RUST COMMENTARY: SCRIPTURE OFFERS STRAIGHTFORWARD THOUGHTS ON LIES, SEX, HONESTY, LIFE

Although I will withhold judgment until the facts are known ... the saga of the private life of President BILL CLINTON and his efforts to glibly talk himself out of the mess he has created for himself, his family, country and supporters has some biblical similarities to the tragedy of DAVID and BATHSHEBA.

But possibly more relevant to us are ECCLESIASTES and the SONG OF SOLOMON. Also, PROVERBS has many comments on sex, lies, honesty and life ... the following are excerpts from chapter summaries in the LIFE APPLICATION BIBLE (The Living Bible).

SONG OF SOLOMON: Saturated with stories of sexual escapades and extramarital affairs, the message communicated by today's media is that immorality means freedom, perversion is natural and commitment is old-fashioned. Sex, which was created by God and pronounced good, has been twisted, exploited and turned into an illicit, casual and self-gratifying activity. Love has turned into lust, giving into getting and lasting commitment into "no strings attached."

But Scripture contains numerous guidelines concerning sexual expression and warnings against violating those guidelines. In reality, sexual intercourse, the physical and emotional union of a man and a woman, should be a holy means of celebrating love, producing children and experiencing pleasure, protected by the commitment of marriage. The Song of Solomon is an intimate story of a man and a woman, of their love, courtship and marriage."

ECCLESIASTES: Empty, futile and hollow are words which capture the feelings of disappointment and disillusionment. This is the life experience of many. They strive to find the "good life" -- filled with possessions, power and pleasure -- only to find life empty and meaningless. Such disappointment ends in despair.

Almost 3,000 years ago, Solomon spoke of this human dilemma, but the insights and applications of his message are relevant in our century. Ecclesiastes, Solomon's written sermon, is an analysis of life's experiences and a critical essay about its meaning. In this profound book, Solomon takes us on a mental journey through his life, and he explains how everything he tried, tested or tasted was useless (23:11), irrational (2:17), pointless (4:8), foolish (4:16) and empty (6:12) -- an exercise in futility. And remember, these words are from one who "had it all" -- tremendous power, wisdom, and wealth. After this biographical tour, Solomon makes his triumphant conclusion, "Fear God and obey his commandments, for this is the entire duty of man. For God will judge us for everything we do, including every hidden thing, good or bad" (12:13-14).

When Solomon became king, he asked God for wisdom (II Chronicles 1:7-12), and he became the wisest man in the world (I Kings 4:29-34). He studied, taught, judged and wrote. Kings and leaders from other nations came to Jerusalem to learn from him. But with all of his practical insight on life, Solomon failed to heed his own advice, and his life began its downward spiral. Near the end of his life, he looked back with an attitude of humility and repentance. He took stock of the world as he had experienced it, hoping to spare his readers the bitterness of learning through personal experience that everything apart from God is empty, hollow, and meaningless.

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"A good man hates lies: wicked men lie constantly and come to shame."

"When there is moral rot within a nation, its government topples easily, but with honest, sensible leaders there is stability." -- PROVERBS

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The following is a quote from Dostoevsky's novel, "The Brothers Karamazov," about lying to yourself. It seems relevant to much of what is happening in Washington.

"The important thing is to stop lying to yourself. A man who lies to himself, and believes his own lies, becomes unable to recognize truth, either in himself or in anyone else, and he ends up losing respect for himself as well as for others. When he has no respect for anyone, he can no longer love and, in order to divert himself, having no love in him, he yields to his impulses, indulges in the lowest forms of pleasure, and behaves in the end like an animal, in satisfying his vices. And it all comes from lying -- lying to others and to yourself."

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When I mentioned in my column last week I was doing estate planning, I targeted myself for some insurance and financial planners who've since contacted me ... that's just being professional.

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I applaud Mayors AL SPRADLING and PAUL SANDER and the Jackson and Cape city councils for holding a joint meeting to discuss areas of common interest and overlap. Open communication in public meetings displays a maturity of these communities and can only be beneficial to an orderly growth of services, infrastructure and expansions.

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RUSH LIMBAUGH III was recently honored by being voted into the RADIO HALL of FAME and will be inducted this coming April.

Now being broadcast over 600 stations to more than 20 million unduplicated listeners each week, Rush "has made a lot of radio station owners a lot of money" and revitalized daytime talk radio. Rush was told a national talk show would not succeed but proved those predictions wrong.

He has also brought an awareness of issues and enlightenment (enragement to some) on a perspective too often ignored by the mainstream media.

Rush has a point of view ... presents it in an intelligent, reasoned manner and knows the nuts and bolts of radio technology, timing and the need to entertain.

He also listens to his callers and provides interesting responses.

Rush was left an opening for discussion of the conservative side of issues that many people could only get from magazines, newspaper columnists and private newsletters.

Network television, the Associated Press and most of the larger newspapers left unreported information they knew about but didn't deem worthy of reporting.

Now ... the popularity of RUSH has moved a more open discussion of issues on television, AP and other media.

My CONGRATULATIONS to RUSH on his recognition AND his continued intensity and passion in his search for the truth.

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CHILL OUT: Global warming has been particularly active recently, dumping up to 10 inches of snow in the Deep South and even dropping snow in areas of Mexico that haven't had any in a century. -- National Review

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Elbow Grease: A staple of class warfare is: "You have to have money to make money." But no one told that to John Kluge, who got going with $7,000 in poker winnings, or Michael Dell, who dropped out of the University of Texas in 1984 to found Dell Computer, or Philip Knight, who started Nike with $500.

For the most part, the super-rich are a hardworking lot. Warren Buffett says he plans to retire "about five to 10 years after I die." The super-rich got that way because they are enormously productive people. -- Paul Craig Roberts, Washington Times

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No Girls Allowed: "China's ruthlessly enforced child-bearing restrictions have resulted in the wholesale destruction of girl babies through gross neglect, abandonment, infanticide and, in recent years, targeted abortion of female fetuses," the better-late-than-never New York Times recently reported in a column by Bob Herbert. Virginia Right to Life reports that "5.8 percent of (Chinese) girls born in 1989-1990 are missing from the population," while 9.6 percent born in 1995 are also "missing." The Times quoted reliable sources who say that "little girls were being eliminated from Chinese society on a massive scale" and who witnessed "the disposal of bodies of abandoned girls who died at the orphanage and were carted out in wheelbarrows, tossed into a Dumpster and ultimately taken away by municipal garbage collectors." The public has yet to hear from such powerful American feminists as Hillary Clinton and National Organization for Women about this murder of girls in Communist China. -- Human Events

~Gary Rust is president of Rust Communications, which owns the Southeast Missourian and other newspapers.