Friday, June 28, 2013

Pancho and Lefty by Willie Nelson and Bob Dylan

Tommy Emmanuel - Somewhere Over the Rainbow (Live at Pepperdine University California 2-10-2010)

Turn this up sit back and let the music wash over your soul

Drivetime - Tommy Emmanuel - Beautiful

When Eric Clapton Hit Bottom

When Eric Clapton hit bottom, he instinctively reached out for something beyond himself:
“At that moment, almost of their own accord, my legs gave way and I fell to my knees. In the privacy of my room I begged for help. I had no notion who I thought I was talking to, I just knew that I had come to the end of my tether, I had nothing left to fight with. Then I remembered what I had heard about surrender, something I thought I could never do, my pride just wouldn’t allow it, but I knew that on my own I wasn't going to make it, so I asked for help, and, getting down on my knees, I surrendered.
Within a few days I realized that something had happened for me. An atheist would probably say it was just a change of attitude, and to a certain extent that’s true, but there was much more to it than that. I had found a place to turn to, a place I’d always known was there but never really wanted, or needed, to believe in. From that day until this, I have never failed to pray in the morning, on my knees, asking for help, and at night, to express gratitude for my life and, most of all, for my sobriety. I choose to kneel because I feel I need to humble myself when I pray, and with my ego, this is the most I can do.”
Eric Clapton, Clapton: The Autobiography (New York, 2007), pages 235-236.
To me, this is touching, and I mean that respectfully. And his prayers are humbler than some of mine, I am certain. And in a way, I could wish that a breakthrough to God could be this vague and yet still somehow conclusive.
But what God gives to us broken sinners is better. God gives a clear sight of Jesus through the gospel: “And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit” (2 Corinthians 3:18).
It is one thing to despair of ourselves. We must. But it is something further to behold the glory of the Lord Jesus. Startlingly honest experiences can help us. But only a miraculous sight of Jesus can transform us.
Why settle for sobriety, when God gives glory? (Ray Ortlund)

Thursday, June 27, 2013

Up-close pics of famous 1960′s folksters by a teenage photojournalist - Bob Dylan, Son House, Mary Travers, Mississippi John Hurt

John Rudoff is a cardiologist in Portland, but long before he embarked on that prestigious career he had aspirations to be a photographer. As a teenager, he combined his burgeoning interest in photography and folk music by snapping photos of the acts who played at the coffee shop he worked at in Pennsylvania as well as photographing many of the acts at several festivals he had the opportunity to attend.
It seems apparent from his photos that he had no qualms edging his way to the front to get the best shot he could.
Here are a few of his pictures. Visit his page on Flickr for well over a hundred more…

Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, 1963

1960s Folk Festival Photos - 01 

Son House, 1964

1960s Folk Festival Photos - 21

Bob Dylan, 1964

1960s Folk Festival Photos - 22 


Mary Travers with Mimi and Dick Farina, 1965

1960s Folk Festival Photos - 03

Son House, 1965

1960s Folk Festival Photos - 07

Mississippi John Hurt, 1965

1960s Folk Festival Photos - 08 


Lightning Hopkins, 1965

1960s Folk Festival Photos - 17

Bob Dylan, 1965

1960s Folk Festival Photos - 23

The Proper Distinction Between Law And Gospel

“This distinction [between law and gospel] must be observed all the more when the Law wants to force me to abandon Christ and His Gospel boon. In that emergency I must abandon the Law and say: Dear Law, if I have not done the works I should have done, do them yourself. I will not, for your sake, allow myself to be plagued to death, taken captive, and kept under your thraldom and thus forget the Gospel. Whether I have sinned, done wrong, or failed in any duty, let that be your concern, O Law. Away with you and let my heart alone; I have no room for you in my heart. But if you require me to lead a godly life here on earth, that I shall gladly do. If, however, like a housebreaker, you want to climb in where you do not belong, causing me to lose what has been given me, I would rather not know you at all than abandon my gift.”
Martin Luther, quoted in C. F. W. Walther, The Proper Distinction Between Law and Gospel (St. Louis, 1928), pages 46-47.

I will never abandon the gospel for the law. I will never allow myself to be brought under a law breaking legalist (there is no other kind because no one can keep the law) who wants me to bow to their misguided understanding of the scripture their personal condemnation guilt and fear that come out of their own unbelief of the gospel, I completely agree with Luther "I would rather not know you at all than abandon my gift."

Stevie Ray Vaughan(SRV)-Life Without You

Luther Allison - It Hurts Me Too 1997

Johnny Cash Willie Nelson - Ghost Riders In The Sky

Emmylou Harris & Willie Nelson : Pancho & Lefty (2000)

Monday, June 24, 2013

Chicago vs. Chicago: Round 1 Nick Offerman and Craig Robinson go head to head in this long-standing MLB rivalry between the Chicago Cubs and Chicago White Sox.

Blind Boys of Alabama - "Nobody's Fault But Mine"

Charlie Musselwhite Harmonica

Tom Jones - Burning Hell (Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010)

Eric Clapton - I Got The Same Old Blues - Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010

Sending God back To School?

“We have the idea that God could not reign if he did not have wise and understanding people to help him. . . . [The wise and understanding] are always exerting themselves; they do things in the Christian church the way they want to themselves. Everything that God does they must improve, so that there is no poorer, more insignificant and despised disciple on earth than God; he must be everybody’s pupil, everybody wants to be his teacher. . . . They are not satisfied with what God has done and instituted, they cannot let things be as they were ordained to be. . . . These are the real wiseacres, of whom Christ is speaking here, who always have to have and do something special in order that the people may say, ‘Ah, our pastor or preacher is nothing; there’s the real man, he'll get things done!’ . . . Should God be so greatly pleased with these fellows who are all too smart and wise for him and are always wanting to send him back to school?”
Martin Luther, preaching his last sermon, on Matthew 11:25-30, quoted in Luther’s Works: Sermons I (Philadelphia, 1959), pages 383-384.

The scripture Luther is referring to is "I thank you Father Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes Father for such was your gracious will." These were the religious leaders of Jesus day that said John had a demon and Jesus was a glutton and a drunkard, well so much for what they knew. But Luther includes so many self appointed experts in the church that always know more than anyone else, especially the Pastor. These people submit to no one acting as if they know more than God himself.
Read all of chapter 11 to get the whole picture and read verse 27 "All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him."

Eric Clapton - Crossroads - Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010

Eric Clapton - Little Queen Of Spades - Prince's Trust Rock Gala 2010

Clapton still playing the blues and doing it well.

Thursday, June 20, 2013

What Can You Say To This?

“Paul ran from Christ; Christ pursued and overtook him. Paul resisted Christ; Christ disarmed him. Paul persecuted Christ; Christ converted him. Paul was an alien; Christ made him a member of the family. Paul was an enemy; Christ made him a friend. Paul was ‘in the flesh’; Christ set him ‘in the Spirit.’ Paul was under the law; Christ set him in grace. Paul was dead; Christ made him alive to God. How does one give reasons for this? He does not give reasons; he sings, ‘Blessed be God who blessed us . . . even as he chose us in him.’”
Lewis B. Smedes, Union With Christ (Grand Rapids, 1983), pages 86-87.

That's not just Paul's story, that's my story, really every Christian's story. I was running from Christ, I resisted Christ, I persecuted Christ, I was an alien, I was an enemy, I was in the flesh, I was under the law, I was dead and Christ made me alive to God, Christ pursed me, Christ converted me, Christ made me a member of the family, Christ made me a friend, Christ set me in the spirit, Christ set me in grace. All I can do is praise him and thank him.

This Ain't No Dream Its A Nightmare


Johnny Winter - Maybellene (Featuring Vince Gill)

Johnny Winter - Last Night (Featuring John Popper)

Johnny Winter - T-Bone Shuffle (Featuring Sonny Landreth)

Johnny Winter - Further On Up The Road (Featuring Jimmy Vivino)

Wednesday, June 19, 2013

Pearls Before Swine - How Dare They


What It Means To Magnify God

"But there are two entirely different ways of magnifying God, one of which exalts him and the other demeans him. First, you can magnify God the way a microscope does by focusing on something quite small, most often invisible to the naked eye, and causing it to look much, much, bigger than it really is. this is magnification by distortion! This is not how we are to magnify God! Tragically though, that's how many Christians think of God and how they are to worship him. They think that in their lives and in their prayers and in their praise they are causing God to look bigger and greater and more glorious than he really is, in and of himself. Worship is not like blowing up a balloon. God is not honored by human inflation, as if the breath of our praise enhances and expands his visibility and worth. To think that apart from our praise God remains shrunken and shriveled is to dishonor him who "gives to all mankind life and breath and everything" (Acts 17:25).
But you can also magnify God the way a telescope would. A telescope helps people who are small and distant to see something indescribably huge and massive by making it to appear as it really and truly is. A telescope peers into the distant realms of our universe and displays before our eyes the massive, unfathomable, indescribable dimensions of what is there. Only in this latter sense are we called to magnify the Lord."
Sam Storms, For the Fame of God's Name: Essays in Honor of John Piper. p.58

Little by little - Susan Tedeschi

Stevie Ray Vaughan - Voodoo Chile 6/9/87

Muddy Waters - Blow Wind Blow

Monday, June 17, 2013

Only A Fool Trusts His Own Heart

“There is no sin so much like the devil as this for secrecy and subtlety and appearing in a great many shapes undiscerned and unsuspected, even appearing as an angel of light. It takes occasion to arise from everything, it perverts and abuses everything, even the exercises of real grace and real humility. It is a sin that has, as it were, many lives. If you kill it, it will live still. If you suppress it in one shape, it rises in another. If you think it is all gone, it is there still. Like the coats of an onion, if you pull one form of it off, there is another underneath. We need therefore to have the greatest watch imaginable over our hearts and to cry most earnestly to the great Searcher of hearts for his help. He that trusts his own heart is a fool.”
Jonathan Edwards, Thoughts on the New England Revival, page 155

Albert King - Blues Power Live 1970 Filmore

Jean-Pierre Bertrand - Pinetop Blues - High Class Boogie Woogie Piano

Pinetop Perkins - Pinetop Boogie woogie

Baseball - Jonathan Winters 1964

Friday, June 14, 2013

Cling only to Christ's Word and come to Him

“Christ says, ‘Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden,’ and it is as though he were saying: Just stick to me, hold on to my Word and let everything else go. . . . For when you suffer for my sake, it is my yoke and my burden which I lay upon you in grace, that you may know that this your suffering is well pleasing to God and to me and that I myself am helping you to carry it. . . . [May we] cling only to Christ’s Word and come to him, as he so lovingly invites us to do, and say: You alone are my beloved Lord and Master, I am your disciple.”
Martin Luther’s last sermon, in John W. Doberstein, editor, Luther’s Works, Volume 51 (Philadelphia, 1959), pages 391-392.

Bonnie Raitt - Down To You (2012)

Cream Reunion Concert - White Room

Remembering Little Walter, featuring Mark Hummel

Monday, June 10, 2013

“The Least of These”: An Example of the Right Doctrine from the Wrong Text

In Matthew 25:35-40, Jesus says: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ And the King will answer them, ’Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’”
Craig Blomberg comments:
The majority perspective has understand Jesus’ ‘brothers’ in verse 40 to refer to spiritual kin, as the term (adelphoi) does elsewhere in Matthew in every instance in which biological siblings are not in view (see 5:22-24, 47; 7:3-5; 12:48-50; 18:15 twice, 21, 35; 23:8; 28:10).
The term ‘little ones’, of which ‘the least’ (25:40, 45) is the superlative form, also without exception in Matthew refers to disciples (10:42; 18:6, 10, 14; cf. also 5:19 and 11:11).
This makes the point of Jesus’ teaching closely parallel to Matthew 10:42: Jesus’ itinerant followers (today we might call them Christian missionaries) must be cared for by those to whom they minister. Affording material help to those who preach in the name of Jesus demonstrates acceptance of the missionaries’ message at the spiritual level . . . This view is almost certainly correct.
Today, however, the prevailing interpretation is that Jesus is teaching about the need to help the dispossessed whether or not they are Christian. . . .
This is obviously an important biblical theme, but is far less likely to be the focus of this particular passage, given the consistent meaning of the terms and the larger context of parables focusing on the disciples (24:43-25:46).
—Craig L. Blomberg, Neither Poverty nor Riches: A Biblical Theology of Material Possessions, New Studies in Biblical Theology, ed. D. A. Carson (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2000), 126; my emphasis.

Leo Kottke - In Christ There Is No East Or West

Freddie King - Tore Down

Freddie King - Hide away

Junior Wells - Snatch It Back And Hold It

Junior Wells - Hoodoo Man Blues

Friday, June 7, 2013

This Is What Makes My Soul Sing And Shout With Joy!

“This is that mystery which is rich in divine grace to sinners: wherein by a wonderful exchange our sins are no longer ours but Christ’s, and the righteousness of Christ not Christ’s but ours.  He has emptied himself of his righteousness that he might clothe us with it and fill us with it; and he has taken our evils upon himself that he might deliver us from them.”
“Learn Christ and him crucified.  Learn to pray to him and, despairing of yourself, say, ‘Thou, Lord Jesus, art my righteousness, but I am thy sin.  Thou hast taken upon thyself what is mine and hast given to me what is thine.  Thou hast taken upon thyself what thou wast not and hast given to me what I was not.’”
Martin Luther, quoted in J. I. Packer and Mark Dever, In My Place Condemned He Stood (Wheaton, 2008), page 85, footnote 31.
Do you get it? Christ has given to me that which I was not or ever could be on my own. O Happy Day!

Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton [Remastered:Stereo] - Ramblin' on My Mind / It Ain't Right

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - I Got My Mojo Working - The great Sam Lay on vocals and drums

The Paul Butterfield Blues Band - I Got A Mind To Give Up Living

Paul Butterfield Blues Band ~ Mary, Mary

Wednesday, June 5, 2013

What You Get In A World Without God

In a universe of blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.
—Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life (Basic Books, 1995), 95.
Such, in outline, but even more purposeless, more void of meaning, is the world which Science presents for our belief. Amid such a world, if anywhere, our ideals henceforward must find a home.
That Man is the product of causes which had no prevision of the end they were achieving;
that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms;
that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve an individual life beyond the grave;
that all the labours of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system,
and that the whole temple of Man’s achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins—
all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain, that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand.
Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul’s habitation henceforth be safely built.
—Bertrand Russell, “A Free Man’s Worship” (1903); emphasis added.

MUDDY WATERS - MIKE BLOOMFIELD Long Distance Call 1974 live!

Paul Butterfield Blues Band " BORN IN CHICAGO " Live

Live at The Newport Folk Festival July 26 1965 Paul Butterflied-vocal/harmonica/ Mike Bloomfield-guitar/ Elvin Bishop-guitar/ Jerome Arnold-bass/ Sam Lay-drums/ Bruce Langhorne-tamborine

Miles Davis & John Coltrane - Kind of blue

Warren Haynes "River's Gonna Rise" - Guitar Center's King of the Blues 2011

Albert King Live - I'll Play The BLues For You