The traveling preacher cribbed a pocket watch from a hapless old man.(a homily)

Trying to preach the message....

"But wait" you say, "you preach?"

Me with the sharp tongue and all that.  Because underneath the worldliness is a desire for the best for everyone, none left behind.  I'm abundantly blessed, and I want you to be abundantly blessed, too.

Anyhow.  Where was I?

Preaching the message.  People doing catcalls, heckling, people even throwing things, and even Richard Dawkins himself steps from the assembled onlookers to challenge me to a debate, in the middle of the sermon.

But I was talking about Abraham and Isaac on the mountain.

"Abraham, son" says the angel.  "There's a ram in the bushes."

Abraham, knife raised, is like, "stop distracting me.  This is gonna take longer if you keep interrupting."

"No, no" says the angel again.  "You can sacrifice the ram that's in the bushes over there."

"Now" says Abraham, beginning to become annoyed, "that ain't what Yahweh told me to do."

"Well I'm from Yahweh" says the Angel, himself becoming upset.  "And I said you can sacrifice that Ram."

Now, that's salvation and sacrifice bought with the blood of beasts, like the "scarlet thread" that runs through the Bible, whereas Jesus was the ultimate perfect sacrifice.  Like the Moslems think, if Jesus was so great, why didn't he fight out of it.

We're like, he did it for us, idgits.  That's part of why we can kick the Moslems around the world today as if they were yesterday's garbage.

And no, with his blessing, we are washed in the blood, and in His Holy name, kicking the butts of the Moslems all around the world.  I mean, you can go around with your own sin nature screaming out of your guts, making sure women are covered in blankets(and in the desert weather, to boot), thinking the God of Abraham is blessing you, but you know something?

You put your faith in the world.  And you only reap a little harvest, as a result, because that does not last.  So in the long game, the Christians have not only "ball control" and a hard-nosed defense, despite whatever "home field advantage" the other side has.

And we don't worship our clergy, as much as Catholics and Moslems do.

More importantly, roll over John Calvin, we acknowledge without accepting our own depravity, which provokes us to evidences of our faith, naturally, in our conduct, while the others are called to do a regimen of works.

How could I ever be so vain as to think I deserve any of my blessings?  Its all straight unmerited favor imparted by God, onto me, the imperfect vessel.  Meanwhile, the Moslem, having ignored scripture, in modernity tries to separate the Jew and the Christian from his fellowship, which again, craps on the Moslem's own Holy Quran,  I was amazed to find the Pentateuch commended and validated in the Moslem scriptures, especially with the modern Jew-hating culture, but there it is.  If one wants to be Orthodox, be it Moslem or Jew or Christian, we acknowledge the Covenant between Yahweh and the Hebrews.

I will be your God.  You will be my people.

To pretend otherwise is a heresy.  Elseways, its a "pillage culture" where no one on the Middle East block is safe, in the final analysis, and every kingdom is subject to invasion.