Author: Ira Paine

Coffee Percs

by Ira Paine, Posted on

There might be some coffee in the pot and it was a good time to think, to try to put it all together.”

                         –Louis L’Amour  (Borden Chantry)
 
Ahhh, good coffee this mornin’.  Don’t yuh be a-frettin’, the pot is near full.  And don’t be worryin’ none either, I promise yuh that it’s strong enough to make the hairs on yur tongue straighten right up.  Nice an’ hot too.  
       Pard, I’ve been noticin’ that most of them thar people who are confused over this here gender issue are those who squat on the liberal side.  Some call them leftists, others call them liberals, and I’ve even heard a few other names for them.  They are confused over most everything exceptin’ their agenda.  They know they don’t want anything to do with conservative values or Biblical Christianity.
       Yuh know, I’m ’bout to carry the ol’ shotgun whenever I go out to sit in the rocker.  Yep, that’ll be me, gun in one hand, and coffee cup in the other.  Why, yuh ask?  Well, Pard, let me tell yuh.  I read about, what me bein’ a conservative would call a person of the female gender proclaim that she was actually a cardinal in the form of a human.  Yep, yuh heard me right.  She was goofy as a loon, but she called herself a cardinal.  Pard, where do these nuts come from?  Do they just spring up out of the ground?  A cardinal, why not a red-wing blackbird?  The truth of the matter is that no matter what she calls herself, the Creator made her a female.   Why I even heard that some states are leaving the sex of a baby off the birth certificate until they can decide at a later age what they are.  This has to be at the top of the ladder of stupidity!
       I know Pard, there’s folks out there confused.  Some of it is deception straight from perdition, some of it is the stupidity of what they hear, and they decide without thinkin’ what they’ll be.  Maybe they need a good cup or two of my coffee to get them straightened out.  I read the other day that we used to sort of tell if a person was strange or not, and I don’t mean full-blown gay, just a little prissy when he wore a diamond ring on his pinky.  That’s the guy who probably has never been closer to a cow than a sirloin steak.  But now, we even have those people who want synthetic beef.  That can’t happen, it’s either synthetic or its beef!  My goodness, one of the richest men in the world is buyin’ up land so that beeves can’t be raised on it.
       Well, Pard, the mornin’ has come to an end, the pot is empty as is the cup exceptin’ for a few dregs.  At least, it’s settled, in my mind for sure, what is what and who is whom.  No matter what anyone says, pseduo-science, sociologists, or politicians, I’ll go with what the Creator has designed.  Oh, an’ one more thing I’m for sure of–yuh better be checkin’ yur cinch.  It looks some loose to me from where I’m standin’.
        Vaya con Dios.

 

Echoes From the Campfire

by Ira Paine, Posted on

All this traveling and not feeling like you’re getting anywhere can wear on a man.”
                         –Robert Peecher  (A Trail Too Far)

       “And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head.”

                         –Luke 8:58 (NKJV)
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I have mentioned several times my Hymns at Midnight.  Those songs that run through my mind if I happened to wake up in the middle of the night.  Usually they are the same, but last week one floated through that I haven’t heard in many, many years.

                    My heav’nly home is bright and fair,
                    I feel like traveling on,
                    Nor pain, nor death can enter there,
                    I feel like traveling on.
                             –William Hunter

In this world of darkness and gloom we should be looking toward our home in heaven where the sun never fails to shine, because the Lord is the light.  There may be some who decide to stop along the way, others may decide to go back, but as for me, and I hope whomever reads this that they “feel like traveling on.”

                    Its glitt’ring-tow’rs the sun outshine,
                    I feel like traveling on,
                    That heav’nly mansion shall be mine,
                    I feel like traveling on.

We live in a world that mocks and scoffs at that thought.  Some will say that you are so heavenly minded that you’re no earthly good, but remember they are mocking and speaking a lie.  The person who is truly heavenly minded, the one who has a close relationship with Christ and is led by the Holy Spirit actually does the most earthly good.  They have the true perspective of the world and also where they are going.  Listen, if someone scoffs at your in your walk with Christ never mind them–keep traveling on.

                    Let others seek a home below,
                    I feel like traveling on,
                   Which flames devour, or waves o’er flow,
                    I feel like traveling on.

Come, stay awhile with me.  Enjoy the fun and pleasures of this life.  A little won’t hurt you.  Let’s go out and have a good time, forget that religious jargon and join in with us.  After all we are all brothers and who is to say your way to God is better than mine?  –Do you hear those voices?  They are trying to get you to settle down in this life.  They want you to walk with them on the wide highway that leads to perdition.  Put them aside, travel on to your home in heaven.

                    The Lord has been so good to me,
                    I feel like traveling on,
                    Until that blessed home I see,
                    I feel like traveling on.

                                        Yes, I feel like traveling on,
                                        I feel like traveling on;
                                        My heav’nly home is bright and fair,
                                        I feel like traveling on.

In the midst of tribulation and trials and troubles–travel on.  When the storm rages do not stop your travel, seek shelter but continue forward.  When the battle is hard, and the enemy is strong–travel on.  When there is pain, sorrow, and suffering–travel on.  When you feel as if you cannot take another step–take one more and travel on.  Don’t be satisfied with life here, with a dwelling place in this evil world, but look as did that man of old, Abraham, who sought a “city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Hebrews 11:10, NKJV).  Keep traveling on!

 

Echoes From the Campfire

by Ira Paine, Posted on

It was a time when men were still men and truth and right were still virtues worth dying for.”
                            –K.M. Weiland  (A Man Called Outlaw)

       “Your righteousness is an everlasting righteousness, and Your law is truth.”
                            –Psalm 119:142 (NKJV)
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Postmodernism!  Most people in America practice it to a certain extent unless they have a true Biblical worldview.  It is diabolical, deadly, sometimes subtle, but becoming more active, and straight from the pits of hell.  The methods used are not new–complacency and compromise–and along with those their purpose is to tear down, to destroy, to deconstruct the foundations of truth.  It can be done in a seemingly harmless children’s movie such as Buzz Lightyear, or openly aggressive like the rioters of BLM, and in Portland and other cities.  This evil ideology seeks to bring confusion and ultimately chaos.
       The target–truth.  The reason–to destroy Christianity and the thought of Jesus Christ.  For it was Jesus who said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.  No one comes to the Father, except through Me.” (John 14:6, NKJV)  Its purpose is to usher forth the reign of the Man of Lawlessness–the Antichrist.  It starts with compromise and complacency.  Live and let live is the starting point.  
       Let me give you a good example–the destruction of heroes.  C.S. Lewis wrote, “Since it is so likely that they will meet cruel enemies, let them at least have heard of brave knights and heroic courage. Otherwise, you are making their destiny not brighter but darker.”  When I hear the William Tell Overture, I don’t think of the Swiss leader but of that masked ranger on his white stallion Silver, riding the ranger righting wrong.  At one time, we had true, definite heroes.  However, now those heroes have been seen to be flawed and the dangerous thing is that the flaws are emphasized rather than the positive things that the person did.

       For example, Pappy Boyington, the World War II pilot and recipient of the Medal of Honor was rejected by his alma mater because he was a murderer of Japanese.  Nothing mentioned that it was war.  A bust of Abraham Lincoln has been removed from Cornel University because he was a controversial person and was involved in slavery.  I mentioned the other day that I watched an episode of The Rifleman where Lucas McCain told in a folksy manner the story of Job ending with the truth, “I know that my Redeemer lives.”  A few nights ago, an episode of Gunsmoke was watched in which Matt Dillon was willing to die to save Doc Adams.  Doc, in answering the nemesis, quoted, “Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13)  Imagine that happening today, or if it happened it would be in a mocking manner.
       Why do we have the Crimos, and other crazed people shooting and killing innocents?  Who do they have to look to?  What has been taken away from them?  There have always been “black knights” of evil, but the “white night” would appear and truth, right, and justice would win out.  What has happened to the white knight, but that he has been tarnished, his guns or sword taken away, and therefore has dwindled out of sight.  In fact, this paragraph would be struck out by the “Woke” crowd for it would be deemed racist.  That is always a good excuse–racism.  
       Paul wrote a wonderful letter to Timothy in which he warned of these evils.  “But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come….  But evil men and impostors will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived.  But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them.”  (2 Timothy 3:1,13-14, NKJV)  Therefore, in this day of confusion, when man is turning truth into a lie and a lie become the truth, in this day when man is confused about what sex he is you must stand for the truth.  Do not become complacent about the truth or about the agenda of the Postmodernist.  Do not compromise with the truth, but stand firm in it holding the standard of Christ high.

 

Echoes From the Campfire

by Ira Paine, Posted on

Joy of life, radiance of creation, peace and solitude, wholesomeness and sweetness of nature, the exquisite beauty of woodland and wasteland at the break of day, and a marvelous, inscrutable, divine will pervaded that wilderness scene.”

                    –Zane Grey  (Nevada)

       “By faith Moses…choosing rather to suffer affliction with the people of God than to enjoy the passing pleasures of sin.”
                    –Hebrews 11:23,25 (NKJV)
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There was a time when everything on earth was pure.  A time of true peace and tranquility when one day a lovely maiden was walking through the garden.  She was enjoying the sweet aroma of the flowers that were blooming around her.  Life was wonderful, sweet, and peaceful when she came upon a creature–a serpent.  This serpent went up to her and said, “Hey, baby, have I got a deal for you.”  And in minutes Eve and Adam were not the same, and mankind was now on the downward slope.  I have often wondered what Adam thought about when he was old and gray.  He lived to be quite old and he must have thought often about the time back in Eden.  We know little of his life except that he blew his opportunity.
       Solomon said in his later years, “Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done and on the labor in which I had toiled; and indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.  There was no profit under the sun.”  (Ecclesiastes 2:11, NKJV)  He was a man who wanted more and more and more.  Perhaps you have read the “Picture of Dorian Gray.”  It is a profound book, telling a depressing story.  Dorian was given an opportunity to sin–to do anything he wanted without any sign of the sin showing on his features.  He remained pristine and pure, at least in his features.  He dreamed of sin, and he wanted more, more, and more of sin and didn’t stop.  He had unlimited resources, money, and pleasure, but found that more didn’t satisfy.  David A. Hubbard wrote,

               “Pleasure offers to lift us above the routine.  So much of our living seems bound to the ordinary.  It is hobbled by the patterns we learned in childhood; it is grooved by the habits we developed as teenagers; it is fettered by the cords of conformity our culture puts upon us….  Often we long to kick over the traces and bolt off on our own free course.  Pleasure lets us do that.  Temporarily, we can hang our inhibitions in the hallway and go to the party without them…”

       We live in a society that thrives on pleasure.  There are things that are faster, greater, and more bright than ever before.  From the Millennials downward through the generations there is an emphasis upon pleasure.  Enjoy life, be happy, don’t fret, but to do that one must push God aside.  They think that He is holding a hammer ready to bring it down in judgment so they have only a small look at who God is if any at all.
       Solomon is saying here–Face the Truth, all equals emptiness.  The NLT states, “There was nothing really worthwhile anywhere.”  Look at the fruit friend, what does it offer?  Does the taste offer you promises, but then you find they lack the staying power?  Is there a promise to open our eyes, but then we find that in reality we are blinded?  Is this pleasure that is offered a disillusion, making us cover-up artists?  We think we want the pleasure that it offers, but when we eat we find ourselves lying, hiding, and trying to cover up what we did.  John writes, “For all that is in the world–the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life–is not of the Father but is of the world.” (1 John 2:16, NKJV)
       What started out as a wonderful enticing dream has found itself a living nightmare.  “To seek it [pleasure] and to labor for it is to miss it.  All human experience shows that it soon pulls upon the taste, that it fades fast in the hands of its devotees; that there is no company of men so utterly weary and so wretched as the tired hunters after pleasurable excitement.” (W. Clarkson)  The devil still offers a deal; it looks good, it is enticing, but the end thereof is destruction.  It won’t satisfy for long.  The promise given by him is an illusion; it is like “grasping for the wind.”  But Jesus, ah, there is a different story.  His promises are “Yea and Amen,” they are sure and can be depended upon.  Look at the words of the Psalmist, “You will show me the path of life; in Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” (Psalm 16:11, NKJV)  This is what Adam and Eve had, yet they threw it away seeking a pseudo-pleasure.