A fellow told me one time if the preacher’s sermon didn’t “pinch his toes a little” he didn’t think the preacher was doing his job. “Well, if the preacher is really doing his job,” I replied, “and you believe your toes need pinching there is probably more than your toes that need a drubbing.” And so it is that I continue to believe God’s true prophets do not wear soft clothing and live in kings’ palaces. And this is the problem I have with today’s “prophets” whether they stand in a pulpit or do their “preaching” through radio, print, or the MSM; and this includes the FOX news channel, not just TBN.

For example, I personally like Glenn Beck and sometimes tune in to his “preaching.” He equates with me as a kind of Billy Sunday preaching about the evil of booze. As Billy often preached, “Booze has its place; but its place is in hell!” Because of his great popularity at the time, Billy provided great impetus to the Volstead Act being passed; insane as it proved to be. But then there were the unintended consequences of ushering in organized crime. Hollywood certainly profited greatly from films that were made resulting from the insanity of Congress, and after it was far too late to undo the damage Prohibition was repealed.

Knowing history and human nature, I am all for the legalization of marijuana and prostitution; follow the money and you will find that if politicians didn’t profit from making weed and prostitution illegal (politicians give working girls a bad name and exercise a “privilege” of sex denied ordinary citizens) they would act to legalize these. But as with our open borders, if politicians didn’t profit from illegal aliens our borders would be secured. If corporations didn’t profit from “Press one for English” there would be no such thing in America. And so it goes; as Thoreau so well said, trade (profit) curses all it touches though it be trading in messages from heaven. It was in the interest of profits that our Founding Fathers refused to abolish slavery by our Constitution. Wars, even our own Revolution and Lincoln’s War, WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and the wars now ongoing are fought for profits and benefit only the wealthy and powerful. In the end, the words of Jesus ring so very true: “What does it profit if you gain the whole world and lose your own soul,” and what is true for the individual may be true for a nation. In my opinion America as a nation now exists  without a soul, as some Russian poets have accused.

When Satan accused Job of serving God for profit, the Evil One was given permission to put Job to the test. I have to wonder how our modern age “prophets” preaching from either their Hollywood cathedrals of TBN or from the MSM like FOX would stand up to such testing; not very well I would guess. The real prophets of God do not wear soft clothing or live in kings’ palaces. It isn’t that their “preaching” does not pinch toes, but the whole of America needs saving that can only come from genuine repentance, contrition, restitution and the leaders in government, churches, and the MSM wearing sackcloth and ashes; and not many are going to give up what Satan has to offer in exchange for what America really needs from its leaders. It is a given to me that Obama is a servant of Satan as with all those in Congress; that politicians as a species are on the Devil’s payroll.

I’m not opposed to prosperity for an individual or a nation, but am always aware of the words of Jesus of the great difficulty for the rich to enter heaven. The chasing after money, the gaining of wealth puts one at great risk of their soul because very few can handle wealth for the good of others and to the glory of God. To live simply and owe no one money remains good advice. But “Neither a borrower nor a lender be” has long passed into history.

Not a lot is said in the Bible about how the Israelites became slaves in Egypt apart from the passage concerning a Pharaoh that “knew not Joseph” and demanded more from the tribes of Israel than those before him. The Israelites had it made in Egypt, but became victims of prosperity and as such a threat to the Egyptians. It was their very prosperity that caused Egyptian rulers to start enslaving the Israelites. There was no 400 years of bondage, it was not an overnight event that cast the Israelites into slavery; it was a process of time that eventuated into them becoming a threat to Egypt much in the way of Hitler’s perception of Jews, the last remaining “tribe of Israel.” But God would keep His promise to Abraham and this “remnant” would remain as a testimony to the faithfulness of God rather than the faithfulness of the Jews.

God did not deliver the Israelites because of their faithfulness to Him; but as a witness to God’s own faithfulness in keeping His word to Abraham. The Jews remain a miraculous testimony and witness to the faithfulness of God, a Chosen People not because of any exceptional goodness in them but for a testimony to the world that God keeps His promises despite the way people fail Him. According to Jesus, not many are going to be saved out of this world system and a world that is Satan’s domain, and will remain so until God acts upon His decision of the day and hour when Satan’s reign will be ended as foretold in the book of Revelation.

In the meantime, I listen to Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs and others realizing they may be sincere in what they are preaching and are pinching toes. But I suffer no delusion that such preaching will turn America onto the path of righteousness or call our nation and its leaders to repentance in sackcloth and ashes. Those like Glenn and Lou have a bully pulpit but I remind myself that unlike America, Satan is not divided against himself. By all means, let’s hear our modern day prophets pinch toes wherever they can; but it isn’t going to save our nation. The dark forces at work are not confined to secret meetings in Copenhagen or the White House; they pay the salaries of those like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, and Rush Limbaugh ever as much as university professors and those of the ACLU that are blatant enemies of America.

It was as a high school teacher in Watts that I discovered welfare was a way for “the establishment” with their hired guns, politicians, “to pay those people off for keeping their place” so long as they did not intrude into places where they were not welcome; places like Malibu, Beverly Hills, and Rodeo Drive. Now, Obama and Company sit on old Pharaoh’s throne and seem determined to make slaves of all of us, and eventually Americans will be reduced to the plight of those ancient Israelites and commanded to make bricks without straw. But I won’t be looking for some “Moses” from the MSM to deliver us from bondage. Only God will be able to do that, and I don’t believe America will fare any better than did ancient Israel after rejecting God and demanding a king to rule over them. And while modern Israel is a miraculous witness to God’s faithfulness to His promise to Abraham the only “friend” that tiny nation has, surrounded by enemy nations, is America.