When I was growing up our family didn’t eat ice cream. On occasion we did get some “ice milk”. Ice
milk looked like ice cream and came in containers like ice cream, but it was, in fact, not ice cream. It was
made with much less butter fat and was much cheaper. That’s why we got it: it was cheaper.

I watch a lot of comedy on Facebook (I know that surprises you) and I have started viewing some that I
immediately turned off because of the horrible language and such. Those don’t surprise me because I
figured out a long time ago that many comedians use foul language to “enhance” their humor.
However, one showed up on my feed and I began watching…I was very surprised.

I’m afraid that it’s not about the money. I thought it was, honestly. And I thought by Christians, and
even non-Christians with some common sense, refusing to shop, purchase, or collaborate with the
corporations and organizations that promoted and endorsed sexual confusion and sexual perversions,
that we could make a difference in their un-Godly (and definitely un-scientific) assertions. Perhaps we
could get them, if not to acknowledge Christian and other conservative beliefs, to at least pull back on
the stupid and outrageous lies they were espousing.

As most of you know, Saddleback Church, under the leadership of Rick Warren, was determined not to
be in “friendly cooperation” with the Southern Baptist Convention’s Statement of Faith and thus
removed from the rolls of the SBC. The issue is over the calling of women to be pastors of Southern
Baptist churches.

I grew up watching westerns on television; the old “good guys in white fighting bad guys in black” kind
of westerns. I didn’t realize it at the time, but those shows gave me a very skewed and misguided view
of what the old west was really like. Remember the “shoot outs” in the middle of the streets at high
noon?

Grace has been defined as “God’s favor toward the unworthy” or “God’s benevolence on the
undeserving.” I believe “God’s unmerited favor” sums up both of those definitions very well. It is God’s
grace and His grace alone that allows mankind to even be in His presence, let alone to be forgiven of sin
and saved unto an eternal life in His presence. It is that distinction that makes me frown on some of the
teachings of the Catholic Church.

One of the things that amuses me in hospital rooms is the chart that is posted to help patients describe the level of pain
they are experiencing. It consists of several “smiley face” emojis ranging from a slight smile for no pain up to a serious
grimace for severe pain. There are corresponding numbers underneath, but you get the picture: You cannot
scientifically measure pain. Pain is real and it is physical, yet it cannot be measured.

We don’t like to talk about death, do we? Yet, the “shadow of death” that David talked about in Psalm
23, has certainly fallen around me and people I love these past few days. From the actual death to the
immediacy of death, death is consuming my thoughts. It is emotionally and physically draining. But, as
Christians, we have a different outlook and promise that brings about a peace that lost people cannot
know; a peace that makes death, itself, acceptable and more bearable. We know…without an iota of
doubt…that we will be reunited with loved ones in Heaven: We will see them again. So this “shadow” of
death will pass and the sun will shine on our lives once again.

There is an organization called “Military Religious Freedom Foundation”, but its goal is not what you
may think that the name implies. Its goal is to abolish any trace of religion in the military. I’ve seen
them complain about, among other things, Christian symbols on cubicle walls and a Bible on an officer’s
desk. In those two cases they were successful in getting the symbols and Bible removed.

I made the remark in a recent sermon that if the Gospel didn’t include bacon, I wouldn’t preach it. I hope you know that
I was joking and that if I thought for a minute that the Bible forbade eating bacon, I wouldn’t even have a nibble. Not a
bite. But…does the Bible say that a Christian shouldn’t eat bacon (or any kind of pork)?