Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword! JEFFERSON'S TEARS

(Excerpted from Jefferson's Tears out in paperback and eBook)

Chapter 8: Live by the Sword, Die by the Sword!

Monrovia, Liberia Sunday, September 9, 1990.

There’s nothing like the sound of rapid gunfire to get a person’s attention! Samuel Kanyon Doe’s lightly armed guard were being ambushed by the more heavily armed members of the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia, or the INFPL, led by one Prince Yormie Johnson. Bullets were flying like fireflies. In no time at all Johnson’s men captured Doe and his remaining men. Johnson ordered his men to shoot them. First they shot them in ones and twos. Then, to speed things up, they shot them in whole groups. The echo of the last shots fired began to fade into the distance.

The gun-smoke began to clear leaving only the smell of cordite in the Monrovian air as a reminder of what had just taken place. O, and all the dead bodies, over eighty of them! Liberia had a new leader.

President James Monroe prophetically said, “It is only when the people become ignorant and corrupt, when they degenerate into a populace [i.e., a rabble!], that they are incapable of exercising … sovereignty. Usurpation is then an easy attainment, and an usurper soon found. The people themselves become the willing instruments of their own debasement and ruin.”

Ignorance, corruption, degeneration and debasement all waved their flags in the ruined City of Monrovia, that city named after James Monroe, as usurpation, with its attendant usurpers, as it were, marched up its streets.

Samuel Kanyon Doe had usurped and toppled the Tolbert government. Now Prince Yormie Johnson was usurping and toppling the Doe government, as Liberia continued its descent into the inferno to the cheer of the rabble…

Samuel Kanyon Doe, President of Liberia, sat in the middle of the room surrounded by unfriendly armed men dressed in military uniform. His hands had been tied behind his back and he had wounds in his legs that were oozing blood as he sat uncomfortably on the floor.

Facing him, seated on the other side of a desk was a Budweiser-swilling man in army fatigues. He was uttering threats at the man who had been in power in Liberia for the previous ten years. This was Prince Yormie Johnson, the leader of a breakaway group called the Independent National Patriotic Front of Liberia (IPFL). He continued railing against the helpless Doe. On the front of his camouflage-hat glinted a single silver star, as on the nation’s flag, representing Liberia. Prince Johnson was Liberia’s new self-proclaimed leader!

“Prince, Prince, let me speak!” yelled the frantic and distraught President.  Prince Johnson simply continued swigging his American beer nonchalantly. A nonuniformed young man stood by his side. Multitasking obviously was not this young man’s area of expertise. For he fanned Johnson with a rag in his right hand, while holding a loaded handgun in his left, which was precariously waving every which way. Another non-uniformed sycophant periodically mopped Johnson’s sweaty brow for him with a cloth. And yet another would supply another followed by another can of beer within his easy reach. Obviously, it was hard labor supervising your pack of hyenas on the finer skills of torture!

“I want to say something… We are all one! We are all one!”

But Doe’s cries fell on deaf ears. Prince Johnson, and the collective multitude of his soldiers in that room, were unmoved…

Amazon Australia: https://tinyurl.com/yb5whvxx

LONELY JOURNEY

Excerpted from my FROM MASON TO MINISTER: Through the Lattice hardback.

Lonely Journey

While going through my conversion, I was wrestling with issues such as the tension between man’s free will and the sovereignty of God. I recall my brother Fearghas saying that these things meet in eternity, kind of like parallel railroad tracks meeting in the far-off horizon.

Glasgow to Inverness Train

The consistent Calvinist, as I was to learn, holds man’s responsibility and God’s sovereignty in an equal and balanced tension. While God is 100 percent sovereign, He holds man 100 percent responsible for his actions. It’s kind of like the Bible: 100 percent of it is written by God while 100 percent is written by men. But somehow this doesn’t add up to 200 percent, only 100 percent! Such is the mystery of God’s sovereignty and man’s responsibility - it can’t be worked out with a simple mathematical, theological, or any other sort of equation.

Regardless, going through the whole conversion experience was a lonely time for me. I wrote:

Lonesome Train

I felt at the wicket from the price of the ticket 

I was witness to a serious crime! 

I turned and shook my head 

as the Stationmaster said, 

“Good grief! The train is on time!” 

Is it predestination when your train leaves the station  

and journeys to someplace new? 

Or is it just a bore when you’ve seen it all before 

Like some permanent déjà vu? 

Lonesome train, take me away!

Is it providence or fate 

when you enter through the gate  

to find your train standing on the wrong track? 

Does your heart skip a beat 

when you notice that your seat 

has got your name printed on a gold plaque?

With a teardrop in your eye you just smile and wave goodbye, 

you’re trying to escape from your mind. 

But on the rack above your head, 

Fearghas & Neil

there’s a suitcase full of dread. 

You packed the things you should have left behind. 

Lonesome train, take me away!

You’ve got to travel fast to escape a shady past  

but the present always hangs around. 

The future’s always near, but it never gets that clear 

when you don’t know where your train is bound. 

You won’t clean out your mind, you’re afraid you’re going to find 

some thought that’s going to cause you pain. 

But the world still passes by out of the corner of your eye 

when you sit aboard that lonesome train. 

Lonesome train, take me away to a bright new day. It’s a bright new day.

Here's an old video of me singing Lonesome Train
https://tinyurl.com/y9calkuq

MORAL NJURY

My MORAL INJURY: Towards a Theology is now also out in paperback.

Moral Injury pertains to having ones view of the world violated resulting in an adverse effect of feeling guilt and shame. A worldview is that aspect of our humanity that focuses on things in the world that are (in our own personal opinion) right or wrong, and true or false. Thus, morals relate to who you are as a person. Morals are rules. They are a set of laws by which we police the world in which we live. They govern our interactions with others and our behaviour towards them and they determine how we perceive the interactions between others, whether as individuals or in groups.

Moral Injury occurs when as individuals we go against our own set of moral values and cause harm. It is important to note that this harm may or may not involve other parties (whether human, animal, objects or anything else).

AMAZON: https://tinyurl.com/ycp427fv

THE SEA OF FORGETFULNESS

The Sea of Forgetfulness

I was looking at some recent photos of Loch Lomond and was surprised to see how low the water level is. Sandy shores are appearing at its southern end. This is where I grew up.

Loch Lomond

If you don’t already know, Loch Lomond drains into the River Clyde by way of the River Leven. As I was listening to my pastor’s Sunday sermon, I got to thinking about this. It’s strange how the beating wings of the Holy Spirit sometimes raise us up to soar with Him as we bathe in the healing sunbeams of His preached Word. The following is where He took me.

God had created everything, including human beings, “very good” in the beginning (Genesis 1:31). But, as my preacher said, Adam and Eve gave up God for a piece of fruit. Strangely, I got to wondering how that piece of fruit passed through Adam’s digestive system! That’s what got me thinking of the famous Loch Lomond draining into the equally famous River Clyde via the River Leven.

By design, ordinally as food passes through our digestive systems, nutrients are collected from whatever we eat and then we excrete whatever is left over. O.K., I’m odd, but I was visualizing the twisting and winding River Leven as illustrative of our digestive system.

It always surprises me to see the water level drop in Loch Lomond, because, whether it’s fish swimming upstream or water flowing downstream, all must pass through a weir. The weir is a kilometre or so downstream from the loch. It is just below the Loch Lomond Rowing Club, where I was a cox and then an oarsman in my younger days, and the Vale of Leven and District Angling Club where I held a celebration for my 60th birthday in 2016. The weir was built in the early 70s to regulate the water level in the Loch.

Stuart & Neil

As Loch Lomond has to travel through the weir and down the River Leven to get to the River Clyde which in turn flows out to sea, so you and I have to go through the weir, i.e., Jesus Christ to get to the Father. For, no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6b). Thus, the forbidden fruit of our sin must pass through Jesus before it can be deposited in the “sea of forgetfulness” (Micah 7:19b).

Think of the sandy shores of low water level Loch Lomond. Your sins and my sins are as many as those grains of sand. Now think of an hourglass or an eggtimer. Jesus is that narrow nexus at the centre that every grain of our sin must pass through. Our days are numbered and each of us is accumulating more and more transgressions. Will all of our sins have passed through the hourglass before we die? Well, Christians shouldn’t think like that. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us” Psalm 103:12.

Hourglasses, eggtimers, and the River Leven all work according to forces of gravity. Let’s sort of invert this image. When I was at theological college, we used to have a worship service on Thursdays. The bloke next to me could not carry a tune in a bucket. When singing God's praises, he never once hit a correct note, not even by accident! However, while on this earth even our praising of God in Heaven goes through the Mediator, the man Christ Jesus. Therefore, every one of our wrong notes is made perfect by Him as it is presented to God.

Not only does Jesus take away all our sins to deposit them in the “sea of forgetfulness:, He also makes perfect everything that we do to the glory of God. “Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God” 1 Corinthians 10:31. The old Adam ate the forbidden fruit for his own glory. The new Adam, Christ Jesus, the Bread of Life, feeds us and nourishes us with spiritual food “of which you know not” – if you are outside of Christ. If you do not belong to Christ, you are still condemned by God for your sins. However, for the Christian, it’s, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” Romans 8:1a.

Like sands through the hourglass, like Loch Lomond passing through the weir on its way down the River Leven to the Clyde, like oil or water through a filter, so all our sins and impurities are taken away by Jesus, and all our works done in the Spirit are made perfect through Him. Whether coming from God or going to Him, all must pass through Christ Jesus.

Are you still eating the forbidden fruit? It will be the death of you if you are! But if you come to Jesus with a heart that has been humbled and broken by the Holy Spirit, the Father will pass all your sins through His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ.

Think of Loch Lomond wending its way down the fast-flowing River Leven and into the River Clyde. Now think of the River Clyde emptying into the sea.

What can wash away my sin?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus;

What can make me whole again?

Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

Oh! precious is the flow

That makes me white as snow;

No other fount I know,

Nothing but the blood of Jesus. 

Robert Lowry.

ON THE LORD'S TABLE

My ON THE LORD'S TABLE is now also available in paperback:

https://tinyurl.com/y9nf6oqp


In a sometimes technical, yet not overly, but always pastoral way, Neil Cullan McKinlay in On the Lord’s Table utilizes his years of study to tackle some of the issues surrounding the Lord’s Supper, such as its symbolism, frequency, and the intended partakers of Communion, how the believer’s faith is nourished by the bread and wine, how the Lord is present at His table, as well as the nature of His post-Resurrection body (particularly in regards to the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass). Feast on the Gospel made visible.

A STICK IN TIME (Paperback)

My novel A Stick in Time is now also out in paperback.

'Virgin Rock', Queensland

A STICK IN TIME is a work of pure fiction which, in an imaginative and entertaining way, deals with some of the deeper issues facing contemporary Christianity.

Read about Saint Patrick's Staff accompanying twins from 1600s Ireland to the contemporary Australian Outback where the occupants of Springsure (including the beautiful Erin) seem to age rather slowly.

There is interaction with angels.

Could this be the beginning of the Golden Age, the 'Millennium' spoken of in the Bible when the Church and the Nations are to be at peace with themselves and with each other?

AMAZON: https://tinyurl.com/yavf3mlq