Silent Weeping

  • SILENTLY THEY STAND ALL BRIGHT AND GLEAMING,

SENTRIES IN ROWS, ALL STRAIGHT, NONE LEANING,

EACH GUARDING A TOMB, SO STILL….UN-BREATHING.

THE BEST WE CAN DO WITH SILENT WEEPING…..

HONOR OUR DEAD WITH REVERENT KEEPING.

  • FLAGS FLYING HIGH, THEY FOLLOWED IN SEEKING,
    TO PROTECT OUR NATION, OF PRICE NONE THINKING,

EACH GIVING HIS LIFE, HIS BLOOD…….UNBLINKING,

THE BEST WE CAN DO WITH SILENT WEEPING,…..

REMEMBER OUR DEAD WITH GRATEFUL KEEPING.

  • GUNS BURSTING LOUD, WE FIRE IN SALUTING,
    SERVICEMAN ALL, BOTH DEAD AND LIVING!

THE FREEDOMS WE OWN, THEY BOUGHT… BY GIVING!

THE BEST WE CAN DO WITH SILENT WEEPING,….

THANK THEM ALL, FOR OUR SAFE KEEPING.

Monty McCoy

Note: This writing was originally posted in 2015 as Field of Honor.

One Seed

Many years ago I watched a film about a British missionary who carried the gospel to the mountain people of a certain country.  After laboring among these people for a period of time, the British missionary could only account for one conversion among them.  He eventually grew discouraged and left the mission field.

In the meantime this one convert sent his young son off on foot to travel some distance to a school where the boy could learn to read and write.  Eventually the boy turned into a young man and his skills at reading and writing enabled him to develop an alphabet and written vocabulary for his people.  The father then had the son travel to America where he learned the original languages of the Bible.  The goal was for the son to be able to translate the Scriptures into his native language of the mountain people, which he did.

There is a scene, which is burned into my memory, where the father takes the the Bible in his own language up to the mountain top where he spent time alone with the Lord.  In that scene the father holds the Bible up to God in heaven with great rejoicing!

The film did not end there.  On one of his trips to America the son searched for the whereabouts of the British missionary.  He found him in a small apartment in Canada.  The son visited the old missionary unannounced and in his native dress.

Imagine the astonishment of the old missionary who became discouraged and who may have thought his work was in vain!  The one seed that had fallen on good* ground had brought forth fruit many times over!

For as the rain cometh down, and the snow from heaven, and returneth not thither, but watereth the earth, and maketh it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower, and bread to the eater:

So shall my word be that goeth forth out of my mouth: it shall not return unto me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.  Isaiah 55:10& 11

*good ground – Ground that God prepared before the sower came.

*good – that which accomplishes God’s purpose.

The sower’s prayer: “Lord, lead me to good ground……”

Note:  It has been over thirty five years since I saw this film.  Some parts of it I remember vividly, other parts are not so vivid.  If you are familiar with the film you may find a discrepancy in the details. Details which I tried to limit due to memory or lack of it.

Glory in This

Thus saith the LORD, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches:

But let him that glorieth glory in this, that he understandeth and knoweth me, that I am the LORD which exercise lovingkindness, judgment, and righteousness, in the earth: for in these things I delight, saith the LORD.

 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will punish all them which are circumcised with the uncircumcised;

Egypt, and Judah, and Edom, and the children of Ammon, and Moab, and all that are in the utmost corners, that dwell in the wilderness: for all these nations are uncircumcised, and all the house of Israel are uncircumcised in the heart.  Jeremiah 9:23-26

What is Ruckmanism?

What Is Ruckmanism?  By John P. McGraw, M.A.

Ruckmanism:  An obscure heresy mainly contained to southeastern United States and several midwestern states.  This heresy gets its name from Dr. Peter Sturges Ruckman (Ph.D., religious history) who has founded his theology on extreme antinomianism (the possibility of inner salvation without outward, visible holiness), a dedication to Bibliolotry, and many radical interpretations of the Bible.  Devotees of this heresy will stand for the most extreme interpretations of controversial subjects if they come from their leader, but under no circumstances will they stand for a critique of the underlying foundations of the heresy itself.  Among other heresies Ruckman teaches divorce and remarriage of Christians as Christian institutions.  Ruckman contends that all those partaking in physical union (“flesh joined to flesh” as he calls it) have been married, though maybe their marriage is not recognized in the eyes of man.  This of course is polygamy in a twisted form.  The clear teaching of the New Testament is that marriage is (1) a ceremony, John 2:1-10, (2) a spiritual union, Ephesians 5, and (3) a physical union, Hebrews 13:4.  Also the New Testament speaks of the marriage of Jesus to the church, certainly something other than “flesh joined to flesh”.  This aspect of ruckmanism is similar to early Mormonism which contended that indeed marriage is polygamous, and was even partaken in by Jesus Christ.

Though maintaining an orthodox pretense in the Baptist tradition, ruckmanism is clearly outside the tradition of both historic and Biblical Christianity.  Another aspect of ruckmanism is the concept that restricts the deity of Christ to Jesus being the manifestation of God in the flesh and not actually God, in that Christ the man was capable of sin and could have fallen.  Should Christ have sinned the universe it is surmised, might have exploded.  It is felt that were Jesus above the capacity to sin, His testing on the earth would have been a hoax.  This of course is a denial of the Godness of Christ just as so called Apostolic (Jesus Only) doctrine is a denial of His humanity.  The fact is that there was no possibility of Jesus falling for He was truly God.  His testing is a willing one to reconcile man to Himself, not of any necessity whatsoever to the blessed Trinity.  Other aspects of ruckmanism are: the English King James Version of the Bible is superior to the original Greek manuscripts, the antichrist may land in a spaceship in the Vatican, there are no women in heaven (all resurrected saints will receive bodies identical to the resurrected body of Jesus), and a vicious badgering and name calling of those who do not submit to Ruckman’s authority.  Another interesting innovation is that Judas Iscariot was not human, even though the New Testament shows Judas betraying human emotions, repentance and suicide.  Ruckman takes Christ’s statement, “one of you is a devil” to mean that Judas was not human.  Of course Jesus no more meant that Judas was not human than He meant that the Pharisees were not human when He called them serpents and children of vipers.  Interestingly enough Ruckman’s teachings on the non-humaness of Judas is a denial of the traditional and Biblical teaching of the antichrist, whom Ruckman thinks Judas was and is and will be.  For the Pauline teaching on the antichrist is that indeed the antichrist is human, specifically the “man of sin.” (2 Thessalonians 2:2)  In that the distinct element of this teaching revolves around a man, ruckmanism can be accurately described as a cult.