PER:Strictly Personal (MARCH 1989)  by Dr. Peter S. Ruckman

        EFFORT has always been high on my scale when judging 
anyone doing anything.  You might say that I am a fanatic on 
the subject.  I count EFFORT so high on the list of 
commendable human qualities that I would put it somewhere 
just short of salvation and the grace of God.  I realize that 
EFFORT can save no man (Eph. 2:8-9) and that if it were not 
for the grace of God in a man's life after salvation, no 
amount of effort would accomplish very much, but still EFFORT 
stands out strongly, for it determines largely how far a 
Christian goes for God, how much he does for God, how much he 
accomplishes in life, and how much he earns at the Judgment 
Seat of Christ.  A man who makes no EFFORT to be right never 
gets right.  A man who makes no EFFORT to make a living winds 
up a bum and a freeloader.  A man who makes no EFFORT to 
overcome sin goes down under it.  A man who makes no EFFORT 
to win in the battle of life is a loser every time.  EFFORT!  
That's the thing.

        My young people were stopped from passing out tracts 
at a county-wide celebration in Dothan, Alabama, last fall.  
One young lady in her twenties was arrested and "booked" for 
simply handing out cartoon tracts.  When she spoke of her 
religious freedom she was told by the policeman who arrested 
her, "IN DOTHAN, ALABAMA, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY RELIGIOUS 
FREEDOM."

        They have a statue of Bob Jones Sr. on the outskirts 
of the town.  (He was raised at Skipperville, not ten miles 
from the city limits.)  NO RELIGIOUS FREEDOM IN ALABAMA!  
Imagine that!  That's where J. FRANK NORRIS and SAM JONES 
came from.  Well, we made the EFFORT.  One of our young men 
was bruised badly after being hit with a "fist-load" in 
Panama City.  Another young man had a knife gouged into his 
stomach.  Another young man about a year ago had a loaded .38 
pulled on him and placed on his chest with a threat to kill 
him if he didn't quit quoting scripture.  I preached on the 
street in Rochester, N.Y., one year, where one young lady in 
the meeting, passing out tracts, had a switchblade placed at 
her throat with a threat to kill her if she didn't shut up.  
She didn't shut up.  EFFORT.  Effort to put out the word of 
God in a hostile, wicked nation that no longer honors God or 
the Book and fears nothing but queers, the Bible, Communists, 
Popes, Russia, and Conservatives.  America is no longer "the 
land of the free and the home of the brave"; it is the land 
of the News Media and the home of the depraved.  Herman 
Fountain's EFFORT to train a score of young men and women to 
believe God and the Bible and to stand on their own two feet 
through work and discipline was completely overthrown by the 
News Media (TV, radio, and the Gannett newspapers combined), 
as was Roloff's work; BUT HE MADE AN EFFORT.

        I like to see a man bang his head on a gas pipe in a 
cellar while trying to return an impossible Ping Pong shot 
that goes off the edge of the table at about sixty miles an 
hour.  I like to see the hockey goalie go out to meet the 
"wing," fake him, throw himself bodily on the ice with the 
glove hand going one way and the blocker raised in the air, 
even if he fails to stop the shot.  I saw one of our young 
men, one time, literally climb an eight-foot wire fence 
trying to catch a fly ball that cleared it about two feet.  
He missed and fell clean to the ground, but man--WHAT AN 
EFFORT!

        I had an old dog one time who was half collie and 
half German Shepherd.  He chased cats.  But "Shep" was unique 
in that he would GO UP TREES AFTER THEM.  I never saw him 
catch more than one this way, but that dog would literally 
jump up into the first crotch of a tree (even if it were six 
feet high) and then croutch and spring for the next crotch; 
sometimes he made it, sometimes he didn't.  Where he didn't 
he sometimes fell seven to ten feet.  But it never stopped 
him.  HE MADE AN EFFORT.

        I judge a young man more by the amount of TIME he 
puts into study than by the grades he MAKES.  I judge a soul 
winner by the amount of TIME he spends trying to win sinners 
to Christ than the RESULTS he gets.  (There is no comparison 
between the "results" you get in Lynchburg, Virginia, and 
Naples, Italy, nor is there any comparison between the 
results you get in Hammond, Indiana, and the results you get 
in Barcelona, Spain.  Be sensible; don't be a "nut" all your 
life.)

        But I have only said this to preface some real 
matters.  What I wanted to say was "NICE EFFORT" to CBS, NBC, 
ABC, the AP, UP, INS, Life, Time, and Newsweek to get a 
Communist into office!  Good work: well done!  You didn't 
make it, but bless the Lord, O my soul, you sure put forth 
the EFFORT!  For four years you have been trying to slander 
Reagan and all of his "aides," for eight years you have given 
yourself completely up to one continual, ceaseless barrage of 
propaganda to ridicule Conservative causes, and for at least 
two years you have violated every principle you claimed to 
stand for in an effort to get the Democratic Senators a 
genuine Communist for president.  NICE EFFORT!

        Draft defectors to Canada were nice people, but a man 
who JOINED THE NATIONAL GUARD (Quayle) was a coward.  Killers 
should not be killed, but BABIES should.  Reagan was a 
terrific welfare spender, but you would recommend a man who 
put more people out of work in his own state and BORROWED 
MORE FEDERAL MONEY than any state in the Union.   Queers 
should have access to your school children because there is 
no danger involved, but you need SEAT BELTS to PROTECT you 
and your family.  Look out for cigarettes because tobacco is 
grown in the South, but guzzle all the booze you want (even 
on airplanes) because "DRINKING IS NOT DANGEROUS TO YOUR 
HEALTH."  South Africa is a terrorist state because the wrong 
color of people are in high government positions, but Russia 
is "home sweet home" although it allows NO RELIGIOUS OR 
POLITICAL FREEDOM and has been "apartheid" (a minority ruling 
a majority) since 1917.

        Republicans are not "caring" because they won't 
promise everyone a free welfare handout, but it was FDR who 
installed the system which stopped the growing and selling of 
FOOD and gave the poor folks less money in return for their 
old age THAN THEY COULD HAVE GOTTEN IF THEY HAD PUT THEIR 
MONEY IN A SAVINGS ACCOUNT.

        Nice effort.  GOOD TRY.  Thank God you didn't make 
it, but you sure TRIED, and that's what counts in my book.

        In the last two months before November, every news 
source in America on TV and radio was editing Dukakis's 
speeches so that he only appeared as an emotional evangelist 
receiving thunderous ovations from crowds: EVERY SOURCE 
WITHOUT EXCEPTION.  Following this, reports were made on Bush 
that sounded as follows: "Today, Bush denied that he had been 
attacking Dukakis unjustly."  "Today Bush defended himself 
against charges that he and his vice president didn't support 
Civil Rights," "Today Bush joked about charges that he tended 
to put more money into defense projects than the real needs 
of Americans," "Today Bush again violently accused the 
Democratic Party of wasting money on oppressed minorities,"  
"Today Bush continued his political attempts to assert a 
regime like his predecessor," etc., etc., etc.

        Nice try.  GLAD YOU DIDN'T MAKE IT.  It shows someone 
in America still has a half wit if they don't have a whole.

        The miracle is that Dukakis DIDN'T make it.  He had 
the COMMUNIST PARTY in Russia and America behind him to the 
last man;  not ONE dissenting vote.  He had the NEA behind 
him with all of their friends and relatives.  He had the 
LABOR UNIONS behind him.  He had the QUEERS behind him.  He 
had the NAACP behind him, the LIQUOR TRAFFIC and the 
CRIMINALS (see his laws as governor of Massachusetts).  The 
miracle is that with all of this and CBS, NBC, and ABC 
pushing and promoting him to the hilt, the American people 
still dumped him.  With the ABORTIONISTS behind him, the 
lesbians behind him, the welfare bums behind him, the KENNEDY 
FAMILY behind him, and the whole Gannett string of "dailies" 
(over five hundred of them) behind him.

        But you got to admit, it was some EFFORT!

        Now, if you want to see a REAL EFFORT, you watch the 
News Media go to work on EVERYONE CONNECTED WITH BUSH TO GET 
THEM REPLACED, THROWN OUT, IMPEACHED, ARRESTED, IMPRISONED, 
or at least forced into resignation.  That is the next major 
EFFORT of the news media.  "News reporting" is out 
altogether.  There will be no reporting of ANY "news" in 
1989.  There will be four years of continual, intensified, 
left-wing propaganda put out through every organ the news 
media has.  Bush will yield to the pressure quicker than 
Reagan did.  Reagan managed, at the cost of his health and 
mental stability, to "stay on top" for nearly six years: the 
last two years "got to him."  The news media won out.  
Eventually they will always win out, for they control THE 
THINKING PROCESSES OF THE NATION.  News media THINKING is 
what we call "isolated mentality" and "materialistic 
humanism."  It has nothing to do with truth, fact, "reporting 
the news," or God, or the Bible, or reality.  The press are 
monkey men (95% evolutionists), they are college-educated, 
left-wing radicals (socialism and Keynsian economics), and 
they cater to the minor elements in America that make up the 
IMMORAL MINORITY: they have done this since 1933 and will 
continue to do so.  News is to SELL.  You sell by presenting 
"sensational" and "controversial" items.  YOU AVOID ANYTHING 
BIBLICAL THAT IS SENSATIONAL (like the Second Advent of 
Christ) OR CONTROVERSIAL (like the treachery and 
deceitfulness of the Popes).  You stick to lesbians, queers, 
venereal diseases, affirmative action, birth control, 
rehabilitating sadists and child molesters, honoring trial 
marriages, installing condom machines in the high schools, 
using drugs to control grade school students, replacing men 
with women on the jobs, carrying bums from the cradle to the 
grave on welfare, taking care of pregnant women army 
officers, stopping discipline in army and navy bases, 
disarming the innocent citizens, keeping the nation on drugs 
or liquor, and giving foreign aid to countries that vote 
against the USA 85% of the time at the UN in New York.

        Don't worry about the news media.  They will make the 
effort!
