’s song is appropriate. Maybe the Arkansas legislatures misheard Jesus they must had thought he said “Whosoever smite thee on thy right cheek, stand thy ground and knock his teeth out”. Yes that must be how the Arkansas legislatures thought in went. I’m sure they all would say they heard it hath been said An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. But from the passage of this Stand Your Ground Law, they had no idea what Jesus said about An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or maybe they didn’t care what the Hell Jesus says.

What the Stand Your Ground Law does is it removes the “duty to retreat” from all self-defense laws. I’ll give an example of this new law compared to the old law: if your working at a convenience store and a gunman comes in and points his gun at you telling you to give him all the money in the register you give him all the money, then he’s happy and starts to ran out of the store and then you take the gun under the counter and shoot him in the back 3 or 4 times as he is heading out the door. According to the old self-defense law you would be charged with murder. Way back in the late 80s went I worked at a convenience the only gun in the store was in the bottom of the drop safe, the owner knew there was nothing good would happen if we had a gun under the counter. By the way, most people thought there was a gun under the counter. Back to my example you see I’m not just making this up! But since Arkansas now has a Stand Your Ground Law you do not have a duty to retreat so you, by shooting the gunman in the back, running away, you will not be charged with anything because today you now have a right to Stand Your Ground. It’s all about removing your duty to retreat now if your mad your anger becomes your right to use your second amendment right and shoot and kill someone. All this law does is legalize murder.

I can best describe this with another verse of scripture.

From Matthew 7:15–20 (KJV):Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.

All Stand Your Ground Laws are corrupt, and Un Christian. They directly go against Jesus teaching to turn the other cheek, or to use other words you have a duty to retreat! A corrupt law will never ever bring forth good fruit, it’s evil today, it will be evil fruit tomorrow.

You have to understand most of people attending my church honestly believe that the moment they arrive in Heaven Jesus will hand them their NRA card made of solid gold. For those who have dedicated their life here on Earth to the 2nd amendment Jesus will give them their very own assault rifle of coarse made out of solid gold with diamonds, and precious gems beautifully etched gold even better than the guns on Antique Roadshow! These guns magazines are not limited to 10 rounds and even 100 rounds No this is Heaven they can shoot their golden guns all they want their magazines are everlasting! And their bullets are solid silver just in case Heaven has a big problem with werewolves, you known just like they were fully prepared for the Zombie apocalypse here on Earth.

Some may say they would turn the other cheek, but just in case, they always carry a gun. That proves where their faith really lies, their faith is with Smith & Wesson not Jesus. They are preparing themselves to kill not to turn any cheek.

There is one good thing about this law. Since with the passage of this law the Arkansas Republican legislature has now lost any moral authority they once had or maybe they never had any in the first place. Since they made the choice to tell Jesus to go to Hell, like today’s song says, they have lost any opportunity to use Jesus in their future laws. This law was passed a couple of weeks ago they since have made nation news and made themselves the focus of attention, by passing several laws attacking the LGBTQ community. These laws will be my subject of my next post with the song of the day being something to do with power. That’s right power, like the rest of the red states the Arkansas Legislature has gone power hungry. An Arkansas commentator said last night on the news that he believed there would be more than 30 laws challenged in court for being Unconstitutional. The legislature believes they have more power that the U.S. Constitution

How do the pastors of Arkansas respond to the Stand Your Ground law? Do they stand up, standup for Jesus or do they remain silent just like it appears the previous 34 other state’s pastor did. If they stand up against this law they are going against the beliefs of the Holy Republican party. No they would be in agreement with the Arkansas Republican Legislature, maybe because they don’t want to harm their chance to get that assault rifle made of gold, I’m sure that’s it. I’m sure just the pastors in those other states, the pastors of Arkansas have no problem with telling Jesus to go to Hell!

Old Hickory said we could take ’em by surprise
If we didn’t fire our muskets
‘Till we looked ’em in the eyes

Today I’m going to talk about Old Hickory, the hero of the War of 1812. But it’s not because of his military service that his portrait is on the wall of the Oval Office. Yes it’s true that Old Hickory, Andrew Jackson, was a war hero, he meet Donald Trump’s definition of a war hero, Andrew Jackson unlike John McCain, or my Granddaddy, and thousands of other American fathers, sons, and brothers, Andrew Jackson didn’t get captured. Now just to make it clear to everyone Andrew Jackson’s nickname was Old Hickory, Stone Wall Jackson is another man named Jackson in another war, The Civil War. Andrew Jackson was dead before the Civil War even started. Not saying anyone would get the two confused, but just in case I thought I might should make that clear.

When Donald Trump became the president one of the first things he did soon after taking office, was to place a portrait of Andrew Jackson on the wall in the Oval Office. He was president so he could put any portrait or flag, whatever, he could decorate the Oval Office as he saw fit just like all the other presidents did. Why did President Trump chose Andrew Jackson to be displayed so prominently in the Oval Office. It’s on the wall in the same place that Nixon took his famous picture with Elvis! You can look that up. Why did President Trump, or more likely Steve Bannon, place the portrait of Jackson in the Oval Office? He was sending a message to his base. Andrew Jackson was the 7th President of the United States and is on the 20 dollar bill. It’s what Jackson did as president and his base knows and admire it, President Andrew Jackson signed the 1830 Indian Removal Act. This created what would become know as The Trail of Tears, where the US Army rounded up Indians from the Southeast United States and marched them on foot hundreds of miles to Oklahoma which was out of what was then out of the United States. On the march 2,000 or maybe up to 10,000 Indians died on the bitter death march. The number of Indians that died on The Trail of Tears is not known after all, Indian lives didn’t matter. The concern was not keeping these people alive because these people were in our white country illegally, rather their purpose was to remove them from our country that was given to the white race from God. Yes God made the United States for white people and just like the Jews had to remove people from The Promised Land, the white race had to remove these nonwhite people from the land given by God to the great white race. And they also believed if it became necessary, they could build a wall to keep the Indians out. So there’s no doubt why Trump, his base and Adolf Hitler’s favorite US president was. Yes Hitler’s favorite US president look it up!

When Donald Trump first became president. and after he put up Andrew Jackson’s portrait in the Oval Office, I made a post on Face Book to all my Trump-lovin church friends. I put a picture of Trump in the Oval Office with Andrew Jackson overlooking him (if you don’t put up a picture, no one will read your post) I wrote that white supremist loved Andrew Jackson because he got rid of the Indians and I also wrote that white supremist hate Abraham Lincoln because he freed the slaves. I wasn’t expecting much of a response maybe one or two likes that would be all. I wasn’t really ready for what happened next. A friend of mine named Joey made a comment on my post. Joey was a friend of mine since we went to Ramsey Jr. High school. His sister was my age and Joey was a year behind us. That was over 40 years ago, gee I’m getting old! Joey didn’t comment on Andrew Jackson but he sure had a opinion of Abraham Lincoln. Joey made it very clear what he thought of Lincoln, how he was the worst president America ever had and just how bad he was. I didn’t reply to his comment, then a while later another one of my friends, let’s say he took exemption to Joey’s comment, and then what happened next is what is called a classic Face Book fight Joey would make comment after comment on how bad a president Abraham Lincoln was and my other friend would answer him back telling Joey he was spreading lies, then Joey would come back with something else that this evil Lincoln did. My other friend said I have a degree in history, I know much more about Lincoln than you do. I’m sure that made Joey really mad, but unknown to Joey, the other friend of mine that he was fighting with on Face Book is an American History teacher at Ramsey Jr. High School. Isn’t that ironic? Joey’s last post he challenged me to a public debate where I could defend Lincoln then Joey could tell everyone the real history of Lincoln. I didn’t reply to Joey’s challenge I unfriended him!

Now all this would be just be a little story about a couple of people having one of I’m sure many Face Book fights. But it’s what happened after we were together at Ramsey Jr. High that makes this a national story. Joey became an attorney, becoming known, with his many local TV commercials about his ambulance chasing, or what they like to be called personal injury lawyers. But Joey’s law firm is not only personal injury, he is also the attorney representing The Daughters of the Confederacy imagine that! You know the Confederate statues that I’ve writing about on my previous posts well their all owned by The Daughters of the Confederacy so Joey is always on the local news defending these confederate statues as “history”. The other day he was on the news saying that the city’s plan to move the confederate statue from the court house to a city cemetery Joey said that the city’s plan did not “meet their demands” their demands? well that’s what he said. And about the history that Joey and his people demand not to erase history. Keep in mind we’re in Fort Smith, Arkansas the end of the Trail of Tears, cross the downtown bridge over the Arkansas River and there’s Oklahoma the destination of the shameful death march. And what is there in downtown Fort Smith to remember all this history? There’s two tiny signs that reads “The Trail of Tears” that’s all and it’s best that you get out and walk, you’ll probably miss them if your in a car. Most people living in Fort Smith couldn’t tell you where these little signs are. It appears we are very selective on what history we want to remember. So when Joey made all his comments about Lincoln, you see Joey is not just your average redneck, he’s the Arkansas spokesman for one of the largest white hate groups in the US, The Daughters of the Confederacy. I don’t know if Joey represents those good daughters in any other states, but I do know one thing for sure, The Daughters of the Confederacy doesn’t have any greater believer in there cause that Attorney Joey.

I really didn’t believe that I would get that kind of response from what I thought was a simple post. I had no idea that I would offend the Trump base so much. I really thought all my life that it would be un-American to say half of things that Joey said about what most normal Americans would call our greatest president.

In the first Presidential debate President Trump was asked if he would condemn white supremist and, of coarse he refused to condemn it. But it doesn’t matter what he says, America is still waiting on that audit where Trump can release his taxes. It’s not his words, for they can’t be believed anyway, but it’s his actions. One of the first things he did when entering the Oval Office was to put up Andrew Jackson portrait. To denounce white supremacy all President Trump has to do is remove Andrew Jackson portrait and replace it with Abraham Lincoln.

Joe Biden has already made it clear that the first thing he will do as he enters the Oval Office is to remove the portrait of Andrew Jackson.

An update on the President Joe Biden Oval Office. It turns out that when Joe Biden said that the first thing he would do upon entering the Oval Office was to remove the portrait of Jackson, he didn’t mean he, himself, was going to do it. His staff had ready redecorated the Oval Office before he entered. Maybe his staff thought that President Biden was unable to do it himself. Or maybe they didn’t want to show pictures of Joe Biden taking it down because you know the Trump base is fragile, it might hurt their feelings. They replaced the portrait of Jackson with a portrait of Benjamin Franklin. I don’t know why he picked Franklin maybe it was meant to tell the Trump base to go fly a kite.

Matthew 7:12

“Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.”

King James Version (KJV)

This morning I took another trip to Wal Mart which I had been putting off for a few days. I wasn’t thinking this trip to be any different from my other trips to Wal Mart, but as it turns out it became an important trip for me. My story begins before I entered into the Zero Street Wal Mart Supercenter. Zero Street, a five lane busy street runs along the side of the Supercenter. The Supercenter faces South 24 th St. which is where I always enter Wal Mart, I turn on Xavier St. to enter Wal Mart side entrance. As always, on the corner of South 24th and Xavier there was a couple of homeless people on the corner. Remember, I’m in Arkansas the third poorest state. The good people of Arkansas can always say, “at least were not as poor as West Virginia or Mississippi”. There’s always one or two at that corner and down at the main entrance and a couple more on the Zero Street entrance. The City of Fort Smith, AR has tried with a city ordinance to keep panhandlers from standing at the corners of all the Wal Marts and the cities busy intersections, but the courts determined that the panhandlers had a right to “free speech” so anytime day or night they are there with their cardboard signs asking for help. Some claim that they are veterans, I think they must be true after all they wearing a cap that says Vet on it and what looks like an official government issued piece of card board. You could call these people beggars or as in today’s song a vagabond. Today when I arrived at the intersection there was a SUV stopped at the corner, in the SUV was a African American couple the woman on the passenger side was handing the panhandler some money. The SUV this couple was in wasn’t a new Cadillac Escalade with a side rail that comes down when the door is opened. No this couple SUV was old and beat up and missing the front bumper, and yet despite of their own condition, or maybe because of it, they choice to give a portion of what they had to others that were worse off than they were.

I parked, put on my American flag mask and went into Wal-Mart and begun my normal shopping trip. I was almost half done with my list when I was walking down the next aisle when I saw something in the middle of the aisle. It was a twenty dollar bill. It turned out it wasn’t just a twenty it was three twenty’s folded up, yes $60. I called out to the couple ahead of me saying did you drop this? They said it wasn’t theirs, how can you walk by $60 and not notice it? So my task ahead was quite simple I thought, all I had to is find is walk among the hundreds of people at Wal-Mart and find whoever dropped it. All I had to do is find someone really upset,( because you know everybody in Wal-Mart are super happy after all their at Wal-Mart!) I spread out the three twenties on the shopping cart shelf in case someone came by and said that must be their twenties. I went up and down about four or five aisles and I stopped and asked a Wal-Mart Associate, that’s what you call people that work at Wal-Mart, if he saw anyone that lost three twenties. He told me to take them to the service desk and they would look threw the tapes and find who dropped it. That seemed to be a good idea, after all whoever dropped it may not know it until they were at the checkout. I took the $60 to customer service, the girl took it and wanted to know which aisle I found it on. And I told her I didn’t for sure I think it was on the flour aisle. She said OK thanks and went to the back. I guess making an announcement saying: Attention Wal Mart customers Will the person who dropped $60 please come to the service counter? I bet at least one person would come, but I guess for some reason they don’t do that. Well that was that I don’t know what happened to the $60. Don’t you hate it when you don’t know the rest of the story? I do know on thing for sure, whoever lost that $60 was devastated, it would mean whoever it was will do without $60 of food and yes that’s a big deal! Some may had found the $60 and said it serves whoever dropped it well, it would teach them to take better care of their money. I suppose that these people who would say something like this have never re added what they had in their cart and then have to decide what they needed to put back on the shelve, I have.

I don’t know if whoever it was ever got their $60 back but if not I know who it should go to. The couple in the beat up SUV, yes you might say they could help them buy a front bumper. Of coarse they don’t really need a front bumper, except maybe for that fast approaching tree! Here in Arkansas license tags are only in the back, there is a law that says you have to have a front bumper, but there is also a law that says you can’t drive barefooted, no one pays any attention to these laws anyway. In a perfect world their the ones who deserve the $60.

As long as it took at Wal Mart, it was already happy hour at the Sonic, so I was on my way to get me and my sister’s route 44 diet Dr. Peppers when I turned on the radio and the station was playing Christmas music so I changed the station and the end of today’s song, Forever Young by Rod Stewart was playing on the radio. I thought I should made a brief post on Face Book about my trip to Wal Mart, then after I heard this song playing on the radio I thought maybe I should use this as my song and make a complete blog post. When I I arrived home I put my Sonic drink on my desk and sat there a while listening to the music steaming on my computer and after a couple of songs played and I’m not making this up the next song; Forever Young by Rod Stewart. This has always been one of my favorite songs, and since The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you had done to you. is one of the opening lines I knew I would one day do a post on it someday so as things turned out that someday is today. Do unto other as you had done to you is known as “The Golden Rule” but if you notice it’s not known as the Golden Suggestion. And Jesus in today’s Bible verse Jesus says it’s the law not something that you do because your such a good person. It seems to be about as simple as it can get, just treat others as you want to be treated. So what’s the problem? I think the basic issue is that a lot of people believe the golden rule is: Do unto others, who are your equals, as you had done to you. In order to treat others as yourself, they have to be equal to you. I’ll use the people on the corner at Walmart as a classic example. You may say suppose it was you that was standing on the corner. And here’s the biggest problem with The Golden Rule, Their reply will always be: I would never stand on the corner and beg for money! In order to do unto to others one must put yourself in their situation. In today’s world of extreme arrogance, it’s almost impossible to have any piety or empathy for anybody. Sad to say but the examples I could use here seem almost endless, I don’t know where to begin. It seems to me that the belief that If I can’t place myself in others position, that I’m in no way obligated you to help. So here’s what all of us should try to do. Next time we see someone in need instead of thinking of all the reasons we can come up with not to help them, let’s put aside all of our prejudices, yes I know that is hard to do, place ourselves in their position and treat them the same as we want others to do for us.

I have a lot more to say about following The Golden Rule so I’m going to write on my next post another example of how to follow The Golden Rule. I’m going to use another Rod Stewart song The Killing of Georgie, which is a great song to use because I’m going to focus on Pope Francis statement made the other day where The Pope refused to condemn same-sex marriage. Refusing to condemn others is maybe the first thing to do in order to follow The Golden Rule.

Maybe one of the best new years resolutions to make would to follow the Golden Rule in the new year.

Proverbs 22:1

A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches, and loving favour rather than silver and gold.

Names matter: Names are important: Names say a lot:

Since names matter today’s song is about the name above all names, Jesus. It’s a new version of an old hymn I hope you enjoy it.

It matters who an elementary school is named after. That’s my subject for today, I live in Fort Smith, Arkansas and here’s a list of the elementary schools in Fort Smith.

SCHOOL NAME ADDRESS
Ballman 2601 South Q Street
Barling 1400 D Street
Beard 1600 Cavanaugh Road
Bonneville 2500 South Waldron Roa
Carnall 2524 South Tulsa Street
Cavanaugh 1025 School Street
Cook 3517 Brooken Hill
Euper Lane 6601 Euper Lane
Fairview 2400 South Dallas Street
Howard 1301 North 8th Street
Morrison 3415 Newlon Road
Orr 3609 Phoenix Avenue
Pike 4111 Park Avenue
Spradling 4949 Spradling Avenue
Sunnymede 4201 North O Street
Sutton 5001 Kelley Highway
Tilles 815 North 16th Street
Trusty 3300 Harris Avenue
Woods 3201 Massard Road

Who are these people that elementary schools were named for? They must had done something good in their life in order to have such an honor that a elementary school would be named for them. I want to know who each of these people were and what they did to earn this honor. I went to the Fort Smith Public School website looking for a list of public schools and a short biography of the school’s namesake. There wasn’t anything explaining why or who the school was named for. I then went to several schools website and Face Book pages but no matter how hard I looked I couldn’t find any reference whatsoever of the school’s namesake. I know of who a couple of elementary school were named for. I went to Carnall Elementary, it was named after John Carnall, know as the founder of Fort Smith Public Schools. There is a statue of John Carnall downtown with a description of all his accomplishments. Tilles Elementary is named after a man who also gave land for a city park. I walk by his grave when I cut threw Fort Smith’s Jewish cemetery on my walks to the pharmacy. The rest of elementary schools must have been named for someone of equal stature, right? You wouldn’t name something as important as a public elementary school after someone who was not worthy, would you?

If you thought that then you would be wrong. Then here the other day someone asked the question: Do you know who Albert Pike was? If your like me you would say yes he was the man who Albert Pike Ave and Albert Pike Elementary School was named after. When you drive down Rogers Ave, named after the founder of the city of Fort Smith John Rogers, you come to the intersection of Rogers Ave. and Albert Pike Ave. Turning north on Albert Pike you pass by St. Scholastica Monastery and Trinity Jr. High School. Still heading north a few miles and you come to Park Ave. turn left and there’s Albert Pike Elementary. So who was Albert Pike? Like me, I’ve lived here all my life, a lot of people assumed that like John Rogers and others that Albert Pike must had something to do with the rich history of Fort Smith. It turns out Albert Pike does have a lot of history in Fort Smith, but it turns out it’s not the kind of history that should result in being honored with a street and elementary school named after.

Albert Pike was a brigadier General in the Confederate Army and was in command of the Indian Territory. Look him up on the internet and see what he stood for! He was the only Confederate military officer with an outdoor statue in Washington, D.C., and in 2019 Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton called for its removal.^[28] On June 19, 2020, protestors tore down the statue and set it ablaze, in connection  with the George Floyd protests because of Pike’s association with the Confederacy.^[29] This drew local attention to Albert Pike and the last week the Fort Smith School Board voted to change the name of Albert Pike Elementary School!! The fight is on to rename Albert Pike Ave.

What should we change the name to? Because of what I said at the start Names Matter. I have an idea of what we should rename both the elementary school and the street. This is also what is called a no brainer . Albert Pike Elementary should be renamed Ray Baker Elementary. I first meet Mr. Baker back in the 70s while I attended Southside High School.where Mr. Baker was an American History teacher. Oh did I mention that Mr. Baker was an AMERICAN HISTORY teacher? It was easy to see Mr. Baker dedication and his great love he had for teaching. There’s no doubt if you ask hundreds or probably thousands of people who was their favorite teacher was, most would say it was Mr. Ray Baker. I never had the privilege to be taught by Mr. Baker I was assigned to another American History teacher but I firmly believe that a school should be named for a school teacher or what they would like to called today an educator.

But what should rename Albert Pike Ave. to? I would suggest Ray Baker Ave. because in 1990 Mr Ray Baker became Mayor Ray Baker. The mayor of Fort Smith does not have any political power. The city government is controlled by seven city directors the position of mayor is to be an ambassador for the city. Some cities that have a similar form of government the position of mayor may be little more that a figurehead. But not for the twenty years that Ray Baker was mayor of Fort Smith! Ray Baker only had one speed and he took the job of mayor with the same zeal and passion he had for teaching. My dad worked at a local nursing home and Mayor Baker would come every year and host the nursing home beauty pageant, the old people loved him and he loved them back. He always went above and beyond his “official” duties. The last time I saw him I went downtown to pay a water bill, and Mr. uh Mayor Baker was walking on the sidewalk just outside the city’s office building. I told him he was looking good and he said thanks, he really didn’t look well at all and just a few weeks later he passed away. He left behind his wife of 46 years two kids and a lot of grand kids.

This is someone who deserves a school and a street named after not a Confederate General and a white supremacist writer! I’m not even going to start comparing these two men.

On my last post Shades of Grey by The Monkees I wrote about the struggle to have the Confederate statue removed here in Fort Smith. No news on our statue but just the other day the Confederate statue was removed from the city square of Bentonville Arkansas.

I cannot overstate how big this is! Bentonville Arkansas is not a typical southern small town city square far from it. Bentonville Arkansas is the world headquarters of Wal- Mart. On the town square of Bentoville sets Walton’s 5 & dime the museum that chronicles the entire history of Wal-Mart. I’ve been there it’s worth the trip. But what makes this so important is all the other people who visit Wal-Mart’s museum every year. The Wal-Mart shareholders meeting is a massive week long event that brings thousands of Wal-Mart associates from all over the world. The shareholders meeting is held at the 20,000 seat Bud Walton Arena on the campus of the University of Arkansas, there are concerts by the biggest stars of music. The meeting is always hosted by a major celebrity. Yes it’s a very big deal. Besides the Wal-Mart shareholders meeting there are several others events like the Bentonville Film Festival and other events that draw people from all over the world to Bentonville.

What do you suppose the people from all over the world think when they come out of the Wal-Mart museum and walk across the street to the little park in the center of the square? They a see a statue on a tall pedestal and you might think the man on top of that would be Sam Walton, the man who turned his little store they just walked out of into the largest retailer in the world. The man who turned the towns of Northwest Arkansas: from south to north: Fayetteville, Springdale, Rogers, Bentonville, and Bella Vista, into a metro area of almost a half of a million people. That would be the logical statue in the middle of Bentonville square, however that’s not what’s there. The statue, also know as The Shame of Bentoville, at it’s base on all four sides in large letters the word CONFEDERACY and a pedestal with a confederate solider on top.

What would the hundreds of Wal-Mart associates from China say? Would they say something like do Americans honor their enemies, or the associates from from former Soviet countries and countries that have overthrew a dictator, they would they say After we fought to gain our freedom we tore down all statues to our former enslavers. And then there are the associates from Germany: The United States could learn a lot from talking to these associates from Germany. Unlike here in the United States, it’s illegal in Germany to display the Nazi Swastikas, including Swastikas flags! It’s even illegal to give someone the Hiel Hitler salute. If these associates from Germany want to see people proudly waving Nazi flags, giving Hitler salutes then they have to come to the United States! The associates from the other parts of the world might be confused but the associates from Germany understand they can go back to their country and tell everyone they know back home in Germany what happens when a small group of people are allowed, by hiding behind the 1st amendment, to display symbols of hate. How groups like the hate group known as The Daughters of the Confederacy, who sowed seeds of hate throughout the southern United States by erricting monuments such as the statues in Bentonville and the statue in Fort Smith glorifying the Confederacy. They did this over one hundred years ago by installing statues and encouraging the naming public buildings such as the elementary school and street in today’s post. The Daughters of the Confederacy and other groups such as the KKK had a plan. Yes it did take one hundred years, but this seeds of hated planted in the first part of the 20th century has grown and fully blossomed into the normalization and almost complete acceptance of white supremacy. From the pulpit to the White House they have almost accomplished their objective. People on the right (that’s what they call their selves today) think that the removing these statues and changing the names of Confederate named buildings and streets and yes of coarse US army bases, are erasing history. Every time there’s a news report they always has someone saying that this is our history, it’s our heritage and removing or renaming is erasing history! Of coarse they don’t care about history and I doubt that they really know much of history, their goal is not remember history, it’s to repeat it! Robert E. Lee didn’t believe in Confederacy statues he said they would serve to “reopen the bitter wounds of war”. If the United States did as Germany and banded all public glorification of the Confederate ideas then things would be a different and much more clam today. As I said in my last post ALL MEMBERS OF THE CONFEDERACY TOOK A KNEE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES AND TOOK UP ARMS AGAINST IT AND THE PLEDGE OF LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL. I still don’t understand these people on Face Book who make vicious posts about black athletes who take a knee, but defend white people who did far worse. This brings me to the theme of my next post where I will explain in detail the huge difference between BLM and the KKK.

Judges 21:25

“In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.”

King James Version (KJV)

It seems to be such an easy question to answer what’s the difference between right and wrong? What does it mean to do right? Is it right for one person to do something, but wrong for another person to do the same thing? What does it mean to do right in your own eyes? Is the difference between right and wrong black & white or is it like this Monkees song from 50 years ago that there are only shades of gray? By the way I heard that there are like 50 shades of gray. There so many shades of gray, but today I’m only going to talk about one shade of gray– Confederate Gray.

Is it right or wrong to tear down Confederate monuments? Is it right or wrong to display the Confederate flag I’ll give my answer to that by combining the two.

Here in Fort Smith Arkansas, where the TV miniseries The Blue and the Gray was filmed, the talk around town is weather the Confederate monument on the grounds of the Sebastian County Courthouse should be removed or stay where it’s at.

First I’m going to talk about the central theme that all Confederate monuments have in common. On every Confederate monument, whoever it is, they ALL TOOK A KNEE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNTIED STATES OF AMERICA. According to the President and his base, as they love to call their selves, it’s the worst thing a person can do is to take a knee and disrespect the flag of the USA. His base will claim they’ll never watch the NFL again and post of all kinds of nasty things about how wrong it is for black players to take a knee to the flag. And yet not only did every Confederate take a knee to flag of the United States, they also pledged allegiance to another flag, the Confederate Flag, a flag that does not stand for LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL, and went into battle against those who defended the flag of the United States of America. Do I understand this right, If a black man kneads to the Flag of the United States of America it’s wrong? But a white man not only kneads to the flag of the United States and take up arms against the flag of the United States is not only right he should be honored for it? How can both of these be right?

This is our local confederate monument in Fort Smith, Arkansas, as you can see it is meet to be noticed. It literally has a confederate soldier high upon a pedestal. What you can’t see in this photo it that less than two blocks down the street is the entrance to The Fort Smith National Cemetery where about 24,000 veterans who did not take a knee to the flag of the United States, and took up another flag and fight against the United States of America are buried. But that does not mean that there aren’t confederate soldiers buried in Fort Smith National Cemetery, you have to remember where we’re at. We are in the South, barely, but there is real Civil War history here. On April 23, 1861, at the onset of the Civil War, Fort Smith was evacuated and Confederate forces occupied the fort. None of the Union soldiers that abandoned the fort received the Red Badge of Courage their badge(metal) was yellow. The Confederates held the Fort until September 1, 1863 when the Union retook Fort Smith. During the time the Confederate’s held the Fort there were nearly 400 Confederates buried at the cemetery including
Brigadier General James M. McIntosh, who died at the Battle of Pea Ridge and Brigadier General Alexander E. Steen, who was killed at the Battle of Prairie Grove. So we only had two Civil War battles in Arkansas and yet in each of battles a Confederate general was killed. No wonder why the South didn’t win the war! After the Union was back in charge there were about 1,000 Union Soldiers buried in the cemetery, with not a one Union general buried there. But that’s not the end of the story. In 1884 apparently they dug up 640 Confederate’s bones and reburied them in the National Cemetery, then they placed this marble monument for all of them.

Why do we have this Confederate monument to the Confederate dead on the grounds of the Sebastian County Courthouse when there is already a monument to them inside the National Cemetery? From I can tell from my research on the internet, there was another Confederate monument in the National Cemetery, but in 1898 a large tornado hit Fort Smith killing 55 people and leveled the Confederate monument in the National Cemetery. You have to remember that the Confederates do not believe in ONE NATION UNDER GOD, so even if they claim they believe in God, a tornado sent by God did not give them a big Hint! As a result the Daughters of the Confederacy, a group that can be best described as the KKK for women, raised money for a new monument to replace the one God destroyed. But there was a problem, this was 1903 and the National Cemetery refused to let the Daughters of the Confederacy place their monument to the Confederate dead unless they also mention the Union dead. Their idea: Here also lies a bunch of ni**er-lov’n Yankees: for some reason was not accepted. How did a monument that was built to go in a cemetery is now in front of the county courthouse? The answer is in today’s scripture. The people who placed this monument at the courthouse did not know or care what is right in the eyes of God. They were doing right in their own eyes. What does the Bible say about these people who do right in their own eyes?

Proverbs 12:15

The way of a fool is right in his own eyes

Hebrews 8:12 For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more.

The other day my sister read in our family devotional from the 8th chapter of Hebrews. I will focus on the 12th verse because the writer of the devotional book made a statement that reminded me of something in our past. It all has to do with a church sign and the message on it. Before I tell you what the sign said I’ll give you our history of dealing with church signs. Back in the late 80s their was an elderly lady at our who apparently had a lot of money. There was a lot of talk about the church needing an electric sign with the church’s name on it on the top and 5 lines where we could put up messages like a lot of other church’s had. The lady, Mrs. McCown, said she would pay for the sign and a 12 foot stepladder that we would need to change the sign. At business meeting, that’s what we used to call it, someone asked who’s going to change the sign? Someone else said we shouldn’t expect the pastor to change it. Then my dad stood up and said that he would see that the sign was changed once a week. The church then voted to have the sign put up in front of the church.

Did my dad kept his promise to change the sign every week? Yes he did, oh did I forget to mention that my sister was the church secretary! As soon as the sign was installed every Monday my sister would arrange the letters and Daddy or me would climb the ladder and put up a sign. My sister would pick out what saying or scripture we would put on the sign. Changing the church was quite a big job, as a few of you may know by changing your church sign. But changing the church sign wasn’t a job, it was a ministry. We didn’t try to be funny, my sister worked hard and knew that what is written on the church is very important. People would talk about what was on the sign every week, there was one woman, who did not go to our church, that would stop and take a picture of the sign! This was way before Face Book I can only imagine how many posts would had been made about the sign if it happened today. We changed our church sign for serval years, those were good times!

My sister went on to be the church secretary for two more Southern Baptist churches, including our current church, Rye Hill Baptist Church. Rye Hill bought a LED church sign a couple years ago but it had to be small because of the sign ordinances, yes that’s a whole other story about the government control over church’s right to free speech, I will address this another day.

This brings me to today’s story. As I mentioned before, it involves what is written on a church sign. At the end of the street I grew up on there’s a Methodist church. The church is on a 5 lane street with thousands of cars going by every day. The message on the church sign read: God forgives but he never forgets. Say WHAT! Those Methodist put that on their church sigh for the whole world to read? Come Sunday morning our pastor during his sermon asked How many of you seen the Methodist church sign? And of coarse everybody raised their hands High! We didn’t know what those Methodist thought of their sign but it made everyone in my Baptist church mad! The way everyone at my church, including our pastor, took it the sign was saying God will always hold your sin against you. Then the pastor, Bro. Ronnie Toon, quoted the scripture everyone was thinking when they read the sign : Psalms 103

11 For as the heaven is high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward them that fear him.

12 As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.

That’s what the Bible says God forgets our sin as far as the east is from the west! But when my sister read the scripture from Hebrews the writer of the devotional wrote that God doesn’t forget our sin he refuses to remember our sin. There’s a big difference! Today’s song, one of my favorites, talks about what we should remember every day, but because we are imperfect man we can forget things that we should remember and sometimes we have to be reminded of what we should remember. But God can do something man can’t do that is God can refuse to remember man can’t. Have you ever had a bad experience, like a bad car accident, every time you close your eyes you see that car coming straight at you? You try your best but you can’t get it out of your mind. That’s the difference between us and God we can’t refuse to remember, but God can!! We may say remember when this or that happened and then we try to remember whoever it was. But if we ask God to remember our sin, God will say I refuse to remember your sin. This concept that God choses not to remember our sin may had been the Methodist pastor point, I really doubt it, but it could had been. But if was the case the wording of the sign still sent the wrong message to all the thousands who read it. Isn’t it great that we serve a God that promises us that he refuses to remember our sins.