THOU SHALT NOT ENTER A ZOOM ROOM

 We might call the year of 2020 "The Rise of the Zoom Room" as schools, businesses, families, and churches gathered not in common pews, cubicles, classrooms, or dens, but in Zoom Rooms. 

 But there is one religious group to whom it was forbidden to enter a Zoom Room: orthodox Judaism.  They were forbidden to employ the technology of Zoom on their Sabbath because they were taught it would violate the 4th of the 10 Commandments: Deuteronomy 5:12-15 "Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the LORD your God has commanded you. Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the LORD your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your manservant or maidservant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor the alien within your gates, so that your manservant and maidservant may rest, as you do. Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the LORD your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the LORD your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day."

As generations came and then shuffled off this mortal coil, definitions of the word "work" emerged from the rabbis so as to give the people just what was and was not "work." In fact, they defined work with 39 definitions, so as to guide the people of whom Paul said, "For I testify of them that they have a zeal for God, but not in accordance with knowledge" (Romans 10:2).

With each definition, their rabbis made the Jews more burdened and heavy laden, more under a yoke they could not keep. Christ said of the religious elite, "They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are unwilling to move them with so much as their finger." (Matthew 23:4).

Today, the hammer and tongs of rabbinic legalism gives new meaning to the "heavy burdens on people's shoulders."Here are only 7 of the 39 "works" an orthodox Jew cannot do on the Sabbath:

1. Tie a knot

2. Untie a knot

3. Trace lines

4. Erase two or more letters

5. Erase two or more letters

6. Start a fire

7. Put out a fire

And it is at the 6th in that list that the Zoom Room enters the picture: Orthodox Jews refrain from driving or riding in a car or any other powered transportation, using a telephone, or any other electrical appliance. Entering a Zoom Room involves "kindling a fire" in that a person must turn on a computer to do so. One must not switch on anything that runs off electricity. Therefore, the clever Jews will turn on a light in the kitchen and the living room just before the Sabbath that stays on during the Sabbath, but is turned off the day after.

Paul looked with compassion on his people and, seeing their staggering under the yoke of the legalistic traditions of men, wrote with tears, "For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my countrymen, my kinsmen according to the flesh . . ."

 

 

 

THE BORING GAME OF MONOPOLY

 In the game of Monopoly, players roll two six-sided dice to move around the game board, buying and trading properties, and developing them with houses and hotels. Players collect rent from their opponents, with the goal being to drive them into bankruptcy. It's one of the best-selling games ever and was especially popular during the Great Depression (1929-1939).

In my opinion, you'd be hard-pressed to find a more boring and time-consuming game other than Monopoly. Well, maybe Cricket comes close. For those who don't know, "Typically, first-class cricket matches are played over three to five days with, at least, six hours of cricket being played each day. One-day cricket matches last for six hours or more. Cricket has special rules about intervals for lunch, tea and drinks as well as rules about when play starts and ends." (A person can fall asleep just by reading that paragraph.) Monopoly is certainly right up there with Cricket on the Richter Scale of Boredom. 

But for the sake of argument, let's say you and I are engaged in playing Monopoly. I land on a lucrative, large-rent property which you bought with your hard-earned filthy lucre and you're about to charge me rent when I up and take your money from you and announce that the property is my mine from now on.

You protest with vehement rage; you're really, really angry. You're so emotional, you shout, "But that's not in the rules! You're breaking the rules!" To which I reply, "Rules? I don't play by any rules; I just do what I want. And that's it."

You take out the rules from the Monopoly box and turn to Rule # 19, which clearly states that what I've done can't be done because it's against the Official Rules. I reply, "You don't get it--I don't care about any rules, your rules or Monopoly's rules. And that's it." You keep protesting to which I keep saying, "You don't understand. Read my lips. I'm not playing by rules, period. And that's it."

You want to discuss things, but you find you can't because I'm not playing by the rules, so you can't reason me. Over and out, no conversation. What's happened is that we have become ungovernable in the game. There is no control over the game. Therefore, we can't play. 

That's what Julie Wronski says is happening in America as she writes, "The United States is approaching, or has already reached, ungovernability. 

She says, "Americans are divided on simple facts and live in two different realities, we are not a governable people. When groups in American society believe in two different sets of rules on how to play the game of democracy, it cannot be played and we become ungovernable."

We used to be governable because we believed the same simple facts: absolute truth exists and it's revealed in the Bible. But today the time has come when one group says that, but another group says, "Absolute truth doesn't exist and nothing is revealed in the Bible. You search for your own truth and I'll search for mine."

What does this sound like? Judges 17:6: "In those days . . . everyone did what was right in his own eyes." Our leaders break their own rules. Why? There are no rules, not even their own.

No election that can solve the problem. What's the problem? It's a spiritual one. 

THE FORGOTTEN PRINCIPLE OF GOVERNMENT

 The institution of government is a divine one; God established human governance after the Great Flood as recorded in Genesis 9: "And from every person, from every man as his brother I will require the life of a person. Whoever sheds human blood, by man his blood shall be shed, For in the image of God He made mankind."

This command from on high calls for capital punishment for those who murder a human being. The reason is not first and foremost because it's a deterrent, although that's involved. The reason for capital punishment is, "for in the image of God, He made mankind." That is, when a person murders a human being, he has killed a creation that is special to God. Murder is not like killing an animal or destroying a plant. 

Therefore, since this highest penalty of them all is a law, then a multitude of lesser punishments can be made regarding theft, destruction of private property, assault, disturbing the peace, et al. and with them, the institution of human government is born.

Throughout history, we have seen the institution of government take various forms: monarchy, democracy, republicanism, socialism, fascism, and communism. But there is something about these forms that man in his fallen hubris rarely recognizes. (There have been a precious few that have recognized the principle: John Adams did, along with our Founding Fathers.) But, in the main, generally speaking, only the man with the Bible has realized a fundamental principle about all human governments, whether they be republics, democracies, monarchies, or communist, it makes no difference what form they take. 

The most brilliant of theorists, those who teach courses in government in our most prestigious institutions of higher learning such as Harvard, Yale, and Texas Tech and those who write ponderous tomes about governmental theory are blind to a most basic principle about all forms of government. Why? Because it would hurt their pride to admit it and it would demonstrate that they are helpless to do anything about it.  

This fundamental principle can't be overcome by voting, even by the most intelligent of voters. It can't be eliminated by the most powerful, moral, or conservative or liberal of presidents, prime minsters, senators, Supreme Court Justices, or congressional representatives. 

Neither a Cicero, nor the most conservative President in U. S. history, John Tyler, could negate the principle. They are as helpless as you and I. The principle is an inexorable juggernaut, one writ large in the pages of the Old Testament for all to see, particularly in the book of I Kings. 

It is this: no government will work when the people abandon God.

ONE SIN IN 1959

 Perry Smith and Richard Hickock, were on a mission when they drove into the driveway of the Clutter family in the early morning hours of November 15, 1959. The two had planned this trip for a while and their greed had driven them to this particular house on this particular night in Holcomb, Kansas. There was a safe in this house which contained $10,000 ($89,425 in today's money) and they were, come what may, going to steal it. As they sat in the darkness, they made a vow: they would kill any eyewitnesses. 

They left the car and proceeded into the house in which Herb Clutter, his wife Bonnie, and their teenage children Nancy and Kenyon were asleep, little knowing that what was about to happen would both shock and outrage a nation. 

Smith and Hickock rummage through the house, searching for the safe with all that money; after all, they're in the house of a wealthy, church-going farmer. The safe must be hidden somewhere but they can't find it. They go in and wake the family, demanding to know where it is. Herb tells them that he doesn't have a safe, "Please, take the money in my billfold, it's got $50." ($485 in today's money)

That's not good enough; Smith and Hickock  keep asking where the safe is. Their mission has failed, but they will keep their vow. Herb and his son are taken to the basement and tied up. One of the men takes a knife and slits Herb's throat, but it's not a deep enough cut for him to die and he's making gurgling sounds that are irritating, so he aims the 12-gauge Savage Model 300 shotgun he had brought and shoots Herb in the face. One dead.

Perry Smith places a pillow under Kenyon's head, the shotgun to his face and fires. Two dead. Upstairs, Bonnie and Nancy are gunned down in their beds, the mother shot in the face. Nancy was the last of the Clutters to die that night. They had taped their mouths, except for Nancy’s. This gave her the chance, in her horror, to get them to stop. According to Smith’s account, with the gun aimed at her, Nancy pleaded “Oh, no! Oh, please. No! No! No! No! Don’t! Oh please don’t. Please!” before the twelve-gauge shot blasted into her head as she turned away.(Four dead)

Smith and Hickock flee the scene. Six weeks later, having run out of money in Mexico, they're caught, tried, and later hanged by the neck until dead on April 14, 1965. On the gallows, they ask Smith if he has any last words and he spends them begging for his life, relating all the good he will do if spared. 

But there's no pity for Smith or Hickock, the executioner pulls the lever, first for Hickock, then for Smith. There are no tears among the law officers present who saw what they had done to the Clutters for $50 and a portable radio they later pawned in Mexico. 

That horrendous massacre in Holcomb, Kansas, seared itself into the American psyche because of a book that Truman Capote wrote about that night. He called it, "In Cold Blood." 

But what triggered that trip to Kansas? That massacre happened because a while earlier, while Hickock was in jail, Jeff Wells, his cell mate, spent time doing what inmates do--telling stories. Wells had worked on the Clutter farm and he confided to Hickock about the wealthy farmer who lived there and of the safe with $10,000 inside that house. He told him that the Clutters lived in Holcomb, Kansas, and he told him the location of the house in that rural community. 

But what Hickok didn't know was that the story of the safe was a lie; there was no safe, no $10,000 in that house. He had made it all up. It was a story told to pass the time. What could be the harm in that?

That one sin in 1959: a father, a mother, and two children shotgunned to death. Two men hanged and a nation traumatized by the randomness of it all. 

Sin is nothing to trifle with. We never know the havoc and the heartache one "small" sin can bring.