-Candy
Cane Story:.There
once lived a candy maker in Indiana who decided he wanted to make a special
candy that would present the Gospel story and would be a witness for Christ.
It was his wish to somehow incorporate the birth, ministry and death of
Emmanuel the Christ in one tasty treat.
He began with a stick of
pure, white, hard candy. Why? He made it white to symbolize the purity
of the virgin birth and the sinless nature of Emmanuel. And he made it
hard, to symbolize the Solid Rock, the solid foundation of all those within
whom is God's Holy Spirit and the firmness of the promise of God.
Then the candy maker shaped
the candy in the form of a 'J' to represent the precious name
of Emmanuel who came to Earth as our Savior.
It could also represent the
staff of the 'Good Shepherd which reaches down into the ditches of the
world to lift out the fallen lambs who, like all sheep, have gone astray.
Thinking that the candy was
somewhat plain, the candy maker decided to add red stripes. He used three
small stripes to show the stripes of the scourging Emmanuel received from
the Roman soldiers before His death on the cross. The large red stripe
was for the blood shed by Christ on the cross so that we could have the
promise of eternal life.
The smell and taste of peppermint
relate to the herb hyssop. Psalm 51:7
states."Purge
me with hyssop and I shall be clean, wash me and I shall be whiter than
snow."
Thus, the creation
of the candy cane.
The True Story of Rudolph
the Red-Nosed Reindeer:."A
guy named Bob May, depressed and brokenhearted, stared out his drafty apartment
window into the chilling December night. His 4-year-old daughter, Barbara,
sat on his lap quietly sobbing. Bob's wife, Evelyn, was dying of cancer.
Little Barbara couldn't understand why her mommy could never come home.
Barbara looked up into her dads eyes and asked "Why isn't Mommy just like
everybody else's Mommy?" Bob's jaw tightened and his eyes welled with tears.
Her question brought waves of grief, but also of anger. It had been the
story of Bob's life. Life always had to be different for Bob. Being small
when he was a kid, Bob was often bullied by other boys. He was too little
at the time to compete in sports. He was often called names he'd rather
not remember.
"From childhood, Bob was
different and never seemed to fit in. Bob did complete college, married
his loving wife and was grateful to get his job as a copywriter at Montgomery
Ward during the Great Depression. Then he was blessed with his little girl.
But it was all short-lived. Evelyn's bout with cancer stripped them of
all their savings and now Bob and his daughter were forced to live in a
two-room apartment in the Chicago slums. Evelyn died just days before Christmas
in 1938. Bob struggled to give hope to his child, for whom he couldn't
even afford to buy a Christmas gift. But if he couldn't buy a gift, he
was determined a make one, a storybook!
"Bob had created an animal
character in his own mind and told the animal's story to little Barbara
to give her comfort and hope. Again and again Bob told the story, embellishing
it more with each telling. Who was the character? What was the story all
about? The story Bob May created was his own autobiography in fable form.
The character he created was a misfit outcast like he was. The name of
the character? A little reindeer named Rudolph, with a big shiny nose.
"Bob finished the book just
in time to give it to his little girl on Christmas Day. But the story doesn't
end there. The general manager of Montgomery Ward caught wind of the little
storybook and offered Bob May a nominal fee to purchase the rights to print
the book. Wards went on to print Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
and distribute it to children visiting Santa Claus in their stores. By
1946 Wards had printed and distributed more than six million copies of
Rudolph. That same year, a major publisher wanted to purchase the rights
from Wards to print an updated version of the book. In an unprecedented
gesture of kindness, the CEO of Wards returned all rights back to Bob May.
The book became a best seller. Many toy and marketing deals followed and
Bob May, now remarried with a growing family, became wealthy from the story
he created to comfort his grieving daughter.
"But the story doesn't end
there either. Bob's brother-in-law, Johnny Marks, made a song adaptation
to Rudolph. Though the song was turned down by such popular vocalists as
Bing Crosby and Dinah Shore, it was recorded by the singing cowboy, Gene
Autry. Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer was released in 1949 and became
a phenomenal success, selling more records than any other Christmas song,
with the exception of 'White Christmas'. The gift of love that Bob May
created for his daughter so long ago kept on returning to bless him again
and again. And Bob May learned the lesson, just like his dear friend Rudolph,
that being different isn't so bad. In fact, being different can be a blessing!"
...from Bob
Proctor's Insight of the Day newsletter.(insightoftheday.com)
-Children
of God:.The.children
of God are those included in the resurrection:.Luke
20:36; Romans 8:17; John
1:12; 1John 2:24; 1Peter
1:3.
One has to be out from the
law to be a son of God;
a
result of faith:.1Peter
1:9. Notice that it doesn't say the result of you keeping
the commandments, tithing, etc. is salvation. It says faith.
The
difference between the children of God and the children of the devil.
See also about being adopted
into His family.
The children of God.(Galatians
4:26).await
the time when they will be fully of the
righteousness they have accepted when they individually accepted Christ
into their heart:.2Peter
3:13; Hebrews 6:10-19;
Revelation
19:6-8;
Revelation 21:26,27;
Revelation
22:11,12.
Chushanrishathaim:.Comprised
from Easton's
and Fausset's Bible Dictionaries. Chushanrishathaim means 'the
Ethiopian of double wickedness'. He was a Cushite
or Hamitic
element prominent
in the oldest Babylonian
race as their vocabulary proves. He was king of Mesopotamia
in Elam,
the Syrian country about Haran
later called Persia.(map).who
oppressed Israel
in the generation immediately following Joshua
in about B.C.E.
1402:.Judges
3:8.
At this time Chushanrishathaim
was king of the Syrian
country around Haran,
the region between the Euphrates
river and the Khabour, an area held by the people known as Nairi. The
Nairi was a group divided into petty
tribes. Assyria had not at
this time extended her dominion to the Euphrates. Cuneiform
inscriptions two centuries later in B.C.E. 1270 confirm the rising of the
Assyrian
empire. Othniel,
the first of the judges,
delivered Israel from Chushanrishathaim:.Judges
3:9. They were bad then and just got worse: Judges
2:11-23; 3:5-8.
We learn from the Babylonian
tablets found at Tell el-Amarna in Egypt, dating from early B.C.E. 14th
century
that
Palestine
had been invaded by the forces of Aram-naharaim.(meaning
'Aram of the two rivers' or Mesopotamia).more
than once and these were long before the Exodus
in B.C.E. 1843 and that at the time the tablets.(Deuteronomy
9:9-11).were
written.(around
B.C.E. 1400), the king of Aram-naharaim.(aka
Mesopotamia).was
still surreptitiously
taking over Canaan,
a part of ancient Egypt in the time of the reign of Rameses
III of the Twentieth Dynasty.
As the reign of Rameses
III corresponds with the Israelitish
occupation of Canaan,
it is probable that the Egyptian monuments refer to the oppression of the
Israelites by Chushanrishathaim:.2Chronicles
36:10.
Canaan was still regarded
as a province of Egypt, so that, in attacking it, Chushanrishathaim would
have been considered to be attacking Egypt. Aram refers to Aramaic,
the language of ancient Mesopotamia.
Constantine the Great: 
about
274-337 A.D.,
the Roman emperor
306-337, who allegedly.converted
to Christianity,
but by his actions, he certainly
had not and was really of the world dominating plans of the cabal
back then. He was refounder
of the ancient Greek city called Byzantium,
refounding it to Constantinople,
today Istanbul, Turkey.
Constantinople was capital
of the Eastern Roman empire
and called the Byzantine
Empire until 1453. Constantine intervened
in ecclesiastical
affairs to achieve.unity
as he presided
over the first ecumenical
council of the church, at Nicaea
in 325.
cornet: Daniel
3:5 a curved type of wind instrument, like a horn or trumpet.
Counselor:.In
Isaiah
9:6 Emmanuel is predicted to be a wonderful counselor, one with whom
we may freely talk with no fear whatsoever. Many
seek
psychiatric help these
days and should, if they lack the personal
relationship with the Father that He made
possible.
Many have a difficult time
understanding themselves. We all just sort of live life and make our plans
and try to make them work out. Many don't work out and disillusionment
often reigns. To understand the self, one has to understand the Creator
as we are made in the image of Him. With more of Creator's mind in you,
you'll see yourself as He is and as He does:.Proverbs
20:24.
To get more of Creator's
mind, study and pray.
Prayer
is talking to your Creator and listening for answers and impressions that
well
up in your mind.
Crusades:
the Crusades
were a stupid series of wars involving the Knights
Templars. Aren't most if not all wars
inane?
The Crusades series of wars by Western European 'Christians'.(Matthew
5:39-44; 1John 4:8,12,16).were
intended to recapture the Holy
Land from Muslims.
The Crusades began in 1095 A.D.
and ended in the mid to late 13th century. The term Crusade was originally
applied solely to European efforts to retake from the Muslims the city
of Jerusalem, which was sacred
to Christians as the site of the crucifixion
of Emmanuel.Christ.
It was later used to designate
any military effort by Europeans against non Christians. The First Crusade
was successful in its aim of freeing Jerusalem. It also established a Western
Christian military presence in the Near East that lasted for almost 200
years. The leaders of various groups met at Constantinople.
The original forces of perhaps 25,000 to 30,000 were sufficient numbers
to overcome states and principalities of what are now Syria, Lebanon and
Israel. Scholars were inclined to give the Crusades credit for making Western
Europe more cosmopolitan.
They believed the Crusades had brought Western Europe higher standards
of Eastern medicine and learning, Greek and Muslim culture
and such luxuries as silks, spices and oranges. Extreme statements of this
view held that the Crusades brought Europe out of the provincialism of
the Dark Ages, also called the Middle
Ages. The most important effect of the Crusades was economic.
The Italian cities prospered from the transport of Crusaders and replaced
Byzantines
and Muslims as merchant-traders in the Mediterranean. Trade passed through
Italian hands to Western Europe at a handsome profit and the popes during
these series of wars, in supporting the Crusaders, gained profitably by
increased power and influence.
-Cush:
was the eldest son of Ham
and father of Nimrod, Cush's sons
were Seba, Havilah.(map).,
Sabtah, Raamah and Sabtecha, most of whom settled in Arabia Felix where
its capital was Petra:.Genesis
10:6-8. His descendants
are called the Ethiopians.(map
showing where Ethiopia is); from Cush
evolved the Cushites with language of use called Cushitic
as used in Arabia Felix. A
king of them way back then was Chushanrishathaim.