Being loyal was not enough. One had to be loyal to the right cause, the right person.”
–Louis L’Amour (The Shadow Riders)

“Love the Lord, all you godly ones! For the Lord protects those who are loyal to him, but he harshly punishes the arrogant.”
–Psalm 31:23 (NLT)
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“Long ago he had learned the way to survive was to watch your back trail and keep a gun handy.”
–Louis L’Amour

“They would need someone to blame. It was part of the pathological makeup of politicians.”
–Brad Thor

From all the signs I see we must be expecting a harsh winter. The trees are raining “nuts” and the ground is covered with them. Go for a walk and there are “nuts” strewn everywhere. What is it with the liberal press? When I think it can’t get any worse, I’m proven wrong. From Dr. Seuss being racist, to the removal of statues, to kneeling for the National Anthem, all I see are nut-cases. Then we have this terrible nightmare in Las Vegas and immediately the nut-press and those who are definitely more enlightened than the common man take to the air waves.
I wish I could say I am shocked with some of the words that have come out of people’s mouths in the past few days, but I’m not. It is a shame that there is so much hatred in society that a person is not shocked by what another says. Take Nancy Sinatra, whoeve-dor she is. She said that all “NRA members should be taken out and executed by firing squad.” Now that is radical thinking–almost terrorist. Then there are those who said they were all right with what happened because those killed were Republicans and Trump supporters. Hatred? Oh no, never from the liberals. Things are too numerous to mention, but why the hatred? Deal with gun-control in a civilized manner, through the political system.
Oh, I can’t leave out sweet, dear OLD Hillary. She said the deaths were caused by the “GOP” and the “NRA.” To date, there has not been one NRA member involved in one of these mass shootings. Why can’t she just fade into the wallpaper? I really wonder who listens to her. I guess most people, at least according to the polls.
Then I hear some of these night time jerks, I means hosts, along with some journalists and politicians coin the required phrase. “Our prayers are with you.” Give me a break. Now, honestly, there may be a few sincere people who say that, but tell me how many of these individuals will get on their knees at night and pray for the families and the wounded? I would say that the majority of them do not even know their Creator, much less pray to Him.
Perhaps you heard of the Special Forces soldiers that were killed. The media in their wonderful way still will not call it what it is. They say that our men were killed by “violent extremists.” They still do not want to recognize the idea of “Islamic terrorists.” What is wrong? Can people be that illogical? Can people hate a person, President Trump, so much that they do not care to see the truth? We better wake up!
I’m doing some reading of some of the men who really settled the West. The preachers and Christians. We do not hear much of them as folks out there would rather read of the infamous; the punks and prostitutes and ne’er-do-wells than those who actually came in and settled. But there is one quotation I would close this note with by Buckskin Brady, cowboy turned preacher.

“There is a mania of forgetting God that becomes contagious under certain conditions.”
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“I challenge any skeptic to find a ten square mile spot on this planet where they can live their lives in peace and safety and decency, where womanhood is honored, where infancy and old age are revered, where they can educate their children–where the Gospel of Jesus Christ has not gone first to prepare the way. If they find such a place, then I would encourage them to emigrate thither and there proclaim their unbelief.”
–James Russell Lowell

There wasn’t all this worry about who was right and who was wrong. You just knew.”
–Elmer Kelton (The Far Canyon)

“You will be accepted if you do what is right. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master.”
–Genesis 4:7 (NLT)
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“Silver wings upon their chest
These are men, America’s best
One hundred men we’ll test today,
But only three win the Green Beret.”
–Barry Sadler

“I searched for a man among them who would repair the wall and stand in the gap before Me on behalf of the land so that I might not destroy it, but I found no one.”
–Ezekiel 22:30 (HCSB)

There is much ado today about standards. What is right, what is wrong, what can I do, what can I not do. Who makes the standards, why I must adhere to them, and on, and on, and on. What I have noticed in my almost four decades of teaching that instead of standards rising they tend to drop. Now there are a myriad of reasons for that, but the fact is still there. One of the problems is that individuals want their own standards; it’s that autonomous thing again. They want to be in charge, even at the expense of their employer and maybe other people.
I know of a student, quite brilliant, but who has been out of college for quite some time and cannot get the job of his choosing. The reason why is that he will not subject himself to their dress standards. When I look at the above lyrics by Sgt. Sadler I look at the standard. How many pass the test and are able to uphold the standard? –three percent. It surely makes me wonder if that standard is being maintained. I know that the Green Beret, Special Forces, don’t want to get too mercenary here, have individuals known as “Gatekeepers” to make sure the standards are maintained. Hopefully, there are, but what happens if only one can pass up to standard? Will the standard change? A little thing, and I know today’s military personnel do not have to shine boots, but it was easy to tell what a person thought of the standard by glancing at his boots. Spit shine or…well, there just wasn’t anything else acceptable.
I was stationed at the USAF Academy when they allowed women to enter that institution. I watched on the obstacle course to see if the standard had changed. Sorry to say, it had. I don’t care what report you read, I saw it change. I haven’t been there in years, and I wonder if on the front of the terrazzo there is still the sign, “Bring Me Men”? Men to meet the standard, and women too, if they can reach it.
Many people come to Christ, but read the parable of the sower; only a small percentage of them stay the course. Some of the seed falls on hard ground and doesn’t take good root, others are choked out by the world. When Christ calls, He calls us to a standard and the first step in that standard is obedience. He has certain standards; He will never drop or minimize His standards. When I was in the service I would be given an order and it was expected that it would be carried out. There wasn’t always the complete understanding of the order, but there was the understanding of obedience. Take a glance at Abraham: “Get up and move.” He did!
A statement was made in church last Sunday and it is true. “It is not being religious to live blameless, it is an honor.” (Rasim Hasan) We do not come to Christ and remain the same. If we love Him we obey His commandments. That is not legalism! Want to know a cause of the problems in America (and I know the liberals want to blame guns)? The cause is that we have lost the standards that we set up. Evil is being called good. Moral standards, ha, where are they? Righteousness is mocked, and this is true in the church as well. Faith is synonymous with obedience, and the words of Jesus when He rewards those who follow Him will be, “well done, good, and faithful.”
Are you, am I, maintaining the standard? If the Gatekeeper looks for someone to stand in the gap, have I maintained the standard well enough that I can step in and fulfill the duty to which He has called me? Listen, it is not always easy to maintain the standard of the high calling of Jesus Christ. Watching others let down the standard it is easy to let mine drop as well. That cannot happen. In lieu of all this JUNK about not standing for the National Anthem and other stupid stuff, even in the church, it makes me realize that I have to maintain.
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I might mention, the sermon where I attended last Sunday was by a converted Muslim, who now is a missionary to the Muslims in the D.C. area.
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“Sin is nothing, because it cleaves to and joys in creatures and opposes them and prefers them to the Creator.” –Albert Barnes

Money will buy a man anything but his own destiny.”
–Luke Short  (The Branded Man)

“Wherever your treasure is, there the desires of your heart will also be…  You cannot serve God and be enslaved to money.”
 –Matthew 6:21, 24 (NLT)
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“Preoccupation with self is the greatest barrier to seeing, and the hardest one to break.”
–Freeman Patterson

This has been some kind of year.  All kinds of storms from the hurricanes, to fires, to shootings, and add to that riots.  Going through them is tough, but what comes afterward can be just as hard.  Rebuilding, relocating, restoring is not necessarily easy.  In other words, life can get rough at times.  Life, without the pressures from the devil, can grind down a man’s spirit.  One thing important to remember is some men have achieved their greatest successes under life’s most unpleasant pressures.
There was a fisherman, several centuries ago in England, who stood on a bluff overlooking his flooded homestead.  What would he do?  Where would he rebuild?  But that same storm that destroyed his property was the same one which sank the Spanish Armada.  Even Philip II of Spain said that it was the “winds and waves of God” that destroyed his fleet.  What would have happened if England has been conquered by Spain in 1588?  More than likely Protestantism would have been wiped out through the terrors of the Spanish Inquisition.  England surely would have face torture and death.
Sometimes it takes sickness or a flying brick to bring us to the place where God can use us.  Colonel S.L. Brengle of the Salvation Army was hit by a flying brick while in a London slum.  While he was in the hospital recuperating, he wrote “Helps to Holiness.”  Or take Catherine Marshall, lying in her sick bed from a disease from which she might not recover.  She used the phone to minister and began to write.  Have you read “Christy”?
John Bunyan wrote “Pilgrim’s Progress” in jail.  Glenn Cunningham was so badly burned at the age of eight that doctors said he would never walk, but recovered to become a great track star.  Other stories could be told.  Success because of the “storms of life.”
I like what Robert W. McIntyre said, “When life’s pressures are most intense, peace cannot be far away, for the eye of the storm is the most peaceful place for miles around.”  Then following the storm peace returns, and within a matter of time things are back to normal.  

“God is able to pour out on you richly every possible grace, so that you will always and under all circumstances have plenty for your own need, and to spare for every good enterprise.”
–2 Corinthians 9:8 (Berkeley)
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“What is largely missing in American life today is a sense of context, of saying or doing anything that is intended or even expected to live beyond the movement…  We have become so obsessed with facts that we have lost all touch with truth…  Consider this paradox:  Almost everything that is publicly said these days is recorded.  Almost nothing of what is said is worth remembering.”
–Ted Koppel