SIX FLAGS OVER WOLF’S

My 92-year-old great aunt, Nel Wolf, lives in Sutton, W.V., a little town on the Kanawha River with approximately 1,100 residents. The Sunday of my visit just before Easter happened to be when the news first broke that our P.O.W.s had been set free by Iraqis. My aunt was thrilled by the news and upon going out in the afternoon to pick up some jelly beans for her antique bunny candy bowl to be set out on the coffee table, she decided she wanted two more American flags for the front porch, bringing the total to six. "There, it’s Six Flags Over Wolf’s," my aunt laughed upon sticking the two new flags into place. She told me that when someone asked her the week before how she’d managed to live so long, she answered, "I’m a Republican and a Methodist."

Here we are, Opening Day of LisaLeland.com.

If there’s one thing I’m convinced of since pulling the plug on my first website, Freespoken.com, it’s that writing is a use-it-or-lose-it muscle.

I’ve let mine atrophy for the last two-and-a-half months.

Among other escapist tactics, I’ve spent a great deal of time reading (some junk, some valuable), watching TV--especially leading up to the war, during the war and after the war--and shopping for the best deals on vegetables, fruits, albacore tuna and Progresso soup in my neighborhood.

The highlight of my unauthorized "sabbatical" was renting a car for two weeks at Easter and sightseeing my way through southern Pennsylvania on the way to visit my 92-year-old aunt in West Virginia before heading home to Ohio to visit my mom in Akron, my brother in Dayton and my sister in Mansfield.

I took some back roads coming back and saw a bunch of new territory off I-80, including Pottsville (home of Yuengling beer), Hazelton, Allentown and the tiny village of Jim Thorpe.

Pennsylvania is definitely "God’s Country" and when John Denver sings about West Virginia being "almost heaven," he’s not kidding either.

Okay, that’s enough catching up for now.

NOTHING TO CONFESS

At a reception following a Catholic Mass wedding I attended this past weekend in Philadelphia, a friend who is a lifelong Catholic asked me if Protestants believed in confession of sins.

I told him I grew up believing that Jesus Christ died to pay for my sins, but that I should pray for forgiveness when I screwed up so that I wouldn’t be punished.

Since attending a Bible church (www.graceimpact.org) in Chicago during my late 20s, though, I learned that praying for forgiveness had no application since grace is applied each time I sin. Any "punishment" I endure is simply the natural consequences of my sin, not something God has anything to do with.

The reality both Protestant and Catholic churches fail to teach is that we, as Believers, do not follow the Law program given to the Jews. As a result of Jesus Christ’s death and the raising up of Paul as the Apostle for the Gentiles (following Israel’s spurning of God’s mercy to them), we live today in what is called the Dispensation of Grace (Ephesians 3:2).

In at least 50 different passages, Paul talks directly about living under grace, not under the law, which includes praying things like, "Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors."

The message is we are already forgiven of our sins--past, present and future. As Paul says in Colossians 2: 13-16, "And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses."

Paul also says, "We have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace…where sin abounded, grace did much more abound."

The way my pastor in Chicago explains it, the saved Israelite under the Law was required to come before a priest and confess his sin and offer a sacrifice in order for God’s forgiveness. (Leviticus contains a passage that details this.)

But as a result of the forgiveness through Jesus Christ to anyone who accepts Him as their personal Savior, forgiveness of sin is total, complete and unconditional; given on the basis of a free gift in grace.

"You don’t have to work for it, you don’t have to confess to get it and you don’t have to beg for it," stresses Pastor Richard Jordan of Shorewood Bible Church. "When Jesus Christ died for you, every one of your sins was future and he’s forgiven every one of them on the basis of his shed blood. You don’t have to live under a cloud where God’s going to drop a chandelier on you if you don’t do something or you do do something.

"You say, ‘Yeah, but that’s to good to be true.’ Yeah, it is—that’s grace! That’s what God’s done for you in Christ!"

MAURY: "LET’S GET MIKEY, HE WON’T CARE"

Flipping TV channels one morning the other week, I caught a hidden video of two young girls in pajamas guzzling vodka from a bottle as they sat on a bed in a darkened bedroom.

The footage turned out to be part of a Maury Povich show about extremely unruly kids. The two girls, ages 8 and 11, are sisters and they told Maury on his talk show stage in front of an audience that they were both addicted to alcohol. The mother, sitting next to them, explained to Maury that she bought liquor and wine for her own enjoyment and didn’t know how to keep her children from sneaking it from high up in her kitchen cabinets.

When asked in pre-recorded footage what they thought of their mother, both girls used the words "bitch" and "whore," among other slurs that were bleeped out. When asked if they loved their mother, the oldest daughter gave a flat "No" while the youngest admitted, "I don’t know."

This was all I could bear and turned the TV off. The whole thing was heartbreaking. Of course, no person or situation is non-exploitable in daytime talk shows like Maury’s and there’s no regard for even a young child’s life outside of its potential entertainment value.

SADDAM AND HIS BUDDY SATAN

A recent story in the New York Times reported that, according to two experts on personality disorders, Saddam Hussein is not a Madman all of us can pass off as insane or psychotic, but he’s actually a "malignant narcissist."

This "severe form of narcissism," according to the May 4 article, gives people an "adeptness at charm and manipulation" that is beyond that of classic narcissists, who are defined as being "grandiose, self-centered, over-sensitive to criticism and unable to feel empathy for others."

"Inordinate narcissism," explains one of the researchers, "is expressed in grandiosity, a confidence in themselves and the assurance that they know what the world needs…They express their aggression in cruel and sadistic behavior against their enemies: whoever does not submit to them or love them."

Saddam’s self-glorification—"that he is Iraq," as the other researcher explains--is combined with a "deep-seated need to reassure himself through public adulation of how magnificent he is."

To me, this sounds like Satan’s M.O., which makes perfect sense given Saddam’s obvious alignment with the "father of all lies."

It’s very interesting to note that Saddam’s self-professed idol and role model is Nebuchadnezzar, King of Babylon from 604-562 BC and responsible for invading and demolishing Jerusalem, including the Temple built by Solomon, leading to the exile of the Israelites.

But while Saddam comes off as a boob, the AntiChrist, or Satan in the flesh, will fool many as he rises to power to become ruler of the world.

The question is how far off is the AntiChrist when you look at the state of things today? Certainly there are more and more Christians wondering this given the phenomenal and shocking success of the "Left Behind" series, written by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, that "novelizes" the rise of the AntiChrist and End Times bible prophecy. The latest installment, "Armageddon," in fact, tops the current New York Times Bestsellers List for hardcover fiction.

When I was a kid, I remember it being a real big deal when Hal Lindsey’s "Late Great Planet Earth" (published in 1970) made the bestseller’s list. If you remember, Lindsey referred to us as the "Terminal Generation," and indicated strongly that the end of the world would play out in our lifetime.

Cleaning out my dad’s basement full of books after his death, I found and kept a book from the ’50s, called "Your Bible and You," in which the writer suggests in his opening paragraphs that things were out-of-control enough to make one wonder if the Latter Days weren’t imminent.

"Never have people been so afraid of the future," writes author Arthur S. Maxwell, quoting an editor’s column in U.S. News & World report in which David Lawrence wrote, "Man talks often nowadays of the universal destruction that hangs over him. In the vocabulary of the times, ‘international suicide’ is the phrase used by governmental spokesmen to describe the menace that threatens our lives and our civilizations. Peoples everywhere are terrorized now by the possibility that missiles of destruction can be hurled at them from globe-girdling devices of incredible power."

I was surprised to read in one of my research books about the Bible that the Apostle Paul actually thought he was seeing the makings of the latter days!

Notice what he wrote in II Timothy 3: 1-8 and how it correlates with what we’re seeing today:

[1] This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come.
[2] For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy,
[3] Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,
[4] Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God;
[5] Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away.
[6] For of this sort are they which creep into houses, and lead captive silly women laden with sins, led away with divers lusts,
[7] Ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
[8] Now as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth: men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith."

Footnote:

A book I found invaluable in helping me understand Biblically who Satan is and how he works is called "Satan and His Plan of Evil," and can be purchased through the website www.EnjoyTheBible.org

EMINEM’S FAME TRACK

Just yesterday, waiting in line at the grocery, I noticed Eminem on the cover of a new magazine called CosmoGirl, posing shyly as the teenage "heartthrob" for 14-year-old girls (times have certainly changed since Robby Benson was the "beefcake" for Teen Beat).

I remember a short profile article of Eminem in the New York Post several years back where he pretty much said he had given his soul to Satan and was going to try and take down with him as many people as possible.

It would seem he’s currently doing a good job of "mainstreaming" himself, even winning an Oscar this past March. The multi-Grammy winner and big screen actor could even be the Tiger Woods of the music scene from what I’m observing here in New York.