When they opened the seventh seal of the sequester, there was a great earthquake....

From Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal:

And when the Republicans opened the seventh seal of the sequester, there was a great earthquake; and the sun became black and the stars fell unto the Earth; and our nation's ability to forecast severe weather, such as drought events, hurricanes and tornados, was seriously undermined.

Lo, and the children were not vaccinated, and all the beasts starved in the zoos, and the planes were grounded.

Or so President Obama and his Cabinet prophets have been preaching ahead of the automatic budget cuts due to begin Friday.

The Sequester, which by the time you read this will have gone into effect, is supposed to unleash all kinds of calamity on the American people, including longer lines at the airport and delays because of 5000 furloughed air traffic controllers, illegal criminals being released from prison, the closing of all national parks including the Washington Monument as well as forcing us to drive over unsafe bridges, and the list goes on and on.

As I mentioned in my last post—this is the typical liberal ploy to make you feel pain and suffering by closing, shutting down, or delaying those areas that affect the most people in order to make the Republicans look like the bad guys, when in reality, this is all Obama’s fault. He hasn’t produced a budget in 4 yrs and the Democrat-controlled senate has not produced a budget in 4 yrs either. 

If the President wanted to find some money to keep our parks open, to keep our bridges and meat safe, to keep our air traffic controllers on the job, and even fund some more aircraft carriers in our Pacific Fleet which he has said we now can’t afford--here’s where we could find some extra money, trimming away some of the government fat which would more than cover the  to make up for that 2.4% sequester cut:

• $72 million for Alaskan sight-seeing trains.
• $22 million for old-fashioned trolley’s in Missouri
• $2.2 billion for the FCC program which provides free cellphones (Obamaphones). This program is rampant with abuse and fraud.
• Millions being spent to train Chinese prostitutes to drink responsibly.
• $16-20 million helping students from Indonesia get master’s degrees.
• $175,587 to determine if cocaine makes Japanese quail engage in sexually risky behavior.
• $200,000 on a “tattoo removal program” in Mission Hills, California.
• $3 million to researchers at the Univ. of California at Irvine to fund their research on video games such as World of Warcraft.
• $500 million on a program that seeks to solve the problem of 5-yr. old children that “can’t sit still” in a kindergarten classroom.
• $4.6 billion bailout for Fannie Mae
• $30 million on a program designed to help Pakistani farmers produce more mangos.
• $700,000 to study methane gas emissions from daily cows at the Univ. of NH.
• $25 billion spent every year maintaining federal buildings that are either unused or totally vacant.
• $998,798 spent shipping two 19-cent washers from So. Carolina to Texas, and $293,451 sending an 89-cent washer from So. Carolina to Florida.
• $400,00 to find out why gay men in Argentina engage in risky sexual behavior when they are drunk.
• $800,000 in “stimulus funds” to study the impact of a “genital-washing program” on men in So. Africa.
• $141,450 grant from the Environmental Protection Agency to fund a Chinese study of swine manure.
• $121 million wasted on 1,832 Dept. of Justice conferences.
• $520,000 to fix a covered bridge to nowhere in Green County, Ohio—a bridge that was last used in 2003.
• 75,000 Dept. of Interior employees conserving the wilderness in Washington D.C.
• $130 million to study herbs and yoga.
• 105 different federal programs funded to encourage students in math and science. 

These are just a few examples of all the wasteful spending by our government. It’s estimated that 50-cents of every dollar given to our government is wasted or misspent.

Obviously, as you can see, before we cut vital government services, there are many other areas that we can stop funding. The real revelation is Obama’s choice and of course, he always opts for pain and misery if it will yield more spending, taxation and government control.

Obamageddon arrives this Friday, March 1

In case you haven't heard, Armageddon arrives early this year, on Friday, March 1, when the Sequester kicks in. The President is out campaigning trying to paint this as a crisis of epic proportions, and his willing accomplices in the media are helping him spread the message of "doom and gloom." These catastrophic cuts will mean that people will be dying in the street, children will go hungry and we will be forced to buy rancid meat at the market, and there will be intolerable suffering--or at least that's what the President and the media want us to believe. 

Here's how Liberals play this game of cuts. As Jonah Goldberg points out in his column, if an agency has a billion-dollar budget, and someone proposes cutting a dollar from their increase in funding, that dollar will be earmarked for the screw needed to keep a bridge from collapsing on a grade school's Thanksgiving parade. You see this played out in public schools all the time. If there is any decrease in funding, instead of cutting some unnecessary program that will affect very few students, the first cut they make is to the athletic program--no more sports, and no more after-school programs. 

By the way, this sequester was Pres. Obama's idea, and Gloria Borger (TIME Mag., CNN) said last weekend on CNN's Newsroom with Wolf Blitzer that this was a manufactured crisis, manufactured by Obama himself. No kidding, she actually told us the truth and actually said that this was Pres. Obama's manufactured crisis--his own doing.

Here are just a few of the cataclysmic consequences, assembled by ABC News, that we will suffer if the Sequester goes into effect:

• Air travel disruption
• Longer security lines
• Greater risk of wildfires
• A nationwide shortage of meat and poultry
• 175,000 would be at risk for homelessness
• Longer waits for disability payments
• The nation will be at greater risk for terrorism. Less surveillance
• One-third cutback in the Pacific naval fleet
• The FBI would have to use broken equipment.
• No maintenance for some ships and airplanes
• Fewer OSHA inspections. Greater risk of injuries and deaths.
• Less nuclear waste cleanup
• Greater risk of suicides
• No matinees at the movie theaters during the week.
• Schools will have to cut 2-hours from their school day.
• You guessed it--no more school sports programs.
• Garbage will only be picked up once every other week.
• There will be 2 fewer hours in the day, and fewer days of summer.
• More cloud cover and greater chance for solar blackout.
• More electrical blackouts
• No toilet use during the afternoon hours from 1-4 pm.

All of this because the Sequester will cut barely 2% of the federal budget. Have you ever had to cut 2% from your budget? Families and businesses do it all the time. It's a fact of life. But with the government, it turns into Armageddon, or the Day After. The fact is: President Obama doesn't want to cut a single dime. Instead he wants more taxes and MORE spending, and guess who will pay for it? Your kids, your grand-kids and your great grand-kids. They will be stuck holding the tab for all the debt and wasteful spending that Obama and the Democrats (along with help from many Republicans) have saddled on future generations. 

Would you be happy in heaven if Jesus were not there?

In his book, God is the Gospel, John Piper poses this question:

The critical question for our generation --and for every generation is this:
If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all your friends and loved ones there, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, with no human conflict, no human disasters, no physical pain or suffering, and even a new resurrection body, could you be satisfied with heaven--if Christ were not there? 

Would you be happy in heaven if Jesus were not there?  

John 17:3 says, "This is eternal life, that we might know the one true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent." What is eternal life? KNOWING GOD. Beholding God. Eternal life is NOT having your sins forgiven. Eternal Life is being reconciled to God, the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ. Eternal Life is being in relationship with the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Eternal Godhead.

By the number of hits on my last post, it appears that this is NOT a popular topic, or maybe I'm not putting this good news across in such a way that it can properly be understood.

Regardless, my reason for attempting to write on this subject is because I don't want to miss out on the Good News and I don't want that for you either. And the Good News is God Himself. I think that I and so many others get sidetracked and miss the fact that we're saved not for all the gifts and benefits, but we're saved to fall in love with Jesus, to let Him love us and to love Him right back. He is the greatest gift, and for many of us, He is the gift that remains unopened, unseen, unknown, not even sought after.

Maybe that's why worship is so hard and so few believers enter into real worship of the Lord, because you can't worship what you don't know. That's what Jesus told the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4 and it's true for us today as well. If we don't KNOW Him, we have NO desire to worship Him. We may love the trappings of Christianity, love going to Church, love serving in Church, but if we don't worship Him, then we don't love Him and don't know Him.

Consider what Paul writes in Philippians 3:7-9 (NLT)

⁷ I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done.

⁸ Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ

⁹ and become one with him. I no longer count on my own righteousness through obeying the law; rather, I become righteous through faith in Christ. For God’s way of making us right with himself depends on faith.  

Paul's heart desire is to become ONE with the Messiah, Jesus, Our Lord. His goal is not going to heaven, or having peace with God, or receiving any of God's other gifts, his goal is Jesus Himself. As Matt Redman writes in "The Heart of Worship",

"I'm coming back to the heart of worship, and it's all about You, all about You, Jesus....I'm sorry Lord for the thing I've made it, when it's all about You, it's all about You, Jesus."

What is the Gospel? Why is it good news?

When I visit my mom's church, the pastor always calls on one of the men in the church to close in prayer. These prayers are mindless, totally meaningless and usually have nothing to do with the sermon that was just preached as well as having nothing to do with God. In essence, it sounds like he's phoning it in.

The designated "pray-er" mentions NOTHING that has been talked about in the sermon. It's almost as though he's been asleep through the entire Sunday message, but he knows enough to throw in nice, caring, spiritual-pablum like "be with those who are sick and can't be with us today" without even mentioning any names or asking for God to heal them. He finishes by thanking God for his blessings, and asks God for strength to live as Christians ought to live...and on and on--you get the message.

I don't really think this guy is praying to God, I really think he's just trying to sound spiritual because NOTHING  he's prayed is even remotely close to being a biblical prayer, prayed in faith, and evidencing a knowledge of God. Am I being harsh or critical? Yes, you bet. Because judgment must begin at the house of God and prayers like these are a travesty. They are prayed by people who don't know God and they don't reach beyond the ceiling, if they even ascend that high. And the sad thing is that it's the Pastor who calls on these individuals to close in prayer--so what's that say about the spiritual shepherd of this local church??

Please don't think I'm picking on my Mom's church (because I am) and this sadly is what passes for Christianity in some of our evangelical churches today. It's a far cry from what we see or hear in the Bible. That's why I want to tell you about a book I'm reading, "God is the Gospel" by John Piper.

Why are young people leaving the Church in droves?

John Piper asks this question. Why is the gospel good news? You could take it a step further and ask, "What is the Gospel?
What is the Good News?" 
Some would say:

• "The Good News is knowing that my sins are forgiven. 
• Or "The Good News is knowing that I will be raptured and miss the tribulation."
• Or they might say, "Knowing that I am going to heaven and won't spend eternity in hell."
• Or they might say, "Knowing that I will be in heaven with all my loved ones, my wife and my parents."
• Or they might say, "Knowing that I will be given a new resurrection body and no longer be subject to this handicapped body and my physical infirmities.

What's wrong with these answers? 

They all sound spiritual and nice, but they leave God out of the equation. They don't express any desire to be with God. The whole point of the Gospel is to KNOW God, to be WITH God, to SEE God. Everything else is icing on the cake or a by-product. 

Sadly, we have become nice church people who go to God's house religiously, who say and do all the right things, but in many cases, our hearts are far from God. We love the trappings of Christianity, but NOT the Savior Himself. Our delight is in lots of good Christian things, but NOT in Jesus Himself. We love our Christian music and radio stations, and watch only good, wholesome Christian films, but we still don't know the Savior. As John Piper suggests in his book, if our delight is NOT in Him, in KNOWING GOD and BEING WITH GOD, then there's a good possibility that we aren't saved--that we aren't born-again.

Here's what a godly prayer sounds like, from one who knows the Lord and knows that God is the Gospel:

Psalm 27:4 (ESV)

⁴ One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the LORD and to inquire in his temple.

```````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````````(to be continued...) 

President Obama: On Benghazi, he's AWOL.

During congressional testimony last week, we learned that on the night of Sept.12, 2012, when the Libyan embassy was being attacked, our dearly beloved President was AWOL. He was nowhere to be found.

Sec. of Defense, Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Martin Dempsey both testified that they met with Pres. Obama on Sept. 11 at 5 p.m. in a pre-scheduled meeting. When they informed the president about the attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, they spent roughly 20 min. of the briefing on the situation at the American Embassy in Cairo and the attack in Benghazi, which cost the lives of Ambassador Christopher Steven, security personnel Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, and information officer, Sean Smith.

We also know that the even though Leon Panetta and Gen. Dempsey testified that they knew that very evening of Sept. 11 that this was a terrorist attack, the next day, Pres. Obama alongside Sec. of State Hillary Clinton trotted out before the press a fabricated story (a LIE) that this attack was caused because of a video on YouTube which no one had seen.

President Obama and stone-faced Hillary Clinton lying to
the sycophant press and the American people on Sept. 12.

The President kept saying over and over again to the press, to David Letterman, to the left-wing chicks on The View that we still don't have all the facts and don't really know what happened, but somehow, he knew enough on Sept. 12 to tell the world, including those gathered at the U.N. that this embassy attack was in response to a video on YouTube. Liar, liar.

There are over 60 emails surrounding this fabricated story and none of them have been released by the White House. Who concocted this story? Who sent Ambassador Susan Rice out to peddle a LIE to the American people on a round of news shows on Sept. 16 where she said with absolute certainty that the attack on the Libyan embassy was sparked by the YouTube video. Who gave her this info? 

Here's what we know: Leon Panetta and Gen. Martin Dempsey were told by Obama to do whatever you have to do. We also learned that President Obama did NOT communicate in any way with Panetta and Gen. Dempsey the rest of the evening.

But here is the elephant in the room: Where was President Obama from 5:30 pm throughout the rest of the night during which four Americans were calling for help and expecting the U.S. to come to their rescue???

Obama was AWOL. This is the same president who wanted us to know that he was "hands on" and even agonized over the decision to kill Osama Bin Laden. He was in the situation room following every step of the Navy Seals on their mission to kill Bin Laden. But who was in the situation room at the White House on the night of Sept. 11? We know for certain that Pres. Obama and Hillary weren't there. They were AWOL.
Obama was completely AWOL. He voted present and then did absolutely nothing despite the fact that he could have and obviously should have. He checked out and probably went to bed, got up the next morning and went to a fundraiser in Las Vegas. Since then he's been lying through his teeth and the administration has been in full cover-up mode for his utter incompetence.

When the 3 am phone call came, there was nothing but a recorded message: 

"Hello, you've reached President Barack Hussein Obama! I can't come to the phone right now, I may be fundraising, golfing, playing basketball, hangin' with Jay-Z, on Oprah, on vacation or ...." 

Republicans Join Obama in Arming Terrorists!!

Sen. Rand Paul from Kentucky

I live in the not-so-great state of Kentucky. It's a poor state that's been run into the ground by Democrats for many decades. We're a welfare state that loves government handouts and loves to tax people. But, having said that, we have the MOST AWESOME senator in the person of Rand Paul. Kentuckians can be proud of Rand Paul, the son of Presidential contender, Ron Paul.

This week, Sen. Rand Paul proposed an amendment that would have prohibited our government from transferring F-16 aircraft and Abrams tanks to Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood-dominated government. This idiotic idea of arming Islamic extremists, came from not only President Obama (who never saw a Muslim extremist that he didn't sympathize with) but also from the Republicans in the Senate.

Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi

Last December, in the midst of protests from the Egyptian people against President Mohammed Morsi, some demonstrators yelled out, "President Obama is supporting a terrorist." The U.S. is now financing tyranny in the Middle East, thanks to our 3 billion dollar bailout of this fanatical regime that has instituted Shariah Law and has publicly stated that the Jews descended from apes and pigs (shades of Hitler). In 2010, Morsi appeared in a video encouraging Egyptians to "nurse our children and grandchildren on hatred." Also, a senior aide to Morsi has stated that the holocaust is a myth, invented by America. 

Demonstrations in Egypt last December 2012

Rand Paul has 3 ideas which baffle GOP senators like John McCain, Kelly Ayotte (from NH) and Lindsay Graham among other Senate Republicans: 

1. Rand Paul thinks that American foreign policy ought to be premised on American national interests, not shifting notions of global stability. 
2. Rand Paul believes in this quaint idea that the foundation for all American foreign policy should be the Constitution. Imagine that? This means that our Congress, especially the House of Representatives has the power to de-fund such madness as "arming Arab extremists."
3. Finally, Rand Paul believes that when we give arms and aid to anti-American Islamists, bad things tend to happen to America.

F-16 Fighter

Sen. Rand Paul tried to stop the weapons transfer to Egypt. He was defeated 79-19 because 23 turncoat Republicans (including John McCain, Lindsay Graham, Kelly Ayotte, McConnell, Inhofe, Portman, Toomey, etc.) shamefully joined ALL the Senate Democrats.

I want to recognize the 18 Republicans who joined Senator Rand Paul is trying to stop the arming of America's enemies. These are true patriots: Boozman, Coats, Cornyn, Crapo, Cruz, Fischer, Grassley, Heller, Lee, Moran, Risch, Roberts, Rubio, Scott, Sessions, Shelby, Thune, and Vitter.

These 19 not only evidence common sense, but also the desire and conviction to protect America's interests as well as those of Israel.