Sunday, February 27, 2011

BLACK HISTORY SUNDAY

BLACK HISTORY SUNDAY AT
GILBERT MEMORIAL A.M.E.
Rev. Brenda Smith, Pastor
Sunday, February 27, 2011
REV DR Larry Delano Coleman, Homilist

1. GOD AND JESUS IN SCRIPTURE:

I beheld till the thrones were cast down, and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garment was white as snow, and the hair of his head like the pure wool: his throne was like the fiery flame, and his wheels as burning fire.Daniel 7:9

14His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire; 15And his feet like unto fine brass, as if they burned in a furnace; and his voice as the sound of many waters. 16And he had in his right hand seven stars: and out of his mouth went a sharp twoedged sword: and his countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength. Rev. 1:14-16

2. MOTHER NILE--------------- ALSO CALLED “GIHON” IN SCRIPTURE

13And the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of Ethiopia. Gen.2:13

Ethiopia or Cush is the first nation in the bible. Ethiopia is in Africa. The land where man began. The land where civilization began. The land where you and I began! Where everybody began!

The Nile (Regarded as the longest river in the world.[3] It is 6,650 km (4,130 miles) long.

The Nile has two major tributaries, the White Nile and Blue Nile. The latter is the source of most of the water and fertile soil. The former is the longer. The White Nile rises in the Great Lakes region of central Africa, with the most distant source in central Burundi. It flows north through Rwanda, Tanzania, Lake Victoria, Uganda and southern Sudan. The Blue Nile starts at Lake Tana in Ethiopia at 12°02′09″N 037°15′53″E12.03583°N 37.26472°E and flows into Sudan from the southeast. The two rivers meet near the Sudanese capital of Khartoum.

The Negro Speaks of Rivers

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world
and older than the flow of human blood in human veins.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
I bathe in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans,* and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.
I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.
My soul has grown deep like the rivers.
BY LANGSTON HUGHES

3. “WRESTERS” OF SCRIPTURE FOR WICKED ENDS--

Folks have lied about black history for centuries, BOTH BLACKS AND WHITES even in school and church. Some of it is still on the internet! So watch out!

WHY WOULD A BLACK MAN LIE ABOUT BLACK HISTORY, YOU MAY ASK? HE’S SICK, BRAINWASHED, FULL OF THE DEVIL, WILLFULLY IGNORANT!!

WHY WOULD A WHITE MAN LIE ABOUT BLACK HISTORY, YOU MAY ASK? HE’S SICK, BRAINWASHED, FULL OF THE DEVIL, WILLFULLY IGNORANT!!

“All day long they twist my words; they are always plotting to harm me.” PSALM 56:5

“But you must not mention 'the oracle of the LORD' again, because every man's own word becomes his oracle and so you distort the words of the living God, the LORD Almighty, our God.” JEREMIAH 23:36

4. The so-called curses---

They would even subvert, pervert, wrest and suborn scripture to make it applicable to us:

20Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.c 21He drank of the wine and became drunk and lay uncovered in his tent. 22And Ham, the father of Canaan, saw the nakedness of his father and told his two brothers outside. 23Then Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it on both their shoulders, and walked backward and covered the nakedness of their father. Their faces were turned backward, and they did not see their father’s nakedness. 24When Noah awoke from his wine and knew what his youngest son had done to him, 25he said,

“Cursed be Canaan;
a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”
26He also said,
“Blessed be the LORD, the God of Shem;
and let Canaan be his servant.
27May God enlarge Japheth,d
and let him dwell in the tents of Shem,
and let Canaan be his servant.”

5. GENESIS 9:20-25—A DRUNKARD’S CURSE: BLESSES AND CURSES IN THE SAME BREATH! “from the same mouth come both blessing and cursing. My brethren, these things ought not to be this way.” JAMES 3:10 11; NOAH’S CURSES NOT GOD’S CURSES. NOT TO HAM, BUT HIS GRANDSON, CANAAN, ANYWAY. WHOSE LAND THEY COVET TO THIS VERY DAY!

6. USED ON BLACK SLAVES IN AMERICA: TOUSSAINT L’OVERTURE, GABRIEL PROSSER, DENMARK VESEY, DAVID WALKER, NAT TURNER, HARRIET TUBMAN, FREDERICK DOUGLASS, JOHN BROWN, BISHOP HENRY MCNEAL TURNER

7. “Now therefore ye [are] cursed, and there shall none of you be freed from being bondmen, and hewers of wood and drawers of water for the house of my God.” Joshua 9:23

8. Refutation of the curse--

“How can I curse those whom God has not cursed? How can I denounce those whom the LORD has not denounced?” Numbers 23:8

9. SIMPLE SOLUTION TO OUR CRISES AS A PEOPLE---

10. “Study to show thyself approved unto God A WORK MAN THAT NEED NOT BE ASHAMED, RIGHTLY DIVIDING THE WORD OF TRUTH.” 2 TIM 2:15
11. FIGHT BACK WITH THE WORD OF GOD AND WITH YOUR RIGHTEOUS, VIRTUOUS LIVES!
LIKE BISHOP RICHARD ALLEN, DANIEL COKER AND BISHOP MORRIS BROWN

12. FOLKS WHOM GOD TURNED WHITE---

Moses hand—EXODUS 4:6-7--
6 Then the LORD said, “Put your hand inside your cloak.” So Moses put his hand into his cloak, and when he took it out, the skin was leprous[a]—it had become as white as snow.
7 “Now put it back into your cloak,” he said. So Moses put his hand back into his cloak, and when he took it out, it was restored, like the rest of his flesh.

13. Miriam moses’ sister
9So the anger of the LORD burned against them and He departed. 10But when the cloud had withdrawn from over the tent, behold, Miriam was leprous, as white as snow. As Aaron turned toward Miriam, behold, she was leprous. 11Then Aaron said to Moses, “Oh, my lord, I beg you, do not account this sin to us, in which we have acted foolishly and in which we have sinned. 12“Oh, do not let her be like one dead, whose flesh is half eaten away when he comes from his mother’s womb!” 13Moses cried out to the LORD, saying, “O God, heal her, I pray!” 14But the LORD said to Moses, “If her father had but spit in her face, would she not bear her shame for seven days? Let her be shut up for seven days outside the camp, and afterward she may be received again.” 15So Miriam was shut up outside the camp for seven days, and the people did not move on until Miriam was received again. Numbers 12:9-15

14. Gehazi

It happened when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, that he sent word to the king, saying, “Why have you torn your clothes? Now let him come to me, and he shall know that there is a prophet in Israel.” 9So Naaman came with his horses and his chariots and stood at the doorway of the house of Elisha. 10Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh will be restored to you and you will be clean.” 11But Naaman was furious and went away and said, “Behold, I thought, ‘He will surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper.’ 12“Are not Abanah and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage. 13Then his servants came near and spoke to him and said, “My father, had the prophet told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, ‘Wash, and be clean’?” 14So he went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; and his flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child and he was clean.

Gehazi’s Greed

15When he returned to the man of God with all his company, and came and stood before him, he said, “Behold now, I know that there is no God in all the earth, but in Israel; so please take a present from your servant now.” 16But he said, “As the LORD lives, before whom I stand, I will take nothing.” And he urged him to take it, but he refused.
But Gehazi, the servant of Elisha the man of God, thought, “Behold, my master has spared this Naaman the Aramean, by not receiving from his hands what he brought. As the LORD lives, I will run after him and take something from him.”
23Naaman said, “Be pleased to take two talents.” And he urged him, and bound two talents of silver in two bags with two changes of clothes and gave them to two of his servants; and they carried them before him. 24When he came to the hill, he took them from their hand and deposited them in the house, and he sent the men away, and they departed. 25But he went in and stood before his master. And Elisha said to him, “Where have you been, Gehazi?” And he said, “Your servant went nowhere.”
26Then he said to him, “Did not my heart go with you, when the man turned from his chariot to meet you? Is it a time to receive money and to receive clothes and olive groves and vineyards and sheep and oxen and male and female servants?
Naaman's leprosy will cling to you and to your descendants forever." Then Gehazi went from Elisha's presence and he was leprous, as white as snow. 2kings 5:27
________________________________________

15. PURPOSE OF TODAY’S MESSAGE: to inform; to empower; to love

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 1 THESS. 4:13

11so that no advantage would be taken of us by Satan, for we are not ignorant of his schemes. 2 COR. 2:11

Today, we’re gonna set the record straight in Jesus’ name! And the only book we’re gonna use is the BIBLE—the greatest black history book ever!

“Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter.” Isaiah 5:20

16. Turn to Genesis 10—the table of nations—critical biblical index
Genesis 10

1Now these are the generations of the sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth: and unto them were sons born after the flood.

Now, Ham refers to the black man. His descendents, his “sons” are where the world’s earliest civilization are found. Civilization means writing—on papyrus paper, and in stone; hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic; reading, mathematics, astronomy, navigation, shipbuilding, agriculture, music, animal husbandry, art, medicine, the calendar, surveying, stone quarrying and building in stone, and the worship of God “Amen” -- and on and on

17. Ham’s bone--

6And the sons of Ham; Cush (ETHIOPIA AND SOUTH CENTRAL AFRICA), and Mizraim (EGYPT), and Phut (NORTH AFRICA), and Canaan (ISRAEL, LEBANON, SYRIA).
Now use this table of nations as your reference point, whenever you study!

7And the sons of Cush; Seba, and Havilah, and Sabtah, and Raamah, and Sabtechah: and the sons of Raamah; Sheba, and Dedan.
8And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
9He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said, Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.
10And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel (BABYLON), and Erech, and Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar (ABRAHAM’S HOME).
11Out of that land went forth Asshur, and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah,
12And Resen between Nineveh and Calah: the same is a great city.
13And Mizraim begat Ludim, and Anamim, and Lehabim, and Naphtuhim,
14And Pathrusim, and Casluhim, (out of whom came Philistim,) and Caphtorim.
15And Canaan begat Sidon his first born, and Heth,
16And the Jebusite,[JERUSALEM] and the Amorite, and the Girgasite,
17And the Hivite, and the Arkite, and the Sinite,
18And the Arvadite, and the Zemarite, and the Hamathite: and afterward were the families of the Canaanites spread abroad.
19And the border of the Canaanites was from Sidon, as thou comest to Gerar, unto Gaza; as thou goest, unto Sodom, and Gomorrah, and Admah, and Zeboim, even unto Lasha.
20These are the sons of Ham, after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations.

18. SOJOURNING IN OR NEAR EGYPT DURING HARD TIMES

Remember Abram went to Egypt in a time of famine with Sarai his wife, who he claimed was his sister. Genesis 12. They played that sister game again in Genesis chapter 20 with King Abimelech.

Isaac, ABRAHAM’S SON, was on his way there, when the Lord stopped him on the outskirts in the Land of Gerar, home of King Abimelech and the Philistines.
1Now there was a famine in the land, besides the previous famine that had occurred in the days of Abraham. So Isaac went to Gerar, to Abimelech king of the Philistines. 2The LORD appeared to him and said, “Do not go down to Egypt; stay in the land of which I shall tell you. 3“Sojourn in this land and I will be with you and bless you, for to you and to your descendants I will give all these lands, and I will establish the oath which I swore to your father Abraham. 4 Gen. 26:1-3

Joseph was sold there, and Jacob (Israel) found succor there. (AFRICAN AMERICANS, akin to JOSEPH—SOLD BY THEIR BRETHREN; LATER RESCUE)

Moses was born there.
And baby Jesus and his parents fled there.
Abraham Isaac and Jacob all sojourned in or near the land of Egypt. Amen

19. THE EGYPTIANS WERE BLACK PEOPLE WHO CAME FROM CUSH, ETHIOPIA!
JUST LIKE THE AMERICANS CAME FROM ENGLAND!

20. Specific examples

MOSES WAS MISTAKEN FOR AN EGYPTIAN—MOSES WAS TAKEN FROM THE NILE AND was later MISTAKEN FOR AN EGYPTIAN

EXODUS 2:18 When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?”
19 They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.”
20 “And where is he?” Reuel asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.”

Job 30:30-- My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.

Queen of Sheba -- First Kings 10:1-13 (largely copied in 2 Chronicles 9:1–12).

1. Song of Solomon-- The song of songs, which is Solomon's.
2. Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth: for thy love is better than wine.
3. Because of the savour of thy good ointments thy name is as ointment poured forth, therefore do the virgins love thee.
4. Draw me, we will run after thee: the king hath brought me into his chambers: we will be glad and rejoice in thee, we will remember thy love more than wine: the upright love thee.
5. I am black, but comely, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, as the tents of Kedar, as the curtains of Solomon.
6. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me: my mother's children were angry with me; they made me the keeper of the vineyards; but mine own vineyard have I not kept.
SONG OF SONGS 1:1-6

21. TAKEN FROM INTERNET--

The original Jews in Africa 2000 years ago were a Black African people as an ethnic group. (Massey: Egypt Light of the Word p501) Many of them still are Black, in northern Africa such as the Falasha Jews of Ethiopia. A New York Times editorial (3/2/84) described them as "a lost tribe that has kept its identity for more than 2,000 years in a remote corner of Africa." Abraham, ancestor of the Hebrews, was from Chaldea; the ancient Chaldeans were Black. In fact, Africa takes it name from Ophren, a son of Abraham by his wife, Keturah (Whiston: The Life and Works of Flavius Josephus p50) Like Jesus, Mary and Joseph, the lineage of Ethiopian Emperor, Haile Selassie also goes back to Judah -through Solomon/Queen of Sheba and King David.

Roman historian Tacitus wrote that many of his time believed that the Jews "were a race of Ethiopian origin." The Bible classifies the Ethiopians & Jews together, "Are ye not as children of the Ethiopians unto me, O children of Israel? saith the Lord." (Amos 9:7) Black Paul is mistaken for an "Egyptian" and declares himself to be a "Jew." (Acts 21:37-39, 22: 2,3) That the Jews got their language, religion & culture from the Canaanites & Sumerians through Babylon, is well documented by historians. The original ancient Hebrew alphabet was identical to that of the Phoenicians. "Semitic languages" are really dialectical variants of African languages.

The word Semite is from semi which means half. Half what? Half BLACK! (mulatto!) Semite refers to the descendants of Shem, one of Noah's sons. The word originates from the Latin prefix semi which means half. "half Black and half white... therefore Black (since Black is genetically dominant)" points out Dr. Cress Welsing. Historian Cheikh Anta Diop also points out that the "Semitic" arises in the 4th millennia B.C. from crossbreeding between Black inhabitants of the holy land and white northern invaders. While many Semites (such as Jews & gypsies) have mixed so much with whites that they've forgotten or deny their African roots, racism (white supremacy) will never let them forget this no matter how light-skinned they become, as proved by Hitler, who mandated their destruction because they were classified by whites as "non-white" peple originating in Africa. The very word gypsy means "out of Egypt."

A good site to read is:
http://www.stewartsynopsis.com/DNA%20is%20a%20Mother.htm
Other points:

Moses passed as Pharaoh grandson for 40 years (Acts 7:23),
Moses was called an Egyptian (Exodus 2:16-19)
The apostle Paul was mistaken for a black skin Egyptian (Acts 21:37-38),
Joseph was not recognized by his brothers in Egypt they thought Joseph was an Egyptian (Genesis 42:1-8)

Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Discuss:Were_Adam_and_Eve_dark_skinned#ixzz1F6QUGD70

22. CONCLUSION :We are all made in the likeness and image of God, so let no man take your crown! Rev.3:11 I am coming soon. Hold on to what you have, so that no one will take your crown.

Rev.3:11-13 14 “To the angel of the church in Laodicea write:
23. These are the words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the ruler of God’s creation. Amen.

Monday, February 21, 2011

when a coincidence is not

WHEN A COINCIDENCE IS NOT
Monday, February 21, 2011
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman

A coincidence is when by chance and without discernible design two or more persons meet and discover something in common with each other that surprises them all. Coincidences also concur in nature, mathematics and science, and have been plotted statistically into conforming probability tables. Some deny the existence of coincidence and place causality, determinant or non-determinant, behind it all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coincidence

We’ve all experienced apparent coincidences. When someone we had been discussing unexpectedly appears, we call it a coincidence. When we discover someone with our exact name or birth day, or when we encounter unknown relatives in unusual places, we also call these coincidences.

The opposite of coincidence is “causality,” but its mere definition, not to mention its proof, is as ambiguous and as uncertain as its opposite’s, “coincidence.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality

No one thing causes another thing to occur at any specific time and place. Each component of an occurrence has its own separate, and, therefore severable, history and vitality. Each component, individually, and, sometimes jointly, contributes in whole or in part to the occurrence. Recognizing the inherent subjectivity of causality, civil juries are instructed to decide whether an occurrence was “more likely than not” caused by one thing or another. This is known as preponderance of the evidence.

I recently learned that a childhood friend, whom I had not seen in over 30 years, was chairman of a department in a Philadelphia hospital, where he is a physician. I mentioned to him that one of my former clients, a Ph.D. in medicinal chemistry, was in Philadelphia, also, possibly at the same facility. My friend then stated he believed that my former client had recently been appointed chairman of his respective department at that same facility! I requested that he convey felicitations to him and my love.

Now, was this a coincidence or some aspect of causality? Frankly, I am not sure.

Tuesday, February 15, 2011

WE'RE ALL ONE...

We’re all one…
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Tuesday, February 15, 2011

One conserves
Another removes.
One discovers
Another explores.
One opens
Another closes.
We’re all one!

One numbers
Another distributes.
One builds
Another improves.
One establishes
Another destroys.
We’re all one!

One worships
Another condemns.
One sows
Another reaps.
One discards
Another keeps.
One enriches
Another desecrates.
One detests
Another appreciates.
We’re all one!

One lives
Another dies.
One rejoices
Another cries.
One rises
Another falls.
One freezes
Another scalds.
We’re all one!

God is
We are.
Both near
And far.
Whether here
Or there.
One race
One hue-man.
Both me
And you-man.
We’re all on!
AMEN!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

HOT AIR BALLOON

Sunday, February 13, 2011
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
HOT AIR BALLOON

ONCE UPON A TIME, there was a little boy who loved his Daddy very much. He thought his Daddy could do anything.

They lived near St. Louis, Missouri, where the St. Louis Cardinals play big league baseball.

One day, they went to a baseball game. There, Daddy bought his son a big red hot air balloon, which was tied to a long plastic string. The hot air in the balloon made the balloon float up in the sky. But, the long plastic string, when held tightly, kept the balloon from flying far away.

The little boy loved his big red balloon. He played with it throughout the game. When they ate popcorn or drank soda pop, Daddy would tie the balloon to his son’s chair to keep it safe.

After the game, Daddy reminded his son to hold onto tightly to the balloon’s string. Otherwise, he said, the hot air, in the balloon, would cause it to fly far away.

All the way home, in their car, the little boy held on tightly to his balloon’s long pretty plastic string.

As soon as they got home, though, a bad thing happened. A big gust of wind blew the balloon out of the little boy’s hand while his father was picking him up from out of the car!

Up, up, and away it went! Higher and higher the balloon floated! It was being carried farther and farther away by the wind!

“Daddy!” cried the little boy. “Catch my balloon!”

But, Daddy could only watch, sadly, as the balloon floated away. It finally came to rest in the top of a tall oak tree, in someone else’s back yard, about block away.

“Sorry, son.” He said, “There are some things, even Daddy’s cannot do, like catch a hot air balloon!”

The little boy wept bitterly at his double loss. The first loss: being the loss of his big red balloon. And his second loss: the realization that his Daddy, whom he loved very much, could not, after all, do everything as he had formerly thought, like catch a hot air balloon!

Soon, the little boy’s loud, piteous cries brought his mother outside to comfort him and to dry his tears.

“Ssh. See!” she said, pointing, while she smothered him with kisses. ”You can still see your balloon! So, you still have your balloon! See! There it is!"

"Listen! SsShhh! We don’t have the sun, or the moon, or the stars, either. Do we? Do we?” she asked.“But, we can see them all – the sun, moon, and stars--so they’re still ours. So, we still have them."

"So, stop crying like a baby! Where’s Momma’s big boy? You still have your balloon! It’s just safe, now, in that tree! Now, tell me, who won the ball game?”

The little boy, somewhat overwhelmed by his mother’s wit, stopped crying. Mother’s wit had stumped him, and diverted him. He did not know who had won the game. He had been too caught up with the balloon to notice or to remember, if he had ever known.

All he could do now was to quietly watch his big red hot air balloon float playfully in the wind in the distant oak tree top by its long, pretty plastic string. It remained there for many days, steadily diminishing in size, till one day, it was gone.

“The Cardinals won” said Dad. “Kenny Boyer hit a home run.”

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

THE PRAYER PLACEBO

THE PRAYER PLACEBO
By Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Wednesday, February 09, 2011

Why does prayer “work” sometimes, and not “work” at other times?
Does prayer itself have potency? Or is its potency illusory?

These compelling questions may be answered, ironically, by science. An experiment with “placebo effect” may explain.

One web site reports:
Placebo effect: Also called the placebo response. A remarkable phenomenon in which a placebo -- a fake treatment, an inactive substance like sugar, distilled water, or saline solution -- can sometimes improve a patient's condition simply because the person has the expectation that it will be helpful. Expectation to plays a potent role in the placebo effect. The more a person believes they are going to benefit from a treatment, the more likely it is that they will experience a benefit.
http://www.medterms.com/script/main/art.asp?articlekey=31481

A mere “expectation” that {prayer/placebo} will be helpful can improve a patient’s condition. This is true whether one is dealing with a pill with no active ingredients, or private prayer.

Certain persons are believed to have the capacity “to get a prayer through” in some religious circles. However, both religious and scientific evidence cumulatively suggest the actual power lies within the faith/belief complex of the “prayee,” the object of prayer, not in the “prayor,” the person doing praying, nor in the words of the ‘prayer’ incantation itself!

Jesus’ powerful colloquy with the Canaanite woman explains:

Matthew 15:21-28

Leaving that place, Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Canaanite woman from that vicinity came to him, crying out, "Lord, Son of David, have mercy on me! My daughter is suffering terribly from demon-possession."
Jesus did not answer a word. So his disciples came to him and urged him, "Send her away, for she keeps crying out after us."
He answered, "I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel."
The woman came and knelt before him. "Lord, help me!" she said.
He replied, "It is not right to take the children's bread and toss it to their dogs."
"Yes, Lord," she said, "but even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table."
Then Jesus answered, "Woman, you have great faith! Your request is granted." And her daughter was healed from that very hour.


The Canaanite woman’s “great faith,” i.e. “expectation” was the active enzyme in her daughter’s deliverance, according to Jesus!

http://www.rationalchristianity.net/canaanite_woman.html

Returning to science:
It has been shown that placebos have measurable physiological effects. They tend to speed up pulse rate, increase blood pressure, and improve reaction speeds, for example, when participants are told they have taken a stimulant. Placebos have the opposite physiological effects when participants are told they have taken a sleep-producing drug.

The key phrase is “when participants are told…” such and such a thing, they tend to feel physiologically and believe. The Bible says:
“So then faith [cometh] by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Rom. 10:17

“Faith comes by hearing.” Believing what one is told is key, especially where it involves the word of God.

Reverence for God is the most powerful placebo of them all, which is accessed through prayerful expectation, otherwise known as applied faith, which science cannot qualify nor quantify.

Where there is light, though, there is also, necessarily, darkness. That is because a “nocebo”—negative effect-- is the opposite of a placebo—positive effect.

Observe:

In the strictest sense, a nocebo response occurs when a drug-trial's subject's symptoms are worsened by the administration of an inert, sham,[1] or dummy (simulator) treatment, called a placebo.

According to current pharmacological knowledge and the current understanding of cause and effect, a placebo contains no chemical (or any other agent) that could possibly cause any of the observed worsening in the subject's symptoms. Thus, any change for the worse must be due to some subject-internal factor.

The worsening of the subject's symptoms is a direct consequence of their exposure to the placebo, but those symptoms have not been chemically generated by the placebo. Because this generation of symptoms entails a complex of "subject-internal" activities, in the strictest sense, we can never speak in terms of simulator-centred "nocebo effects", but only in terms of subject-centred "nocebo responses".

Although some attribute nocebo responses (or placebo responses) to a subject's gullibility, there is no evidence that an individual who manifests a nocebo/placebo response to one treatment will manifest a nocebo/placebo response to any other treatment; i.e., there is no fixed nocebo/placebo-responding trait or propensity.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nocebo

This is all part of the awe, wonder and mystery of God:

Oh Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! When I consider your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you have set in place, what are mortals that you are mindful of them, the children of mortals that you care for them? Psalm 8, verses 1, 3-4.

As you do not know how the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything. Ecclesiastes 11:5.

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; all those who practice it have a good understanding. Psalm 111:10.

Think of us in this way, as servants of Christ and stewards of God’s mysteries. I Corinthians 4:1.
http://mysteryandawe.com/page3.htm

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. put it this way:

In a real sense everything that we see is a shadow cast by that which we do not see. Plato was right: "The visible is a shadow cast by the invisible." And so God is still around. All of our knowledge, all of our developments, cannot diminish his being one iota. These new advances have banished God neither from the microcosmic compass of the atom nor from the vast, unfathomable ranges of interstellar space. The more we learn about this universe, the more mysterious and awesome it becomes. God is still here. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. "The Measure of a Man" page 54.

AMEN!

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Antidote for depression

Antidote for Depression
by Rev. Dr. Larry Delano Coleman
Thursday, July 2, 2009

Colossians 3:23-24. "Whatever you do, do your work
heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men; knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve."

Master, I thank you for reviving me, for restoring me, and for showing me
the right way. It is so easy for one’s foot to slip from the true path. It is so easy for one to become lost in the thickets and brambles of the material world; for the light of the spirit to be blotted out by the dark, overwhelming canopy of earthly desires and values.

When one is in such a condition, depression is the likely sequel, because earthly rewards can never supply satisfaction to the soul. Only spiritual rewards can do that. And spiritual rewards come only from God. Unless one’s soul is satisfied, there can be no satisfaction on earth. Only a sanctified soul is a satisfied soul.

Thus, our earthly labors, whatever form they assume, must be undertaken as though for God, and not for man, knowing that whatever we do for God will be rewarded by God. God’s reward being the true and everlasting reward.

11Thine, O LORD is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all.
12Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all.

13Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name.
14But who am I, and what is my people, that we should be able to offer so willingly after this sort? for all things come of thee, and of thine own have we given thee.

1 Chronicles 29.

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

"A TEACHING PRIEST"

A TEACHING PRIEST
Friday, December 10, 2010
By Larry Delano Coleman

“For a long time Israel was without the true God, and without a teaching priest and without law.”

2 Chronicles 15:3

Definitions

“Teaching” is almost a pejorative epithet, a bad word, these days. “Learning,” teaching’s objective correlate, is hardly better. Some claim America has been “dumbed down” deliberately. http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/author.htm

Although hundreds of billions of dollars are expended for education, annually, our students continually underperform on standardized tests relative to students in other industrialized nations. Educators, politicians, psychologists, sociologists search vainly for solutions, they claim. “Woe is me,” is the mea culpa, the universal lament.

Education encompasses teaching and learning specific skills, and also something less tangible but more profound: the imparting of knowledge, good judgement and wisdom. Education has as one of its fundamental goals the imparting of culture from generation to generation (see socialization).
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Education

Banal television programming, with and without “laugh tracks,” and “reality” shows preoccupy the bulk of Americans’ waking hours, along with video games which simulate mayhem, murder and virtual life. Bookstores die and newspapers wither on the vine.
While the current, apparent disinterest in “learning” and “teaching” is regrettable, it is hardly unexpected. In previous decades, deliberate lies, willful brainwashing and purposeful mis-education were the forebears of the current desuetude, and may have caused it, directly or indirectly.

We derive these conclusions from Lies My Teacher Told Me by James W. Loewen, http://sundown.afro.illinois.edu/liesmyteachertoldme.php ; The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by Charlotte Iserbyt, http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/pages/book.htm ; and The Mis-Education of the Negro by Dr. Carter G. Woodson http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/misedne.html .

Although the resources for, and modes of access to, information are greater than ever, the sheer weltering rate of such availability, itself, appears to have devalued the virtue of acquisition, itself. It’s akin to the tragic irony of starvation in a land of plenty.

Education as “political”

Education has always been political. It is the sacred fire. Persons demanding access to its inner sanctums were required to satisfy conditions. See, e.g.Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, Handbook 1: Cognitive Domain (Bloom et al., 1956)

The “dumbing down” of America is not new, it would appear. The provision of knowledge, rightly, is designed to assure the continued empowerment of its purveyors. That is both fair and logical, and consonant with historical witness. No nation knowingly “educates,” nourishes, nor promotes future disputants to its power. So it was in the days of King Herod, Matthew 2, and Herod the tetrarch, Matthew 14, as the biblical accounts of baby Jesus, and John the Baptist, readily attest. Indeed, so is it today, as the seminal work by Michelle Alexander amply attests respecting the mass incarceration of blacks, under the guise of a “war on drugs.” http://abagond.wordpress.com/2010/05/14/the-mass-incarceration-of-black-men/

The key to it all is the efficacy of context. Whether theological, ideological, historical or political, “context” affords a framework of analysis and reference which facilitates one’s processing and storage of information, and which, in turn, leads to its profitable utilization in accordance with that one’s best interests.

A fish out of water, whether salt or fresh, is out of context. A polar bear outside the Arctic Circle is out of context, so also is a rabbit outside of its briar patch outside of context.

Otherwise stated, unless you know who you, what you are, and where you are, you have got a serious contextual problem. Nature normally supplies context, automatically. So, in the ordinary course, we don’t have to deal with “knowing” or “belonging.” Somehow, one tends to be born where one belongs. This geophysical fact generally applies to plant life as well as to animal life, and to minerals, exceptions to the contrary, notwithstanding.

Longitude and latitude relate to more than geophysical space, however. They also apply in historical, political, theological and ideological space, as well. Knowing “who, what, and where” you are, at any given time, affords true knowledge of context, and that “who, what, where” regime includes much more than a name, nationality, and street address.

Moreover, because everything living is always in motion, whether that motion is perceptible or not, one must continually assess and reassess one’s approximate context, in order to determine if one is rightfully “where” one “belongs” at any given time. This assessment is done by studying nature and books.

Nature is man’s primal teacher, and the source of all of man’s original understanding. Its lessons are literally inexhaustible. Books contain man’s coded observations of and interactions with nature, observational, experimental and accidental. These books record, cull, and collate the collective corpus of man’s cumulative knowledge, i.e., interactions and observations, over time. Teachers teach from derivatives of these books and from nature.

Pupils are taught “context” by teachers, both secular and non-secular. Secular teachers, “priests” belong to a given sect, and are paid to promulgate that sect’s cosmogony, e.g. world view and values, i.e., religion, in whole or in part. They teach you who you are, what you are, and to where you are in a given place and time. Non-secular teachers do the same thing, as secular teachers, relative to their governmental employer’s interests.

Value of “teaching priests”

“Teaching priests” dispense such vital knowledge as mathematics, science, reading, writing, history, literature. This knowledge is more ancient than any given sect’s creed, and is infinitely more valuable than the sect, itself. That is, its value transcends any given sect’s, and may be utilized in another sect, or in no sect at all.

Non-secular teachers, non-priests, may also belong to a “sect,” but they are paid to advance a government’s cosmogony, , e.g. world view and values, in whole or in part, even as they dispense more vital knowledge as mathematics, science, reading, writing, history, literature. This knowledge is more ancient than the government, and is infinitely more valuable than the government, itself.

“Education” is as old as man; their origins are coextensive. Man has always taught, and learned, and communicated. Wherever, whenever, and however man began, education necessarily began.

“Education” as we know it contemplates the transmission of information or knowledge from one to another. It also contemplates self-learning, whereby persons have taught themselves reading, writing, arithmetic, astronomy, navigation, plumbing, music, art, carpentry; any subset of a whole panoply of skills and disciplines.

Formal “education,” as distinguished from informal “education,” originated with the “teaching priests” who were part of the religious apparatus of the state, and, who indistinguishable from the state, so intrinsically interwoven were they.

“Education” originated in Africa, i.e., Ethiopia, as did the rest of humanity and civilization, itself. From inner Africa, it flowed up the Nile River into Egypt, and across the Red Sea into, Mesopotamia and Asia, then finally Europe. This process of acculturation and dissemination took thousands upon thousands of years.

The Bible and Historiography

The Bible gives an historical account of the dispersion of mankind, “after the flood” utilizing the sons of Noah: Japheth, Ham, and Shem, as progenitors. “Ham,” the prototypical black man, and his progeny, and their lands, are set forth in verses, Genesis 10:6-20:

6 The sons of Ham: Cush, Egypt, Put, and Canaan. 7 The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. The sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan. 8 Cush fathered Nimrod; he was the first on earth to be a mighty man. [1] 9 He was a mighty hunter before the LORD. Therefore it is said, “Like Nimrod a mighty hunter before the LORD.” 10 The beginning of his kingdom was Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. 11 From that land he went into Assyria and built Nineveh, Rehoboth-Ir, Calah, and 12 Resen between Nineveh and Calah; that is the great city. 13 Egypt fathered Ludim, Anamim, Lehabim, Naphtuhim, 14 Pathrusim, Casluhim (from whom [2] the Philistines came), and Caphtorim.
15 Canaan fathered Sidon his firstborn and Heth, 16 and the Jebusites, the Amorites, the Girgashites, 17 the Hivites, the Arkites, the Sinites, 18 the Arvadites, the Zemarites, and the Hamathites. Afterward the clans of the Canaanites dispersed. 19 And the territory of the Canaanites extended from Sidon in the direction of Gerar as far as Gaza, and in the direction of Sodom, Gomorrah, Admah, and Zeboiim, as far as Lasha. 20 These are the sons of Ham, by their clans, their languages, their lands, and their nations.

Ham’s descendants—those comprising Ethiopian, Egyptians, Canaanites (including the Phoenicians and Carthaginians and Syro-Phoenicians), Mesopotamians (including the Sumerians, Babylonians, and Assyrians)and Put or Punt (North Africans, lands west of Egypt)--are set out specially, because for centuries both secular and non-secular teachers, priests, and preachers have ignorantly, and/or, willfully, lied about Ham’s descendants’ contributions (or lack thereof) to world history and civilization. Now, that lie has exploded in the face of its celebrants, without mercy. The Bible exposes the lie readily even to the most casual reader. http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/nation02.htm

The Egyptians were black. This short sentence sears the consciences of centuries of lying Islamic, western European and American scholars and theologians who are alleged to have done everything from deface the noses of thousands of Egyptian artifacts to disguise their Negroid features, to defacing the nose of the Sphinx, akin to the Taliban of Afghanistan dynamiting the thousand year old Buddhas which were carved into mountainsides in the early 2000’s.

In the 1798 the nose of the Sphinx, was allegedly cannonaded by Napoleon. Purportedly, this was done in order to falsely portray the black purveyors of civilization as scions of “The Great White Race.” This canard now appears dubious, given that Napoleon carried “savants” with him, during his expedition into Egypt to measure, draw, preserve its treasures. A French soldier happened upon the Rosetta Stone, which was then being used as building material. Eventually this priceless treasure, now in the British Museum, came into the possession of the French scholar Jean-Francoise Champollion, who deciphered the Rosetta stone, in 1822, cracking the hieroglyphic code, by comparing and contrasting it with ancient Greek and ancient Egyptian demotic script. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosetta_Stone ; http://sacredsites.com/africa/egypt/sphinx.html

A Muslim writer claims the Sphinx’s nose was actually removed by a Muslim ruler in the 1300s to preclude the natives’ worship, adoration and invocation of its powers http://www.catchpenny.org/nose.html . http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20101012190558AA1Sj5s https://groups.google.com/group/sci.archaeology.moderated/browse_thread/thread/7581158ce00127da/9280239ae477ba8f%239280239ae477ba8f?sa=X&oi=groupsr&start=0&num=3&hl=fi

Many, but not all, Muslims and western Europeans taught the so-called “curse of Ham,” even as many brainwashed and lazy black teachers and preachers, glibly repeated this lie, never having bothered to investigate its premises’ truthfulness, to their shame.

Enter the Greeks

The Iliad, and the Odyssey, were the first books attributed to a European, the ancient Greek author, Homer. At the earliest, these books were written a mere 800 years before the birth of Christ. That places them almost 2500 years after the Great Pyramid at Giza was built, and more than 3500 years after the world’s first calendar was invented. The Greeks’ gods came from the Ethiopians, along with much of their knowledge, they admit. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopia http://getbeles.com/blog/?p=3 http://www.whenweruled.com/articles.php?lng=en&pg=2

Yet, today’s educational establishment, despite knowing better, continues to impute education and knowledge to the Greeks, and three men in particular, Socrates, Plato and Aristotle, all of whom lived and died a mere 400 years within the birth of Christ. These misrepresentations were acculturated in order to sustain the lie and myth of so-called “white,” western European supremacy, and to justify the enslavement and centuries’ old expropriation of Africans to the Americas by western European “Christian” nations.

One authority states directly there are no original Greek manuscripts in mathematics:
“In actual fact, our direct knowledge of Greek mathematics is less reliable than that of the older Egyptian and Babylonian mathematics, because none of the original manuscripts are extant.” http://www.math.tamu.edu/~dallen/history/greekorg/greekorg.html

Another scholar , Dr. Kwame Namtambu, writes:

“Furthermore, Aristotle (384-322 B.C.) himself, writing in Metaphysics, not only refutes Dr. Lefkowitz's ahistorical and false assertions but also confesses in Greek Hellenic language that: "Thus the mathematical sciences first (proton) originated in Egypt." Egypt is "the cradle of mathematics-that is, the country of origin for Greek mathematics". So, according to Aristotle, "the mathematical arts had never before been formed, constituted or elaborated anywhere else originating in Egypt only" (Obenga, p. 47-48). Aristotle acknowledges the originality of the ancient Egyptians in his own words.

In addition, in Prologue to Prodlus's Commentaries on Euclid's Elements, a disciple of Aristotle named Eudemus, who lived in the forth century B.C., confirms: "we shall say, following the general tradition, that the Egyptians were the first to have invented Geometry, (that) Thales, the first Greek to have been in Egypt, brought this theory thereof to Greece" (Obenga, p. 48).

The fact of the matter is that the famous, well known Greeks (Europeans) whom we study and revere in school curricula today all studied at the feet of the ancient Egyptians–Afrikans in the Nile Valley, Kemet. For example, Plato studied at the Temple of Waset for 11 years; Aristotle was there for 11-13 years; Socrates 15 years Euclid stayed for 10-11 years; Pythegoras for 22 yeasrs; Hypocrates studies for 20 years; and the other Greeks who matriculated at Waset included Diodorus, Solon, Thales, Archimides, and Euripides. Indeed, the Greek, St. Clement of Alexanddria, once said that if you were to write a book of 1,000 pages, you would not be able to put down the names of all the Greeks who went to Kemet to be educated and even those who did not surreptitiously claim they went because it was prestigious. " Herodotus said it, Plato confirmed it and Aristotle never denied it".
The fact of the matter is that it took 40 years to graduate/matriculate from Waset; this then means that none of the Greeks graduated”. http://www.trinicenter.com/kwame/20010615c.htm

Muslim Complicity

To be fair to western European Christians, the Muslims, as early as the 8th century, had preceded them in the destruction of African civilization, as well as in the enslavement and expropriation of Africans to North Africa, Arabia, and Persia, even as they had formulated, promulgated, and practiced their own Islamic mythos of black inferiority for centuries. So the Muslims, like the Christians also had their besotted teaching priests, called “Imams.” http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/conscious-edutainment-videos-movies-tv/37862-destruction-black-civilization-dr-chancellor-williams.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/they-all-look-like-all-them/29471-al-jahiz-776-869-superiority-blacks-whites.html

In Malachi 2:1-9, God rebukes all “teaching priests” who fail to preach “true instruction” to his people. A similar pox is now on the educational houses of the United States, both secular and non-secular:

Rebukes the Priests

2:1 “And now, O priests, this command is for you. 2 If you will not listen, if you will not take it to heart to give honor to my name, says the LORD of hosts, then I will send the curse upon you and I will curse your blessings. Indeed, I have already cursed them, because you do not lay it to heart. 3 Behold, I will rebuke your offspring, [1] and spread dung on your faces, the dung of your offerings, and you shall be taken away with it. [2] 4 So shall you know that I have sent this command to you, that my covenant with Levi may stand, says the LORD of hosts. 5 My covenant with him was one of life and peace, and I gave them to him. It was a covenant of fear, and he feared me. He stood in awe of my name. 6 True instruction [3] was in his mouth, and no wrong was found on his lips. He walked with me in peace and uprightness, and he turned many from iniquity. 7 For the lips of a priest should guard knowledge, and people [4] should seek instruction from his mouth, for he is the messenger of the LORD of hosts. 8 But you have turned aside from the way. You have caused many to stumble by your instruction. You have corrupted the covenant of Levi, says the LORD of hosts, 9 and so I make you despised and abased before all the people, inasmuch as you do not keep my ways but show partiality in your instruction.”
Partiality versus Impartiality

Why “show impartiality” in one’s instruction? Aside from the fact it’s God’s command, there are other good and cogent reasons to be ‘impartial’, for those who may need stronger medicine. Partiality is, per se, unscientific. Good science depends upon impartial observation, experimentation, recordation, and demonstration.

Impartiality honors and blesses its purveyors forever; partiality dishonors and curses its purveyors forever. Impartiality is a boon to further discovery, and a stimulant to further inquiry. Partiality burdens further inquiry, and distorts or discourages further inquiry.

Why “show impartiality” in one’s instruction? That’s like asking “Why sell fresh fruit, vegetables, and meat?” That’s like asking, “Why respect another’s property, progeny, or person?” Obviously, the question, “why show impartiality,” is absurd . Equally absurd is educational partiality in instruction under the guise of being impartial in educational instruction.

But, as Machiavelli teaches, “a prince must appear to be pious, but must never be.” “http://www.wsu.edu/~wldciv/world_civ_reader/world_civ_reader_1/machiavelli.html

“Prince” means and applies to both secular and non-secular power, in the educational context.

So, “game on!” Or, more properly, the game resumes, wherein the partial pretend to be impartial, the knave pretends to be the righteous; and the ignorant pretend to be the knowledgeable. “Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty” Wendell Phillips once said in 1852 before the Massachusetts Antislavery Society . He was an abolitionist, orator and columnist for The Liberator. http://freedomkeys.com/vigil.htm

Especially is this true in educational context, where “true instruction” can so easily become false instruction, whether by omission or commission, resulting in “mis-education,” just like fresh milk, improperly preserved, can so easily spoil and curdle, imperiling the health of its consumer.

Who am I, to offer such stern historical asseverations, on “education,” someone may ask? I am a scribe, also known as a “teaching priest,” also known as a philosopher-king. To all who receive these greetings in the spirit of love, I present them in name of my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ !
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