Babylon Box.

http://www.visionforum.com/news/blogs/doug/2011/08/9632/

Teddy Roosavelt

He was born Theodore Roosevelt. As a child, it was not thought he would live past an early age. He battled Asma, and many nights found him unable to breath. However, his father was not a man to let a son grow up a weakling, or a man who was pampered. He told his son "You have the mind, but not the body. Build your body, and you will go far." to which, the indomitable Teddy replied "I will build my body." His father had a room torn out to make a veranda, and on it, Teddy;s gym was born. He spent hours every day working on parallel bars, lifting weights, and doing push ups.

Theodore Roosevelt is never thought of as a scrawny little boy who should be dead very soon because of his illness. We remember him for such things as his presidency, his charge up San Juan Hill, and his exploration, with his son Kermit, of the River of Doubt, a trip on which he thought he was going to die. At one point, he told his son to leave him, to which his son replied "You are leaving this place dead or alive, but alive would be much easier."

Theodore Roosevelt, author, father, soldier, explorer, president of the United States of America, stands as a tribute to manhood, and to what men can accomplish, if they will go anywhere, as long as it is forward.

In closing I quote the man himself.

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat."

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott

Father's day.

Hurrah for Fathers!



How do we become like them?

When David killed the giant Goliath, he did it as a man who, even if he feared the giant, he feared his God more. When John Smith stepped over the gangplank at Jamestown, he was already prepared to fight the Indians, when Fransisco de Pizarro stepped over the line to go to "Peru and its riches" he was not, for the first time, discovering what it was to be a man, neither were the men at the Alamo making their first hard decision when they crossed the famous Line in the Sand.

Men are not made on the field of the great battles, they are crafted in the darkness of the forests during the skirmishes. No man would ever be asked to rush a breach if he has not first proven that he will obey when told to carry a water pail.

God has told us what he wants form a man, Micha 6:8 says

He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Love justice, love mercy, be humble, can it be said any plainer than that?

How do we become like them? We must train like them. The men that hit the beaches of Normandy on D-Day did not suddenly show up at the field of battle, they trained for hours and hours with live ammunition, running up bluffs, doing push ups, and running laps. It was when they felt they could do no more, and yet picked themselves up for one more push up, one more jumping jack, one more blow at the bag, that they knew that hate were ready.

John Smith was a man such as the world had never seen, yet I pray will someday see again. He was a man who was had on himself, a man who forced himself. When he was a boy, he decided he needed to get away from all the other young men his age so he went into the woods and built himself a tree house, and lived in the woods, reading his books, shooting his pistols at trees, and riding his horse with his lance, training for a life of adventures such as the annals of history shall never again see.

The training must be harder than the real thing. The sharpest swords are made in the hottest fires.

Fransisco de Pizarro was the man who eventually brought down the great Incan nation in Peru. He was the man who did not seem destined for a great life. He was the man that, at thirty-three, was a little illiterate goat-herd with black teeth on the hills of Truxilo, a little poor decrepit man who had lived a hard life, and yet, when the call came for conquest, it did not come to the princes who sat in fine houses, ate fine food, and slept in soft beds, it came to the man that had lived a hard life, in preparation for a great life.

David did not "appear" on the field of battle that day. He was a boy, as John Blake, a colonel in the Green Beret said "who was bored to death, out in the field, driving himself insane playing praises to God on his harp, slinging rocks, out of his mind with boredom, and killing the occasional bear or lion who came by, but when the time came, he had pushed himself to such an extent that God was able to use him, and that is what we need to do."

So John Smith was made as a boy, shooting at trees, and denying himself comfort, George Washington was made as a boy surveyor, a hard life of rain, bad food, and cold. If you would become a man, you must be hard on yourself. John the Baptist's parents took him into the wilderness for many years. And so, train mentally, train physically, train emotionally, until, when you are called to charge the breech, you have carried so many water buckets, it is old hat to you to follow orders, and to charge into the the hail of shot and shell, with your saber turning in air, sabering a gunner there, climbing up the loose stones, putting your training to use, doing the maneuvers the same way you have done them five hundred times throughout your life, and then, suddenly, you stand at the top, bathed in perspiration, but you have conquered through Christ's strength, but to reach the top, you must remember, that the goals you set for tomorrow will determine who you are today. In closing, allow me to show a video clip by Paul Washer.

Click Here

Through His Strength We Will Conquer,

Andrew C. Abbott

Dragons, Dinasaurs, and Humans-oh my!

Recently, I had the wonderful experience of reading Beowulf for the first time. Beowulf is the oldest English manuscript ever discovered. It is the story of a man named Beowulf, who is a famed fighter of dragons. He kills several in the story, including one underneath the ocean.

Dragons, in the language of the ancients, is the word for dinosaur. The word dinosaur not having been invented until 1841 by an English anatomist by the name of Sir Richard Owen. (The first dinosaur bone discovered in modern time was in 1809.)

If the creation account is true, and man lived with dinosaurs, then we should expect to find records of these great beasts. The fact is, we do. If you go down to the city of Glen Rose Texas, as I have done, there are, in many layers of strata, human and dinosaur footprints together, in layers laid down within hours. In Colorado, there are pictures of dinosaurs in caves. However, if this were the only instance of something like this, we would dismiss these pictures as a mere nothing. The evolutionists say, “Well, it is a mutant elephant that lost its ears in battle, because of course, men did not live with dinosaurs, because that is antithetical to our worldview.”

However, the fact is, this is not the only example of such a thing, down in Peru, near the city of Ica, there is a place, where over ten thousand stones have bee found with ancient pictures on them. Many of which, have pictures of men interacting with dinosaurs. (riding, killing, eating etc.) When the famed Marco Polo went to China, he said the emperor was raising dragons to pull chariots in his parade. On the Nazca plains near Nazca Peru, is a large plain with massive pictures on it, some of which appear to be dinosaurs. In the Grand Canyon, there are paintings on the walls form the Indians which appear to be pterodactyls. There is an ancient Russian cylinder seal with a dragon. Also, on an old Roman mosaic there is what appears to be two long necked dragons. There are pictures in Egypt of them…and the list could go  on indefinitely.

Besides Beowulf, there are many other stories and ancient legends about dragons and sea monsters. Form the story of ST. George slaying the dragon in 275. AD., to stories from China, to a story about France, in which a man killed a dragon, and the city of Nerluke France was renamed for him. Everywhere you go there are legends about dinosaurs or dragons. Men drew pictures of them on their pottery, sewed them into the blankets of mummies, put them into their recipes, (I am told that many ancient medicine recipes called for such things as dragon bones, saliva, etc.) and told their children about them. How could they have told so many stories, and made so many pictures, all around the world, without having seen them?

And, what about the old Viking ships that had dragon heads on the top of their ships? Or what about the dragons on the walls of the ancient city of Babylon?

What is the future of man and dinosaurs, are there still living ones, will we ever capture one? Whatever the truth about the living dinosaur legends, we must always remember, that dinosaurs are the “chief of the ways of God”, God is still God of the dinosaur, and although they have been perverted in to some supposed evidence for a faulty worldview, dinosaurs still proclaim the awesome glory of God, and their story, the story of how we will view dinosaurs, and of how we will treat possible living ones, and how we will interpret the bones, is just beginning. It is time to take back dinosaurs form evolution. It is time to declare that God created the monsters as well as the mice, and it is time bring the message of the Gospel of Creation to the world.

"When God Wants a Man"

A highly inspirational poem with a great deal of truth to it. (I have changed “Nature” to God.)

When God wants to drill a man
And thrill a man,
And skill a man,
When God wants to mold a man
To play the noblest part;
When He yearns with all His heart
To create so great and bold a man
That all the world shall praise--

Watch His method, watch His ways!
How He ruthlessly perfects
Whom He royally elects;
How He hammers him and hurts him
And with mighty blows converts him
Into trial shapes of clay which only God understands--

While his tortured heart is crying and he lifts beseeching hands!--
How He bends, but never breaks,
When his good He undertakes....
How He uses whom He chooses
And with every purpose fuses him,
By every art induces him
To try his splendor out--
God knows what He's about.

When God wants to take a man
And shake a man
And wake a man;
When God wants to make a man
To do the Father’s will;
When He tries with all His skill
And He yearns with all His soul
To create him large and whole....
With what cunning He prepares him!

How He goads and never spares him,
How He whets him and He frets him
And in poverty begets him....
How He often disappoints
Whom He sacredly anoints,
With what wisdom He will hide him,
Never minding what betide him
Though his genius sob with slighting and his pride may not forget!
Bids him struggle harder yet.
Makes him lonely
So that only
God's high messages shall reach him
So that He may surely teach him
What the Hierarchy planned.

Though he may not understand
Gives him passions to command--
How remorselessly He spurs him,
With terrific ardor stirs him
When He poignantly prefers him!

When God wants to name a man
And fame a man
And tame a man;
When God wants to shame a man
To do his heavenly best....
When He tries the highest test
That His reckoning may bring--
When He wants a god or king!--
How He reins him and restrains him
So his body scarce contains him
While He fires him
And inspires him!
Keeps him yearning, ever burning for a tantalizing goal--
Lures and lacerates his soul.
Sets a challenge for his spirit,
Draws it higher when he's near it--
Makes a jungle, that he clear it;
Makes a desert, that he fear it
And subdue it if he can--
So doth God make a man.

Then, to test his spirit's wrath
Hurls a mountain in his path--
Puts a bitter choice before him
And relentless stands o'er him.
"Climb, or perish!" so He says....
Watch His purpose, watch His ways!

God's plan is wondrous kind
Could we understand His mind ...
Fools are they who call Him blind.
When his feet are torn and bleeding
Yet his spirit mounts unheeding,
All his higher powers speeding
Blazing newer paths and fine;
When the force that is divine
Leaps to challenge every failure and his ardor still is sweet
And love and hope are burning in the presence of defeat....

Lo, the crisis! Lo, the shout
That must call the leader out.
When the people need salvation
Doth he come to lead the nation....
Then doth God show His plan
When the world has found--a man!

Angela Morgan

D-Day Anniversery, it had to be done.

June 6, 1944. 0630 hours. English channel., off the coast of Normandy, almost a thousand ships sit, waiting.- The world is at war.

Germany is in a weakened condition, somewhat short on food, oil, and other things, but the Americans, English, Australians, and Canadians have problems of their own. Wading ashore on a beach which was covered in mines, with shells exploding all around them. There are submarines near the beaches, tank obstacles on the beaches, and barbed wire strewn everywhere. As one G.I put it, if you survived the shells and the mines, it was so you could become target practice for small arms.

My grandfather, P.F.C Haney  A. Abbott, was to have been the second man off of his landing craft, when, at H-Hour, they would hit Omaha Beach, in the Dog Red sector. The man in front of him however, became frightened, and asked to change places with him. As they surged out of the boats and towards the sea wall, the man who took my grandfather's place, was shattered by an exploding shell.

D-Day has been called one of the most important days in American history. I see it however, as perhaps one of the greatest stories of leadership of all time. From Eisenhower, who wrote out that the mission was all his own failure, before it ever launched, to an officer that could have parachuted with his men when he was wounded, and he would have survived, but chose not to rather than endanger their lives. To stories we will never know, of bravery, and courage, of friendship, of leadership. Of boys, fighting what was perhaps the greatest battle in the history of Christendom. Of young men charging pill-boxes, stepping on mines, and rushing forward even though they knew when they got there they would be blown to bits. All because it had to be done.

The Gates of Hell Shall Not Prevail,

Andrew C. Abbott