“Don’t you just love it?”

IN DEFENSE OF COMMON SENSE
By Hetty Gray

# 154

July 20, 2013

“Don’t you just love it?”

Don’t you just love it when people claim that the Bible is fantasy? Never mind that merely looking at a small insect or inspecting the myriad veins in a leaf all lead to the Creator.

Heaven forbid. Although, I must admit, that if these naysayers really believe that they evolved from slime, I concur with their assessment.
According to the British Newspaper, The Daily Mail, a group of archaeologists have discovered something truly amazing. The initial line of the piece dated July 19th is not only intriguing, but also begs a discussion. Read on, please.
King David’s palace ‘found’ in the city where he’s said to have battled Goliath. The discovery of what is thought to be King David’s palace, measuring 1,000 square meters, was made by Hebrew University and the Israel Antiquities Authority.
Over the past seven years the teams have also uncovered a huge storehouse containing pots and artifacts that they believe proves the existence of a ruler in Judah in the tenth century BCE.
Researchers believe they have discovered the palace of King David as well as a large storeroom of pots and ancient artifacts.
• Archeologists claim the ruins are the best example to date of the uncovered fortress city of Shaarayim in Israel.
• The artifacts found are described as evidence that David ruled the region during the tenth century BCE.
The experts claim that the ruins they have found are the two largest buildings known to have existed at the time of King David in Jerusalem. So, King David is in the news?

It’s too bad that good old-fashioned Biblical judgment isn’t in the news, too. Sometimes I feel as if I’m living in a bizarre updated version of George Orwell’s 1984. When you consider what we are greeted with in terms of entertainment, it’s a wonder that we haven’t been visited with some sort of sign.
Or have we?
In a mere two hundred plus years we have come from a group of pilgrims who prayed once their feet were on the shores of what would be the United States to a society largely ignorant of its own history.
Only two nations on this planet were founded upon faith — the United States July 4, 1776, and Israel May 14, 1948. We have more in common than the number four of the actual day. We have a foundation that, when applied to our daily lives, proves unshakable.
Getting back to King David…. The Western peoples have long admired and extolled the accomplishments of the ancient Egyptians. The Pyramids and the Sphinx awe visitors and intrigue those of us who glimpse them on film. With all the hype about the ruins that inspired cinematographers from “The Egyptian” to The Indian Jones genre of film, we cannot forget the Bible inspired works including “Ben Hur”, “The Robe”, and “The Ten Commandments”.
Because so little of it has been unearthed, Biblical archaeology tends to emerge in small discoveries here and there. Consequently, many judge it much less spectacular — at least, until now. If this discovery proves to be equal to its initial reports, we may greet a day with a discussion of how the Bible is not fiction but fact.
Sundays find many of us in a house of worship. Still others view a ministry on line or on television or study their Bibles or prayer books in their own homes. No matter the venue, public or private, religion and faith play a large role in the majority of our lives.
Estimates are that 9 in 10 of us believe in God. Not a bad percentage, is it? Why is it, then, that Americans are constantly bombarded with secular messages that range across the spectrum of entertainment and music?

There is an old adage that if you say something often enough, people internalize it to the point that they actually believe it. Take a critical look at the messages aimed at our youth. It is an amalgam of what some of us remember from the turbulent 1960s merged with the unbridled gall of a small, well-funded group that anchor the music and film industries.
Listen carefully to the seemingly innocent commercials aired on the mainstream networks. Then, if you can stomach them, watch the commercials for some of the shows on television.
A good example is “Pregnant and Dating”. Now, as The Church Lady would have said, “Now isn’t THAT special?” Good grief, what have we come to when we throw away the sanctity of marriage and laud pre-marital sex as if it were a handshake?
Let’s hope that we find more in the Middle East than a few relics. Let’s hope that we find our hearts there. Have the courage to stand for what you believe. Have the heart to life what you have been taught.
It isn’t an easy road. Encourage young families to go to church. There are plenty of choices out there. Given the scope of both the national and independent churches and synagogues, there is a seat out there for everyone.
The ruins in the Israeli countryside only underscore what we should see every time we look into the mirror. Life itself is a miracle and it comes from God. If David fought Goliath and won, then there’s hope for us as we fight against the forces that tempt us to aberrant lifestyles and sloth… that claim to know what is “best for our children”… that wish our moral compass to fail….
Facing the future is not bleak if we aren’t alone. And we aren’t. Don’t you just love it?

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