The Candy Cane: A Sweet Reminder of Our Lord

    With Christmas just a few days away, I thought I would once again share this sermon with our readers.  I first heard it presented by the former Pastor of West County Assembly of God Church, John Wilson.  It’s one of my favorite messages and well worth sharing with your family, friends and everyone else you come in contact with during the holidays – or year round for that matter.
    Holding up a candy cane, Pastor Wilson started out by telling the audience that there are a lot of “fake candy canes” on the market today.  Fakes he said come in a wide variety of colors, shapes, tastes and sizes.  The size of the cane, according to Pastor Wilson, doesn’t make a whole lot of difference.  However, the color, shape, flavor and number of stripes on the cane separate the real thing from impostors.
    Authentic candy canes are shaped like a shepherd’s crook with a white background.  They have one wide red stripe, two or more thin red stripes, and must have a peppermint flavor.  Any other candy cane not having these exact characteristics is an impostor.
    So, what’s so special about real candy canes?  Let’s take a closer look at this traditional Christmas treat and see.
    As mentioned earlier, authentic candy canes must be shaped like a shepherd’s crook or staff.  Shepherds use their staffs to this day to nudge straggling sheep, gather strays, ward off predators and separate their goats from their sheep.  Christ Jesus is our Shepherd.  He came to Earth to save His lost sheep and one day, when we least expect it, He will return to gather His flock and separate the goats from the sheep.  His sheep will spend eternity with Him while the goats will be forever separated from His joy and love and spend eternity in pain and suffering.  In addition to being shaped like a shepherd’s crook, if you turn a candy cane upside down, it becomes a “J” for Jesus.

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Chestnuts Roasting on a Copenhagen Fire

      Copenhagen is on fire this week, and there’s far more heating up than just the climate.
While heads of state and others gather this week at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (Dec. 7-18), bonfires have already been blazing for weeks on that European front.
    Let me see if I can summarize the chestnuts roasting on that Copenhagen fire.
    Shocking e-mail exchanges from scientists at an eminent global-warming research center in the United Kingdom have proven that key climate-change scientists have suppressed evidence to “trick” or “hide the decline” of global temperatures.
    Rather than focus on the audacity of the climate-gate cover up, Obama’s top science adviser, John Holdren, downplayed the e-mails, telling Congress that the controversy involved a small group of scientists. And others like Sen. Barbara Boxer blamed the hackers who exposed the e-mails rather than the scientists who deceived the world with false global climate reports.
    Similarly, the U.N. was caught recently deleting documents that would disclose how member states are leading (or not leading) the way in self-greening efforts.
    The scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters documented that ice melt on Antarctica was the lowest in 30 years during 2008-2009, a fact being intentionally ignored by NASA. A U.S. scholar is threatening to sue NASA to prompt the agency to release climate-change data, which he says has been manipulated just like over in Britain.
    Officials in the Environmental Protection Agency gagged one of their own senior researchers after the 38-year employee submitted an internal critique of the EPA’s climate change position.
    Unlike the U.S., China and India have already opposed foreign climate governance because it would jeopardize their national sovereignty.
    Nearly two months ago Lord Christopher Monckton, once science adviser to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, warned us that the real purpose of the conference was more about global government than global warming.

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