On Being Mortal

Psalms 145:9, “The LORD is good to all: and his tender mercies are over all his works.”

Today is Thanksgiving 2022. I watched a heartbreaking FRONTLINE documentary today called “Being Mortal”...

Being Mortal (full documentary) | FRONTLINE

I remember when my own biological mother was dying in 2001. She suffered a crippling stroke in 1989 which paralyzed the entire left side of her body. I learned that the right side of the brain controls the left side of the body, and vise versa,. She had suffered a stoke in the right lobe of her brain. My mother never walked again. Sadly, she was a chronic cigarette smoker. She once told me that she began smoking a half cigarette per day at age 15, which escalated over her life to 3 packs per day in wheel chair. No doubt the smoking ruined her health and contributed to her having a paralyzing stroke at age 53. Our family sadly watched her suffer year after year.

My mother (Barbara Jean Stewart, 1935-2001) was a wonderful piano player. She started playing piano at age 4 in Sweden. After my grandfather died, my grandmother and Mom at age 13 came to the United States. We had an old upright piano in our home, which probably weighed about 500 pounds at least. I recorded my Mom playing her music in the 1980's with a small push button tape recorded, which is what you will here in this video. I made these YouTube videos to share her precious piano playing. There are three videos total...

My Mom Playing Gospel Hymns  - Video 1

My Mom Playing Gospel Hymns  - Video 2

My Mom Playing Gospel Hymns  - Video 3

If you'd like, you can convert and download these videos as MP3 files. I never heard her play anything but Gospel hymns.  Her beautiful piano playing reminds me of Rudy Atwood (1912-1992), a famous Christian pianist.

As I watched the preceding FRONTLINE documentary of Being Mortal, it brought back memories of when my mother was dying in 2001. I learned a new term called “Quality of Life.” My mother's lungs were failing. Both of her legs had been amputated below the knee, at different times years apart, due to diabetic complications. Her health was a mess! The whole family felt sorry for her suffering, but there was nothing that we could do to remedy her pain. I remember seeing my mother cry after her first leg had been amputated. She was in so much pain, and I saw the bloody stump that remained of her leg. It hurts one's soul to see the woman who brought you into the world suffer like that.

The doctors wanted to put my mother onto a Lung Machine, to help her breath to keep her alive. My Mom and Dad had to face some serious questions. Ultimately, after about a month of heart searching and talking with friends, doctors and the family, decided that God never intended for someone to be kept artificially alive on a machine. When your quality of life is so far gone, that you have to be kept alive by a machine, many people choose rather to die. That would certainly be my choice. Also, I would never want to be kept alive as a quadriplegic. That is me, others may feel differently. No one has a right to judge and condemn other people, who are having to cope with such a difficult situation.

Having said that, I don't believe in assisted suicide. But when the body is naturally unable to sustain life anymore, it is up to the individual alone what choice they make. What will one's quality of life be going forward? This is a delicate and controversial topic. I do not judge anyone for their choices in this matter, because I have seen how difficult it is for families to face such heart-breaking circumstances.

Of course, it is a lot different (being much better) for Christians to face the future, knowing that death for a saint is merely a graduation from this life to the next with Jesus Christ in Heaven. 2nd Corinthians 5:8-9, “We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.” The unbeliever in Jesus Christ as their Savior has no hope according to the Scriptures:

1st Thessalonians 4:13, “But I would not have you to be ignorant, brethren, concerning them which are asleep, that ye sorrow not, even as others which have no hope. For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him. For this we say unto you by the word of the Lord, that we which are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord shall not prevent them which are asleep. For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. Wherefore comfort one another with these words.”

Please notice 1st Thessalonians 4:14, “For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him.” That is the Gospel! Anyone who comes to God as a needy sinner—receiving Christ's sacrifice on the cross as payment for their sins, believing that Jesus was buried and bodily resurrected from the dead three days later—is immediately, irrevocably and forever saved.

Dear reader, we don't know what a day may bring. Proverbs 27:1, “Boast not thyself of to morrow; for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.” Dear friend, you and I could already have cancer lurking in our bodies, and not know it yet. If you and I were to find out today that we only have a few months to live, it would turning our world upside down. Yet, we know for certain that we will die within the next 100 years, much sooner no doubt. God willing, I will be 56 years old (or young, depending on how you look at it) on March 5th, 2023. If I am fortunate and blessed to live to THREESCORE AND TEN (70 years old; which is the Bible's average projected lifespan for a human being), then I only have a little over 14 years remaining. My dear biological mother went to Heaven at age 65. My biological father went to Heaven at age 76 in 2010. So at most I MIGHT have 20 years left to live on earth. I still feel like I am 18 years old in my mind and soul.

I was saddened earlier this year when singer Oliva Newton John (1948-2022) died. I love her 1980 song, “Suddenly,” sang with Cliff Richard. Although Olivia claimed to be a Christian, I am doubtful because most people who profess to be Christians are deceived by the Devil. All of the following religions claims to be Christians, but they are not; namely, Roman Catholic, Mormon, Jehovah's Witness, Seventh-Day Adventist, Lutheran, United Methodist, Church of England (Anglican), Unitarian Universalist and Church of Christ (to name but a few major pseudo-Christian cults). Most of those cults add and require water baptism to faith, in order to get to Heaven, thus corrupting God's grace. Biblically, you just need to realize that you are a guilty sinner in the sight of a holy God, and accept His free gift of eternal life through faith alone in the GOOD NEWS of His only begotten Son crucified, buried and risen (1st Corinthians 15:1-4).

I couldn't find anything online where Olivia Newton John gives a clear testimony of her faith. This doesn't mean that she didn't go to Heaven. We simply do not know. Like so many celebrities, who fear career suicide if they refuse to support the heathen world, Olivia was openly supportive of homosexual rights. The preceding link to Hollowverse states that Olivia praised Buddhism and Hinduism, as well as the Jewish religion (i.e., Judaism).

That is the same mumbo-jumbo testimony of The Beatles' Paul McCartney. They are afraid to make any bold claims, lest they alienate themselves from millions of fans of a different religion. So we see Paul at different times in his life professing to be agnostic. In his song, “Let It Be,” he praises Mother Mary in Roman Catholicism. Early in Paul's music career he embraced fellow band member George Harrison's eastern religion of Hara Krishna, a demonic pagan cult. I do not say that to be unkind, but truthful according to the inspired Holy Bible. We are living in wicked times in 2022, almost 2023. In Timothy 3:1-2 that Word of God calls these “perilous times,” and they sure are. I watched another creepy documentary today called: Growing Up Trans...

Growing Up Trans (full documentary) - FRONTLINE

Young people are confused nowadays. It doesn't help that society caters to their gender-bending confusion by promoting such wickedness. Genesis 1:27, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.” No matter how much a biological boy may feel like a female, or desire to become a female, or be told be liberal friends and society that he is a girl, if he had male genitalia at birth, he will always be a male. God doesn't make mistakes. Search online and you will discover that due to manmade toxins and industrial waste (pollutions), environmentalists are finding six-legged frogs, male frogs with female sex organs and other bizarre mutations in nature. Who knows what all these contaminants are doing to humans! We are now living in the PERILOUS TIMES foretold in the inspired Holy Scripture!!!

I have resolved in my soul to dedicate the rest of my life to serving God. I get frustrated often, but that is a part of life. There are people that you know dear reader, whom only you can reach with the Gospel to get saved. You are the only Jesus that someone knows! It is tragic how pathetic the churches have become. The love of money has overtaken 99% of today's Bible colleges and churches, so that individual people don't matter to them. The system always comes first, and making more money to pay their bills. It is apostasy! I am talking about ungodly cesspools of heresy like Pensacola Christian College (PCC) in Florida, who wickedly bid Godspeed to damnable false prophet Ken Ham. Here is a list of apostate religious colleges that wickedly bid Godspeed to Ken Ham.

Colleges Suggested by Ken Ham's wicked Answers in Genesis:

1) Cedarville Christian College, Box 601, Cedarville, OH

2) Clearwater Christian College, 3400 Gulf-to-Bay Blvd., Clearwater, FL

3) Pensacola Christian College, 5409 Rawson Rd., Pensacola, FL

4) Masters College, 21726 West Pacerita Canyon Rd., Newhall, CA

5) Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, 2810 Curry Rd. ,Schenectady, NY

6) Masters Seminary, 13248 Roscoe Blvd., Sun Valley, CA

7) Appalachian Bible College, 100 N. Sandbranch Rd., Bradley, WV

8) Detroit Baptist Theological Seminary, 4801 Allen Road, Allen Park, MI

9) Southeastern Bible College, 3001 Highway 280 East, Birmingham, AL

10) Bahnsen Theological Seminary, P.O. Box 328, Placentia, CA

11) Word of Life Bible Institute, Pottersville, NY

12) Jackson Hole Bible College, P.O. Box 6490, Jackson, WY

13) Seattle Bible College, 2363 N.W. 80th Street, Seattle, WA

14) Christian Heritage College, 2100 Greenfield Drive, El Cajon, CA

SOURCE: Ken Ham's List of Approved Colleges for Creationism

Sadly, Pensacola Christian College appears in the list. Ken Ham is recommending these apostate institutions, where your child will be indoctrinated with false repentance, and the lies of a Young Earth Creation fallacy. We are living in woeful times of deception. SEARCH THE SCRIPTURES Jesus said in John 5:39, so that you won't be misled and deceived by Satan.

Thank you for reading my blog.