Beech Tree News Network

Working as a kitchen mechanic it never ceases to amaze me how one single action in the kitchen can generate three or four times as much trash.  If I could get away with it and first wife Bett wouldn’t holler too loud, I’d get me a 55 gallon drum to replace the trash can in the corner.
We do have a dishwasher, but at times the sink still piles up.  Bett is not slack in reminding me that it looks like a large airplane crash.  I do a right smart house husbanding…. I do more cooking than housekeeping.  I don’t like either.  My cooking at times is sort of like my pool-playing used to be.  One day I could play like Minnesota Fats; the next day I couldn’t throw my pool stick in the back of a dump truck.
Sometimes my mind wonders during kitchen chores.  Unattended, the kitchen is reluctant to fly by itself… I think of other things.  Sometimes I get a sensible thought and run to write it down before it vanishes into thin air. Then the cornbread burns or the beans boil over. Bother.
A day or so ago I got to thinking about cults---not occults--- but cults.  They are not altogether the same; no doubt they are all of the Devil.  Cults are more secretive, more cunning; they hide behind good sometimes.  Occults, on the other hand, don’t give a hoot who knows or sees what they are doing---whether it’s rattling bones in a can to mumbo-jumbo…praying to old hearses, or even wheelbarrows if they think at one time the wheelbarrow may have to hauled a dead body.  Sometimes occults sacrifice chickens and other animals to made-up gods.  At times they flat out worship the Devil… much in fact.
But cultism in the broad sense is the inordinate attachment to or the worship of an organization of individuals, or in the more narrow sense the worship of one individual.  Some may remember the Jonesboro cult near Georgetown, Guyana in South America where a charismatic leader told his followers to drink poison kool-aid.  Over 200 men, women, and children died, all from the United States. 
There is one thing about cults… the tread that runs true through all of them: CONTROL, CONTROL, CONTROL, over the followers.  They are subtle.  They say and portend good things.  Some even claim to be a church of sorts.  Many cults require followers to tattle on each other; they say what you can drink and eat, with whom you associate, how many children you are to produce, what holidays and celebrations you can and can’t participate in; what you are to wear or what your read or watch.  Some so-called churches even dictate to husbands and wives what positions are allowed during intimacy.  Say what? TRUE; suspect any organization, or leader, or leaders of any organization requiring unquestionable obedience or submission; our free country says you have the right to join any group as long as it is not subversive to the U.S.   But if you are sailing along fat-dumb-and-happy, and something looks good… better taste first; lest you wind –up in deep…deep… deep (quicksand).
Some folks are afraid to question churches about their beliefs---afraid God-‘ll get-em.  You kiddin’ me?  Job questioned God all way through his ordeal. IN THE END GOD BLESSED JOB OVER AND ABOVE! You can’t beat that with a stick. 
IJOHN (1:1-3) tells us to “be wary of false prophets---test them to see if they are from God---keeping in mind that sometimes they hide behind God…FAKERS…IMPOSTERS.  Also watch out for any proposition that equates any human, alive or dead, with God or Jesus Christ.  Jesus said, “no man comes to the Father (God) except through Me.” NO EXCEPTIONS. (John 14:6). Notice Jesus didn’t studder.  He left us no wiggleroom--- “it’s me or nothing”.  No trying to “climb-up” any other way… My grace is sufficient--- I don’t need your help!”
Matthew 20… gives us a wonderful picture of GRACE…(the parable of the workers in the vineyard)… GRACE THE UNEARNED GIFT.
I leave you on a less heavy note… a question to ponder… one that’s bothered mankind for years: DOES THE CHEWING GUM LOOSE IT”S FLAVOR ON THE BEDPOST OVER NIGHT?
Kindest regards…