There used to be a big campaign called WWJD – What Would Jesus Do? Back when most of the country was, at least nominally, Christian. Unfortunately, Modern Christianity in the West has created a fake Jesus that reflects the virtue signaling fake values of liberalism and in so doing has created a weak and superficial Christianity that has created weak and superficial Christians that inspire no one.

This is not a new problem. In 1738 on January 24^th John Wesley wrote in his journal:

“I went to America to convert the Indians; but Oh! Who shall convert me? Who, what is he that will deliver me from this evil heart of unbelief?”

Then, in a letter to a friend Wesley confessed, “I feel what you say for I am under the same condemnation…God is holy; I am unholy. God is a consuming fire; I am altogether a sinner, meet to be consumed. Yet I hear a voice saying, ‘Believe, and thou shalt be saved’…O let no one deceive us by vain words, as if we had already attained this faith!”

At Aldersgate, there was an event that Wesley describes in 18^th Century speak as: “my heart was strangely warmed.” Many denominations describe this event as being “saved;” in other words an assurance of salvation and grace that reaches to the very depth of the soul.

After Aldersgate when Wesley said his heart was strangely warmed and he realized the full force of his salvation on October 30 he told his older brother Samuel, “By a Christian I mean one who so believes in Christ as that sin hath no more dominion over him. And in this obvious sense of the word, I was not a Christian till May 24 last past. For till then sin had dominion over me, although I fought with it continually; but since then, from that time to this, it hath not.” So, Wesley’s remarks leading up to and following Aldersgate appear to say in clear terms that on May 24 he experienced a conversion to saving faith. Many Christians today, like Wesley at the start of this ministry, have not experienced this. That does not mean they aren’t Christian. Wesley described it a Christianity that sits on the Lental of the Kingdom of God but not entering fully into it. Too many Christians think church and preaching “is all there is” and they have never felt the power of the Living God in their lives. That is why I say Nature’ God. Nature knows the real God but some who call God “God” are not actually worshipping the one true God. This is a problem as old as the Bible and the Pharisees. Today we call these Christians in name only “nominal Christians” and they are in every denomination and faith. Some of them are leaders and preachers.

Of course I am not talking about everyone, but before you think I am just talking about some mainline denominations like the United Methodists or other ‘social justice’ gospels you better read on and reflect on what I have to say lest you be one of those who on that day run to the Returned Jesus and say “Lord Lord,” and have him respond “Get away from me you doers of iniquity. I never knew you.” Somehow, whenever we read that passage, we are always sure it applies to others and not us. But I ask you, isn’t that what the Pharisees would have thought when they heard that?

As a pastor I know, from talking to people not in the church, that one of the reasons they don’t give the church a chance is because of people already in the church. Of course, I told them “The church is a hospital for sinners, not a museum for saints.

Unfortunately, even much of the so-called conservative world and non-denominational Christianity holds to this oversimplified, progressive, and even heretical image of the Son of God. So when people asked that question of “What Would Jesus Do?” – they already had a fake preconceived notion of what their options were. Let’s talk about what WWJD could really mean.

Welcome Children of Nature’s God, You, are created in the Divine Image as stewards of the Earth – as we are told in Genesis. I have already covered in another place how what most Bibles translate as “God gave humanity dominion over the Earth” would be better translated as God made humanity the “stewards” of the Earth.

Let’s look at that. The castle’s steward was the representative of the Lord whenever the Lord was absent from the castle. It was the steward who represented his lord’s interests in the castle and managing the Lord’s lands. Not only managing the business interests but fighting to defend them. Everything the Steward did, or failed to do, he would have answer for when the Lord returned and demanded an accounting from him. What do you think would happen to such a steward when he had done nothing as the Lord’s resources were stolen and misused in making junk for “planned obsolescence,” his lands and streams had been poisoned, his people misled and fed poisons, and his words twisted and re-imaged to fit the stewards and not the lord’s political preferences. I think it may be something like the Lord returns and the steward rides up to him and says “Lord lord! Welcome we have been awaiting your return!” and he says “Get away from me you villain! I never knew you!”

Unfortunately, all of us need to sometimes humbly reflect upon what one of my parishioners, a sheep farmer, once told me:

So, it is important for anyone who seeks to wear the name Christian to get it right! While we are not saved by works clearly, at least according to Jesus and the book of Saint James in the Bible, works flow naturally for someone who is truly redeemed. In other words, no works, no salvation. Works will never “earn your way” into heaven. Only belief can do that but the Hebrew Bible and Aramaic language are clear that there is no belief if there is no action accompanying it. Action MUST naturally flow out of a living faith. Humans can delude themselves into saying they believe anything but only their actions reflect what they actually believe. It would be well for people to remember that when they listen to their politicians.

So lets go back to What Would Jesus Do and the fakeness of that campaign. Maybe that was too harsh, people who followed it were very sincere. It was not intended to be fake but we had all been fed this fake image of the Son of God so our results would be more formed by our mothers who told us (in violation of Christian scripture,) that “if you cannot say anything nice don’t say anything at all.” GET BEHIND ME SATAN!

Even my own mother said this. She was well intentioned but very very wrong. The Christian is supposed to “speak the truth in love” no matter how hard it may to hear. To be “wise as serpents but innocent as doves.” But never to be just “nice.” And that was how so many people took it. I almost walked out of a sermon (after I was a pastor – it would never have occurred to me to turn my back on the preacher, no matter how heretical his or her words were, until I went to seminary,) when the woman pastor in the UMC church said “Jesus calls us to be nice. Jesus was always nice.”

Oh really? I almost stood up and rejoindered, “Really? The Jesus who said ‘You brood of vipers!’ was being nice? The Jesus who called the leaders of the church a bunch of ‘white-washed sepulchers’ was being nice? (A sepulcher is a place that holds the dead; so, Jesus was telling them their faith is dead and that they have just put a nice coat of paint on it and are still walking around.) The Jesus who made a whip of cords, overturned their tables, and drove the money changers from the temple was being ‘nice’?” My wife saw me tense and placed her hand on my arm and I remained in my seat and said nothing.

But, let me be clear, I failed my Lord in that day. This woman was leading an entire congregation astray and I said nothing! John Wesley wouldn’t have done that. John Wesley’s diary can be an interesting read: “I was invited to preach at [such and such] a church today. They asked me never to return.” Wesley, the founder of Methodism would have no time for most Methodists today. In fact, were he to preach from their pulpit I am quite sure that the denomination would ask him not to return.

You see, that is the problem. When we ask ourselves “What would Jesus do?” in this situation. We almost never consider making a whip of cords and driving those whose very lifestyles promote sloth, greed, envy, wrath, lust, gluttony, and pride as did the money changers from the temple. “You have made this house of prayer a den of theives!” Jesus exclaimed. We have pastors and leaders in the church today, land many voices who claim to speak for God, but don’t. They serve an “anti-God” a force for dissolution, disease, and corruption. This corruption has touched every church and every faith. But it does not mean that God is false or the church is hopeless. It means that the only thing wrong with the church is that it is made of people; and we are a fallen people. As, in Jesus’ day, those who will not repent, who cause others to stumble, need to be driven from the temple because that is what Jesus did.

(Do I detect the sin of pride in those who regularly claim to have no fears for the apocalypse because they are saved? Hmmm, it sounds prideful to me. And all too often Christians have used it as an excuse to not have to do anything about the corruption of our age. They have become like the women who only partially filled the oil in their lamps in Jesus parable of the bride’s maids. How many of us will be caught in Jesus only example of how the judgement works as seen in Matthew 7). Unfortunately, whoever they are, like those in the parable, will be shocked that they are welcome. Saint Paul said that we must all work out our own salvation “with fear and trembling.” Too many of us have too little “awe” for an awesome and terrifying God. A loving God full of grace but so awesome that if Moses had seen Him in his entirety the Bible tell us he would have died. Jesus and the Holy Spirit, come to make God more relatable for each of us but he is still an awesome, terrible, other that our finite minds cannot comprehend.

Somehow, I believe it is under the false prophets of modern liberalism, that too much of modern Christianity has lost the ability to stand up for their faith. The Templars knew how to do that. They may not have always got it right; but they were knights who rode out, originally, to protect pilgrims to the holy land who were being raped, murdered, and sold into slavery by Muslims and heretics on their way to Jerusalem – grooming gangs of Britain anyone? Isn’t the King supposed to be the defender of the Faith in Britain? Oh, well, I guess he is doing no better than the rest of us, is he?

I don’t see a lot of Christians today riding out to do combat for the innocent – except men like Tim Ballard, the former US Federal Agent whose life is portrayed in “The Sound of Freedom.” Yet, are we not all called to act thusly? To put everything on the line for the faith. How’s that goin’ for ya?.

Jesus had harsh words and actions for any who preyed on the innocent or naïve (as in the money changers in the temple.) Ever been hit by a cat of nine tails? It’s not a “nice” experience. My ex-wife used one to hit our dog once and I jumped down her throat!

The Templars saw innocents in danger and acted. I saw lies and injustice everywhere and tried to post truth on Facebook but was shutdown so I started OfNaturesGod.com and SabersEdge.Online and make no money on them but pay many hundreds of dollars a year from my veteran’s disability and retirement to maintain. But I am not close to “doing everything I can for the faith.” God and I talk about it (as the old book says, “God is Calling, But Most Leave the Phone Off the Hook”) and I feel insufficient to do all that I feel he wants me to do.

We need Christians with the conviction of the Templars today; with the faith and conviction of Tim Ballard in Sound of Freedom. I am talking to you. But as so many sermons I have preached I am also talking to me. But to fulfill our call we need to see the truth of the gospel and not act on lies and falsehood.

We need those whose gospel has not been poisoned by the “sweetmeats” of liberalism. John Wesley said that the Christians of 18^th Century England were only fed pleasant sounding words from their pulpits. Like people who only eat “sweetmeats” they are Christians with a diabetic faith drowning in sugar. Unfortunately, our faith has been so colored by these “sickly sweet” words that many read the Bible today only in that light and so embrace a false gospel. AS such they cannot really understand what they read because the poison is in their heads already and they have already been “told” what to think about it and can no longer see anything else.

Maybe this is why Jesus said, “Let those who have eyes to see, let them see.” We must ask ourselves. “Do we have the eyes to see or are we just seeing what someone has told us was there?” This is why the Bible says to read scripture prayerfully so God can talk to us and the Spirit can guide us in our study.

I personally noticed this after taking Hebrew and Greek in Seminary. As a former investigator and counterintelligence agent I had already been conditioned to be careful not to read my own meaning into witness statements or to make assumptions when conducting investigations. As I read through the Bible again, although I had read through it entirely before, I saw many things I had missed. In seminary it was in this investigative light…that I studied every passage. Asking what was there instead of “knowing” what I would find. The full wine skin or the full cup is already full and nothing new can be poured into it.

I studied every word and looked up every phrase to divine its true meaning. I concluded that Satan has done a number on Christians today and most of us don’t notice. The faith we, as Christians are taught today, is almost anti-biblical with so many things is it really the Faith of Christ anymore? So many ideas that were added to the faith from “dispensationalism” to “social justice” that are not in the Bible. Many things, some of which are well thought out and good – explaining things that need explaining, but others that are fraught with human error. We are misled by very well-educated false prophets and sweet sounding words that don’t come from God but from this “Enemy.” And the Enemy is very very good at corruption.

Christians need a balance, and we can find it in prayer and meditation on the word of God. But we need to remember that most of prayer should be listening to what God is saying to us for the God who is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow, has never stopped speaking. Although most of us have stopped listening. But we can start listening again whenever we choose to and carve out some time for God and approach Nature’s God with the same open heart and assurance that nature does. And it begins in the real gospel that reflects what Jesus actually said and doesn’t remake him into some virtue signaling false saint of the modern day and the progressive message. We need to heed both the invitation and warning in Matthew Chapter 7:

A Tree and Its Fruit

15Beware of false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves. 16By their fruit you will recognize them. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20So then, by their fruit you will recognize them.

21Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of My Father in heaven. 22Many will say to Me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in Your name, and in Your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’

23Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you workers of lawlessness!’

The House on the Rock

24Therefore everyone who hears these words of Mine and acts on them is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because its foundation was on the rock.

26But everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27The rain fell, the torrents raged, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its collapse!”

And the promise that proceeds it in Matthew:

Matthew 7:7-8

7Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened to you. 8For everyone who asks receives; he who seeks finds; and to him who knocks, the door will be opened.

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How Modern Christmas Really Chaps My Hide!

Let’s talk about Christmas. I want to do that because so many don’t even know when the Christmas season is anymore or how Christians prepared and celebrated it for thousands of years. They are confused about the 12 days of Christmas and when it starts and when it ends. This is the fault of not only our retail companies who want it to be all about buying crap but the fault of churches who have abrogated their duties to raise up strong Christians who are capable of waging holy war against perpetrators of evil, murder, death, and mayhem instead of making excuses for evil and evil doers. By standing by and doing nothing, the bible is clear, those deaths are on the heads of those who stood by and did nothing. God will hold them accountable.

If you are a Christian God has called you to be a watchman over His children.

But let’s talk of Christmas.

This is another installment of What Your Father Should Have Taught You – What ARE the 12 Days of Christmas? Your father should have told you as his father should have told him. Mine did, no he wasn’t a priest, he was a staff sergeant during World War II and a Construction worker he did go to college for mechanical engineering…back when college actually taught you to think. He was really big on physics and Natural Law and that we could see who God through these laws which he implemented for our very existence. There was an order to everything, he often said.

But we have lost the reasons for why we do things. Especially Christmas, and what we’ve done to it really chaps my hide.

There are actually a lot of things that I think we would be better off doing like the Victorians did. In many ways they lived intensely but they were also better than us at knowing why they were doing things. OK, neckties and other ways to hide buttons (because they thought people would get overly excited if they saw how to get someone’s clothes off), or table skirts and long table clothes because they thought viewing table legs would make men think of women’s legs and consequently what those legs lead to at the top…those views were probably a bit much. their sexual phobias bordered on the obsessive but it’s not like there is nothing to complain about with our society.

Despite some rather odd beliefs everything they made was beautiful…even warships in the Victorian and Edwardian period and before were beautiful. I saw a dam that was a work of art they didn’t just make things functional they made them beautiful! They believed, as my Dad told me, to do everything I do as if I am doing it in service to my God. Always do my best because God is watching, and he takes pleasure in us doing things well and to the best of our ability. Today my wife and I regularly lament on how bland, straight and sterile modern life and architecture is. We live in a world that is seriously devoid of man-made beauty.

She, my wife, also has chosen to wear Victorian clothes which she enjoys making for her family on 100-year-old sewing machines that still work! Because everything they made back then was made to last. Planned obsolescence is a satanic teaching, there is nothing Biblical about it. My dad hated the junk he sometimes had to buy and talked about how everything used to be fixable and was made to last. The very idea of making things designed to wear out is contrary to biblical teaching where you are to do all as if you do it for God. And, it can be assumed, God doesn’t appreciate junk. If nothing else, it is a massive waste of the resources he put on this world for our benefit. But, as usual, I digress.

The Victorian Age was, perhaps, the last time when Christians on the whole understood the 12 Days of Christmas and therefore the Christmas season.

We like the clothes from that time period because they had class…I still like sweats and t-shirts, but the Victorian night shirt is comfortable and easy to maintain too. We do this because we like it. We like to live and understand our connections to our family’s and our nation’s history. We aren’t fanatical about it. Sometimes I wear my grey cavalry hat with a feather behind the upturned brim and crossed sabers and the 8th Cavalry crest on it and other times I wear my more modern black beret with my 8th Cav crest on it, while still others I wear my “Indiana Jones” Fedora…but I hate being a clone of everyone else. Therefore, I don’t wear baseball or feed caps. Yet the Army conditioned me to wear hats when I’m outside and I still have that habit.

I don’t expect anyone else to do what I do. In fact, I have told all my kids to “be yourself” no matter what others think. You don’t live to please them but to please God and yourself – the only two you can never get away from. They all grew up learning my favorite quote from Friederich Nietzsche that “Why should we strive to be normal. Another word for normal is average and another word for average is mediocre. Should we really strive to be mediocre?” Be yourself you will never do anything great by coping everyone else.

True, some Victorians were quite conformist…except Southern Generals…as one Southern woman said, “We prefer our generals to be a bit eccentric.” But the way Victorians and Southern Generals worshipped tended to have the same class and intensity of everything else they did. The armies actually stopped fighting for Christmas! Stonewall Jackson, the few times he was required to fight on Sunday he required all his soldiers and officers to show up at worship the following day! The Confederate Army experienced massive revivals during the Civil War. “They still lost” you might say. Yeah, but as Gary Gallagher has pointed out in several of his books: the amazing thing is the South not only held out for so long in their war, but they almost won at several points – where if you looked at the odds they should have been crushed. The US Army (at least since Robert E Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and Dwight D. Eisenhower have left the service,) is not going to say, “the way to win battles is to be on the right side with God.” Jackson and Lee and Chamberlain for that matter were obsessive about doing things “the right way,” and reacting as God would have wanted them to do. They were men of faith and Christmas was a big part of their lives.

But what have we done to our faith today? Let’s look at that by looking at Christmas and what it is supposed to be.

First I want to tell you a story from my life. It highlights how the people who know the least are often the most obnoxious about trying to force their own beliefs down your throat. In the city I used to live in I had my favorite radio station. It provided the best local news, in my opinion. Unfortunately, it had a popular DJ who was a football fanatic. Not just your run of the mill football fanatic but one who couldn’t have a single show without bringing football into it. His family, true to his love (and I know many people who love football who are not this way and who I don’t complain about,) his family had Nebraska Football watch parties. The thing was this man was so obnoxious about it his friends and family eventually made him watch the game in a separate room from those in the watch party because his anger and rants spoiled everyone else’s enjoyment of the game. He would actually spit as he raged. Similarly, he lamented on air that his son hated football and everything about it. He tried and tried to get his son interested in his love of the game but for some “unexplainable” reason his son was turned off by it and wanted nothing to do with it. As a boy who loved movies (especially Star Trek and Science Fiction,) back in the days when people had only one television, in Nebraska on football game days the TV was dominated by football and I came to hate the dreaded words after overtime “we now return to our regularly scheduled program already in progress.” More than once all I saw where the last scene and the credits of a movie I had looked forward to all week.

Since I was so much younger than my siblings and didn’t follow football – but had read the Hobbit by first grade – my sister took me to the library or to the book store and bought me a new book every game day. That worked for me and I looked forward to game days because I got a new book and spent time with my sister discussing history, Star Trek, vampires, or other things that interested me more. The difference was that my folks never tried to ram their love of football down my throat. I loved rainy days when mom didn’t go to the game because I got to spend time with my dad at the game. I DID like the energy of actually being at a game and I imagine that some of that same energy is garnered from watch parties and is why people like them.

So what does this have to do with Christmas? Well, the announcer had a series where people could call in and complain about their pet peeves. He called it “What Chaps My Hide.” Apparently, a great deal “chapped his hide.” He disliked science fiction movies, monsters, he really hated Halloween, and holiday decoration and he hated Christmas. He didn’t think he did but he thought Christmas decorations should all come down on December 26^th and it bugged the hell out of him when they were still up. He even highlighted a company that you could hire to take down your neighbor’s Christmas decorations if they were still up after Christmas Day. (I would press charges if they tried that with me but once again this man thought everyone was entitled to live according to his preferences.)

He claimed to be a Christian. At least in name. But he had no clue that the first day of the 12 days of Christmas was December 25^th or the 26th as some people count Christmas Day as Christmas Day and the 12 Days of the Christmas season as starting the day after. Surely you have heard the song the 12 Days of Christmas? Didn’t you ever wonder what the heck they were?

The four weeks leading up to Christmas are called Advent, highlighted by the four Sundays before Christmas. During those weeks many people get an advent calendar – a good one will lead you through meditations of what it is like to be without Jesus and the miracle of the incarnation of the avatar of God manifesting in physical form on Earth. Now, I am not using avatar as a symbol you use for your games nor in the sense of “the Avatar” cartoon. But in other religions an avatar is the personification of God (or gods) on Earth. That is the Christ. The messiah was the living incarnation of God upon Earth to free us from the cycle of death and destruction that we started when we disobeyed and got kicked out of paradise. Christians don’t use the term Avatar but, in my mind, most people are no longer Christian and the “don’t speak Christian” which is one reason why modern Christians are so out of touch with people in society and why I hear so many people say “christians believe …” and then launch into a diatribe about things I have never heard any denomination espouse in my entire life – and I have studied religions. No one seems to know, even churches, what Christians believe anymore.

Even my churches I pastored always wondered why we didn’t sing Christmas songs leading up to Christmas. “Because it’s not Christmas yet.” I would answer and I would explain that Christmas starts on Christmas morning. Advent, the four weeks before Christmas are for Advent songs. You are to prepare your hearts for the arrival of Christ and use advent to make room in your busy lives for Christ to rest in your heart as part of you.

There are many fine advent hymns. One of my favs is “O Come O Come Emmanuel” – and ransom captive Israel – and us. Save us from this vale of sin and death! That is the point of the song, that God hears us in our suffering and sent help. That is the point of all the advent songs that God heard us and He still hears us. Other great Advent hymns are “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus” (maybe that’s my fav,) “Joy to the World,” “Mary’s Song,” “Silent Night,” “O Holy Night,” “O Come All Ye Faithful,” “Lo, How a Rose ‘ere Blooming” (on of my mom’s favs – I remember singing it in German,) “The First Noel,” “Angels We Have Heard On High,” “Away in a Manger”, “O Little Town of Bethlehem,” “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear,” “We Three Kings,” “Angels We Have Heard On High” (I love the chorus), and my other fav (a civil war song written on the day he heard his son had been severely wounded and which I made sure we sang every year in my families Christmas Carol Coffee whenever American soldiers were in harms way…which has been every hear of my 23 year old son’s life. Many of those years it was his brothers in harms way. The Christmas Carol Coffee is a tradition my mom started before I was born and( which I continued until my liver failed and had to stop,) –that song was “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.”The Song We Sang every year American Soldiers Were In Harms Way – Written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow after he heard his son, a Union Soldier, had been severely wounded in the battle of Mine Run in 1863 during the American Civil War.

Even through the 1800s Christians knew that Christmas started on Christmas morning and was celebrated for 12 days after (I guess in the 1800s when people actually DID live a hard life with death by all sorts of diseases, childbirth, bullets, and accidents occurred at such a high rate sometimes populations didn’t have enough kids to replace the losses that then you grabbed at reasons to party for 12 days.) It was the norm in the South to even give their slaves off for the 12 days of Christmas! You wouldn’t believe the number of southern women who complained in their diaries in the 1800s about how hard it was to entertain visitors on New Years Day without the help of their “domestics” because they had been given time off to spend with their families over Christmas…all twelve days of it. Today the wage slaves are lucky if they can even get Christmas Day off! My youngest son has to work this Christmas. I am not so young that I don’t remember the days when EVERYTHING except police, fire, and hospitals were closed on Sundays and Christmas and Easter as it was expected that families would actually spend that day together “being a family.” Too many families today wouldn’t even know how to talk to each other if we went back to that – although today most families wouldn’t talk unless you shut down the cell towers too.

Hispanics still celebrate 3 Kings Day on 12^th Night, the 12^th Day of Christmas which is either the 5^th or 6^th of January depending on if counting starts on Christmas Day or if it counts Christmas Day as Christmas Day and the 1^st Day of Christmas as the 26^th of December. But, either way, 12^th Night has been celebrate by Christians for almost 2000 years but most American “Christians” have never heard of it and never celebrated it because their Christmas is over on Christmas Day. The idea of making a special place in their hearts and their families for 12 days of Christmas is foreign to them…they have to get back to work and shove aside all that “faith crap.” After all, you don’t expect a person’s faith to actually change how you live do you?

And that is the problem that really “chaps my hide.” People who claim a faith that makes no difference in their lives. Or who claim faith but nothing in how they live would prove to you that they have it. Jesus would have said that was impossible. But in Aramaic belief and action are included in the same word. Jesus could not have envisioned someone “believing” in something and not doing something about it. “Let those who have ears to hear, let them hear.” The Bible often says.

I guess that is really why SabersEdge is here. We don’t expect to change everyone’s mind. But let those who have ears to hear let them hear. Let those who have eyes to see, let them see. And we will let those who remain deaf and blind – like that radio announcer, continue on their own way. As for you, I hope you see and hear something new that you didn’t know that adds richness and depth to your life and understanding.

For those interested in history here is We Three Kings in Old English…not Middle English which is what most people think of as Old English but actual Old English as spoken in England before the Norman French conquered England and screwed up our language with weird spellings.

BALANCE IS THE KEY TO LIFE – WHAT SUPPLEMENTS DO DOCTORS TAKE TO RESTORE OUR BODIES EQUILIBRIUM?

The Wisdom of the ancients regularly talked about balance. The Greek philosophers spoke of the Golden Mean and living life in balance, the Biblical wisdom literature speaks of balance in life and living, as do the Vedas, Tao, and many other ancient sources. It would seem that every society has recognized this Life-Truth…except ours. One of the ways our society has lost its balanced is our food and medicines.

This ancient wisdom included “magic” like potions such as willow-bark tea which was brewed in Ancient times and the Middle Ages to fight aches and pains. It was only in the latter part of the last century that science finally “discovered” that this “magic witch’s brew” produced acetylsalicylic acid which is the chemical composition of what our pharmaceutical companies market as “aspirin.” I have watched with amusement as our governments spent millions of dollars to prove radical knowledge such as “when you have a cold chicken soup is good for you.” The knowledge that society has known for centuries that we have only embraced in my lifetime because “science” has proved it. It’s not funny anymore.

There is a big difference between believing what science has proven is true than believing that nothing is true unless science has proved it. The latter view has characterized our society, turning away from knowledge proven over thousands of years of practice until we can “re-prove” it in scientific experimentation.

Our modern society and governments continue to be at war with nature and natural processes and today as I write even more articles are popping onto my screen about our government bureaucracy closing down Amish farms and other natural food production denying us healthy options and defending the great monopolies of food mega-corporations rather than allowing us freedom of choice to live and eat as we choose. This is not new and if we don’t act quickly and decisively we will lose the option to seek our own food. And it is not the laws that are closing these down (although it is “law-enforcement” doing it.) Instead, they are enforcing regulations written by bureaucrats with an agenda that is un-elected, and untouchable in our current government system. If you explore their membership you will find the leadership of our government bureaus and agencies are largely a collection of corporate shills and people hoping to retire to a higher paying corporate job restricting our options and over-regulating everything from our food to what kind of light bulbs we use. The FDA (Food and Drug Administration) leadership looks like a who’s who of corporate executives from big pharma and mega-corporations that control the majority of our food supply. Is it any wonder that they are closing down natural foods?

The research of these corporations have revealed that to meet their profit-based goals cannot be met if even 14% of us eat natural food. Is it any wonder that our government, manipulated by corporations, is cracking down on natural foods not only in the US but throughout Europe? This has gotten out of hand and neither party stands effectively against it because both parties are funded by these same corporations that are controlling our bureaucracies.

One of the things that has lost its balance is our nutrition. In today’s society 80% or more of our food is over-processed, filled with preservatives, and factory produced. Even natural foods have suffered a massive decrease in nutritional value as we have turned to fertilizers instead of the traditional view of crop rotation and the periodic renewal of minerals in the soil produced by flooding and the natural processes of creation. I will share with you the supplements that doctors and scientists agree are necessary in our “modern” world to help restore our health.

I have always endeavored to augment my food supply with my garden and also draw on natural foods purchased directly from local farms in my area. It is not as convenient but it is better. Recently, I noticed a difference as I cooked with both farm fresh – free range chicken eggs bought at the Farmer’s Market and using “farm fresh” eggs from the supermarkets in the same meal. As I made quesadillas for breakfast I noticed that the eggs from the farm had thicker, healthier shells than those from the supermarket. That has to be an indicator of the health of the chickens.

We know that the big restaurants and “exclusive” suppliers of the rich buy up the best foods and meats and give us what is left over. When I was a pastor in a small country church I had parishioners who brought me bags of meat. They said, “This is just to help you out pastor. I know you don’t make much. I apologize, it is our old meat that we had from last year’s fall slaughter. It’s been in our freezer for a year but we need to make room for the meat this year as we thin the herd before winter hits.” What he called “old,” “tough,” meat was much much better and tastier than what we were buying in the store. It was then I realized that the meat in the supermarkets was the inferior to what we could have if we raised our own or bought directly from farmers/ranchers.

The truth is that our modern society has spent the last 150 years at war with natural law believing, incorrectly, that humanity was not a part of nature. Finally, science is starting to prove that hubris is wrong. The world is an organic whole and we are part of that whole – although the society we have built lives completely cut off from it. [ See also: https://sabersedge.online/the-world-built-in-the-last-150-years-is-broken]

Because of that, we have to reconnect with the natural balance for our health to combat the proliferation of inflammatory diseases, mental health, and so many things that are produced by an imbalance not only in our society but within our bodies.

Scientists and doctors were asked what supplements they would take to combat the imbalance encountered by most people eating modern products. Granted, if you eat right you don’t need supplements, but I would venture to say that you probably don’t eat right – and even if you are trying to you are hampered by over-farming, over-processed, and industrialized food production that is not good for us, not good for animals or nature, and a problematic in so many ways.

The most common recommendation from doctors and scientists seems to be Zinc and Vitamin C, but Vitamin D, Turmeric, Omega 3 Fatty Acids, Probiotics, and Pre-biotics are also included in surveys of doctors and scientists about what they and their families take.

supplements scientists and doctors take –

zinc – was regularly taken by my mother-in-law who was a nurse and has been recommended by more doctors that I can list here as one of the best supplements you can take to help your immune system. It also helps balance many aspects of your health.

Vitamin C – is a powerful antioxidant, boosts immunity, and is required for the biosyntheses of collagen, neurotransmitters, and our metabolization of protein. It benefits our hair, skin, cell repair and health, tissues, muscles, gums, and even brain health. It has even been called a super vitamin.

turmeric – anti-inflammatory, anti-oxidant, healing and repairing intestinal skin, liver function, moods, etc. – an experiment found that turmeric/black pepper combo can boost other valuable food benefits by 2000 percent. Can increase stem cells and telomeres – but only if you don’t take too much. Indians take one teaspoon a day with a touch of pepper – scientists were amazed at the low instance of cancers and other ailments in these traditional communities.

Vitamin D – Anyone north of Atlanta in North America doesn’t get enough sunlight to naturally develop enough Vitamin D from sunlight. Promotes immunity and blood balance. When you get your blood tested you want it between 50-80 nano-grams per milliliter; then take 1000, 2000, to 4000 to keep it there, depending on where you live and your lifestyle. Sheep get vitamin D from licking each other, we can eat organ meats or other food, lick each other, or sheep, or we could take supplements.

Probiotics – modern food processing sterilizes food of both harmful and helpful bacteria “bugs.” But the truth is we need these bugs to help with digestion and the natural processes in our bodies. Without “good” bugs in our bodies, we would die because they work with us and not against us. Modern over-processed, mass-produced food destroys this balance by killing all bugs both good and bad. If you must consume these industrialized foods then you need to take probiotics and since industrialized production accounts for so much of our support it’s probably good for everyone. As I write this we see the trend of the last decade continue as the Biden Administration and Government Bureaucracies in the Western World continue their war against nature and natural foods by shutting down Amish Farms in the US and across the pond then restricting European Farmers. If you can take colonizing probiotics you don’t need to take them constantly but if you take modern medications that interfere with internal bugs then you probably need to renew them regularly. Others need to take them periodically.

Pre-biotics – help coat your intestines and internal tissues with a coating that protects it from all the hazards we face day to day and imbalances resulting from eating too much of any one thing or the wrong things for the season that we were in. Traditional societies have their food tied to the cycles of nature and naturally consume the right foods in the right seasons to help their own gut health and bodies nutrients. Our modern society strips many of the pro-biotic and pre-biotic resources from our processed foods.

DoTerra includes a probiotic and pre-probiotic that are essential for health in my opinion and they have definitely made a difference in my life. These Pre-biotics help coat your gut and innards to protect you:

https://www.doterra.com/US/en/create-cart/retail?OwnerID=3208777&salesOrg=USOTG&35160001=1&60209480=1

FISH OILS – Fish oils contain Omega 3 fatty acids and it has long been known that traditional diets of Meditteranean, Pacific Islands, and other coastal communities have a natural health that those dwelling inland often miss. It has been traced to fish oils – as traditional coastal communities have a larger part of their diet containing fish with fatty oils. The lipids and good fats are important for your heart function, brain function, mental health, cognitive health, anti-inflammatory benefits, your skin, and your blood health and they are very different from the Omega 6 fatty acids (that are not so good for you) and that are contained in our processed cooking oils. (I do most of the cooking in my house and I use Olive Oil and natural fat from bacon and meats we drain off our food when cooking. It worked for my parents and grandparents and it works for us. As Sam, the Cooking Guy says on YouTube, “Fat is flavor.”) Dr. John Douillard who runs the LifeSpa website says that in the past 40 years the ratio of our consumption has gone from a one-to-one ratio and balance of the two to a 20-to-one ratio of Omega 6 over the healthy Omega 3’s.

Balance is the key to health and, according to the Wisdom of the ancients is the key to nearly everything but our modern society is imbalanced in almost everything it does. If it finds something healthy it pursues it to extremes that make it unhealthy (like its efforts to purge bacteria in industrialized food and filling it with artificial preservatives to make it last, also destroying the good bacteria that we need for health.

The key is making a balance between the good and the bad and to maintain the Golden Mean in our life, exercise, and food consumption. Because we don’t do well at maintaining this mean and because our government seems to be at war with natural food producers our health will get worse and worse and we will be more dependent on supplements – which by coincidence are produced by those same mega-corporations that are behind the annihilation of our natural food choices. Is this a coincidence?

Ayurvedic Knowledge and Wisdom are discussed here and in SabersEdge.Online

These Life-Truths/Natural Laws/Wisdom are a unity of both intelligence and intuition, science and revelation, tradition and modern thought that recognizes the universe as being a coherent unity. A universe in the deepest sense of the word. Wisdom is universal and ancient and reflected in every ancient society throughout the world whether it is drawn from the Bible (Job, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, Sirach), ancient Egyptian and Mesopotamian sages, the Viking Havamal, the wisdom of Tao, Confucius, Greaco-Roman Philosophers, and Tibetan Monks. All this wisdom is remarkably similar and the message is substantially the same. It is past time we reconnect with the Ancient Wisdom and a more natural way of living. Not to go back but to truly be able to go forward in a healthy and vibrant future.

https://lifespa.com/herbs-supplements/supplements-scientists-recommend/