It breaks my heart to hear about how the political climate of Portland, Oregon, has dragged the city into darkness. It is now much worse than when I worked there in the 1990s. Portland is in the greatest need for a revival. I join with my brothers and sisters of Athey Creek to support the PDX Crusade 2025 on August 2nd and 3rd at the Moda Center. All is not lost for Portland because Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness.” (John 12:46) Join with me in prayer to bring Portland out of the darkness.
Athey Creek Christmas 2024
Banning Children on Social Media
Florida has taken a great step in reducing societal stupidity. They have banned children from accessing social media. Let’s face it, social media attracts weak-minded people. Society has continued to become more stupid as social media platforms exist. You can proclaim anything on social media and find people willing to believe it. Until now, the only limiting factor was people staring into their cellphones and walking in front of a bus. Now, Florida can stop the damage to buses by restricting the age of those staring into their cellphones. Good job, Florida.
Integrity
“Integrity is a quality of being honest and having strong moral principles. It refers to firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values. People with integrity follow moral and ethical principles in life, including professional areas of work such as decision-making, interacting with colleagues and serving customers or clients.” If you still believe anything that the internet says.
Some says that, “Integrity is doing the right thing when no one is watching.” But, God is always watching. Integrity is a rare thing. We are all born with equal amounts of integrity, but as we grow older we begin losing our integrity. Some lose it faster than others. The problem with integrity is that once you lose it, you never get back; over time, losing more of it becomes easier and easier.
Mainstream media may never be trusted again, because they have lost their integrity. The easiest way to keep from losing your integrity is to fear God. If God is always watching, then maybe you don’t want Him looking down on you in disappointment. If you have not cut all of your ties with God, you might feel guilt when cheating in life. It is His way to drive you in the right direction.
If you can’t find your way to fearing God, then imagine wearing a polygraph in all of your dealings with the business of your life.
Trustworthy is the first law of being a Boy Scout. You are to, “Tell the truth and keep promises. People can depend on you.” The world needs more Boy Scouts.
What does this have to do with working in animal welfare? EVERYTHING!
Bible passages:
Job 2:3
And the Lord said to Satan, “Have you considered my servant Job, that there is none like him on the earth, a blameless and upright man, who fears God and turns away from evil? He still holds fast his integrity, although you incited me against him to destroy him without reason.”
Ps 7:8
The Lord judges the peoples; judge me, O Lord, according to my righteousness and according to the integrity that is in me.
Pr 11:3
The integrity of the upright guides them, but the crookedness of the treacherous destroys them.
Pr 19:1
Better is a poor person who walks in his integrity than one who is crooked in speech and is a fool.
Snake Handlers
I was recently watching a YouTube video in which a guy was stroking the chin of a cobra. As he stokes the snake, he says, “This is very dangerous, don’t try this at home.” Apparently, it wasn’t too dangerous to post the video. In all of the years that I’ve spent in animal welfare, snake handlers are by far the most stupid people that I’ve ever encountered. We usually don’t hear much about them until one of them gets bitten.
Then there is such a fuss that anti-venom has to be found that causes the depletion of anti-venom serum supplies. Police get involved and someone decides that the snakes must be rounded up and taken somewhere for safety. Guess where they go? Yep, I’ve been involved in incidents in which my shelter was caring for over 120 snakes at one time, many of them labeled as the most dangerous ones in the world. I was in a room with a loose albino cobra; it took months for my testicles to decide to drop back down. I think they still have PTSD.
The Milwaukee area seemed to be the epicenter of these stupid snake handlers. The good news is that during the winter months snakes are pretty easy to catch due to their cold-blood nature that doesn’t mix well with snow. If they ever escape, pray that it is winter.
I don’t fancy government regulation, but if someone wanted to regulate snake ownership, they would have my support. Without snakes, I wouldn’t have to check my toilet to make sure nothing was there to bite my butt. Sure, you don’t worry about such things. Apparently, you have not taken enough snake calls.
I didn’t watch the entire video because eventually, that guy is going to get bitten. Maybe not in that video, but eventually. That’s how Mother Nature works; she is patient. If you engage in enough activities that demonstrate that you have deleterious genes for stupidity, eventually, you’ll be permanently removed from the gene pool. I have to be honest. There is enough stupidity in our gene pool that these snake handlers won’t be missed.
Why the Study on Wisdom?
Our recent Presidential election is evidence of the split between our brother Americans. Both sides believed that their future rests with their candidate for President. The reason that we have become so polarized is that we have become too distant from God. You would rest better at night knowing that God is in charge and you can find peace within His arms. No earthly wisdom can do that for you.
Asking for Wisdom and the Nature of Wisdom
5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jas 1:5–8.
13 Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good conduct let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom. 14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your hearts, do not boast and be false to the truth. 15 This is not the wisdom that comes down from above, but is earthly, unspiritual, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there will be disorder and every vile practice. 17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. 18 And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Jas 3:13–18.
Be not tempted by this world, but seek what God has prepared for us.
The Contrast Between God’s Wisdom and Human Wisdom
Proclaiming Christ Crucified
2 And I, when I came to you, brothers, did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom. 2 For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3 And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, 4 and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, 5 so that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.
Wisdom from the Spirit
6 Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. 7 But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. 8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written,
“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the heart of man imagined,
what God has prepared for those who love him”—
10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. 12 Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. 13 And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Co 2:1–13.
Christ is the Wisdom and Power of God
Wisdom is knowing where your salvation comes from:
18 For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19 For it is written,
“I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,
and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart.”
20 Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21 For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. 22 For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, 23 but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, 24 but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25 For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.
26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), 1 Co 1:18–31.
A Wisdom greater than Solomon’s
In Matthew 12, we find Jesus going about making miracles and in the midst of his teaching that a tree is know by its fruit:
33 “Either make the tree good and its fruit good, or make the tree bad and its fruit bad, for the tree is known by its fruit. 34 You brood of vipers! How can you speak good, when you are evil? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. 35 The good person out of his good treasure brings forth good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure brings forth evil. 36 I tell you, on the day of judgment people will give account for every careless word they speak, 37 for by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.”
A group of Pharisees approach Jesus:
38 Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here. 42 The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here.
The Holy Bible: English Standard Version (Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2016), Mt 12:33–42.
Although the proof of who Jesus was was obvious, the Scribes and Pharisees keep pushing Jesus to prove who He was. Rejecting Jesus is much like rejecting wisdom; although faced with the obvious, we cannot accept it.