Author: Rev. Charles Pugh

Love it!  Hate It!!  Love to see it!  Inappropriate dancing!!  Fantastic performance!  Obscene!!  These are just some of the comments following the controversial 2020 Superbowl halftime show that everyone knows was very sexually charged and even seductive!  Outperforming the actual Superbowl game by at least a million people, Fox reports that the halftime show reached 103 million viewers!  As of the writing of this article, the seductive full performance of the halftime show has been additionally viewed nearly 125 million times on YouTube!  Why such interest?  Did you watch it?  Do you like it?  Do you Love The Superbowl Seduction?!?  

Did you know that the Superbowl game, as with any other major sporting event, becomes a magnet for sexual and other human trafficking?  While there may not be a direct cause and effect to the game itself, the sheer amount of people surrounding an event like the Superbowl, lends itself to those who care so little about life that they enslave others into forced labor and specially push young girls and women into prostitution!  While we don’t yet know all that may have happened in Miami during this year’s Superbowl, we know that the FBI reported 169 sexual/human trafficking arrests in the days surrounding last year’s Superbowl in Atlanta.  While Shakira and Jennifer Lopez would likely cry out against any such crime, wouldn’t they be guilty of seducing so many and even contributing to these crimes through their erotic performance?

Watching some of the background behind their performance, you can see how long and hard they trained for this.  Hundreds and even thousands of people helped in choreographing and planning all the moves, dances and atmosphere that encompassed this salacious and seductive show. Stripper poles and ropes and booty shakes and provocative sexual gyrations, along with plenty of crotch grabbing, mesmerized all those watching.  With millions glued to the screen, many (including plenty of children watching the game) experienced the scantily clad dancers in what was more of a pornographic taste of what a nightclub or strip club would be like!  Children were even brought into the show and symbolically caged at one point to represent some political statement about past separations at the southern U.S. border.  Empowering or really enslaving?  What message is being taught to these children, performing in this sexually seductive show?!

Friend, GOD created the human body—not for us to worship it, but for us to worship HIM!  HE made us male and female.  HE designed us to have pleasure with sexuality!  HE made it so that through the miraculous, genetic contribution of the male and female, a new body and soul would come about!!  HE commanded Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply and to fill and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28)!  GOD created SEX!!!  Sex is not the original sin!  Sir, “REJOICE with the wife of your youth”—LOVE your wife and make that Eros with her (meaning, you FULLY ENJOY Sex in marriage and stay committed to your spouse) and “let her breasts alone always satisfy you (Proverbs 5:18-19)!  Ma’am, honor GOD and your husband with your body—DON’T let this Beautiful expression be publically spread abroad (Proverbs 5:16-17)!!  We dare not pervert what GOD Created and intended for PLEASURE when practiced HIS way!!!  Learn from the experienced wisdom and even the mistakes of Solomon (Proverbs 5:14) If you don’t learn from that, consider the consequences of sexual infidelity from the “Me Too” movement! Don’t be Seduced by immorality!  Be warned from Proverbs 5 and understand that sexual sin is sin you commit against your own body, as well as any other body you immorally involve (I Corinthians 6:18)! Realize GOD will give you up to perversion if you choose it (Romans 1:18-32—see the 3 stages of this in verses 24, 26 and 28)! Remember HE will bring every work into HIS Righteous Judgment (verse 32)!!

LOVE GOD’S WAY!!!  Don’t Love The Superbowl Seduction!!!

Amidst the backdrop of a U.S. National crossroad, where millions watched the testimony of an apparently sincere accuser and the emotionally charged defense of a beleaguered Supreme Court nominee, comes the subject of my latest thinking, leading to another blog entry:  Sincerely Wrong!  What does it mean to be sincere?  Is sincerity just an emotion that should be equated with truth?  For that matter, is truth equated with what is right?  Is there such a thing as wrong?  Can we even know what is true or right and what is false or wrong?   I do not give in to the absurdity of relativism, that so many entertain and even practice today!  The lunacy of evolution (not in the sense of change, but of origin) is what justifies the absurdity of relativism, and the preponderance of that teaching is what explains the relativistic thinking of many today.  There are things that are right and there are things that are wrong, and all parties in this current historical moment agree and are arguing on this premise, though they may disagree as to exactly what is right and what is wrong.  But, what of sincerity?  Sincerity does lend itself to credibility, and that is what many here are saying about both the accuser and the defendant!  But, what if two sincere people give opposing accounts of a particular scenario?  Both may be sincere, and both may even appear credible, but both cannot be right (particularly if they are saying opposite things).  Given this basic logic, it is indeed possible to be both sincere and wrong!

Is it “her truth” vs. “his truth” or “my truth” vs. “your truth?”  If my “truth” contradicts your “truth,” then can both be true?  Certainly not!  Truth is akin to reality—a simple accounting of what is happening or what has happened.   Reality cannot change, for it is the moments in time that we live, though we do operate within it and we can change aspects of what happens.  What we cannot change is what has happened in the past, though we may argue about what it was exactly like.  When we try to understand the past, we may agree, or we may disagree.  We may even try to rewrite it from our understanding in the present and we may even get it completely wrong, no matter how sincere we are!  Facts are facts, and though we may seek to deny or even redefine them, they are established in the past; they do not change (only our understanding or acceptance of them changes).  Truth is truth and right is right.  Anything not true or right is thus wrong.  Certainly, as experience teaches, we can be sincerely wrong about something happening in the present, and even more, about what has happened in the past.

Is sincerity so important or so real that it equals or even exceeds truth?  History is established, and it is our job and our duty to search for and find out what is not merely sincere, but what is true in the present and what was true in the past, so we can learn from it and build upon it, not repeating mistakes.  If this is not so, then what else could be presented that we should live for?  Our human ego is frail, and our memories often lapse or fade.  Our accomplishments do not ultimately satisfy.  Our sincerity often falls short.  Even though we may have experienced a lot or accomplished much and though we may be genuinely sincere, we cannot justly deny what is true in the present or redefine or project into the past.  You may sincerely or even ignorantly do this, but it is still wrong!

There is an even greater truth that many are sincerely searching for—what is spiritually true!  Spiritual truth is unseen truth, yet it is truth none the less, rooted in history and often realized in present reality.  While there are some charlatans around, there are also many sincere religious people, but many that are sincerely wrong!  See 😉 that GOD has revealed HIMSELF through HIS Creation, through HIS Covenants (The Bible) and through the historical Person of Jesus Christ!   Acknowledge HIM and receive forgiveness for your sins to know this TRUE ONE!  If not, you will be lost for eternity, no matter how sincere and good you may have been! Then, my friend, you would be forever lost and sincerely wrong!

October 1^st, 2017:  a new “low” of “Pure Evil” in the high number of casualties in American Mass Shootings, with the Las Vegas Massacre (59 dead, including the perpetrator, and some 851 injured).  This horrific event surpassed what had become the new “worst shooting massacre” of June 12^th, 2016 (The Orlando Pulse Nightclub Massacre, where 50 died, including the perpetrator, along with 58 injured; see my response there in the blog: The “Pulse” of our Nation!).  Barely a month past that new “low” of what the President called “Pure Evil,” was that Evil in the more “Pure” place of a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, when on November 5^th, 2017, 26 worshippers were gunned down and 20 others injured before the perpetrator was killed.  The April 16, 2007 Virginia Tech Massacre remains the “deadliest mass school shooting” (33 dead, including the perpetrator, and 17 injured) and the one personally changing my own life.  Sadly, many Americans (if not ignoring or continuing to entertain themselves to death) are now reeling from yet another act of what is again being called “Pure Evil,” in the February 14^th, 2018 “Mass School Shooting” that has devastated Parkland, Florida.  This “Pure Evil“ has again claimed 17 lives (and physically injured at least 15 others) from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.  What is going on in our Country?  Is this tragedy yet another example of “Pure Evil,” if there even is such a thing?

Now, due to this latest tragedy deemed “Pure Evil,” there are many calling for more purity in gun or mental health laws.  Most certainly, some people failed to act appropriately or purely, which would have likely prevented this tragic, evil shooting.  The FBI was notified at least 2 times about the danger (last September and as recent as January 5^th) and failed to act properly and report this to the local office for specific follow up!  Officials have reported there were more than 20 occasions where the increasingly evil actions of Nikolas Cruz were brought to their attention.  Just like with the sinking of the Titanic and with so many of these tragedies, warning signs were missed or ignored!  Certainly, this tragedy cries for us to learn more!

“Pure Evil” is really an oxymoron.  It is a self-contradictory or paradoxical, rhetorical device of language, which can sometimes blur the meanings of the individual words.  “Pure Evil” is a great illustration of this.  Purity involves an absence of evil and evil, by definition, is not pure!  Indiscriminately destroying life is evil!  Mass shootings or other life destroying methods are the extreme actions of highly self-centered people.  They are humored when destroying any life.  Mass shootings involve people who are self-motivated through increasingly evil thinking (most often with Evil Spiritual support) to kill and destroy other human life, until the reality hits them that they might suffer too much, so they often take their own life as well. ☹ These are NOT Pure actions; they are Evil!  Most may use the term “Pure Evil” to mean “absolute evil,” but Evil is NOT Pure!

Shooting people up and destroying lives and families is NOT a right we have and is EVIL!  It is a more obvious evil!  Life, particularly human life created in the image of God, is PRECIOUS and PURE!  In the scope of this earth and the grand enormity of the universe, self-centeredness is EVIL and it is absurd!  Despite what the ego (or pride) may say, any individual is NOT the center of the universe!  In the way so many people live, as this and so many other things in pop culture illustrate, this self-absorbed, hedonistic thinking is common and certainly EVIL!  Unless done in defense to ultimately protect life, any action of abuse or injuring another is evil!  Most people accept this yet have not thought through this enough to better understand purity.

Our society (though not every individual) is already sick, far worse than any flu epidemic!  Each of us is infected by an evil disease, gradually destroying our thinking and the purity of life.  Unless you accept the Pure remedy of what GOD HIMSELF provided in the PURE sacrifice of The PERSON of JESUS CHRIST, evil will at some point ultimately overcome you!  Pray for these families who have been so traumatized!  Pray for our Country to truly be pure in its understanding of evil and how to overcome it!  Seek to better understand PURITY and righteousness through HIS Holy Word and work to overcome the EVIL in and around you!

Precision. August 21, 2017 marked a predictable and Fascinating Total Eclipse of the Sun! Millions of people around the country along the path of this Total Solar Eclipse were involved and engaged. Many more, as I did, observed a partial solar eclipse (the entire U.S. saw a varying degree of partial eclipse), but were aware of nearby areas where it was the Total Solar Eclipse! The Total Eclipse path was only about 70 miles wide, but it traversed a 14 State, coast to coast path across the lower 48 States of America from Lincoln Beach, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. The last Total Solar Eclipse in the contiguous U.S. was on February 26, 1979, where only 5 States saw it. The last coast to coast Total Solar Eclipse was on June 8, 1918. The next Total Solar Eclipse effecting the U.S. is scheduled for April 8, 2024 from Texas to Maine and the next one coast to coast in 2045. How is all this known and predicted? It’s Like Clockwork!

Stop to consider this—Like Clockwork. Like Clockwork is an idiomatic expression meaning, “With machine like regularity and precision; perfectly.” Doesn’t this describe the moon rotation? The Sun too? What about the earth and its tilt and rotation? These are so stable, we measure time by them! We have our days and seasons and years measured by all these highly stable bodies of mass and energy that our Creator has established (see Genesis 1:14-18). How could a Big Explosion produce such stability? Do you ever know of an explosion that has produced such order and stability? There are at least 80 different parameters that scientists have described that are finely tuned and working like clockwork to make life possible on earth!

Did you know that the Solar Eclipse on this 08-21-17 day was only possible because of the size of our Moon relative to the Sun (which is 400 times wider) and the distance of the Sun from the Moon (400 times further away)? Because they appear to be about the same size during the new moon phase, it is possible to observe a Total Solar Eclipse! Why wouldn’t our Creator create (4 being the number associated with Creation) this 400 times parameter to make this sight possible and do so across our Country over the course of what was exactly 1 hour and 33 minutes (HE, Being One, yet 3 or 3 in 1; also see how the 1-3 connection is in my Top Ten Lessons to Learn and the 133 a number HE brought to my attention and frequently still makes stand out to me!)? It’s all Like Clockwork!

Friend, our CREATOR, JESUS CHRIST (see John 1:1-3; Colossians 1:15-18) is the One Who Created all and Who sustains all like clockwork! HE is the One that established your pulse (see my last blog article posted) and your involuntary, like clockwork heartbeat (unless your heartbeat clock is off a bit from the curse of sin). HE is the ONE that wants to soften and heal your hardened and broken heart. HE is the ONE that gave HIMSELF as the Sacrifice demanded by the JUSTICE of The Godhead. A THRICE HOLY GOD must be just with us, as HE is JUST and disobedience and sin must be punished! HE is a GOD of Order—like clockwork and HE wants you to think about the Order—like the clockwork observed in today’s Total Solar Eclipse and get your life in order! Trust in the Son, Who Created the Sun, moon, stars, this earth and You! HE gave HIS Life to offer you Eternal Life! When you trust HIM, it won’t simply make your life in this sin cursed world easier, but as you walk with HIM, you will find that HIS burden is light and This ULTIMATE CLOCKMAKER will make your life work better—Like Clockwork!