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This is one of mine favorite Elton John songs of all time. This video was made in 1970 of a 23 year old Elton John on a Switzerland TV special. I know he was 23 because Elton and me share the same birthday of March 25 and I was 8 in 1970 and Elton is 15 years older than me. Back then here in America a popular expression was Holy Cow, meanwhile in England it was Holy Moses, I guess the british weren’t as impressed by cows as we were. The song is not a prayer to Moses it’s just the expression they used. The song was written by Bernie Taupin but when Elton read the words to the song he thought it needed a big finish so Elton wrote the last verse, he wrote:          Holy Moses let us live in peace
Let us strive to find a way to make all hatred cease
There’s a man over there what’s his color I don’t care
He’s my brother let us live in peace                                                                                       Elton wrote these words over 48 years ago it seems no one is striving to find a way to make all hatred cease and the color of that man over there is all anyone cares about!

My sister-in-law, Carmen, is from Honduras. Back in June of 2009 My brother and Carmen went to Honduras to visit her family and of coarse I’m sure all Americans remember what happened in Honduras on June 28, 2009. There was a coup d’état, that’s a fancy word for a military overthrown  of the government. Some of Carmen’s family worked for the government. I could imagine that it was a very scary time for all of them. After a few days, my brother and Carmen were able to take a bus to Costa Rica to fly back to the US. I found this video that explains what happened during the coup quit well.

A short while after the coup, two of Carmen’s cousins were standing in their friends driveway, when a man they didn’t know came up to them and pulled out a pistol and put it against their friend’s forehead and pulled the trigger her cousins ran. Her cousins decided to leave the country so they went to airport and flew to Miami and then to Houston, this was back in 2009 and there wasn’t a direct flight to Houston back then. So  Carmen’s cousins stayed with her and my brother a couple of months in Houston. My brother flew Daddy down to Houston for a visit while they were there and Daddy said that they were “two fine young men”. They were both in their twenties. After a couple of months they went to New Orleans to visit one of Carmen’s sister and then they flew back to Honduras. Now when that man shot Carmen’s cousins friend there wasn’t anyone there to take a picture of it. So I thought I would show the most famous picture of someone being shot in the head. This is a picture of a South Vietnamese General  (the good guys) shooting a VC prisoner (the bad guys) in the head. The picture appeared in Life magazine and is credited with changing many people’s mind about the Vietnam War. Maybe it can still change people’s mind today. You can watch the video of this but I will not put it on my blog.

Last week the news reported on a woman from Honduras was seeking asylum because in Honduras the banks are controlled by the drug cartels and if someone cannot pay back a loan then a family member is killed, this is one reason why Honduras is the “murder capitol of the world”. She said that they let it know that she was the family member that would be shot. Her request for entering the United States was denied. Do you know what will, not might happen, what will happen to that woman if she goes back to Honduras? Just look at the picture above. Maybe that is what happened to Carmen’s cousin’s friend, he might had been the family member that the cartel picked to kill. When the caravan of these people from Central America were in Mexico headed for our southern border President Trump had one of those rallies to glorify  himself at the rally he proclaimed that none of these people that are walking towards the border will get in our country. And as they say “and the crowd went wild”.  Does Trump cares what happens to this woman I wrote about? The answer to is easy No Trump could care less what happens to a poor brown woman from Honduras. What about the Trump worshippers who fill up out church’s each Sunday, do they care what happens to this poor brown woman from Honduras? From their posts I’ve seen on Face Book the answer world be a big NO. Does Jesus care what happens to this poor brown woman from Honduras? If you ask the Trump worshippers, from their actions they would tell you no, Jesus only cares about white people.

My brother and me went to Little Rock to War Memorial Stadium to see Elton  John and Billy Joel preform together. We went to hear Elton and we didn’t know that much about Billy Joel. Now I knew he always ended his concerts with Piano Man and everyone was suppose to sing the chorus, but what me and my brother didn’t know was when Billy sung My Life when he comes to the words this is my life, leave me alone, the whole crowd, except from me and my brother, yelled out LEAVE ME ALONE! That gives me a great idea! Elton can sing Border Song for his 3 year farewell tour and when Elton gets to the part where he sings, there’s a man over there, what’s his color, then the whole crowd can yell out WE DON’T CARE! I think that would be great. Of coarse the Trump worshippers wouldn’t yell that but for some reason I don’t believe there would be a lot of them in the crowd anyway.

Back in the seventies Up With People would always come to several High Schools and would have a concert downtown. My sister sighed us up to be a host family for next year when they came back. The next year a member of Up With People stayed in our house for the few days that they were in town. She was really excited that Up With People was going perform at the Super Bowl halftime that year, but it was a different cast than the one she was in. Up With People always then and still does have 3 or 4 different casts that go all over the world. When we went to the concert the girl that stayed with sang a solo, but in true Up With People fashion she never mentioned to us that she was going to sing a solo that night. She sung Granddad’s Wooden Chain so today you get not one but two Up With People songs.

In the Up With People song What Color is God’s Skin their answer is that God’s skin is all colors and everyone’s the same in the Good Lord’s sight. Of coarse you could say that’s what Up With People would say after all their just a bunch of good-doer liberals!  Really what is the color of God’s skin. How do you know?  Well I have an idea on that.

Before we answer the question What Color is God’s skin let’s talk about God’s son Jesus and what color his skin was. Now there are a couple of things we know about Jesus for instance we know that he is from what the Bible calls, The House of David so we know he was a Jew. Isaiah said in Isaiah 53:2 2He grew up before him like a tender shoot, and like a root out of dry ground. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him. New International Version. Yes we for sure know these two about how Jesus looked but have you ever seen a painting or a picture or a movie where Jesus was not a 6’2 good looking white man? Besides does anyone really knows what a Jew suppose to look like? Well yes there is there once was a group who we call the Nazis. The Nazis taught the German kids in school reading, writing, arithmetic, and how to spot a Jew. They had many textbooks on facial characteristics of Jews these book would have a picture of a true German and on the opposite page have a picture of a Jew. The Nazis taught their kids, OK remember this is the Nazis talking not me, that Jews have big noses and no chins whatsoever.        

The movie that totally makes my point is the Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ. People say that this movie gets it right and is the most realistic movie ever made about Jesus. Well I haven’t seen this movie, but for the purpose of today’s story we’ll say their right. What I want us to take a look who plays Jesus that’s Jim Caviezel. Now I really like Jim Caviezel and from what I can tell he’s a good Christian man. I saw an interview that he did and he said that he was meant to play Jesus after all his initials were JC. Well OK but remember Charles Manson used to say he was Jesus because his name was Manson you know The Son of Man. Person of Interest was one of our favorite shows and we watched it every week. In Person of Interest Jim Caviezel played John Reese the man in the suit who used to be in the Special Forces and you didn’t want to mess with him. And by the way if you ever want to remake any Clint Eastwood movie Jim Caviezel is your man. If you watched the show you would know that Mr. Reese worked with Harold Finch now Mr. Finch looks were quite different from that of Mr. Reese. Now suppose you could take a picture of both of these men to Isaiah and ask him which of these two looked more like Jesus. My guess would be that he would pick Michael Emerson who played Mr. Finch over the good looking Jim .

What Michael Emerson has a big nose and no chin whatsoever! One thing we know for sure is that Jesus had a chin! Jesus face had to be symmetrical after all he was the son of God and God wouldn’t have a son whose face wasn’t symmetrical. What does a symmetrical face suppose to look like? What you do is when you look at someone from the side, their profile, draw an imaginary line from the tip of their nose to their chin. I would suggest that you not take a ruler and do this for real, remember that might be a good suggestion. If it’s a straight 90 degrees then their face is symmetrical. Now if it makes an angle then their face is not symmetrical. If they have a big nose and no chin and it makes a huge angle then those people are what the technical word is ugly. Hey I don’t make these rules, that’s just what people say. Then here’s another point I would like to make. If Jesus looked like a white European man wouldn’t anyone in the Bible notice that? You may say that in the Bible they didn’t know what a white European man looked liked.  Yes in the Bible they had 6 foot 2 white men that looked exactly like Jim Caviezel except they all wore an uniform of a Roman soldier. Oh did we forget about the Romans? If Jesus looked like most of us think then there would be a lot of differences in the Bible. For instance when Jesus met the woman at the well for a drink, she would say to him How is it that you, a Roman asks me a Smartian for a drink? and Jesus said Oh I’m not a Roman I’m a Jew and the woman said You don’t look like any Jew I’ve ever seen you look like a Roman to me and Jesus said I’m a Jew believe me! I know you might said that we shouldn’t get all worked up on what Jesus looked like after all isn’t Jesus just like Santa Claus and we can have him look anyway we want? If you say that Jesus was a 6-2 good looking white man and there’s nothing wrong that. Well there is something wrong with that because you are calling the Prophet Isaiah a lair. Then you just as they say opened a big can of worms because if Isaiah prophecy about how Jesus looked is wrong  then what other prophecies Isaiah made are not true? Isaiah made a lot of prophecies about the Second Coming of Christ, if you can’t believe all of Isaiah’s prophecies then how can you believe any of them? You may ask why are we talking about what Jesus looked like while the today’s song asks the question What Color is God’s Skin? Oh I almost forgot what about Adam and Eve? If you see any paintings of Adam and Eve you may notice they are the whitest people you ever saw. And remember they were naked all the time and never even got a tan! You may say this easy to explain the Bible says they were created “in the image of God” . Wait that explains it Jesus was a 6’2 white man because he looked just like his Father! Now all the Trump worshippers can said ” Jeff you finally gotten something right! I’m glad you got it right and aren’t like those liberal Up With People who thinks God is something other than white!

 

Maybe sometimes before you say something you might should calm down and wait and think about it before you say something or write something. I’m not going to do that. I’ve just watched the CBS news and they reported that both Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee Sanders are trying to justify taking children from their parents by using the Bible as a claim to their righteousness. After the news was over I opened my copy of the Baptist Hymnal and came to page168 Free from the law, O happy Condition and I thought that would be good to make my point. If you have been going to a Baptist church for decades like I have you’ll know that this hymn is not sung very often, but I was able to go to you  tube and I found a great version of this hymn.
In April Attorney General Jeff Sessions started a so-called zero tolerance program on the border with Mexico. Jeff Sessions proudly claimed last week that women that bring their children with them, as a deterrent their children will be taken from them.
Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee basically said that the Bible says that we are not free from the law but rather they believe the first line from this hymn which states: Cursed by the law and bruised by the fall. It appears to me that Jeff Sessions and Sarah Huckabee do not believe or do not know that Jesus freed us from the law. Where did Jesus free us from the law? In the 8th chapter of John starting in verse one the Bible says 1. Jesus went unto the Mount of Olives. 2. And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them. 3. And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst, 4. They said unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act. 5. Now Moses, in the law, commanded us that such should be stoned; but what sayest thou? 6. This they said, testing him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not. —–The Pharisees believed the law wasn’t everything it was the only thing. If you wanted to go to Heaven then you must follow the law to the letter. The Pharisees loved the law so much they made up hundreds of new laws to follow. Ask any Trump supporter about immigration and they will tell you that we have laws, everybody must obey our laws, our immigration laws aren’t everything their the only thing. But if you ask a Trump supporter what does our immigration laws say, they couldn’t tell a single word of the law. Maybe they will tell you that our immigration laws say that only white people are allowed to come into our country. Well if we keep Trump and the Republicans in office that’s what our immigration laws will say! The Pharisees said that having this woman stoned, which if your not aware of stoning the woman would have to die, is this really in the Bible? Well yes it is, in the 20th chapter of Leviticus verse 10 says; And the man who committeth adultery with another man’s wife, even he who committeth adultery with his neighbor’s wife, the adulterer and the adulteress shall surely be put to death.—Wait did you notice something here the law says that both the man and woman shall be put to death, now if the Pharisees found this woman “in the act” I’m pretty sure that there was a man there. By just bringing the woman the Pharisees were not following the law. Likewise, Sessions taking children from their parents is not following any immigration law. You may say Jeff you sure are smart for looking all this up. What really happened is I’m repenting a sermon I heard a very long time ago. The preacher, and I really don’t remember the preacher, said that the problem the Pharisees had was that they looked at the wrong verse. If they had only read 3 more verses down; Leviticus 20 verse 13. If a man also lie with another man as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.—–That’s right if they only went 3 verses down they would have came to the verse that says to kill homosexuals. Just imagine if they did that suppose they brought a couple of gay men before Jesus well for sure Jesus would had stooped down and picked up a rock and threw it hitting one gay man’s head and bouncing off his head striking the other gay man in his head killing two gay men with one stone. Wouldn’t that been great! How many pastors do you think would say that Jesus would do exactly that? We don’t know how many believe that,  however we do know that a vast number of pastors believe the Bible has given them the right to throw rocks at homosexuals. Back to the book of John; 7. So when they continued asking him, he lifted himself up, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.  8. And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground. 9. And they who heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one be one. beginning at the eldest, even unto the last; and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.—-What is said in verse 9 is what I and many hope will happen that is, being convicted by their own conscience. I can’t change anyone’s mind they have to be convicted by their own conscience. Yesterday in her press briefing Sarah Huckabee was asked ” As a mother do you have any empathy for these children?”  And Sarah Huckabee Sanders refused to answer that question. Now I don’t this it’s just a guess but I would guess that Sarah Huckabee Sanders is hoping someday that Jesus will say to her Well done thou good and faithful servant but from what I’ve seen yesterday Jesus may say to her Depart from me ye worker of iniquities. I pray and I hope you will join me that we pray for Sarah Huckabee Sanders to be a good and faithful servant to our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and resign her position in protest. I know that is very unlikely but maybe Sarah will be convicted by her own conscience and do what is right. Right now she is making it very clear that she could care less what happens to these people. Moving on to verse 10. When Jesus had lifted himself up, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? Hath no man, condemned thee? 11. She said, No man , Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee; go, and sin no more. —–Why did Jesus ask the woman has any man condemned her?  Because in John 3 verse 17 the verse after John 3:16  Our Lord and Savior says 17. For God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved.—–Jesus doesn’t condemn, but man on the other hand believes they not only has the right to condemn, it’s their duty to condemn. The people, and by the way they are all people Not animals have nothing that is nothing but each other and Jeff Sessions has no problem taking away the one thing they do have and that’s their family. By the way doesn’t the Republican Party  prides itself as the party for family and family values well I guess that only applies to white families. To justify himself Jeff Sessions quoted Romans 13:1 this verse was used for years to defend slavery. Many people believe that what makes this even worse is that Jeff Sessions is using the Bible to say this is alright. One of these people is Steven Colbert who took time out of the Late Show to express his opinion.
The New York City audience cheered Romans 13:10. how many Christians could quote Romans 13:10? I have a lot more I could say here but my blog is Jeff’s Song of the Day. So that means tomorrow I continue on the same subject racism and today is all about racism do you think we would be taking their children away from them is they were coming from Norway? My next song is Up With People’s What Color is God’s Skin? So please bookmark my page and remember your shares and comments are always welcome.

 

Yesterday Jimmy Dime came to visit me and Daddy. I’ve known Jimmy since the 70s when Daddy taught Jimmy and his wife in his young married Sunday School class at Haven Heights Baptist Church. I didn’t realize it but Jimmy is a Vietnam Vet. He talked about flying in a Huey helicopter over the base and all around the base there were bombs and heavy gunfire everywhere. Then Jimmy said something really quite amazing he said “I suppose our helicopter was being shot at but you know when you’re nineteen years old you don’t really think something going to happen to you”.  When he said he was just nineteen I was going to ask him if he heard the song nineteen but the conversation went on and I didn’t ask him if he knew the song.

As the song says in World War II the average age of the combat soldier was twenty-six in Vietnam it was nineteen. When my Granddaddy was  a German POW he was a thirty year old man imagine being a nineteen year old kid and being a POW in Vietnam!  Granddaddy came home a war hero, of coarse Donald Trump would say that he wasn’t a war hero because after Granddaddy was hit by a German grenade and had a back full of shrapnel, Granddaddy was riding on the outside of a tank when the Germans captured him. Getting captured meant that in Donald Trumps view Granddaddy was not a war hero, but to be fair to Donald Trump I’m sure that being hit by a grenade is not nearly as painful as having a bone spur on your heel. Now what I’m asking you to do next is not to glorify anyone rather it’s a chance to recognize people we may know but we might not be aware of their service in Vietnam. Please in the comments tell everyone how old you were when you served in Vietnam, this is not bragging on yourself it’s letting people who don’t know your history to be aware of your service. And no matter what Donald Trumps says you are ALL WAR HEROS!

It’s summertime and this is my first song of the day that’s is summer related. To me it reminds me of baseball which will be the subject of a lot of songs this summer.  You may say this song has nothing whosoever with baseball. The same song can have different meanings to different people, and whenever I heard the lyrics; we’ll put the speakers in the window it always reminds me of playing baseball in the Nicholson’s back yard.

Back when I was growing up in the seventies during summer vacation we would play all day outside. Our neighborhood was filled with kids, in might still be filled with kids don’t really know their always inside. We loved to play baseball which brings me to today’s song. We wanted to do everything right so before we started the game Tim would go into his bedroom and put his record player in the window the record player had a small speaker inside so there wasn’t any speakers in the window. When Tim got it all ready he would yell out; And now for the playing of our National Anthem just like they did in the big leagues. He would put down the needle on the 45 record and it would begin to play the Star Spangled Banner. The rest of us would stand outside facing the window with our baseball caps over our hearts. Maybe I’m not the one who should say this but I think there might be a strong chance that as we stood there with out caps over our hearts trying our best to hear the record that we were just amazingly cute. But we didn’t think so at the time we were serious and there wasn’t any grownups around so we were happy to do whatever we wanted to do. I suppose we outgrew this and I had forgotten all about it until in 1991 when Rod Stewart sang about putting speakers in the window, that brought back my good memory from my childhood. A song can do that sometime. If you played this video you may had noticed it’s mostly a cartoon, I really hope you noticed that! I’m going to do some songs from cartoons soon. I may run out of stories but I’ll never run out of songs.

I was planning on another song for today, but my sister called me and said I should do the Bee Gees song we were talking about yesterday. I told her that I was going to have the Bee Gees song about the coal mine cave in, and I would write about Papa (our granddad) working in the coal mines. But today’s church service changed my plans. first lets talk about the Bee Gees song because as it turns out that’s a interesting story. Back in 1967 the Bee Gees were recording an album in England at Polydor Records , in the middle of their recording session the power went out. For some reason Barry and Robin went and sat in a dark staircase. It was dark and quite except for the sound of a distant elevator. One of brothers asked the other “Isn’t this like being trapped in a coal mine?” Well those two were after all the brothers Gibb so they sat in that dark staircase and wrote a song which turned out to be their first hit song in the United States.

In the middle they sing something I always thought was unusual; Don’t go talking too loud, you’ll cause a landslide, Mr. Jones. How can a cave in cause a landslide? Well it turns out that just a few months before they wrote this song back in Whales there was a cave in at a mine that was on top of a hill the cave in cause a massive landslide burying the town below killing 144 people of the dead 128 of them were children who were in school at the time. It’s known as the Aberfan mining disaster.

In our church service today we had a speaker from the Gideons, their the people that place Bibles in Hotels, jails, schools anywhere they can leave the Word of God. The Gideon speaker told the story of this little girl who receive a Gideon New Testament in her fifth grade class at school. The Gideons hand out New Testaments in any school they can. The girl read her little testament all the time and through we reading God’s Word she gave her heart to Jesus. She tried and tried to talk to her daddy about Jesus but he would tell her that he didn’t want to hear anything about Jesus. One day as her daddy was going to work in coal mine she hugged him and as she hugged him she slipped her New Testament in his pocket. Later on that day there was a cave in at the coal mine. When they finally recovered her daddy’s dead body in his hand was that New Testament, when they opened the testament inside her daddy wrote “I now know your Jesus  I will see you in Heaven” he sighed it Daddy and below his name was the signatures of the other 12 men with him. This story is not much different from the story in this Bee Gees song, except for the love of one little girl.

 

I know you may said that the song In The Year 2525 was maybe, well more than just maybe this was one of the worst songs of all time. I think you may be right but for some reason it was the number one song for six weeks beginning July 12 1969. Wait doesn’t July of 69 sound familiar? That’s right on July 20 1969 man walked on the moon and the number one song on the radio was this song about the future. Knowing what was going on at the time it’s no wonder that this song was popular.

Since it was a number one hit from 1969 the song was played throughout the seventies on the radio. If you were in church in the seventies this song was mostly made fun of because it was such a ridiculous idea that there was going to be a year 2525, that was crazy Jesus was coming again and there was no way there would even be the 1980s forget about the year 2525. I remember we had a revival at our Southern Baptist Church. The evangelist was convinced he was an expert on the Second Coming and all the sermons were on the Last Days. In the last sermon  of the revival the evangelist who knew everything about the book of Revelation, said that something was going to happen, I don’t remember what, but whatever it was it would happen it three weeks! That’s right in just three short weeks Jesus was making his return! A lot of people were very happy to hear that Jesus’s Second Coming was just three weeks away but I wasn’t one bit happy after all I was just 12 years old and all I had was three more weeks to live. I was afraid and had a right to be afraid because I believed what that evangelist said! There wasn’t anything that evangelist said that couldn’t be right after all there was no way that Henry Kissinger wasn’t the Anti-Christ. Oh do you remember when there was no doubt that Henry Kissinger was the Anti-Christ? Of coarse on May 27 Henry will turn 95 now if Henry has his 130th birthday I may start thinking that those preachers were on to something. I sure was glad when those three weeks were up, come to think of it a lot of weeks has passed since that 1974 revival. It seem like about the only thing I heard during the seventies was Jesus is coming get saved you don’t want to be left behind! Even Billy Graham got on the Second Coming bandwagon or come to think of it Billy Graham made had started the whole thing. In 1972 Billy Graham distributed the movie A Thief In The Night. Unlike todays’ Christian movies this movie was not shown in theaters rather the movie would be played at local churchs or in a small town a church may rent a theater. If you look up this movie on the internet, you will find a lot of people will praise this movie but think of it this way the movie is suppose to be about the rapture which was going to happen really soon. So far their only off by 46 years and counting. If you will go to your local time traveling shop (it’s the 21st century there should be one them in every mall) and return back to the seventies, when you tell them your from 2018 and the Second Coming hasn’t happened yet they will not believe you. They will ask you about your flying car. All this brings me to talk about what’s the newest thing about predicting Jesus Second Coming. It turns out that Jesus returning depends upon Donald Trump. That’s right from the sons of the preachers that brought  us Anti-Christ Henry Kissinger there’s a new theory on the Second Coming. Of coarse you have to keep in mind that in the seventies we only had 22 chapters in the book of Revelation and today the Trump supporters have the book of Revelation the Lost Chapters. In the 31st chapter verse 8 of the book of Revelation the Lost Chapters it states–And I John saw a great white leader from the West, with many wives and concubines, will move the capital to Jerusalem believest thou me. Did anyone notice that the Lost Chapters are written in blue that’s a little strange. Well at  least its not written in green you know the Tromp supporters don’t want anything to do with that color. Oh the Trump supporters just love the Lost Chapters of Revelation in the 25th chapter Jesus joins the NRA! The rest of the 31st chapter goes on to tell how the great white leader from the West purifies his great white race in his country. You might say Jeff your making all this up and that’s just wrong. Well at least I’m admitting that I made stuff up and not standing behind a pulpit making claims about Donald Trump and the Second Coming. The purpose of interjecting Donald Trump into the Second Coming is simple and is in no way shocking in fact it’s quite predicable. The Trump supporters, I call them the Trump Worshippers, have to come up with something to justify their support of this adulterer, liar, white supremacist I could go on but I think you might get the picture. So what better way to justify their support than to say that Donald Trump is an important part of the Second Coming, which justifies their support. Imagine that placing someone in the Second Coming just to justify a political stands. Saying Henry Kissinger was the Anti-Christ I’m sure had nothing to do with politics. I hope that the preachers standing behind the pulpits remember that there may be a 12 year old boy listening and I can assure that preacher that boy will listen carefully to what you say and if you lie to him, he will remember it even 45 years later. When is Jesus Second Coming going to happen? Jesus said that he didn’t know he said that only the Father in Heaven knows. So I think that there is just as good of a chance that those two hippies from the sixties may come as close as anyone. Remember back in 2012 when some people thought the end of the world was  coming because it was the end of the Maya calendar? Well maybe in 2524 they will start talking about this song again, just an idea. I hope you have enjoyed reading this and I hope you will read my next song of the day which will be Elton John’s Border Song. If you don’t remember this song it’s the song that last verse says;  Holy Moses let us live in peace
Let us strive to find a way to make all hatred cease
There’s a man over there what’s his color I don’t care
He’s my brother let us live in peace. OK I just had to write that in green. Yeah  and you may guess that I have a lot to say about it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There is always an attempt in the Sunday morning church service to have a coronation between the music service with that of the sermon. For instance, if is the sermon is on thanks then the music should be about thanks. Or if the sermon is about the Cross then the music should be about the cross. This brings us to the song for today which is what is now an old song and one of Cher’s first hits. But if you listen to the song, it’s not a song of praise or thanks or a song anything about love. No it’s a song about hate, in particular it’s a song about racial hatred. Was there racial hatred in the Bible and did Jesus have anything to say about it? Yes there a passage of scripture that was a lot about racial hatred. It’s the story of the Good Samaritan. If you have only heard of the Good Samaritan and your not aware what’s the story is all about I hope I can explain the importance of the racial hatred that is displayed in this most famous of all of Jesus’s parables. I hope when you read this rest of post you will agree that this song of Cher’s is instrumental in understanding the full impact of the Good Samaritan.

In the tenth chapter of Luke Jesus is having a conversation will a Jewish lawyer, imagine that a Jewish lawyer! Starting at the twenty fifth verse the Bible says: 25. And, behold, a certain lawyer stood up, and tested him, saying, Master, what shall I do to inherit eternal life? 26. He said unto him, ?What is written in the law? How readest thou ? 27. he, answering, said, 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 they neighbor as thyself. 28. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered right; this do,and thou shalt live. 29. But he, desiring to justify himself, said unto Jesus, And who is my neighbor? 30. And Jesus, answering said A certain man went down from Jerusalem to Jericho, and fell among thieves, who stripped him of his raiment,  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 denarii, 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, as 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 likewise                                                                                                                                          

This is the best picture that I found on the internet. I decided on this one because it shows the Priest and the Levite passing by. Maybe the painter didn’t like the sight of blood because the man beaten half to death doesn’t have any blood on him. Maybe this painting was suppose to go in a children’ Bible or Sunday School lesson.  I did find some really bloody paintings with the man naked but they didn’t show the Priest or the Levite. So I thought this would have to do.

 

Why do have a song like Half Breed to go with the story of the Good Samaritan? Well you need to know the history between the Jews and the Samaritans. The Samaritans were Jews who intermarried with Gentiles. In the Old Testament several times God did command the Jews (the children of Israel) not to marry Gentiles. By the time of Jesus the Jews had developed a extreme hatred for the Samaritans, they believed they were not true Jews they believed and wait for it —-they believed the Samaritans to be half breeds! What is even worse than the Jews hatred of the Samaritans is that the Jews used the Old Testament (what was the Bible at the time) to justify their hatred of the Samaritans, I couldn’t imagine anyone doing that today! If you will notice when Jesus asked the Jewish lawyer  Which, now, of these three, thinkest thou, as neighbor unto him that fell among thieves ? The Jewish lawyer did not say it was the Samaritan, because a good Jew would not even say the word Samaritan, instead he said the one who showed mercy on him. We can only imagine how bad the Jewish Lawyer hated to say that the Samaritan not the good Jewish religious leaders who did not stop to help, was the neighbor to the man beside the road. Then Jesus said what was the most important part of the story Jesus said, Go, and do thou likewise. This is know as a command of Jesus it’s not know as a request of Jesus, or a suggestion of Jesus, or  a hope of Jesus, it’s know as a command of Jesus.  Do you Go, and do thou likewise? You may say that what happened in the story of the Good Samaritan has never happened to you. Are you sure about that? Have you ever been driving down the highway and you come upon an empty car along the road and a mile or two later do you see a man walking with a gas can in his hand. Do you stop or do you think it’s 10 miles to a gas station then I’ll have to take him back 10 miles and I just don’t have the time to do that, besides that man looked like he could use the exercise and it was his own fault that he ran out of gas this will teach him a lesson that he should plan better and of coarse if  someone else wants to help him they can but I’m in a hurry! Do you think that the priest and Levite used these same excuses? They were way to busy and they had places to go that was far more important than stopping and helping this man that they didn’t know and besides it was that man’s own fault that he fell among thieves he should had been more careful. I suppose you could say that you know nothing about cars and you are really have too much fear to stop for someone that you don’t know. Are there any other way that you can follow Jesus command to Go, and do thou likewise. What about supporting others that do what Jesus commanded. For instance what about Obamacare? It seems to me that the biggest supporters of Obamacare would be the followers of Jesus who suppose to be “Christ-like”.  But rather than following this command they instead listen to the current day Priests and Levites who stand behind their pulpits and tell their congregation that they should pass those poor people by they don’t deserve our help. You may say that it was just a consequence that Jesus used religious leaders passing by the injured man? Do I believe that when Jesus told the story of Good Samaritan that Jesus knew that nearly two thousand years later that there would be a black President of the United States and his health care plan would be opposed by Pastors? Yes I do believe that! Why do you think that Jesus used a Samaritan as the one who helped, if the Jewish lawyer was telling the story he would have two Samaritans, the people the Jews hated the most, to pass him by and in the Jewish Lawyer story it would be a good Jewish priest that stopped and helped the injured man. I believe like many preachers I’ve heard over the years that the parables of Jesus were not made-up stories like Esop Fables, but rather true stories, believing that Jesus had to make up stories is taking away his deity. Imagine for a moment that the Good Samaritan after he helped the beaten man that the Samaritan took it as his calling to help others. He would call it Samaritan-care. Who do you think would be most opposed to Samaritan-care. If you said the Jewish Priest and Levite you must be very wise! Likewise the white Pastors, especially in the South, believed anything a black president was for God must wanted them to be against. If race doesn’t have anything to do with their opposition to Obamacare what is it? Is it money, do they believe helping someone should not include spending any of their money? If you go back to the story of the Good Samaritan ,not only does the Samaritan bandaged his wounds he put him up his own donkey and the Samaritan walked him to an inn and then the Samaritan used his own money to pay the innkeeper to look after him. And not only did he do that he told the innkeeper he would pay more of his own money if he needed more when he returned. So if the Pastors are saying that their against Obamacare because it might cost them a very small amount of their money they are preaching against one of Jesus commands to Go and do thou likewise.   If it’s not race or money why are so many white Pastors against Obamacare. I’m very confused do these pastor have another place in the Bible where Jesus says to pass the needy by the wayside and don’t dare use any of your money on them. I would really like to know where in the Bible they base their beliefs on. I think we need to have a national Good Samaritan Sunday where the Trump worshipping pastors can explain away the story of the Good Samaritan and that Jesus just didn’t know what he was talking about when he said, Go, and do thou likewise,  and then maybe they can bring up all those other Bible stories where Jesus tell us not to help the needy, besides there all just faking it anyway. Remember back when Donald Trump was just starting as president and he famously said, “Who knew health care could be so complicated?” Maybe now you can say “Who knew the story of the Good Samaritan  could be so complicated?” Please share this story with all your Trump supporters friends it will make them more informed and very mad.

 

 

 

Is there something wrong with changing a word or two in a song if you don’t like them or you think  that you have better words for the song.  If you thumb through the Baptist Hymnal you will find a lot of hymns have the original word changed. For instance if you look at one of most popular songs of all time How Great Thou Art.(Elvis even recorded this song) there are not one but two words changed in the first verse, first consider all the worlds thy hands have made.The original words were, consider all the works thy hands have made. I don’t know why they would change the word works to worlds my guess would be that whoever decided to change the words was watching Star Trek at the time and they didn’t what to leave out the Klingons. I don’t know if they were including that world that Superman was from since it blew up. This always confused me since I was little what other “worlds” were they talking about? Then if that wasn’t confusing enough they, and by the way the they whom I’m talking about here is the same “they” that Mel Gipson talks about in that movie, change the words I hear the mighty thunder, “they” were not happy with that so “they” changed the words to  rolling thunder now I don’t know what the difference is between mighty thunder and rolling thunder is but to hear rolling thunder must had made “them” happy. But the most famous word change in any hymnal is Isaac Watts’ At the Cross. Below is an example of the way it is sang today.

Isaac Watts original words were ; Would he devote that sacred head For a worm such as I?  They changed the words a worm to sinners such as I? Why would Isaac Watts use a worm such as I in the first place? What was he thinking? Well he wasn’t thinking instead he was reading his Bible. In the 22nd Psalms King David wrote in verse 6. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. What would Isaac Watts would say to the people who changed his words? Would he say something like “Dude, I got a worm straight out of the Bible and how dare you change my words. Well first off Isaac Watts was born in 1674, that’s right sixteen 74 and I don’t think they called each other dude back then. And second we do know what Isaac Watts thought about people changing words to hymns. I going to copy & paste this from the internet: Even hymn writer Isaac Watts expressed in the Preface to his Hymns and Spiritual Songs,
What is provided for public worship should give to sincere consciences as little vexation and disturbance as possible. . . . Where any unpleasing word is found, he that leads the worship may substitute a better; for (Blessed be God) we are not confined to the words of any Man in our public solemnities. This is Isaac Watts using 1700s talk to say If anyone has a better word to use than go for it change it to a better word because he believed hymns were written to praise God and not to glorify any man that wrote it. This brings us to today’s song I can Only Imagine.

I’m a Southern Baptist and you might figure out that I have a problem with the phase Will I dance for you Jesus? Is Jesus like a Arab  sheik who goes into his harem tent and the women dance in front of him?  I know what you are saying only a Southern Baptist would think of something like that. But I was raised to believe that dancing is a sin, and when it comes to a woman belly dancing in front of a sheik a lot of people would agree with me. Yes I’ve seen Footloose and Kevin Bacon makes some good points, but I still have a problem with dancing. For some reason Southern Baptist believe its alright to square dance. But still I cannot imagine myself do-si-doing with Jesus. Now if Jesus wants to do-si-do with me I guess I would but I’m not really worried about that right now. Maybe you could do something other than dancing to impress Jesus like you could juggle three chainsaws or something. I’ll bet that Isaac Watts would agree with me that it’s ok to change the words. That’s brings up the question what do replace the word dance with? The words bow and sing is out because he does both of them in the next lines. My suggestion would be instead of Will I dance for you Jesus my words would be Will I lift my hands for you Jesus, this would still go together with the next line Or in awe of you be still. The lifting of hands is a form of praise so I think that would make the song Southern Baptist friendly and add to the praise factor of the song. It’s such a great song and just like Isaac Watts said over 300 years ago the purpose of song is to praise God and not the writer. If you have a better word or phase please make a comment.

Today I’m giving my tribute to Glen Campbell by talking about my favorite Glen Campbell song Country Boy. I would guess that there are not a lot of people that would say that Country Boy was there favorite Glen Campbell song. Since this song came out in 1975 I would say that there’s a lot of people that haven’t heard of this song.

There are two lines that I really like, the first is the lines that say You get a house in the hills, you’re paying everyone’s bills. I think that would be great to pay everyone’s bills, gee I think it would be great if I could pay my own bills. If you say that everyone can pay there own bills then I would guess that this is not your favorite Glen Campbell song. The other great lines in this song is: Country boy, you got your feet in L.A.
But your mind’s on Tennessee
Lookin’ back, I can remember the time
When I sang my songs for free                                                                                                     I would had liked it better if he said he had his mind on Arkansas then Tennessee, but Arkansas doesn’t rhyme with free. Now the way I believe it suppose to work is when your just getting started you may sing for your friends and family or enter into talent shows and when you start becoming popular then you can have concerts in which people pay to watch you sing. The more popular you become the larger what they call venues that you play in. And then one day your like the Beatles and all of concerts are in stadiums with anywhere from 40,000 to maybe over 100,000 fans paying a lot per ticket to see you sing. Anyway that’s how I thought it was supposed to work but here lately I’ve found out that’s not true. One Indian casino had BJ Thomas to come give a concert and the price of a ticket?  FREE You do know who BJ Thomas is remember he’s the guy  that sung, Hey want you play another somebodies singing career is over song.  The way it used to be at the end of your career you at least could go to Branson and still people paid at a little to see you.  Next up to give a free concert at the Indian casino is Ronnie Milsap he’s the guy who sings it was almost like a song but it’s much too sad to write, I’ll let you do your own comment on this one. Do these guys sing with a can in front them where you can put a dollar in it? Just wondering.  If they do everyone be sure to go see Ronnie and make sure to put a dollar in his can.