You need to know the Bible. Yes, you, and you, and you. All of you reading this, whether or not you’re a Christian. A couple of months ago I did a blog entitled “Shakespeare and the Bible.” I pointed out how many phrases in modern language are rooted in Scripture; for example, “skin of my teeth,” “the powers that be,” and “I told you so.” To avoid the Bible is to cut off civilization from a critical aspect of human history.  John Harvard, who founded the prestigious school that is named after him said that all the students of his institution should know how to “read the original of the Old and New Testament into the Latin tongue and resolve them logically.” In fact, as you may know, Harvard was founded to train clergymen. Today, you’d be hard-pressed to find many students there who have ever read the Bible with any seriousness, including Harvard’s alum President Obama. (He doesn’t even go to church with any regularity since he won the election.) And it wasn’t just Harvard. Yale and Princeton, to name just two, were also founded on the basis of training students to become ministers.

Today, 37 states actually have laws FORBIDDING that any public funds should be spent on religious training. In 2006, the Supreme Court case Locke v. Davey upheld the decision of a Washington State scholarship program to withhold promised funding from an otherwise qualified student after learning that he had decided to major in theology at a local Bible College. This is crazy, and downright intellectually dishonest. In medieval times, theology was known as the Queen of the Sciences. Today, a way to get sent home from school is to bring a Bible and place it next to your textbook. The result is a generation which is partially illiterate about a huge section of human history. You don’t have to believe the Nicene Creed of the ecumenical council of 325 to understand its significance to the development of western culture. Without the Bible there is no comprehending of what philosophically drives today’s jihadist terrorists or what has given us the Common Law system on which our legal standards are based. We need to bring back the Bible as literature, if not revealed truth. The Ten Commandments define not only moral law but who we are as a people.  It’s time to ignore the cries of a handful of militant atheists who are creating a generation ignorant of its past and incapable of determining its future.An encouraging word: BREAK CURSES & GET FREE

So much evil is perpetrated because of past sins. My latest book CURSE BREAKING (order by CLICKING HERE) details the way that the sins of our fathers may incline us to evil. That is an uncomfortable truth for some Christian. And it’s opposed by some preachers. But history and contemporary circumstances bear out this truth. When you say “he’s a chip off the old block” you may be doing more than observing intra-generational behavioral patterns. You may be identifying a trans-generational curse. Check it out spiritually. Lay aside your prejudices and discover that who you are may be strongly influenced by who your ancestors were. Breaking their curses may be the key to victory and success in your life.     Bob Larson has trained healing and deliverance teams all over the world to set the captives free and Do What Jesus Did® (Luke 4:18).  You can partner with Bob and support this vision to demonstrate God’s power in action by calling 303-980-1511 or clicking here to donate online.

Heterosexism. Yet another label to pin on those not comfortable with the fast-changing sexual landscape of America. The word carries all the more weight when it’s being bandied about by someone with a Ph. D in clinical psychology. And for only a $59 registration fee you can find out how to cure your heterosexism and accept a child’s own definition that they are gay, lesbian, or transgendered. Information about this seminar was sent to me by a friend who became aware of her state’s taxpayer-funded effort to validate the wide array of sexual identities assumed by youngsters in the child welfare system. The workshop was developed to comply with a government mandate to endorse all sexual identity choices (bet you didn’t know there was such an edict), the Foster Care Non-Discrimination Act.

There can be no question that children in the foster care system are a confused lot. I minister to many of them, both current and former members of this population. While there are many genuinely sacrificial foster care parents, some see this system as a cash cow and others, even more unscrupulous, join the system to perpetrate sexual abuse on these wards of the state. As a result of such abuse, and the abuse these unfortunate children may have previously experienced at home, there is understandably a lot of confusion, sexual and otherwise. But the stated purpose of this workshop is to “explore how heterosexism has added pain to young people who are already disadvantaged by virtue of their histories of abuse and neglect.” Once you get past the double-speak the intent is clear. Anyone who might suggest that gender identity confusion is not static and may involve moral components you are a heterosexist. Just another fancy word for a bigot.

Something dangerous is happening in our country run a muck with political correctness. Once the appointed thought-police define a particular belief as unprogressive and hateful, they then come up with a name for it and quickly label the offender. You then become liable for whatever retaliation they wish to enforce. It starts with words, labels, designations and then comes the cultural and legal “pogrom” of persecution. Beware those who like labels and are quick to judge, on either side of the political divide, right or left, gay or straight. Ask the question: Who gave you the prerogative to devise your own definition of what’s right, give the deviancy a name, and then suggest that the labeled individual is defective and their ideas unworthy of consideration?

Occasionally I come across strange information that piques my interest. This blog is about that. A writer named Stacy Conradt took the time (I have to wonder who has time for this sort of thing) to research information about people who died by swallowing. Apparently, it’s not all that uncommon. Take writer Tennessee Williams. He choked on the cap to a tube of nose spray, though there was speculation that he also had barbiturates in his system. A member the 80s rock bank Tyrannosaurus Rex took so many drugs that when he drank a cocktail, the cherry lodged in his throat which had been numbed from the dope. He choked to death at age 31. An 18^th Century king of Sweden, Adolf Frederick, had 14 servings of hot milk and died of digestion problems. Novelist Sherwood Anderson swallowed the toothpick from an olive in a martini glass and died from internal organs which were punctured. A Navy Lieutenant by the name of Prior had a habit of sticking the tee in his mouth while playing golf. He succumbed to the fungicide used to keep the golf course grass looking beautiful.

This list is longer but you get the idea. Jesus said in Mark 7:20-23, “What comes out of a man that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.” These things are inside a man because he has spiritually and emotionally swallowed them. These things come out because they have been ingested by the heart. What you swallow by the throat may kill you, as evidenced above.  But what you take into your soul will destroy you eternally.  The fact that it proceeds outward indicates that it has previously been spiritually digested inwardly. Beware what you allow your soul to swallow.

ACHIEVING GOALS

1. “Victory belongs to the most persevering.”
2. “The torment of precautions often exceeds the dangers to be avoided.”
3. “Impossible is a word to be found only in the dictionary of fools.”

Sage wisdom. Excellent advice we’d all do well to heed. It’s not biblical, but it’s sound and helpful. These words came from Napoleon Bonaparte, who commanded the French army by 26 and by the age of 30 declared himself Emperor of France. Let’s look at his life lessons according to the numbering above.

#1 – Phil. 4:13 puts it this way: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Solomon reminds us in Eccl 9:11: The race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong.” To which Paul adds, “Run in such a way that you may obtain it [the crown of life] (1 Cor. 9:24). To those who stay the course in Christ, there will be victory.

#2-I’m reminded of the “evil report” of the 10 faithless spies: We were in their own sight as grasshoppers. The children of Israel suffered dearly because they were tormented by precautions far beyond the dangers, and ended up worse by wandering 40 more years in the wilderness.

#3-Jesus said in Luke 18:27, “The things which are impossible with men are possible with God.” As Napoleon observed, the fool sees impossibilities, but that those with faith see the sure hope of “what we do not see” (Heb. 11:1).

Yep, Napoleon was one smart guy. He was even biblical without perhaps knowing it; that is until his ill-fated invasion of Russia which resulted in the annihilation of the French army and ultimate exile. Beware, even the smart ones go down to defeat when they fail to seek the Lord and proceed with ambition alone.