LAMENTING THE LOSS OF HONOR

06-01-09

Dear brothers and sisters, given the increasingly chaotic state of our besieged national and international economies, it should not surprise you to learn that over the course of these last two years, our Rescue Mission has experienced a dramatic and constantly accelerating rise in newly homeless people. These poor persons are not itinerant hobos escaping the poverty of some far away northern city, but local middle-class citizens, voters and taxpayers from our own Pinellas County townships, dispossessed families, having lost their homes or apartments who used to live down the street from you and are now jobless and exceedingly depressed. Two events commonly occur as people lose their homes, first they suffer that initial devastating blow of severe mental anguish, horrible pain, frustration and indiscriminate anger, and then immediately following, with no transitional time, that second decisive blow, the mind-numbing knockout, the chilling desensitizing shock of raw life on the hard streets, as if one were suddenly picked up by the neck like a helpless dirty rag and disdainfully thrown headlong into a raging sewer of misery. These forlorn families are truly struggling to survive in the vastly less-forgiving environment of the cruel pitiless streets where there is little quarter and no mercy.

But mercy is our business. Mercy is the business of the Lord. Hallelujah! Father God has shown us the greatest mercy of all, by forgiving our sins, and we are very busy telling other people about God’s wonderful mercy. Our weekly church service which is broadcast live on the Internet at 10:30am Sunday mornings, our daily evangelical meetings, our various speaking outreaches, our monthly newsletter, and our Internet publications continue to win lost souls for Christ, and we shall enthusiastically continue to win lost souls for Christ until the Lord Jesus Christ Himself returns “in the clouds with great power and glory.” (Mark 13:26). Promise. J

G.M. goes bankrupt. May we note with great interest a front page article in today’s edition of the St. Petersburg Times newspaper concerning the gigantic automaker General Motors stating that “only a decade [10 years] ago, GM was the world’s largest company. Now it joins Chrysler as the bankrupt duo of Detroit’s once-formidable Big Three. General Motors, the humbled auto-giant that has been part of American life for more than 100 years, will file for bankruptcy protection today in a deal that will give taxpayers a 60 percent ownership stake and expand the government’s reach into big business.” The nature of this action on the part of big government, being just the latest in a deliberate series of like actions, is called SOCIALISM.

1.       Socialism = Dictionary: a theory or system of social organization which advocates the vesting of ownership and control of the means of production, capital, land, etc. in the community as a whole.

Socialism in theoretical principle advocates a more or less equal share for all; the price paid by the “all” for this equal share is the loss of individual freedoms. Socialism in actual practice is always destined to dismal failure because it immediately becomes thoroughly corrupted by man’s innate greed, which is remarkably akin to biblical lust. As a result of being man-centered, Socialism in itself is not a viable self-sustaining system of government; but in reality Socialism functions as an intermediary or stepping stone toward more infamous alternatives such as Communism as demonstrated by Joseph Stalin, or Fascism as most convincingly demonstrated by Adolph Hitler, both of which evolved into Dictatorships. Now we can bat around the nuances of the meanings of these big-time terms pretty much until the cows come home, but you catch my drift, and we are seeing very clear and threatening evidences of a rapidly rising Dictatorship (a possible Antichrist) in our own country even as we are being uniformly and decisively driven headlong into the obscuring cloud of Socialism.

In this upside down world, our post-Christian government has ironically entered upon a broad course of action best described as “forgiveness” for the theft of billions of dollars facilitated through purposeful criminal activities that have been unmistakably exposed in the mortgage banking business. How many Corporate Presidents, Chairmen of the Board, and Chief Operating Officers have gone to prison for their crimes? And the phenomenon of Big Government “forgiveness” has been further extended to the insurance industry, and to the automotive industry, and through it all (the worst is yet to come), our elected officials have, to the contrary of the consensus of public opinion, i.e., the voters, indeed even rewarded those reprobate scoundrels who have so thoroughly dishonored themselves with additional billions of taxpayer dollars to preserve their failing corporations. Rather than purge and imprison these exposed criminals who enjoy wealthy prestigious positions and great influence in high political places, and thereby allow the democratic system of free enterprise to replace those men and those institutions with new blood and fresh ideas, with new institutions and honorable men, our elective government has strangely decided to keep in place and reward the very criminals who have dishonored themselves and caused this recession (depression). Is that what is happening, or am I missing something? Where has the honor gone? There is no honor in this post-Christian society where our leaders seek only to serve themselves and not the people.

The consequences of high levels of evil quickly filter down to encompass the innocent. Dear brothers and sisters, as an example of what is now happening in our nation every day to thousands of perfectly normal regular people, please allow me to tell you a little about a very pleasant 41 year old Christian woman whom we shall call Doreen that has been coming to our Rescue Mission for about a year, sometimes as a volunteer when work is unobtainable, sometimes for “Food Stamps” credit, sometimes for food to eat, clean clothing, hot showers, comfort and cheer, church services, somebody to talk to, etc., etc. Up until about three years ago, Doreen worked full-time and owned her own home. She is a High School graduate who has worked in Department Sales for places such as Wal-Mart, and as a waitress in a variety of restaurants (many now closed), and she has also done assembly line work for various manufacturers.

Well Doreen lost her job, and like so many others before her and after her, she hit the streets with a shock. Doreen has no drug or alcohol addictions or mental aberrations, and is just plain poor and homeless. She can’t find a full-time job. Sadly, Doreen has a lovely daughter who she never plays with or talks to. “I gave her up for adoption because I wanted her to have everything I couldn’t give her. It is the best thing I ever did. She will be four years old in November.”

Doreen is on the streets. Every day around 6:30am Doreen goes to the day-labor hall looking for a job. More fortunate than most of her fellow work seekers, she gets a day job two or three times a week. That means that Doreen, more favored than most, cannot find work four to five days a week. When she does find work she sometimes kicks in with a work partner and shares finances for a motel room for a night, or lays up at some equally impoverished friend’s apartment or trailer and briefly shares expenses until her money runs out, and then she is back on the streets, hungry and prayerfully searching for work. Its tough out there for a woman alone on the streets, hot days, cold nights, bugs, rain, snakes, mosquitoes, and predatory men. But (she brightens up) Doreen gets pictures every year of her little daughter and a letter. Broadly smiling, Doreen says “She got a sandbox for her first birthday.” Did you give it to her? “No, they did. And she goes fishing! I did the right thing for her.”

Well what are we doing about all this? Last month the volunteers and staff of our Rescue Mission won 28 souls to Christ. That is, twenty-eight persons embarked upon an unbelievably successful Christian rehabilitation program and walked through the door of eternal life. And last month our Rescue Mission freely provided 39,560 meals (we keep excellent records) and meal equivalencies to the impoverished poor and homeless needy citizens of Pinellas County. No long stories. Just facts. This is all made possible by your loving donations of tithes and offerings. You help us help them and God helps us all. Thank you. God bless you dear brothers and sisters.

Sincerely,

Rev. Lionel

Ps. Rescue Mission needs: Bibles, money, smiling volunteers, and a much much larger building.

Many shall be purified, and made white, and tried; but the wicked shall do wickedly: and none of the wicked shall understand; but the wise shall understand. (Dan 12:10)