350 years ago America had no holidays.  Go through your calendar and count them all.  Not one of those dates was a holiday back then.  In fact, in New England, celebrating Christmas was illegal.  Go read about Christmas in England that long ago and you will find out why.  It was considered a time to feast, drink, gamble, and fornicate, a holiday based more on Saturnalia than anything focused on family values.  When the Puritans left England, they left all that behind and declared Christmas a day of fasting. 
            By 1800 Christmas was no longer illegal, but it was just as rowdy, or more, as it had been in long ago England, sort of halfway between Spring Break and Mardi Gras, one authority I read said.  The poor, probably egged on by a criminal element, demanded entrance into the homes of those in better financial shape, along with money and food, often stooping so far as vandalism, looting, assault, and rape.  It was evidently like this all through the area.  On Christmas Day 1828, the rioting was so bad that the residents of New York City called for the formation of their first police force.  It wasn't until later in the nineteenth century that Christmas evolved into the family-focused holiday we know it as today.  In fact, it wasn't even declared a federal holiday until 1870. 
           We may think that earlier behavior is beyond us, but let me ask you, have you ever been to a Black Friday Sale?  "Between 2006 and 2018…44 Black Friday incidents in America left 11 dead and 109 injured" (nypost.com).  And sometimes we aren't much better in our own homes.
            I have only seen it once and hope to never again.  We were guests of others on Christmas Day and their method of passing out gifts went like this:  One person starting picking up presents, read the name, passed it to its recipient and continued, about one every five seconds.  In five minutes it was over with.  Everyone else was sitting there panting with exertion amid piles of crumpled wrapping paper and snarled up ribbon, and no one knew who got what from whom.  Meanwhile, my poor boys were still opening up what were far fewer, far less expensive presents, and looking up at the folks around them with a look of befuddlement.  "That's not how it's supposed to be," was clearly written on their faces.
            So how was it supposed to be?  We never had much money growing up, but my mother was still careful to teach us the point of gift-giving—it was to do kind things for others, not amass things for oneself.  She taught us to listen to one another all year long, to make note—sometimes literally—of things different ones of us needed or mentioned wanting, usually something that would make life a little easier.  None of us ever wished for the expensive and unattainable.  What was the point?  And then a couple of weeks before Christmas, the four of us went to the Mall, my sister and I with money carefully saved from our allowances and birthday gifts.  We divided up and I went with my father to buy for my mother and my sister, while she went with our mother to buy for me and our father.  Then we met in the middle of the concourse at a predetermined time and switched companions in order to finish our shopping.  We were usually so excited about what we had gotten each other it was difficult to keep the secret.
            Then on Christmas morning each one in turn got to choose a gift to give to another.  We all sat and watched that person open the gift.  The joy, the excitement, the pleasure on the other person's face was as much a part of the gift to us as the gift to the receiver.  We had very few gifts under that tree, but that gift giving process lasted far longer than our neighbors' who were soon out riding new bikes or scooters and hauling out boxes of trash while we were still sitting there enjoying the process of giving as well as receiving.
            I passed that on to my boys.  We were in the same boat as my parents in their early days—not much money and few gifts.  But they have both told me that choosing the gifts and watching their opening was always their favorite part of Christmas.  I still see that in them as mature adults, looking to give, looking to see to the needs of others, looking for ways to share what they have.  My mother did that for me and she has now done it for them, too, through me.  I think I see it in my grandchildren as well.
            Christmas does not have to be about materialism.  What it does have to be about is this:  It is more blessed to give than to receive, (Acts 20:35).  Don't let your Christmas morning be a feeding frenzy of piranha in the river "Gimme."  Make it a point to take time and savor your gifts to others.  My mother thought that was what it was all about, and that is a gift I truly treasure.
 
Dene Ward

Every dog we have ever had has loved a good belly rub, but Chloe seems to have taken it to another level.  It isn’t just that she begs for a belly rub, it’s that she thinks God put her here to have her belly scratched, and that scratching her belly may be the only reason He put us here.
            A few people seem to have the same opinion about themselves and the church.  The only reason God instituted a church is to pander to their every need.  It seldom seems to cross their minds that other people have needs as well, and that those needs may be even more critical than theirs.  Chloe wouldn’t care if the house were on fire if she saw us running outside.  She would still scamper up, plop herself on the ground and roll over—isn’t that why we came outside, to scratch her belly?  A Christian who thinks he is the center of the universe is behaving the same way.
            Others think the only reason God put them in the church was for the church to listen to them.  They never ask a question in a Bible class, or offer a comment to stimulate discussion and deep thinking.  Instead they have all the answers and are happy to tell you exactly how things ought to be done, even things that are not specifically spelled out in the scriptures.  They know best.  It amazes me when these are people new to a congregation, who don’t yet know the background and experiences of the people they are trying to advise, often including elders, or who are in their mid-twenties with little life experience behind them.  Kind of reminds me of Chloe who thinks a belly rub is appropriate any time of day, any place, even while you are trying to shoot a rattlesnake that she obviously has not seen.  But she knows best, Boss!
            Then there are the ones who think their feelings, or the feelings of a family member, are all that count.  The church is supposed to pussyfoot around and never offer exhortation or criticism that might “offend” by our definition of the word.  They think they are put here to be stroked and petted and “have their belly rubbed” regardless of what might be happening to their souls.  Reminds me of that passage about people “whose god is their belly”—nothing matters at the moment but how they feel.  I am not about to let Chloe roll over on her back in the middle of a garden row I have just planted that is supposed to help feed us this year, no matter how much it hurts her feelings for me to tell her, “No!”  Some things are more important than her feelings, and if she were my child instead of my dog, I would explain that to her rather than let her do as she pleased and cost us a few hundred dollars worth of groceries. 
            So what do you do about people like that?  You do the same thing the Lord did for you when you were still that immature and selfish.  You tolerate, you teach, you show them a better way with the example of your own service and willingness to accept abuse or take on responsibilities that are not yours but that you do because they need doing and you are there.  You love them in a way they don’t deserve and yes, you rebuke when necessary and hope they won’t act childishly and run off to play somewhere else, where everyone will scratch the belly they offer, and let them be the only ones who matter and the only ones worth listening to.
            The Lord did all that for us, and he expects us to do it for them.  Some day maybe they will learn to be better than a silly little dog who thinks the world is here to scratch her belly.  Didn’t you?
 
And we exhort you, brethren, admonish the disorderly, encourage the fainthearted, support the weak, be longsuffering toward all. 1Thes 5:14
 
Dene Ward
 

“Mommy, those green blackberries burnt my mouth.”
            We were picking peas in a field behind a member’s farmhouse late one afternoon.  We had just moved to the area and had not had time to plant our own garden, so we were happy to do all the free U-picks our brethren offered.  Nathan, who was only 13 months old, was playing up at the house under the watchful care of the grandmotherly farmwife.  Three year old Lucas wanted to come “help,” so he trailed along behind us, picking a pea pod every so often, but usually exploring.
            It took a minute for what he had said to register.  Then, with a knot of fear growing in my stomach, I calmly asked, “What blackberries?  Show me.” 
            He led us back about twenty feet, to a place in the fencerow.  Instead of blackberry vines, we saw a four foot high green plant, with spade-shaped leaves and round green berries—nightshade.  We dropped our buckets, pulled the plant, scooped him up, and headed for the nearest emergency room, thirty miles east.  As soon as we arrived, Keith dropped me at the door.  I ran in and practically threw both Lucas and the plant on the registration desk. 
            “My baby ate this,” I managed between gasps.
            I had found the trick to immediate action in an emergency room.  They ran both him and the plant back behind the swinging doors.  I, of course, was taken to Paperwork Central—they never forget the documentation so they will be paid.  It probably did not help that I had come straight from the field, sweat, dirt, and all, and so did not look particularly solvent.
            Two hours later we left with a completely sobered three- year-old, promising us he would never eat green blackberries again.  As far as I know, he hasn’t!
            So why are we so much less careful about the poison that sickens our souls?  Spiritual nightshade surrounds us every day of our lives.  Somehow we think we are immune to its effects.  We go places we should not, associate with people we should not, dally with things that are as dangerous as a poisonous snake, and pooh-pooh anyone who dares tell us to be careful.
            I am not just talking about things like alcohol and sexual immorality.  Do you realize that wealth in the scriptures is never pictured as anything but dangerous to our souls?  But what do we wish for when the subject of wishes comes up?  And what do we always say?  “I could handle it.  I would never use it the wrong way.  It would never get the best of me.”  What do we tell our young people when they say the same things about drugs and alcohol? 
            Arrogance will always get the best of us in all these cases.  Might as well handle a cobra.  Might as well drink some cyanide. 
            Might as well eat a pie made of green blackberries.


For [the] rock [of the wicked] is not as our Rock...For their vine is of the vine of Sodom, and of the fields of Gomorrah; their grapes are grapes of gall, their clusters are bitter.  Their wine is the poison of serpents and the cruel venom of asps, Deut 32:31-33.

 

Dene Ward

A lot of folks declare her presumptuous to even make such a request, but most of those people aren’t any better than she was when you come right down to it.
            Salome, the wife of Zebedee, mother of James and John, came to Jesus in Matthew 20 asking what seems, at first glance, to be an audacious favor.  Grant that these two sons of mine are to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left in your kingdom, v 21.
            Before you think to take her to task, read also Matt 27:56, Mark 15:40, and John 19:25.  If you take a moment to match up those women standing at the cross with the writers’ various descriptions of them, you will find excellent evidence that Salome may have been Jesus’ aunt, Mary’s sister.  When you sift through other facts it makes excellent sense.  If James and John were his cousins, no wonder they were in that special inner circle, and Peter would have been included because he was their close friend and business partner.  If John (the disciple whom Jesus loved) was indeed the youngest apostle, as seems likely, the “baby cousin” could have had a special place in Jesus’ heart from his birth, and it certainly makes sense that Jesus would put his mother, John’s own aunt, into his care after his death.
            It also means that Salome was Aunt Salome, and asking her nephew for this favor was not that much of a request, especially if these two cousins were his only relatives among the twelve.  Why shouldn’t they be his first and second “vice-presidents?”
            Then there are those who will fuss about her misunderstanding of the kingdom.  “Tsk-tsk,” it was all about the physical with her. Wasn’t it all about the physical with just about everyone, including his closest companions?  How many times did they fuss about who was the greatest among them, even the night Jesus was betrayed?  Even after his resurrection when he had been “speaking about the kingdom” for forty days, Acts 1:3, they questioned him just moments before his ascension, “Will you at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (v 6).  Obviously, they still thought in terms of a physical kingdom.
            Was it only once that he had to resist the urge of the people to make him king, John 6:15?  I doubt it.  How many times did he have to say, My kingdom is not of this world, John 18:36, or, Behold, the kingdom of God is within you, Luke 17:21?
            Even the early Christians had to be reminded that the kingdom was spiritual; that the things that might have counted in a physical kingdom were of no value in the spiritual domain.  Wealth didn’t matter; race didn’t matter; gender didn’t matter; status didn’t matter, Gal 3:28; Col 3:11.  Our weapons are spiritual, not of the flesh, but mighty before God, 2 Cor 10:4.  The greatest in the kingdom is the servant of all, not the master.  Yet they still had trouble.
            The mainstream religious world today has the same problem.  Still carnal minded, still “immature” as Paul calls it in I Cor 3, they expect a physical kingdom for a limited amount of time on a physical earth.  What is that but the same old notion the Jews had, who laughed at the idea of a humble man with uneducated followers ever conquering anything, much less the world?  What is that but the disciples placing grandiosity ahead of humility?  And what is that any more than a mother wanting the best for her sons?  When you read the gospels, you can almost hear Jesus sigh in frustration, “How long must I bear with you?”
            We have exactly the same problem today when we expect nothing but physical blessings as a Christian.  How can it be right for me to suffer illness and loss, “after all I’ve done?”  How can it be right for me to face a severe financial setback from the relative wealth I have grown accustomed to or, horror upon horrors, to live in poverty “when I’ve been faithful to you Lord?”  Once again we are asking God to restore a physical kingdom with physical blessings.  Our shallow-mindedness has made it impossible to see that the spiritual is far more important, and that, I am afraid, will make us unsuited for that spiritual kingdom.
            But God is patient.  Jesus did bear with those apostles a little longer.  However, notice this—they finally came to grips with the reality of a spiritual kingdom, enough so that they gave up everything, including their lives.  Jesus will bear with us for awhile too.  Just don’t wait too long to figure it out.
 
For the kingdom of God is not a matter of eating and drinking but of righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Whoever thus serves Christ is acceptable to God...Rom 14:17,18.
 
Dene Ward
 

One Sunday, a newly married young woman named Jessie Pounds did not feel well, so her husband went on to church without her. When he returned. she had written the words to this hymn.

Somewhere the sun is shining,
Somewhere the songbirds dwell;
Hush, then, thy sad repining,
God lives, and all is well.

Refrain:
Somewhere, somewhere,
Beautiful Isle of Somewhere!
Land of the true, where we live anew,
Beautiful Isle of Somewhere!

Somewhere the day is longer,
Somewhere the task is done;
Somewhere the heart is stronger,
Somewhere the guerdon won.
(Refrain)

Somewhere the load is lifted,
Close by an open door;
Somewhere the clouds are rifted,
Somewhere the angels sing.
(Refrain)
 
           Because it is well over a hundred years old, the song contains a couple of words that might be unfamiliar to us.  Do you know what it means to “repine?”  The song gives us a clue with the modifier “sad.”  I doubt I am doing anything joyful if I am repining.  No, the word means dejection or discontent. 
And how about “guerdon?”  The song says we “win” it, whatever it is.  And if you look it up you will find the terse definition “reward.”

Obviously young Mrs. Pounds was allowing her illness to depress her, and the act of writing this song, reminding herself of the hope she had as a Christian, cheered her up.  She wanted to share that hope with us. 

I can already hear some of my brothers talking about how “unscriptural” this song is.  Where does it say there will be songbirds in Heaven?  And certainly Revelation says there is no need for sun because God is the light.  May I just say this?  Those literalists are missing the whole point.  John’s Revelation uses figurative language to describe Heaven.  If you think there will be pearly gates and streets of gold, you are just as mistaken as Mrs. Pounds.  But somehow, I think she knew that; I think she was motivating herself with her own special view of what Heaven must be like.

The descriptions in Revelation are about motivators.  Those first century Christians lived a day to day existence.  They prayed for their “daily bread” because they had no idea if they would have enough that day, let alone tomorrow.  The farmers among them existed at the mercy of the weather and natural disasters.  The shopkeepers and artisans lived at the mercy of the economy.  No one was going to “bail them out.”

To those people, a place so wealthy that gold and precious jewels were used as construction material, meant security.  It meant rest from working long hours day after day to simply survive.
 
Those people lived under the rule of a foreign king.  Doubtless they had all seen wars and battles.  They knew, in fact, that the Barbarian Hordes could still come over the mountains and wipe them out.  Did 9/11 cause you some concern?  Has it made you worry more about the possibility of terrorists under every bush?  Those first century Christians lived with that sort of uncertainty every day of their lives.  In fact, they probably had more safety as a conquered people than ever before.  But the picture of a huge city with huge walls meant safety and peace forever.  Security—that is what those pictures of Heaven were all about, not materialism.  I have no doubt that if John were writing to us, he would use other motivators.

Frankly, I feel we should give ourselves motivators that mean something to us personally, and we should do the same for our children.  “Getting to worship God forever and ever,” translates to a child as having to go to church, listen to sermons, and sit still forever.  If you think that will motivate them to want to serve God all their lives, you didn’t have any business becoming a parent in the first place. 

And that is what Mrs. Pounds has tried to share with us.  On a day of illness that drug her down, she went to the best place to pull herself out of it—thoughts of Heaven, the reward, the “guerdon.”  Perhaps if we sang more songs about the reward, we would do a better job of gaining it.
 
…we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love that you have for all the saints, because of the hope laid up for you in heaven…Col 1:4-5.
 
Dene Ward

I hope and pray that someday soon this one will matter once again in our lives.

When I was a child we often visited friends and family, all the kids sleeping in the living room floor on piles of quilts.  It was fun because it was different and exciting, and not one of us complained.  Dinner was never fancy because none of us were wealthy, but all my aunts could cook as well as my mother and we knew it would be good whatever it was.  We practiced the hospitality shown in the Bible to our families, to our neighbors, and to our brothers and sisters in the Lord.  What has happened to us?
            Even if we aren’t particularly wealthy, we have fallen for the nonsense that because we cannot offer what the wealthy offer, we should offer nothing at all.  How do we excuse it?  I don’t have a spare room.  I don’t have a bathroom for every bedroom.  The spare room I do have is too small.  The bathroom is too tiny.  My grocery budget is too small and my time too little for cooking.  I work.  I have an infant in the house who still wakes up at night.  And the perennial favorite, “You know, times are different now.” 
            Not so much, folks.  Lydia worked, yet she made Paul and Silas an offer they couldn’t refuse—she told them they would be insulting her faith if they did not stay with her.  Unless I am reading something into it that isn’t there, Priscilla worked right alongside her husband, “for they were tentmakers.”  Yet Paul didn’t stay with them for just a night or two—he lived with them for a good while.  Abraham was a very busy man—he had more employees than some towns in that day had citizens, yet he not only offered hospitality, he actively looked for people who might need it.
            “But they had servants!” some whine.  If you don’t think your modern conveniences fill the place of servants, you have never thought about what it took back then to cook—they started with the animals on the hoof, people!  Their cooking involved building a fire from scratch, sometimes in the heat of the day.  And here we sit with the meat already butchered in our electric refrigerators, ready to put in our gas or electric ovens.  We clean with our vacuum cleaners, pick up ready-made floral arrangements at the grocery store, make sure the automatic shower cleaner and the stuck-on toilet cleaner are still in service, and stop at the bakery for the bread. Then, when it’s all done, we put the dirty dishes in our dishwashers, and we do it all in our air conditioned homes.
            Part of the problem may also be the expectations of guests these days.  It isn’t just that people are no longer hospitable—it’s that people are spoiled and self-indulgent.  They don’t want to sleep on a sofa.  They don’t want to share a bathroom with a couple of kids.  They will not eat what is offered.  We aren’t talking about health situations like diabetes and deadly allergies.  We are talking about people who care more about their figures than their fellowship; people who were never taught to graciously accept what was placed in front of them, even knowing it was the best their hosts could afford, because, “I won’t touch_______________,” (fill in the blank). 
            We once ate with a hard-working farm family who had invited us and two preachers over for dinner.  Dinner was inexpensive fare--they had five children and had invited us six to share their meal.  Later that evening, when we had left their home, we heard those two preachers making fun of what of they had been served and laughing about it.  I hope those poor people never got wind of it. 
            When we raise our children to act in similarly ungracious ways, when we consider them too precious to sleep on a pallet on the floor, as if their royal hides could feel a minuscule pea beneath all those quilts, what can we expect?  Do you think it doesn’t happen?  We once had a guest who told me she had rather not sleep where I put her.  It was the only place I had left to put her.  I already had four other guests when she had shown up at my door unannounced.  She was more than welcome—I have taken in unexpected guests many times--but where were this one’s manners?
            Do you know how many times we have been told, “Do you know how far it is out there?” when we invited someone thirty miles out in the country to our home for a meal.  Excuse me?  Of course we know how far it is—we drive it back and forth at least three times a week just to the church building, not counting other appointments.
            This matter of hospitality worries me.  It tells me we have become self-indulgent and materialistic when it comes both to offering it and accepting it.  God commands us to Show hospitality to one another without grumbling, 1 Pet 4:9.  What has happened to the enjoyment of one another’s company, the encouragement garnered by sharing conversation and bumping elbows congenially in close quarters, and the love nurtured by putting our feet under the same table, by opening not only our homes but our hearts? 
            What has happened to the joy of a pallet on the floor?
 
One who heard us was a woman named Lydia, from the city of Thyatira, a seller of purple goods, who was a worshiper of God. The Lord opened her heart to pay attention to what was said by Paul. And after she was baptized, and her household as well, she urged us, saying, “If you have judged me to be faithful to the Lord, come to my house and stay.” And she prevailed upon us, Acts 16:14,15.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
How do you measure?  For most of the world the answer is by the metric system.  Where I wish that America had switched to that simpler system in my Dad’s time, I do not want to learn a new system.  Even if done when I was in High School, my lifetime would have been one of confusion between English and Metric. 
 
Sometimes, I measure biblically.  Strings I need regularly for tying things in the garden need to be about a cubit and a handspan—the latter eyeballed.  It is so much easier to stretch the cord along my forearm than to carry about a ruler.  Rows are so many heel-to-toe feet apart.  If I set my mind, I can fall into the drill-field pattern of pacing and measure longer distances very closely—each pace is 2 ½ feet.
 
So, then, how do your measure your Christianity?  I am so many feet and inches tall?  But, how can I look at my life and determine how I measure up?  We know that we are to give all. “It may not take much of a man to be a Christian, but it takes all there is of him.” How should one assess where he stands?
 
The saying is, “Put your money where your mouth is.” So then, how do you spend your money?   Jesus said, "And I tell you, make friends for yourselves by how you use worldly wealth, so that when it runs out you will be welcomed into the eternal homes." (Luke 16:9 NET).  So, how are you doing according to this measure at making heavenly friends?  Certain amounts of everyone’s income are needed for food clothing and shelter.  Certainly we can over-commit in these areas with oversize houses and expensive clothing so that we cannot serve God to the extent we ought.  But, let's keep it simpler.  Out of the money not spent on necessities last year, how much went for pleasure and how much went to God (the latter is not limited to the collection basket on Sundays)?   Pro-rate big items like the TV in relation to their expected lifetime, cable TV bill, movies, vacations, fishing boats, game boys, eating out, etc.  Then add up all you gave on Sunday, all that you spent on Bibles, commentaries and other books to strengthen faith, all money given to the needy or to preachers.   Probably, for many churchgoers, this is not a happy assessment.
 
Or, we could look at it from the viewpoint of how we spend our time.  So much is given to sleep and so much to work.  If one works “as unto the Lord” this is God time.  But, what about the rest of our time?  Truly, time is all we have to give.  Even money is a function of how we spend our time.  So, again, after the necessaries, how much time was spent in pleasure, watching sports or movies, playing video games, vacations, relaxing with a best seller, etc?  Then, how much was spent in prayer, Bible study, reaching out to a co-worker or neighbor with a view to beginning a study, helping the poor, visiting the sick, reading to build our own faith, working to become a teacher, or better teacher, of the Bible?
 
God wants all of us.  Not just church time, all our time.  Certainly, godly fun is part of a godly life, but not only has much of fun become morally corrupting, we have lost all balance and give our pleasure too much of our time.
 
When do we make the time for these:
"Then the king will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.  For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink?  When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or naked and clothe you?  When did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘I tell you the truth, just as you did it for one of the least of these brothers or sisters of mine, you did it for me.’ " (Matt 25:34-40).

Keith Ward

We swapped computers in 2015.  The new one was supposed to be so much better for someone like me, someone whose vision is becoming more and more limited.  Why, it has no wires!  You could pick it up and carry it around with you and no, it was not a laptop.  It was one of those new “all-in-ones.”  Part laptop, part tablet, but with a screen the size of a large desktop.  You didn’t even need a mouse and keyboard.  Rrrrright.  In my viewpoint it will take them a few more years to make this no-mouse-no-keyboard thing work smoothly enough that you don’t find yourself wanting to throw the whole thing through the window at least once a day.
            But it would have been a much easier transition if it hadn’t been a Lenovo.  Does that ring a few bells with the techie crowd?  In 2014, Lenovo began building a third party adware program called "Superfish" into its consumer PCs.  If you have read anything about it, you already know where this is going.  There was so much adware embedded in this thing we couldn’t even read a line of text without pop-ups flooding the screen.  If the cursor ran across a magic word, another would instantly appear.  And the thing kept track of every website you visited, producing even more ads.  Sometimes they popped up so quickly that when you were trying to click on something on the legitimate page, you wound up clicking on an ad instead.  We couldn’t even load our desired programs for all the pop-ups.  But this wasn't the worst of the problem.  This adware made it much easier for hackers to break through HTTPS entirely, and such an attack occurred shortly after the program became public.
            As far as I know, we were never hacked, but this stuff was so deeply embedded that it took at least three trips to Geek Squad to get it out.  And after every scrub, we had to spend time loading the programs we wanted yet again.  The first four months we were actually able to use the computer about 4 weeks.  Finally on September 5, 2017, Lenovo settled the lawsuit brought by the Federal Trade Commission agreeing to procure affirmative consent for any future adware programs and to have audited security checks for the next 20 years.  They also agreed to pay $3.5 million as part of a state level settlement.
            Satan embeds his adware into our culture the same way.  When you can’t even watch a hamburger commercial without “soft” porn invading your living room, when the teasers for the shows you avoid include language your mama would have washed your mouth out with soap for using, and when we are constantly told that we aren’t hip, cool, smart, happy, or the most interesting people in the world without beer, hard liquor, cigarettes, or dancing the night away in skimpy clothes on a rooftop somewhere exciting where whatever you do stays, then you need to watch out for your souls more than ever before.
            The world will laugh at you if you mention Satan.  He isn’t real, we are told.  Only the ignorant believe in a mythological character like that.  If you are a Christian, you must believe in Satan.  If you don’t accept that part of the Bible, why would you accept any other part?
           Growing up I thought the only New Testament verses that mentioned Satan were the ones around Jesus’ temptation and the good old roaring lion in Peter.  Imagine my surprise when I looked it up.  I counted 19 outside the gospels, less one for the Peter passage we all know, for a total of 18 others.  Then there were the ones who called him something else like “the god of this age,” and “the Devil.”  And many of them talk about his “adware.”  Check a few of these out.
            2 Cor 2:11 mentions the “devices” of the devil.  Eph 6:11 speaks of his “schemes.”  2 Cor 4:4 tells us he “blinds the minds.”  2 Cor 11:14 tells us he “disguises” himself.  All I have to do is look around and see those devices and schemes every day, not just on television but in the speech and behavior of people who have already been taken in.  Have you ever seen the original “Invasion of the Body Snatchers?”  Some days I feel exactly like Kevin McCarthy, looking over my shoulder to see where the pods are, and wondering which of my neighbors have been replaced.
            One of Satan’s devices are his ministers.  The New Testament warns again and again of false teachers, false messiahs, false prophets, and false apostles.   They fashion themselves as “ministers of righteousness” (2 Cor 11:15).  Not only do they appear to be doing good, they even look good.  False teachers on the whole are good-looking and charismatic.  A lot of what they say sounds good and is, in fact, good.  But 90% of rat poison is good too.  It only takes the 10% to kill the rats.  When you keep finding the good in a man you know is teaching error, maybe Satan’s adware has taken hold of your heart already.
            Our culture has become embedded with evil masquerading as good.  We had to have our computer “scrubbed to the bones” to get rid of the adware.  Maybe it’s time we all used a spiritual scrub brush on ourselves before we are taken in too.
 
But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will be false teachers among you, who will secretly bring in destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing upon themselves swift destruction. And many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of truth will be blasphemed. And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.  2 Pet 2:1-3.
 
Dene Ward