–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!

       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.

                    –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.

                    –Chris Bennett  (Breakout)

       “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin is a reproach to any people.”

                    –Proverbs 14:34(NKJV)
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          40 — How often they provoked Him in the wilderness, and grieved Him in the desert!
          41 — Yes, again and again they tempted God, and limited the Holy One of Israel.
          42 — They did not remember His power: the day when He redeemed them from the enemy.
          43 — When He worked His signs in Egypt, and His wonders in the field of Zoan;
          44 — Turned their rivers into blood, and their streams, that they could not drink.
          45 — He sent swarms of flies among them, which devoured them, and frogs, which destroyed them.
          46 — He also gave their crops to the caterpillar, and their labor to the locust.
          47 — He destroyed their vines with hail, and their sycamore trees with frost.
          48 — He also gave up their cattle to the hail, and their flocks to fiery lightning.
          49 — He cast on them the fierceness of His anger, wrath, indignation, and trouble, by sending angels of destruction among them.
          50 — He made a path for His anger; He did not spare their soul from death, but gave their life over to the plague,
          51 — And destroyed all the firstborn in Egypt, the first of their strength in the tents of Ham.
          52 — But He made His own people go forth like sheep, and guided them in the wilderness like a flock;
          53 — And He led them on safely, so that they did not fear; but the sea overwhelmed their enemies.
          54 — And He brought them to His holy border, this mountain which His right hand had acquired.  (NKJV)

Psalm 78 reflects the plight of the people in Israel.  It seems as if many had forgotten God’s provisions; they had forgotten how He had kept them in the past.  Many times throughout Scripture, God says to remember your past, remember from whence you came.  They had forgotten God.  
       Our great nation, one founded on biblical principles, is in the midst of great trial.  It’s interesting that it is not a foreign war that is causing the turmoil, but the people within the country.  There are forces who would demean the United States, and they seek to tear it apart not knowing that they will be tearing apart the life that they know as well.  Israel was the same, by forgetting God they were facing the troubles that He was now allowing to come upon them.  We think that we only have troubles when we are in desolation, in the times of war–a wilderness so to speak.  However, “Spiritual failures do not occur only in wilderness moments when we are desolate and desolated:  They happen when we enjoy life to the full.” (George O. Wood)  There never has been a nation blessed like America, yet we are in the midst of ideological turmoil that is causing myriad problems emanating from the spiritual realm.
       What has happened?  I read recently that only 81% of the people in the country believe in God.  That’s the lowest it has ever been.  That only 37% of the ministers have a biblical worldview, and even lower among Catholics.  No wonder we are in trouble.  Where are the men of God?  Oh that’s right–they have been abolished in the name of feminism.  We are now in a “woke” society, transgenderism is the key world now.  No wonder we have grieved God; no wonder His patience has been tested.  Charles Spurgeon said, “It must have been difficult to forget [God’s power].  Such displays of divine power as those which smote Egypt with astonishment must have needed some more than usual effort to blot from the tablets of memory.”  
       This Fourth of July, go back and remember those dark days of the Revolution when it was win or be hung.  Remember the bloody footprints left in the snow by soldiers without proper footwear who continued to fight on.  Lexington, Concord, Bunker Hill, Saratoga, Valley Forge, Yorktown–revisit them in your mind.  Don’t let the pundits cause you to think of the flaws of those fighting for freedom, recognize the valor and honor and courage they had in fighting for our freedom–and, gaining it!  I think it was Paul Harvey who said that we had an “abundance of great men” to lead this country:  Washington, Henry, Adams both John and Samuel, Jefferson, Greene, Knox and many, many others.  Compare them to the leadership (?) of our country today.  My mercy…!
       Remember then, this Fourth, those years of turmoil that brought forth this nation into the world.  A nation dedicated to freedom, a nation dedicated to the propagation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  This nation was indeed to be a “city on a hill,” a bright light shining for all to see.  Now there are those who would put a bushel over that light.  Do your part so that it will not happen.

               “When all thy mercies, O my God,
               My rising soul surveys,
               Transported with the view, I’m lost
               In wonder, love, and praise.”
                     –Joseph Addison