4th of July Coming

 

So, with less than a month left to prep the Beast replica for the yearly 4^th of July drag racing extravaganza, I finally finished addressing the most prominent of the teething pains that were revealed last year. That would be my inability to get my feet onto the pegs in time to hit second gear.  It really tends to slow you down when the force of the launch sends your legs into a lay down position and you need to pull them all the way back to the sit up position to shift. By the time my feet were on the pegs, it felt like I had almost slowed to a stop (slight exaggeration but you get the idea).  Whether the culprit behind such unplanned acrobatics was old age or seating position, the solution seemed clear enough: convert the bike from sit-up to lay-down riding position.  And so, I did. The job was slightly complicated by my being unwilling to do any welding on what was last year a freshly painted frame.  

No air shifters for us

And a rear brake may come in handy at some point

 

I must say that a task like this is much easier with all the equipment I have now, that I didn’t have back when I took racing way to seriously.  Now I have a lathe.  Now I have a mill.  Now I have a TIG welder.  And now I have a band saw. 

That last little item, the band saw, brings back memories of days gone by though.  I distinctly recall somewhere around 1990, after Jimmy Cee and I had teamed up with the high expectation of conquering the AMRA Top Gas class with a supercharged Knuck.  But before we could do that, I needed to sell my old Pro Stock bike to help finance the transition.  About that same time, Jimmy brought on board a young friend of his that went by the name Pup.  Yeah, that was his “biker name” and it fit him well; still wet behind the ears, and I’d guess he had yet to see 20 summers.  I couldn’t honestly claim that I had socks older than him, but it was pretty dog-gone close. 

In any case, as part of plan, we would revamp the Pro Stock bike, put a Shovel top end on it (you just can’t go selling dual carb Knuck heads when you’re certified Knucklehead fanatics) and some cosmetic changes as well.  One of the things I did to “pretty things up” was to rework the fiberglass rear fender so that it filled in the area between the seat and the fender.  That meant it would need new fender struts, and guess who was the low man on the totem pole tasked with cutting the struts out from plate aluminum.  That’s right. Pup.  Remember that what I said about a band saw earlier?  Didn’t have one then.  What I did have was a coping saw.  Now, I’m pretty sure that a coping saw is a woodworking tool never meant to cut aluminum plate.  But Pup, God bless him, was so eager to be part of the team that he cut out those struts with an amazingly small amount of griping on his part, thus proving himself to be a valuable asset to the team. 

Seriously, a coping saw

 

The Pup's handiwork -the struts, I mean

Too bad the tank shell didn't make it into this pic

Well, Pup is still known as Pup to his old friends, though he grew up to be a bit of a bulldog (I say that with the greatest respect).  Another of those unforgettable characters brought into one’s life through the magic of drag racing. Hoping to see Pup, Jimmy Cee, and YOU at the 2022 Iowa Hog Drags and Nostalgia Reunion!

 

Isaiah's Prophesy for Today?

I recently quoted a few verses from the prophet Isaiah on my FaceBook page, along with a challenge for others to post their thoughts on a modern-day application of the verses.  The verses were as follows:

And I will give children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them. And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbor: the child shall behave himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honorable.  - Isaiah 3:4-5

Also I heard the voice of the Lord, saying, Whom shall I send, and who will go for us? Then said I, Here am I; send me. And he said, Go, and tell this people, Hear ye indeed, but understand not; and see ye indeed, but perceive not.  Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and convert, and be healed. Then said I, Lord, how long? And he answered, Until the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate. - Isaiah 6:8-11

I received only one response, but it was a good one. Troy, a brother from down in Iowa said this: “Wars, and rumors of wars. Defiance against that which is true. Denying natural law, God's Law. Wandering ignorantly into certain decline, and demise. Our eyes have lost sight of the way. Our ears refuse to hear what is true. Our feet carry us away from peace and honor. It is all ancient prophecy, yet through arrogance, we the children refuse to yield to these words.”

I would just add this:

First of all, here’s something to consider when looking at this passage.  Where the Bible says, “children to be their princes, and babes shall rule over them,” notable Christian commentaries of yesteryear seem to agree that this refers not just to physical age, but includes those with the understanding or mental capacity of children.  Hmmm. I think I can come up with a least a couple examples of so-called leadership that fit that quite well. 

Further, the LORD God, speaking through the prophet Isaiah prefaces verse 3 with, “I will give…” In other words, everything from the reduced mental capacity of the rulers, the people oppressing each other, the insolent children, right on down to the brutish men acting arrogantly against the honorable, …these things are the punishment, not the reason for the punishment!

The reasons for the punishment?  Think – murder of innocent life (Exodus 20:13) (63.5 million babies since Roe v Wade in 1973). Think – calling evil good, and good evil (Isaiah 5:20). Think – celebrating and encouraging sinful acts (Romans 1:32). And we could go on.

But then we read about God’s further judgment in chapter six, we see that there would come a time when people would hear, but not understand what they heard, they would see but not understand what they saw.  And terrifying as it may seem, this too would be an act of God such that they would NOT repent.  God is exceedingly patient and merciful, but eventually there comes a time when there will be no more place for repentance, but only for judgement.  Now, for the nation of Israel, to whom this message was given, the final result of this judgement (… the cities be wasted without inhabitant, and the houses without man, and the land be utterly desolate – Isaiah 6:11) would occur in the destruction of Jerusalem by the Roman general Titus in 70 A.D. in what was one of the most brutal episodes in history.

Now, remember that this prophesy was specifically given to Israel.  It’s not a prophesy about what will happen to our country, but that does not mean it doesn’t describe this country.  What should put the fear of God into each one of us is the blindness that accompanies the point where repentance is no longer an option.  Is that time past for our nation?  We all see friends and relatives who vote for the destruction of our country and with it, their own destruction.  They vote to continue the murder of the next generation in the womb. They vote for the continuing invasion by drug dealers, sex traffickers, terrorists, and other law breakers.  They vote for policies that will inflate prices until their life savings will soon have the buying power of last week’s pocket change. They vote for energy policies that will likely result in the starvation of untold numbers while others freeze to death in their homes, all the while rejecting God’s gift of fossil fuels. They vote to have their grandsons castrated and their granddaughters mutilated, with the resulting psychological destruction. As proud members of the culture of death, they continue to vote for death and they don’t even seem to understand they are doing so.

Is all lost then?  Is our nation doomed to suffer the same fate as ancient Israel?  Perhaps, …but even if our nation as a whole is on an unstoppable trajectory, there is still time for individuals to call out to the Lord Jesus Christ for mercy and forgiveness.  And though I have identified the spiritually deaf and blind by how they vote, don’t for one moment think that voting against those wicked policies will give you any sort of righteous standing before God.  There will be plenty of conservatives, libertarians, and Republicans who will one day hear the dreadful words of Christ, “I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.” (Matthew 7:23) There is no salvation in any government or any political party.  Salvation is only to be found in Jesus Christ.

 

An Election With More Rigging Than a Five-Masted Clipper Ship

You’re right.  I can only dream of being such a master of prose as to have come up with that title. But it doesn’t matter because I am here to direct you to the one who is that master of prose, namely, Doug Wilson.  If you are a conservative, and especially if you are a conservative Christian (if that’s not redundant) and you don’t follow Pastor Wilson’s writing and/or his readings of his writings, then the question is … why not?  He is on of my trusted sources for commentary on current issues in our “one nation under siege” (not 100% sure, but I think I just coined that phrase ... or else I have forgotten where I heard it before).  Oh sure, you might wonder why a Baptist such as I would promote a Presbyterian Pastor’s work, but that’s any easy one.  Doug is one of the old-style Presbyterians.  You know, the kind who believe the Bible, believe the gospel, and are trusting in the blood of Jesus for salvation.  So what if they misunderstand baptism; I trust that if that misunderstanding rises to the level of sin, then that too is one of the sins that Jesus paid the penalty for (and I am sure he would grant me the same grace).

This short video is just a small sample of what you can expect to hear for Pastor Wilson. This particular video is actually his book review of “Rigged: How the Media, Big Tech, and the Democrats Seized Our Elections” by Mollie Hemingway.   

https://www.amazon.com/Rigged-Media-Democrats-Seized-Elections/dp/168451259X

So, here is a painless way to find out if the book itself is something you want on your shelf, perhaps to keep as a record of what really happened once history has been fully re-written (as is being attempted as we speak).  Or maybe you want a free synopsis of the book to save you the purchase price.  Either way, its worth a few minutes of your time.

BTW, I personally prefer Doug’s writing to his reading of his writing.  I think it may be the cadence of his voice.  However, listening while I work in the shop does allow me to try to keep the shop at least close to profitable. You can find much more of Doug’s work here: Blog and Mablog (if you are not a Christian you might miss the play-on-words type reference to Gog and Magog from the Bible’s book of Revelation).