I felt as if I were a willful teenager again, with my father shaking me by the shoulders to bring me to my senses. Only now, he could not grab me. He could not even speak to me, although he desperately mumbled strange sounds. All that was left of the man were his eyes, pounding against my heart with their steely gray intensity.
As everyone who knew him even casually could attest, my father had eyes that laughed before the rest of his face could catch up. Some of us, especially his children, knew that, on those rare occasions when his temper flared, it happened first in his eyes. With a mere glance, he could nip horseplay in the bud at the dinner table. Now those eyes were almost always reporting an emotion we had never seen in our dad. The one for whom the glass was always half full, who always landed on his feet in every circumstance, was more terrified of waking than of dying.
Have you ever seen someone wail without actually being able to articulate a cry, his heaving chest and terrified visage giving the secret away? Larger than life since my childhood, this great man was now as helpless as an infant and more pitiful than any life I had ever known, his gaunt flesh wasting and yellowing with every passing week.
At the age of seventy-eight, James Horton had been diagnosed with a benign brain tumor that required immediate surgery. At first, a shunt released some of the fluid on his brain, but a further surgery was necessary to excise the rapidly growing lump before it interrupted vital brain functions. This surgery failed, and before long we realized that my father would not recover. He lived for nearly a year, however, almost paralyzed from head to toe. Since even his face had lost muscular control, his
eyelids drooped, exposing their red interior. It was as if his whole face had melted like wax, and we could hardly recognize him except for the eyes, which were always filled with emotion, usually unspeakable pain. But occasionally, and more frequently toward the end, they evidenced hope and a confidence that came from another place.
We prayed for weeks that the Lord would take him home. We would place our son, just a few months old, in his namesakes listless arms and watch my dads heaving chest signal his delight. Even then, it was always a bittersweet visit for my father, and for us.
The Gibraltar of the family, my mother, fussed over his bedside, nervously fluffing his pillows at fifteen-minute intervals, ensuring that the intravenous fluids were properly calculated, and organizing edifying visits from friends and children from church. In between, she read quietly in her chair while holding Dads hand. For years, I had witnessed the remarkable care that these two people provided in our home, first to their own parents and then to fifteen elderly folks in our residential
care home as I was growing up. But now she was caring for her best friend, and there was almost nothing she could do for him but fluff his pillows and try to hide her own daily grief. Although my mom always looked ten years younger than her actual age, these months acted like time-lapse photography, working my fathers pain into her own face and wearing her body down.
A Second Blow
Then, just two months before my fathers death, Mom suffered a massive stroke while I was driving her from her sisters funeral, where she had delivered a moving eulogy. This strong and compassionate woman who had given her life to disadvantaged city kids and abandoned seniors was now herself dependent on others. I recalled a couple of times in the past when my parents had mentioned their worst fears about old age. For my dad, a debilitating disease would be the most horrible way of death, he said; for my mom, it was being a burden and from their care-giving experience they knew both well. In my darker moments, I wondered why God would allow them to experience their worst scenarios in the last act of their play, especially when they had done so much for so many others. They had moved close to Lisa and me in our first year of marriage to be of help when they learned of our first pregnancy. Always running to the side of those who needed a strong arm, my mom was now partially paralyzed and disabled, while my dad was succumbing to an agonizing death. I told God that it all seemed too calculated, that he seemed all too real, too involved, too present in our lives, especially my parents, as if he had cruelly dished out the very end that each most feared. Shouldn't people whose lives were all about giving ........
The book is Too Good To Be True: finding hope in a world of hype - Michael S. Horton.
Book Description
The good news that Gods Word proclaims is a recipe to use in times of disaster. That is to say, it comes as a relevant announcement only to those who are in trouble for one reason or another. This book calls for more realism in facing lifes challenges and a richer view of God and his purposes to match them.
From the Back Cover
In a world of hype, we may buy into the idea that through Jesus, well be healthier and wealthier as well as wiser. So what happens when we become ill, or depressed, or bankrupt? Did we do something wrong? Has God abandoned us?
As a child, Michael Horton would run up the down escalator, trying to beat it to the top. As Christians, he notes, we sometimes seek God the same way, believing we can climb to him under our own steam. But we can't, which is why we are blessed that Jesus descends to us, especially during times of trial.
In Too Good to Be True, Horton exposes the pop culture that sells Jesus like a product for health and happiness and reminds us that our lives often lead us on difficult routes we must follow by faith. This book offers a series of powerful readings that demonstrate how, through every type of earthly difficulty, our Father keeps his promises from Scripture and works all things together for our good.
About the Author
Michael Horton (PhD, Wycliffe Hall, Oxford, and the University of Coventry) teaches theology and apologetics at Westminster Seminary in Escondido, California, where he lives with his wife, Lisa, and four children. A prolific author, he is also the host of The White Horse Inn, a nationally syndicated radio program, and editor of Modern Reformation Magazine.
No, I do not intend to replace Tim Challies as a premier book reviewer. I do, however, intend to concoct a review of a marginally helpful book. The book title is, And now let's move into a time of nonsense Why Worship Songs are Failing The Church.Every religion except one puts upon you doing something in order to recommend yourself to God. It is only the religion in Christ (which runs counter to all the rest by affirming that we are saved and called with a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to the Father’s own purpose and grace) which was not sold to us on certain conditions to be fulfilled by ourselves, but was given to us in Christ before the world began. It was long ago remarked by a good man that “It is the business of all false religion to patch up a righteousness in which the sinner is to stand before God. But it is the business of the glorious Gospel to bring near to us, by the hand of the Holy Spirit, a righteousness ready wrought, a robe of perfection ready made, wherein God’s people, to all the purposes of justification and happiness, stand perfect and without fault before the throne.
Try me, O God and search the ground of my heart; prove me and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any wickedness in me, any root of bitterness undiscovered; and lead me in the way everlasting. Show me the true state of my soul. Bring me out from every false refuge. Strip off every deceitful covering, every covering that is not of Thy Spirit. Forbid that the anchor of my hope should be cast, or the house of my dependence built, on any but Christ, the Rock of Ages. Forbid that I should rest short of my dependence built, on any but Christ, the Rock of Ages. Forbid that I should rest short of that repentance which is Thy gift, and is connected with life eternal: and forbid, O forbid, that I should that I should sit down without aspiring to that conformity unto Thee in righteousness and true holiness, abstracted from which repentance is false and faith is dead.
There is a great historical document
here that addresses matters of belief and faith, that asks, and answers the question, “what is the chief end (purpose) of man”? It answers that question: “The chief end of man is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him forever”. This means, of course, that we were not created so that we can 'get the most out of life that we can get', or to please ourselves as much as we possibly can* – though that seems to be what most of us think, and do. That certainly is not to say that we are not to enjoy life, or to set and accomplish goals.
It does say that, in light of the clear, and on-going mercies of God, and in acknowledgment of Him as the source and sustainer of our lives, we ought to consider the obligation that we have, of honoring Him. We owe Him everything, in view of His continuing common grace (gift) of life, and in view of His promise of eternal life –to those who put their trust in Him.
It is in this context that I issue this invitation: I invite, and urge you, to consider the prospect for spiritual benefits that you might receive from coming together with people who have this shared desire. That is, we join our hearts, minds, and voices in worship and praise of God, and in attending to the preaching of His word, each Sunday morning. We do the same thing again on Wednesday evening, though a bit more informally.. You are hereby invited to come – simply to see what is being done, and to consider whether or not this might be something to which you are personally called.
Exegesus of Isah 27:1
A reeder asked me bout Isah 27:1. This is the interptaton:
Levithan is the Dragon upon witch the Grate Hore of Rome rides amen. Thats the Eropeen Union amen whitch will be the center of the one world govment amen. Now the Beest only has teen horns so the Eropeen Union gong to have to kick out some contries out of there group amen. Probably the Scandnavan contries and Germny amen becuse there not part of the orignal Rome empire amen.
The Sword is the KJB whitch is the only translaton that is not from the Grate Hore amen. Wuscott and Horton were Roman Cathlicks that gave us the Modren per-Versons and whitch all the librale churches and children of the Grate Hore us amen. But the KJB is like the dubble edged sword what cuts to the bone amen and is a grate thret to the Grate Hore. Thats why all the grate Funmentalist preechers need to have body gards amen. There old time KJB preeching is a thret to the Luminaty and there always trying to get them kilt amen. The KGB used to consider Jack Hiles there most dangerous opponent here in America amen.
Even today we see that the company that owns the NIV is in controle of all the news channels and newspapers amen. Rupert Murdox is trying to bring in the one world govment and some day it will work amen and the Grate Hore of Rome will take over amen. But the KJB is gong to take them down amen. Now I dont know how that will happen becuse all the preechers will be taken up at the Rapture amen but there KJBs will still be here and maybe peeple with start reeding them and revolt ganst the Grate Hore whitch rides upon the Levithan amen.
The KJB says that the elect will beleve a strong deluson amen. That refers to the Calvansts amen what calls themselves the elect. They wont be taken up with the Rapture amen becuse there hareticks and not saved amen becuse there not born of incruptable seed, which is the KJB. The strond dillusion is the modern perversons like the NIV, ESV, NKJV, NASB, RSV, Living Bible, HCSB, ecksetra. But the KJB will stand ganst the Grate Hore and kill Levithan amen.
The first two are sheer artistry. Ravi talks about art in the last video on this post.
