For Me

 

 

 

The fool has said in his heart

There is no God… “For me!”

“For me” becomes the operative term

I trust you will agree.

 

Whether or not there is a God

Really does not matter,

To the fool this is his personal view

Hence, do not blame any other.

 

“For me” nails it right to the floor

No buts, no ifs, no anything,

“For me” identifies who is the fool

Whatever argument one brings.

 

“For me” says this is my quest

For me says I’m a fool like no other,

For while most fools are ignorant

Folly is my endeavor.

 

 

Folly enters via the mind

But its destination is the heart

And then it becomes nigh impossible

To tear the two apart.

 

Folly is like a cancer

That grows and grows and grows

And the mind that used to think

Now slows and slows and slows.

 

The fool soon begins to believe

What is naturally unreal,

Everyone, but he, becomes the fool

And he grades all with a ‘fail’.

 

There is no God “for me”

Becomes more and more acute

And his heart is heard above all else

As the mind increasingly mutes.

 

“In his heart”, the Bible says,

Hence, the mind has gone to sleep,

The two were designed to work together

Now it’s only the heart that speaks.

 

“For me” the unspoken expression

Louder than the spoken words,

Expressed from a heart of derision

Makes the speaker more absurd.

 

“For me” holds him accountable

The ‘him’ here being the fool

And not any learning institution,

Be it a church or a school.

 

 

 

“For me” is not in the original quote

So, it was obviously an add on,

No doubt by the fool it referred to

Have a good day, my friends,

I am gone!

 

Stewart Russell © February 9, 2022

 

 

Another All Fools’ Day

 

 

Another All Fools’ Day is here

But nothing like before

When we sent the fool further and further

Sometimes, from door to door.

 

It’s the third for the COVID virus

That some argue was a hoax

But COVID is nothing like All Fools’ Day

That we regarded as a joke.

 

I find it particularly interesting

That All Fools Day has lost its appeal

And it passes almost unnoticed

Like a long-forgotten creed.

 

Maybe the fools have also gone

And nobody gets tricked anymore

Or perhaps, we’ve become so busy

With many a daily chore.

 

Whatever the reason is,

All Fools’ Day is nothing like before,

Maybe we have become so serious

Such jokes aren’t funny anymore.

 

 

Or maybe we are all fools

And All Fools’ Day is every day,

Consequently, April 1^st is just another

In a year full of All Fools’ days.

 

Three hundred and sixty-five days

Plus, one more for a leap year,

That All Fools’ Day is every day

To me is abundantly clear.

 

You only have to look around

At the behavior of the world

And if your eyes are not dysfunctional

With me you will concur.

 

Stewart Russell © April 1, 2022    

 

The Devil Knows Better

 

 

Atheism is the devil’s ploy

Some would dare to advance

But based on the Word of God

I must oppose that stance.

 

For them it is a copout:

An excuse if you may

To escape facing the God reality

But they must at the end of the day.

 

Atheism is one fallacy

The devil has never fallen for

Even though things pertaining to God

He absolutely abhors.

 

“If thou be the Son of God…”

That’s an acknowledgement of God:

And this not only in Jesus’ temptations

But also in our fore-parents’ fall.

 

“Hath God said?” he asked,

Thus, providing additional proof,

He didn’t question God’s existence

But only tried to obscure His truth.

 

 

In the Gospels Matthew and Luke

Twice Satan admitted this

And later in Matthew’s Gospel

You’ll find Number 3 on the list.

 

Matthew 27:40

 

Thou destroyest the temple,

And buildest it in three days,

Save thyself, come down from the cross

“If thou be the Son of God,” he says.

 

Stranger than fiction I must say

If Satan pushes atheism

For Satan’s demons acknowledge God

And therefore, so does Satan.

 

James 2:19

 

“The devils believe and tremble”

In the book of James, it is said,

Clearly the devils in this instance

Are taking the lead from their head.

 

Atheism is indeed strange

In fact, it is nigh impossible,

Which tells me that so-called atheists

Are the world’s strangest people.

 

 

I agree with Charles Spurgeon:

“Atheism is a strange thing”

And all that hold to such a belief

Must accept whatever it brings.

 

Atheist is synonymous with fool

Which makes atheism folly,

The devil knows better and hopefully you:

Atheism is therefore a parody.

 

“If thou be the Son of God…”

That’s an acknowledgement of sorts,

If you are a fool and or an atheist

It is full time you abort.

 

For the devil knows better

And the Bible provides this proof

Which makes atheism a strange thing

And that is the gospel truth.

 

Stewart Russell © July 27, 2021

 

 

 

Like A Compressed Spring

 

 

 

“Come now let us reason together

Says the Lord”

Is located at Isaiah 1 verse 18

In the Holy Word.

 

An invitation to the children of Israel

That had gone astray

Having turned away from God

Thus, rejecting His way.

 

Fast forward to the New Testament

To Romans 1 verse 18

And the next thirteen verses

Paint a familiar scene.

 

Again, it’s the children of Israel

Going their own way

And their blatant worship of idols

Was again holding sway.

 

Professing themselves to be wise

They became as fools

Having forsaken the godliness

In which their fathers were schooled.

 

Exchanging the truth of God

For a colossal lie:

The creation they worshipped

And the Creator they defied.

 

 

Does it sound reasonable to you?

To me it does not,

But this behavior becometh a fool

That makes sense of rot.

 

Because that, when they knew God

They glorified Him not as God,

Their hearts became darken

And they fell victim to King Fraud.

 

King Fraud, the god of this world

Had blinded their eyes

Because they believed not the truth

But rather believed a lie.

 

You might now be questioning

The relevance of this title

So, I will hasten to make the point

That to me is very vital.

 

 

Like a compressed spring

Many suppress the notion of God,

Such a notion is no longer scholarly

And has become like bitter gall.

 

Just like Israel of the Bible

They press down upon the spring

Cognizant that if they should release it

The truth to them it’ll bring.

 

That which may be known of God

Is made manifest in them

And the notion of accountability

For them is the problem.

 

No God means no accountability

The spring must remain compressed,

It’s not easy to do, they know,

But for their lifestyle it is the best.

 

Atheists and Agnostics

I dare say, and the Humanists too:

They all possess the evidence

That leads to a biblical view.

 

 

But they tightly clamp the spring

To shut out the notion of God

Which from within them still arises

Every time they hear God call.

 

So, they are without excuse

Though they try to shut God out

For in the depths of their consciousness

He exists without doubt.

 

That which one vehemently resists

Is testament that it exists

And the fact that to him it does

Is why he vigorously persists.

  

Hence, like a compressed spring,

It keeps reminding him

The moment that he releases it

He’ll have to face his sin.

 

Accountability is the spring

That reminds all of a Holy God

But man compresses that very spring

And rejects the Master’s call.

 

So, Atheists, Agnostics, Humanist too,

Are all living out a lie,

They too believe there is a God

But outwardly they deny.

 

The God they stoutly resist

Is their testament He exists,

And the fact that to them He does

Is why they futilely persist.

 

Stewart Russell © November 21, 2021

 

Who Is Out of Step?

 

 

Who is out of step?

The Word or the World?

To many it is the former:

The outmoded Word.

 

To confess to something

Is to denounce something else

To commit to Christ Jesus

Is to denounce self.

 

The post-modern preacher

Is obsessed with being relevant

The scriptures must be retrofitted

To lure the unrepentant.

 

It is therefore necessary

To make the Scriptures come alive

And make the Bible relevant

If the church is going thrive.

 

The Word is out of step

And so too is the Church

And while the Bible is unappealing

The world has the experts.

 

The church’s predicament

Is caused by an advancing World

And its old fashion ideologies

Are now considered absurd.

 

They worked well for a time

But before the enlightenment,

Now the World’s eyes are opened

They are more resistant.

 

 

Who is out of step?

Clearly it must be the Word

With its archaic and ancient views

One is forced to concur.

 

Given all that went before

The Word will have to be adaptive

If to an enlightened World

It wants to be attractive.

 

No wonder it is being diluted

By the softening of its decrees

By many who should know better

Possessing academic degrees.

 

For every possible vice

Some leeway is found in the Word

To legitimize that specific practice,

Kudos to the World!

 

Now the distinction is indistinct

Re the church and society

The two have become one

And that’s an unholy disunity.

 

The church is out of step

And so too is the World

And what hope there was for the latter

Is by the former obscured.

 

Obscured by stark compromise

Due to scholastic intimidation:

“The fool has said in his heart…”

Therein lies the biblical injunction.

 

 

No need to make the Word relevant

It has been so for every age,

No one has to make it come alive

It produces life at every stage.

 

Counter to the initial folly

One is dead without the Word,

If you can show me a dead that is alive

Then kudos to the World!

 

Stewart Russell © November 15, 2021

 

“Truth Will Out”

The fool woke up one morning

And decided to have fun

So amok through the community

He decided to run.

He proceeded from the top

It’s the best place to start

And worked himself to the bottom

To the children in the park.

He started with a small lie

To whet their appetite

And he worked and worked it

From morning till night.

The more often they heard it

The more they believed

And the bigger the lie grew

The more gladly they received.

It swelled and it swelled

Until it fill the town

At first there was one carrier

Then they were many around.

Soon the country was overrun

With this one little lie

It swallowed up the truth

Such that few dare defied.

At first it was a minority

Than a majority it became

Until that lie became the truth

And in parliament reigned.

It dominated the courts

And it prevailed in the school

Yes, this lie turned truth

That was started by the fool.

But if that were all

I guess one could understand

But this lie didn’t just grow

It begat more lies in demand.

  

And soon that one small lie

Became many more lies instead

And soon the age long truth

Was felt better off dead.

For few would dare to speak it

That was not intellectual

In the universities and the schools

The lie was beneficial.

The source was soon forgotten

The fool that started it I mean

Remember he was the one

That started that brazen scheme.

At first the many had repelled

The lie in its infancy

But the bigger and wider it grew

They saw its expediency.

They saw how they could gain

In many ways they thought

And hook, line and sinker

Into the lie they bought.

And the fool that started it

Then scorned by all on the compound

Now holds a prominent position

Wherever the law is found.

Sworn to protect the innocent

Having pledged to uphold the just

The fool runs amok in the courtroom

The truth is lost in the fuss.

In concluding this poem I thought

Of a way to end this lie

But it has morphed into so many

That all I could do was sigh.

The fool has conquered this world

With his deceit and brazen lies

And the One that created him

Is the One he still defies.

I recommend we give God thanks

For the truth that still prevails

Amidst the lies the fool did spread

That morning he set his sail.

For “truth will out” Launcelot declared

In the Merchant of Venice play

Though the sea most sailed be that of lies

“Truth will out”; that’s God’s way.

Stewart Russell © 2016