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HUGH HEFNER WAS A MODERN DAY KING SOLOMON AND I TOLD HIM THAT OVER AND OVER (PART 4) Letter from 5-26-16

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Image result for hugh hefner laughing

Francis Schaeffer noted:

let us think of the sex relationship. What is man’s attitude towards  the girl? It is possible, and common in the  modern setting, to have a “playboy” attitude, or  rather a “plaything” attitude, where the “play-  mate” becomes the “plaything.” Here, the girl is  no more than a sex object.

But what is the Christian view? Somebody  may offer at this point the rather romantic no-  tion, “You shouldn’t look for any pleasure for  yourself; you should just look for the other per-  son’s pleasure.” But that is not what the Bible  says. We are to love our neighbor as ourselves.  We have a right to pleasure, too. But what we  do not have a right to do is to forget that the  girl is a person and not an animal, or a plant, or  a machine. We have the right to have our plea-  sure in a sexual relationship, but we have no  right whatsoever to exploit a partner as a sex  object.

There should be a conscious limitation upon  our pleasure. We impose a limit—a self-imposed  limit—in order to treat the wife fairly as a per-  son. So although a husband could do more, he  does not do everything he could do, because he  must treat her also as a person and not just as  a thing with no value. And if he does so treat  her, eventually he loses, because love is gone,  and all that is left is just a mechanical, chemical  sexuality; humanity is lost as he treats her as  less than human. Eventually not only her  humanity is diminished, but his as well. In con-  trast, if he does less than he could do, even-  tually he has more, for he has a human rela-  tionship; he has love and not just a physical  act. It is like the principle of the boomerang—it  can come full circle and destroy the destroyer.

Over and over I have read that Hugh Hefner was a modern day King Solomon and Hefner’s search for satisfaction was attempted by adding to the number of his sexual experiences. Richard Zowie makes the same comparison below:

King Solomon would disagree with Gene Simmons about Hugh Hefner

Gene Simmons, echoing a statement he made a few years ago when blogging about attending a party at the Playboy Mansion, expressed his reverence for “Hef” (Mr. Hefner, I understand, dislikes his first name and prefers the nickname “Hef”). The Israeli-born rocker/businessman said in a recent documentary on Hefner: “Show me any guy, of any age, anywhere in the world, at any time in history, today or tomorrow, that wouldn’t give his left [testicle] to be Hugh Hefner.”

Yoo-hoo, Gene! Over here!

<Richard waves both his hands and tries to get Simmons’ attention>

Simmons and Hefner are more than entitled to do as they wish with their lives, and as long as their actions are with other consenting adults, I prefer to stay out of it.

That being said, with all due respect, Mr. Simmons, speak for yourself. I get the feeling an ancient Hebrew king might say the same thing.

Besides, about 2,900 years before there was ever a Hugh M. Hefner, there was a Hebrew king named Solomon. Reading through First Kings and Second Chronicles indicates that Solomon could’ve easily schooled Hefner on women: Solomon had 700 wives and 300 concubines. We can only imagine the other sex partners he had whenever he went to a party and had his selection of any woman he wanted.

I wonder if Solomon would’ve given his left testicle to be Hefner. It’s a pointless question, because Solomon not only was Hefner, but he no doubt was bigger than Hefner. When you read about Solomon and his downfall, you get the strong feeling his appetite for women was absolutely insatiable. In fact, he was probably the guy Hefner would’ve aspired to be.

This is funny, of course, because Ecclesiastes is a book where Solomon looks back on his life of money, sex, power, fame, sex, wisdom, knowledge and sex and utters this in verse two:

“Vanity of vanities, saith the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”

Or:

“Everything is meaningless,” says the Teacher, “completely meaningless!”

In other words, Solomon–the Original Hugh Hefner with his bottomless harem of wives, concubines and one-night stands–had every man’s ultimate sexual fantasy.

And Solomon couldn’t have been more miserable.

The last thing I want to do is use this blog as a soapbox to attack Mr. Hefner and his lifestyle or to attack Simmons for glamorizing it, but I wonder if either is truly happy. If Solomon was miserable in a life where he strayed off his path with God, I suspect these two men are also.

Richard Zowie is a Christian writer, who considers Ecclesiastes to be one of his favorite books of the Bible. Post comments here or drop a line to richardstwoshekels@gmail.com.

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Many of the sermons that I heard or read that inspired me to write Hugh Hefner were from this list of gentlemen:  Daniel Akin, Brandon Barnard,Matt Chandler, George Critchley,  Steve Gaines, Norman L. Geisler, Greg Gillbert, Billy Graham, Mark Henry, Dan Jarrell, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., R. G. Lee,  Chris Lewis, Kerry Livgren, Robert Lewis,    Bill Parkinson, Ben Parkinson,Vance Pitman, Nelson Price, Adrian Rogers, Philip Graham Ryken, Francis Schaeffer, Lee Strobel, Bill Wellons, Kirk Wetsell,  Ken Whitten, Ed Young , and Ravi Zacharias, Tom Zobrist, Richard Zowie.

The letter I wrote to Hugh Hefner that is featured today is based primarily on a sermon by Steven Gaines. See it below:

Image result for steve gaines adrian rogers

(Adrian Rogers wasting the feet of Steve Gaines pictured above at Bellevue Baptist where Rogers was the pastor from  1972 to 2004 and Gaines is now)

Image result for steve gaines bellevue baptist church

May 26, 2016

Hugh Hefner
Playboy Mansion  
10236 Charing Cross Road
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815

Dear Mr. Hefner,

I understand you were longtime friends with Tony Curtis and that he even took up a long-term residence at the Playboy Mansion at one time.  Actually over his long life he suffered from alcoholism, drug addiction and what he called an “addiction to women.” Francis Schaeffer observed concerning King Solomon, “You can not know woman by knowing 1000 women.” Since it was your philosophy that produced these results in countless homes in modern times do you feel somewhat responsible to those children who have been disenfranchised by the broken homes?

Tony had fling with Monroe

Wife number one: Janet Leigh, who Curtis married in 1951

Wife number one: Janet Leigh, who Curtis married in 1951

Curtis family seen above

In the article, “The worst father in the world? Tony Curtis neglected his children. Now they’re having to sue for a share of his £37million fortune” By ALISON BOSHOFF FOR THE DAILY MAIL

To his millions of fans he was the last of the great matinee idols, the most handsome of all Hollywood stars and a man whose incredible sexual career encompassed a fling with Marilyn Monroe and a period of taking showgirls ‘two a day’ like vitamin pills.

But to his family, life with Tony Curtis — who had six children and six wives — was a more fraught affair. His actress daughter Jamie Lee Curtis has declared numerous times that he ‘wasn’t a father’ to her, and he admitted candidly that he had been a lousy dad…

Meanwhile Allegra, the black sheep among the children, who posed for Playboy in her youth, has recently written a book describing her father as a drug-addicted ‘demon’, and bemoaning the fact that he never gave her a chance to be his daughter.

‘My father was a victim of his fame, and I am the victim of my father, the global star. I got to learn about the dark side of the spotlight,’ she said. ‘My life with him was always unstable.’

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Happier times: Tony Curtis and first wife Janet Leigh pose with their daughters Kelly and Jamie Lee

Happier times: Tony Curtis and first wife Janet Leigh pose with their daughters Kelly and Jamie Lee

From the movie SOME LIKE IT HOT

Wife number two: Christine Kaufmann was mother of Alexandra and Allegra (who is pictured in 1967)

Wife number three: Leslie Allen bore Curtis two sons, one of whom died

Wife number four: Actress Andrea Savio was Curtis' next wife

Wife number four: Actress Andrea Savio was Curtis’ next wife

Wife number five: Lawyer Lisa Deutsch, who he married in 1993

Wife number five: Lawyer Lisa Deutsch, who he married in 1993

Wife number six: Jill Vandenberg was married to Curtis until his death

Wife number six: Jill Vandenberg was married to Curtis until his death

I grew up at Bellevue Baptist Church in Memphis, Tennessee and recently I got to listen to a CD with the sermon entitled WHY AM I HERE? by Steve Gaines the current pastor of Bellevue Baptist. This sermon really does describe those who like TONY CURTIS who are looking for life’s meaning in liquor, luxuries or lust. Here is an excerpt:

Today we are going to do a very quick overview of the Book of Ecclesiastes. If you want to describe Ecclesiastes then you could describe it with these words BEEN THERE DONE THAT, NOW WHAT?

Ecclesiastes was written by a frustrated old man who had wasted his life on this earth. Solomon wrote three books. He wrote THE SONG OF SOLOMON when he was a young man in love and he was in love with a precious wife and would to God that he would have stayed in that vein. Then as an older man he wrote Book of Proverbs and he showed that he was indeed a very wise man at the moment he wrote those words inspired by the Holy Spirit. But at the end of his life when he had turned his heart from the Lord and he had married all these women from many different religions and he had all these different concubines and he had tried everything in life then he sat down and wrote his opus call Ecclesiastes. It is a book of frustration written by a man who had wasted his life.

Let’s look first at why we are not here.

FIRST, we are not here primarily for scholarship or learning.

Ecclesiastes 1:12-13 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

12 I, the Preacher, have been king over Israel in Jerusalem. 13 And I set my [a]mind to seek and explore by wisdom concerning all that has been done under heaven. It is [b]a grievous task which God has given to the sons of men to be afflicted with. 14 I have seen all the works which have been done under the sun, and behold, all is [c]vanity and striving after wind.

SECONDLY, we are not here primarily for possessions and pleasure.

Ecclesiastes 2:3-11 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

 I explored with my [c]mind how to stimulate my body with wine while my [d]mind was guiding me wisely, and how to take hold of folly, until I could see what good there is for the sons of men [e]to do under heaven the few [f]years of their lives. 4 I enlarged my works: I built houses for myself, I planted vineyards for myself; I made gardens and parks for myself and I planted in them all kinds of fruit trees; I made ponds of water for myself from which to irrigate a forest of growing trees. I bought male and female slaves and I had [g]homeborn slaves. Also I possessed flocks and herds larger than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. Also, I collected for myself silver and gold and the treasure of kings and provinces. I provided for myself male and female singers and the pleasures of men—many concubines.

Then I became great and increased more than all who preceded me in Jerusalem. My wisdom also stood by me. 10 All that my eyes desired I did not refuse them. I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure, for my heart was pleased because of all my labor and this was my reward for all my labor. 11 Thus I considered all my activities which my hands had done and the labor which I had [h]exerted, and behold all was [i]vanity and striving after wind and there was no profit under the sun.

(Verse 8 is put this way by THE MESSAGE, “I gathered a chorus of singers to entertain me with song,     and—most exquisite of all pleasures— voluptuous maidens for my bed.”)

THIRDLY, we are not here primarily for work.

Ecclesiastes 2:22-23 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

 22 For what does a man get in all his labor and in [d]his striving with which he labors under the sun?23 Because all his days his task is painful and grievous; even at night his[e]mind does not rest. This too is vanity.

FOURTHLY, we are not here primarily for money.

Ecclesiastes 5:10-12 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

10 He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is [a]vanity. 11 When good things increase, those who consume them increase. So what is the advantage to their owners except to [b]look on? 12 The sleep of the working man is pleasant, whether he eats little or much; but the [c]full stomach of the rich man does not allow him to sleep.

If we are not here primarily for scholarship, possessions, pleasures, work or money then what are we here for?

We are here primarily for God.

Ecclesiastes 12:1, 13-14 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

12 Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no delight in them”;

13 The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. 14 For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.

You see Solomon is the one who wrote in Proverbs:

Proverbs 9:10 Amplified Bible (AMP)

10 The [reverent] fear of the Lord [that is, worshiping Him and regarding Him as truly awesome] is the beginning and the preeminent part of wisdom [its starting point and its essence],
And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding and spiritual insight.

But then Solomon wasted his life. He didn’t fear and revere  and serve the living God, and then he comes back full circle and says he was right when he first wrote Proverbs 9:10.

Jesus said we are here to focus on the king and his kingdom.  “But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.” (Matt 6:33). Jesus when he was praying to the Father said, “And this is eternal life, that they know you the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent,” (John 17:3).

My life is supposed to be about Jesus.

Matthew 22:35-38 English Standard Version (ESV)

35 And one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him.36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment.

We are here everyday to enjoy God and to have fellowship with God. To get to know God, to worship God, to serve God and to prepare to meet our God and who we are going to stand before and give account of the life he has given us. That is why we are here. Not primarily for scholarship, possessions, money and career.

Let me read something:

If any one person were to be singled out as the most influential promoter of hedonism in modern times, it would surely have to be Hugh Hefner. His Playboy magazine, first published in the mid-1950s has had an unusually large circulation – especially among college and university people – in the intellectual community. Playboy has also had the second largest circulation of all American magazines in all of Western Europe, preceded only by the Reader’s Digest.[6] Through Playboy‚ Hefner has produced a slackening of moral standards, an excessive freedom of profane expression, and a much less disciplined world.

The destructive nature of Hefner’s philosophy, endorsed and promoted by the networks, hasn’t escaped some of the secular press. Chicago Tribune‚ columnist Bob Greene makes some startling and intriguing personal assessments in an article on Hefner. Green credits him with being one of the two most influential Americans in the second half of the twentieth century.[8]

Green says, “Hugh Hefner let Americans know that they could behave in any way they pleased. Conventional ideas of morality didn’t matter; the standards of one’s parents didn’t matter; the approval of one’s peers didn’t matter. All that mattered was that feeling good became an end in itself.”[9] To say that Hugh Hefner is the originator of the immoral revolution we’ve witnessed in recent decades would be incorrect. However, to say that no one person in modern times has more effectively exploited immorality than has Hugh Hefner would not be inaccurate. He took advantage of the fact that, for most Americans, moral standards had already been emptied of their Godly authority.

When a personal sense of duty, responsibility and a sense of moral righteousness is no longer rooted in a belief that God holds all men accountable for their actions, then human behavior is often regulated by one’s own personal pleasures. In the name of freedom, Hefner championed pleasure. By calling for individual freedom, Hefner promoted individual selfishness and social irresponsibility that worked havoc on our cultural morality and especially on the institution of marriage.

This is the legacy of HUGH HEFNER, a modern day Solomon…Can you imagine what it will be like for HUGH HEFNER to stand before the judgment seat of God with a wasted life and having led so many boys and men into pornography and destroyed so many marriages all for hedonism. All for living for pleasure just like Solomon did way back when and I am telling you friend there is no (satisfaction you derive from ) it. What is real is knowing God.

Colossians 1:15-16 English Standard Version (ESV)

15 He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. 16 For by[a] him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

Money, possessions, hedonistic pleasures, clubbing around, pornography, food, alcohol, drugs, work, or career will NOT satisfy you . Your ultimate reason for being on this planet is to come to know God. He created this world as a paradise. With sin we messed it all up but he wouldn’t leave us un-reconciled. He kicked out ancestors out of the garden, but then he sent his own son back to this earth to redeem us and reconcile us, to die as an atoning sacrifice for our sins to bring us back to himself so everyday we could wake up and say good morning father. We can know our sins are forgiven. We can know in this broken world that we have been healed of our brokenness by the one who entered into our suffering, not a God who is distant from our suffering but a God who loved us enough to enter into our suffering to give eternal abundant life. That is what life is about, a relationship with God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Would you today give Him your life?

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Steve Gaines mentioned that Christ came and laid his life down to die for our sins. Let me share some Old Testament prophecy that indicates the Bible is true concerning Christ being executed on a cross. Some 400 years before crucifixion was invented, both Israel’s King David and the prophet Zechariah described the Messiah’s death in words that perfectly depict that mode of execution. Further, they said that the body would be pierced and that none of the bones would be broken, contrary to customary procedure in cases of crucifixion (Psalm 22 and 34:20; Zechariah 12:10). Again, historians and New Testament writers confirm the fulfillment: Jesus of Nazareth died on a Roman cross, and his extraordinarily quick death eliminated the need for the usual breaking of bones. A spear was thrust into his side to verify that he was, indeed, dead.

Psalm 22 New American Standard Bible (NASB)

For the choir director; upon [a]Aijeleth Hashshahar. A Psalm of David (Solomon’s father)

22 My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?
[b]Far from my deliverance are the words of my [c]groaning.
O my God, I cry by day, but You do not answer;
And by night, but [d]I have no rest.
But I am a worm and not a man,

A reproach of men and despised by the people.
7 All who see me [g]sneer at me;
They [h]separate with the lip, they wag the head, saying,
[i]Commit yourself to the Lord; let Him deliver him;
Let Him rescue him, because He delights in him.”

12 Many bulls have surrounded me;
Strong bulls of Bashan have encircled me.
13 They open wide their mouth at me,
As a ravening and a roaring lion.
14 I am poured out like water,
And all my bones are out of joint;
My heart is like wax;
It is melted within [l]me.
15 My strength is dried up like a potsherd,
And my tongue cleaves to my jaws;
And You lay me [m]in the dust of death.
16 For dogs have surrounded me;
[n]A band of evildoers has encompassed me;
[o]They pierced my hands and my feet.
17 I can count all my bones.
They look, they stare at me;
18 They divide my garments among them,
And for my clothing they cast lots.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

PS: HUGH I have written you 37 TIMES and many of those letters have been from the sermons at my church in Little Rock but today was a little different since the sermon was from the church that I grew up in. Steve Gaines is the pastor of Bellevue Baptist in Memphis and there have only been 4 pastors at Bellevue since you were born in 1926. Robert G. Lee till 1959 and then Ramsey Pollard till 1972 and Adrian Rogers till 2004 and Steve Gaines since then.

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HUGH HEFNER WAS A MODERN DAY KING SOLOMON AND I TOLD HIM THAT OVER AND OVER (PART 3) letter from 5-16-16

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Image result for hugh hefner laughing

Over and over I have read that Hugh Hefner was a modern day King Solomon and Hefner’s search for satisfaction was attempted by adding to the number of his sexual experiences.

Rankin Wilbourne noted: 

Imagine a man more brilliant that Albert Einstein, more wealthy than Bill Gates, more powerful than Barack Obama, the spiritual pedigree of Billy Graham, but more of a hedonist that Hugh Hefner. That’s King Solomon, who wrote the book of Ecclesiastes – who chased  “if only” in terms of power, money, sex, fame and learning – but who concluded, “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity!”

Many of the sermons that I heard or read that inspired me to write Hugh Hefner were from this list of gentlemen:  Daniel Akin, Brandon Barnard,Matt Chandler, George Critchley,  Steve Gaines, Norman L. Geisler, Greg Gillbert, Billy Graham, Mark Henry, Dan Jarrell, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., R. G. Lee,  Chris Lewis, Kerry Livgren, Robert Lewis,    Bill Parkinson, Ben Parkinson,Vance Pitman, Nelson Price, Adrian Rogers, Philip Graham Ryken, Francis Schaeffer, Lee Strobel, Bill Wellons, Kirk Wetsell,  Ken Whitten, Ed Young ,  Ravi Zacharias, Tom Zobrist, and Richard Zowie.

 

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Image result for hugh hefner younger days

 

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Today I have quoted in my letter to Hugh Hefner extensively from sermons from Ken Whitten of Idlewild Baptist of Tampa, Florida, and Brandon Barnard of Fellowship Bible Church of Little Rock, Arkansas. Plus I quoted Francis Schaeffer concerning some Biblical Archaeology that indicates the Bible is accurate concerning historical details.

 

Image result for francis schaeffer

 May 16, 2016
Hugh Hefner
Playboy Mansion  
10236 Charing Cross Road
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815
Dear Mr. Hefner,

Just a few weeks ago I congratulated you on your 90th birthday and today I am turning 55 years old today and many people call that middle age but how many 110 year old people you see walking around?    I also  have started to think about the end of my life in recent days since it is fast approaching all of us. King Solomon in his book of ECCLESIASTES talks about death quite a lot and he wrote a passage in chapter 2 that I wanted to quote and then I wanted to include some comments from the preacher Ken Whitten in his sermon HAUNTED BY DEATH:Ken Whitten pastor of Tampa’s Idlewild Baptist Church

 

King Solomon gives us a little key to his heart in the Book of Ecclesiastes when he said he looked for everything imaginable to find satisfaction UNDER THE SUN.  Now folks anytime you look for satisfaction UNDER THE SUN it means you have an earthly view of life and if all you have is an earthly view of life you are going to be discouraged. You can tell Solomon is cynical. In Ecclesiastes 2 it says Solomon has tried LEARNING, LABOR, LEISURE, LUST, LAUGHTER, and LIQUOR but it is just like chasing the wind. It was like a little bubble that a kid would blow and then he catches it and there is nothing left there.

12 So I turned to consider wisdom, madness and folly; for what will the man do who will come after the king except what has already been done? 13 And I saw that wisdom excels folly as light excels darkness. 14 The wise man’s eyes are in his head, but the fool walks in darkness. And yet I know that one fate befalls them both. 15 Then I said [j]to myself, “As is the fate of the fool, it will also befall me. Why then have I been extremely wise?” So [k]I said to myself, “This too is vanity.” 16 For there is no [l]lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die! 17 So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was [m]grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.

Solomon is saying no matter if you are a fool or a wise-man it has nothing to do with removing the reality of death. It is an universal experience and it is going to happen to everyone. The Bible says it “befalls” or overtakes them all. Death overtakes us all.

Solomon looks at life like a race. At the beginning of life and when you are younger you look over your shoulder and in the far distance you see that someone is chasing you and he is in the race with you but you don’t pay much attention to him and there is no sense looking back since you are so far ahead. You think he will never catch you. Then you get a little older and guess what you notice. He seems to be going a little faster and you seem to be going a little slower. And you notice that while you continue to move you are starting to hear the footsteps and you starting failing.

Something is happening to us and we are deteriorating physically. In verse 14 Solomon says one fate  befalls both the fool and the wise and that is they both die. The rich is gonna die and the poor is gonna die. The actors, athletes, entertainers and the movie stars are gonna die.

Solomon doesn’t like this very much and he says in verses 16-17:

16 For there is no [l]lasting remembrance of the wise man as with the fool, inasmuch as in the coming days all will be forgotten. And how the wise man and the fool alike die! 17 So I hated life, for the work which had been done under the sun was [m]grievous to me; because everything is futility and striving after wind.

Solomon is saying that he doesn’t like this. It doesn’t matter how famous you get because there will be very little remembrance of you. Regardless of how famous you become there are people behind you who are going to be famous and they need your space in the history books and they will take it.

The rich and poor are gonna die. It doesn’t matter what is in your pocketbook but only what is in your heart. If you died tonight where would you spend eternity?

(End of sermon by Ken Whitten)

Below Ken is pictured with his wife Ginny

Image result for ken whitten idlewild

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Image result for ken whitten idlewild

You might said that this letter is a real downer but I have some good news to share with you. On Easter morning March 27, 2016 at FELLOWSHIP BIBLE CHURCH our teaching pastor Brandon Barnard delivered the message THIS CHANGES EVERYTHING based on I Corinthians chapter 15 and I wanted to share a portion of that sermon with you today.

Teaching pastor at my church, Brandon Barnard, Fellowship Bible Church

 

This day is the day that changes everything. The resurrection changes everything and that is why we are gathered here today to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ because it changes everything.

Some of you are going to be blown away by the opportunity before you this Easter morning because the resurrection of Jesus Christ stands at the very heart of Christianity. If what we we are gathered here to celebrate did not happen then people need to pity us as believers.  They need to feel sorry for you and me more than anyone on earth because we have set our hopes firmly on a lie.

But if the resurrection really did happen, then we need to repent and we need to believe in Jesus and we need to rejoice that we have hope in this life and the life to come. 

Paul wrote this to the believers in Corinth.

1 Corinthians 15:3-6, 13-21 English Standard Version (ESV)

For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep.

13 But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised. 14 And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain. 15 We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.16 For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised. 17 And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. 18 Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished.19 If in Christ we have hope[a] in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.

20 But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. 21 For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.

If Christ hasn’t been raised then these facts are true:

  1. PREACHING AND FAITH ARE IN VAIN.
  2. WE ARE FALSE WITNESSES
  3. WE ARE STILL IN OUR SINS.
  4. THOSE WHO DIED IN FAITH ARE STILL DEAD
  5. WE ARE TO BE PITIED MORE THAN ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD.

Verse 20 says, “but Christ has been raised!!! Therefore, these things are true:

  1. Our faith is significant, valuable and eternal.
  2. we are truth tellers!!
  3. we are forgiven of our sins.
  4. death is not our final stop.
  5. don’t pity us but join us in believing in Jesus Christ.

(End of Sermon from Brandon)

A lot of people say they do not believe in an afterlife. However, would you agree that if the Bible is correct in regards to history then Jesus did rise from the grave? Let’s take a closer look at evidence concerning the accuracy of the Bible.

I know that you highly respected Surgeon General C. Everett Koop and he co-authored with Francis Schaeffer the book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? Below is a piece of evidence from that book:

Surgeon General C. Everett Koop

Francis Schaeffer

 

 

We should take one last step back into the history of the Old Testament. In the previous note we looked first at the Dead Sea Scrolls, dating to around 100 B.C. Then we went back to the period of the Late Monarchy and looked first at the siege of Hezekiah in Jerusalem by Sennacherib in 701 B.C. and also at the last years of Judah down to about 600 B.C. Then we went further back to about 850 B.C., to Ahab and Jezebel, the ivory house, the Black Obelisk, the Moabite Stone and so on–then back again to about 950 B.C., to the time of Solomon and his son Rehoboam and the campaign by Shishak, the Egyptian pharaoh.

This should have built up in our minds a vivid impression of the historic reliability of the biblical text, including even the seemingly obscure details such as the ration tablets in Babylon. We saw, in other words, not only that the Bible gives us a marvelous world view that ties in with the nature of reality and answers the basic problems which philosophers have asked down through the centuries, but also that the Bible is completely reliable, EVEN ON THE HISTORICAL LEVEL.

The previous notes looked back to the time of Moses and Joshua, the escape from Egypt, and the settlement in Canaan. Now we will go back further–back as far as Genesis 12, near the beginning of the Bible.

Do we find that the narrative fades away to a never-never land of myths and legends? By no means. For we have to remind ourselves that although Genesis 12 deals with events a long time ago from our moment of history (about 2000 B.C. or a bit later), the civilized world was already not just old but ancient when Abram/Abraham left “Ur of the Chaldeans” (see Genesis 11:31).

Ur itself was excavated some fifty years ago. In the British Museum, for example, one can see the magnificent contents of a royal burial chamber from Ur. This includes a gold headdress still in position about the head of a queen who died in Ur about 2500 B.C. It has also been possible to reconstruct from archaeological remains what the streets and buildings must have been like at the time.

Like Ur, the rest of the world of the patriarchs (that is, of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) was firm reality. Such places as Haran, where Abraham went first, have been discovered. So has Shechem from this time, with its Canaanite stone walls, which are still standing, and its temple.

Genesis 12:5-9New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot his nephew, and all their possessions which they had accumulated, and the [a]persons which they had acquired in Haran, and they [b]set out for the land of Canaan; thus they came to the land of Canaan. Abram passed through the land as far as the site of Shechem, to the[c]oak of Moreh. Now the Canaanite was then in the land. The Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your [d]descendants I will give this land.” So he built an altar there to the Lord who had appeared to him. Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the Lord andcalled upon the name of the Lord. Abram journeyed on, continuing toward the[e]Negev.

Haran and Shechem may be unfamiliar names to us but the Negrev (or Negeb) is a name we have all read frequently in the news accounts of our own day. 

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

PS: HUGH I have written you 36 TIMES and many of those letters have been from the sermons at my church in Little Rock. HUGH you may not think the  Bible is correct about the existence of an afterlife. However, are you willing to take a look at some evidence that demonstrates the Bible is historically accurate and trustworthy?

Haran pictured below

UR of the Chaldees was the port of CHALDEA (Babylonia), a major trade and commerce post.

Headdress of Queen Puabi of Ur, Mesopotamia, 2550 BCE:

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HUGH HEFNER WAS A MODERN DAY KING SOLOMON AND I TOLD HIM THAT OVER AND OVER (PART 2) Letter from 5-14-16

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Image result for hugh hefner younger days

Over and over I have read that Hugh Hefner was a modern day King Solomon and Hefner’s search for satisfaction was attempted by adding to the number of his sexual experiences.  

Well, the readers of the book would remember the story of King Solomon, the king who had it all. He had more wisdom than anyone, more wealth, more pleasure (remember he had hundreds of wives and concubines). He was, speaking anachronistically and a bit flippantly, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey, and Hugh Hefner all rolled up into one. But all that wealth, wisdom, and pleasure was not enough for Solomon, who ended his life a sad apostate. The message for the reader of Ecclesiastes, then, is a warning not to live with the illusion that “if I only had more” (money, wisdom, pleasure), then I would be satisfied with life.

Many of the sermons that I heard or read that inspired me to write Hugh Hefner were from this list of gentlemen:  Daniel Akin, Brandon Barnard,Matt Chandler, George Critchley,  Steve Gaines, Norman L. Geisler, Greg Gillbert, Billy Graham, Mark Henry, Dan Jarrell, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., R. G. Lee,  Chris Lewis, Kerry Livgren, Robert Lewis,    Bill Parkinson, Ben Parkinson,Vance Pitman, Nelson Price, Adrian Rogers, Philip Graham Ryken, Francis Schaeffer, Lee Strobel, Bill Wellons, Kirk Wetsell,  Ken Whitten, Ed Young ,  Ravi Zacharias, Tom Zobrist, and Richard Zowie.

Image result for hugh hefner younger days

 

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Image result for kerry livgren

In this letter I tell the story of Kerry Livgren who had the world at his feet when he was writing hit songs for KANSAS in the 1970’s but he found that there was an emptiness in his heart. As a result, he wrote the song DUST IN THE WIND which reached #6 in the pop music charts in 1978. I later saw him on THE 700 CLUB give his testimony how he found peace in Christ. I can think of no other song that ties in better with Ecclesiastes than the song DUST IN THE WIND.

Image result for kerry livgren 700 club

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Image result for kerry livgren

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Image result for adrian rogers

In this letter below I quoted the sermon outline from Adrian Rogers when I wrote, “Hugh you remind me of Solomon because you are looking for  lasting meaning in your life and you are looking in the same  6 areas that King Solomon did in what I call the 6 big L words. He looked into  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).” I also quoted Ravi Zacharias when I wrote, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”

Image result for ravi zacharias ecclesiastes

Plus I quoted Francis Schaeffer’s discussion of what Woody Allen said concerning the meaning of life. Allen says that man is left with:
“… alienation, loneliness [and] emptiness verging on madness….” 

This ties in with Ecclesiastes perfectly. 

Image result for francis schaeffer

May 14, 2016

Hugh Hefner
Playboy Mansion  
10236 Charing Cross Road
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815

Dear Mr. Hefner,

Last week when I wrote you I mentioned that I got to attend the Paul McCartney concert on April 30, 2016 in Little Rock and I really enjoyed the song BLACKBIRD that Paul played.  My family and I really appreciated that  stand that Paul took back in the 1960’s by writing that song. I wanted to tell you something that I really appreciate about both your life and also Paul’s.  YOU BOTH HAVE ALWAYS STOOD FOR RACIAL EQUALITY!!!!

This week I wanted to talk to you about COMEDY and your personal friend LENNY BRUCE. Lenny Bruce took shots at racists. “Annabelle’s gone off and married a New York actor fellow.” Governor Faubus at his home would respond, “What is his name?” HARRY BELAFONTE!!! “Italian fellow, huh?” What laughs, and such a wonderful guy to nail, you know. I mean I am in for cruelty when you are making jokes about a guy like that.

I’ve been accused of bad taste, and I’ll go down to my grave accused of it and always by the same people, the ones who eat in restaurants that reserve the right to refuse service to anyone.

_

Lenny Bruce in 1959 on TV with Hugh Hefner

Gov Faubus in 1957 in Little Rock

 

HUGH, there was a dark side to Lenny’s comedy too. Lenny said, “All my humor is based upon destruction and despair. If the whole world were tranquil, without disease and violence, I’d be standing on the breadline right in back of J. Edgar Hoover.”

Bob Dylan in his song LENNY BRUCE wrote, “He’s on some other shore, he didn’t wanna live anymore, Lenny Bruce is dead but he didn’t commit any crime, He just had the insight to rip off the lid before its time.”    HUGH, do you have the guts to take a long hard look at the big questions before it is your time to pass on and I hope you come up with a positive solution instead of the nihilistic viewpoint that so many others in the secular world embrace. 

Francis Schaeffer quoted your good friend Woody Allen in his book WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? (co-authored by Dr. C. Everett Koop who I know you respected):

So some humanists act as if they have a great advantage over Christians. They act as if the advance of science and technology and a better understanding of history (through such concepts as the evolutionary theory) have all made the idea of God and Creation quite ridiculous.
This superior attitude, however, is strange because one of the most striking developments in the last half-century is the growth of a profound pessimism among both the well-educated and less-educated people. The thinkers in our society have been admitting for a long time that they have no final answers at all.
Take Woody Allen, for example. Most people know his as a comedian, but he has thought through where mankind stands after the “religious answers” have been abandoned. In an article in Esquire (May 1977), he says that man is left with:
… alienation, loneliness [and] emptiness verging on madness…. The fundamental thing behind all motivation and all activity is the constant struggle against annihilation and against death. It’s absolutely stupefying in its terror, and it renders anyone’s accomplishments meaningless. As Camus wrote, it’s not only that he (the individual) dies, or that man (as a whole) dies, but that you struggle to do a work of art that will last and then you realize that the universe itself is not going to exist after a period of time. Until those issues are resolved within each person – religiously or psychologically or existentially – the social and political issues will never be resolved, except in a slapdash way.
Allen sums up his view in his film Annie Hall with these words: “Life is divided into the horrible and the miserable.”
Many would like to dismiss this sort of statement as coming from one who is merely a pessimist by temperament, one who sees life without the benefit of a sense of humor. Woody Allen does not allow us that luxury. He speaks as a human being who has simply looked life in the face and has the courage to say what he sees. If there is no personal God, nothing beyond what our eyes can see and our hands can touch, then Woody Allen is right: life is both meaningless and terrifying. As the famous artist Paul Gauguin wrote on his last painting shortly before he tried to commit suicide: “Whence come we? What are we? Whither do we go?” The answers are nowhere, nothing, and nowhere.

Woody Allen and Hugh Hefner in London

 

To sum up Schaeffer is saying, “If man has been kicked up out of that which is only impersonal by chance , then those things that make him man-hope of purpose and significance, love, motions of morality and rationality, beauty and verbal communication-are ultimately unfulfillable and thus meaningless.” (Francis Schaeffer in THE GOD WHO IS THERE)
Image result for hugh hefner laughing
HUGH, you have been around the best comics in the world but HAS COMEDY PROVIDED YOU ANY ANSWERS? 3000 years ago Solomon pursued six “L” words in his search for the meaning of life and probing the area of LAUGHTER was one of his first places to start. In Ecclesiastes 2:2 he starts this quest but he concludes it is not productive to be laughing the whole time and not considering the serious issues of life. “I said of laughter, “It is foolishness;” and of mirth, “What does it accomplish?” (2:2).   Then Solomon  asserted the nihilistic statement in Ecclesiastes 2:17: “So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind.”

In the Book of Ecclesiastes what are all of the 6 “L” words that Solomon looked into? He looked into  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).

Schaeffer noted that Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes. The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.” This puts him in the same place that you find yourself. 

You are an atheist and you have a naturalistic materialistic worldview, and this short book of Ecclesiastes should interest you because the wisest man who ever lived in the position of King of Israel came to THREE CONCLUSIONS that will affect you.

FIRST, chance and time have determined the past, and they will determine the future.  (Ecclesiastes 9:11-13)

These two verses below  take the 3 elements mentioned in a naturalistic materialistic worldview (time, chance and matter) and so that is all the unbeliever can find “under the sun” without God in the picture. You will notice that these are the three elements that evolutionists point to also.

Ecclesiastes 9:11-12 is following: I have seen something else under the sun: The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favor to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all. Moreover, no one knows when their hour will come: As fish are caught in a cruel net, or birds are taken in a snare, so people are trapped by evil times that fall unexpectedly upon them.

SECOND, Death is the great equalizer (Eccl 3:20, “All go to the same place; all come from dust, and to dust all return.”)

THIRD, Power reigns in this life, and the scales are not balanced(Eccl 4:1, 8:15)

Image result for king solomon

Ecclesiastes 4:1-2: “Next I turned my attention to all the outrageous violence that takes place on this planet—the tears of the victims, no one to comfort them; the iron grip of oppressors, no one to rescue the victims from them.” Ecclesiastes 8:14; “ Here’s something that happens all the time and makes no sense at all: Good people get what’s coming to the wicked, and bad people get what’s coming to the good. I tell you, this makes no sense. It’s smoke.”

Solomon had all the resources in the world and he found himself searching for meaning in life and trying to come up with answers concerning the afterlife. However, it seems every door he tries to open is locked. Today men try to find satisfaction in learning, liquor, ladies, luxuries, laughter, and labor and that is exactly what Solomon tried to do too.  None of those were able to “fill the God-sized vacuum in his heart” (quote from famous mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal). You have to wait to the last chapter in Ecclesiastes to find what Solomon’s final conclusion is.

In 1978 I heard the song “Dust in the Wind” by Kansas when it rose to #6 on the charts. That song told me that Kerry Livgren the writer of that song and a member of Kansas had come to the same conclusion that Solomon had. I remember mentioning to my friends at church that we may soon see some members of Kansas become Christians because their search for the meaning of life had obviously come up empty even though they had risen from being an unknown band to the top of the music business and had all the wealth and fame that came with that. Furthermore, Solomon realized death comes to everyone and there must be something more.

Livgren wrote:

All we do, crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see, Dust in the Wind, All we are is dust in the wind, Don’t hang on, Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky, It slips away, And all your money won’t another minute buy.”

Take a minute and compare Kerry Livgren’s words to that of the late British humanist H.J. Blackham:

On humanist assumptions, life leads to nothing, and every pretense that it does not is a deceit. If there is a bridge over a gorge which spans only half the distance and ends in mid-air, and if the bridge is crowded with human beings pressing on, one after the other they fall into the abyss. The bridge leads nowhere, and those who are pressing forward to cross it are going nowhere….It does not matter where they think they are going, what preparations for the journey they may have made, how much they may be enjoying it all. The objection merely points out objectively that such a situation is a model of futility“( H. J. Blackham, et al., Objections to Humanism (Riverside, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1967).

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The rock group KANSAS

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Both Kerry Livgren and the bass player DAVE HOPE of Kansas became Christians eventually. Kerry Livgren first tried Eastern Religions and DAVE HOPE had to come out of a heavy drug addiction. I was shocked and elated to see their personal testimony on The 700 Club in 1981 and that same  interview can be seen on youtube today. Livgren lives in Topeka, Kansas today where he teaches “Diggers,” a Sunday school class at Topeka Bible ChurchDAVE HOPE is the head of Worship, Evangelism and Outreach at Immanuel Anglican Church in Destin, Florida.

YOU believe  three things. FIRST, death is the end and SECOND, chance and time are the only guiding forces in this life.  FINALLY, power reigns in this life and the scales are never balanced. In contrast, DAVE HOPE believes death is not the end and the Christian can  face death and also confront the world knowing that it is not determined by chance and time alone and finally there is a judge who will balance the scales.

Solomon’s experiment was a search for meaning to life “under the sun.” Then in last few words in the Book of Ecclesiastes he looks above the sun and brings God back into the picture: “The conclusion, when all has been heard, is: Fear God and keep His commandments, because this applies to every person. For God will bring every act to judgment, everything which is hidden, whether it is good or evil.”

The answer to find meaning in life is found in putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. The Bible is true from cover to cover and can be trusted.

Thanks for your time.

Sincerely,

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

PS: This is the 35th letter I have written to you and I hope you enjoyed your 90th birthday. However, I was sad when I read about the passing of your brother Keith. I know what a close friend he was of yours.

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HUGH HEFNER WAS A MODERN DAY KING SOLOMON AND I TOLD HIM THAT OVER AND OVER (PART 1) Letter from 6-6-16

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Image result for hugh hefner younger days

Over and over I have read that Hugh Hefner was a modern day King Solomon and Hefner’s search for satisfaction was attempted by adding to the number of his sexual experiences.

Jamie Francis noted:

 

A Modern Day Solomon

Hefner’s life sounds a lot like Solomon, the writer of Ecclesiastes, doesn’t it? The former King of Israel experienced many of the same pleasures as Hugh Hefner did, and it never completely satisfied him either. Their lives were strikingly similar, at least in Solomon’s early years. But Solomon learned from his folly, and wrote about what he learned. He passed it on through the written Word of God. Readers, pay close attention. Here is the some of the gold Solomon passed down……..

I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem as well—the delights of a man’s heart. I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me. I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure. My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun. (Ecclesiastes 2:8-11)

Many of the sermons that I heard or read that inspired me to write Hugh Hefner were from this list of gentlemen:  Daniel Akin, Brandon Barnard,Matt Chandler, George Critchley,  Steve Gaines, Norman L. Geisler, Greg Gillbert, Billy Graham, Mark Henry, Dan Jarrell, Walter C. Kaiser, Jr., R. G. Lee,  Chris Lewis, Kerry Livgren, Robert Lewis,    Bill Parkinson, Ben Parkinson,Vance Pitman, Nelson Price, Adrian Rogers, Philip Graham Ryken, Francis Schaeffer, Lee Strobel, Bill Wellons, Kirk Wetsell,  Ken Whitten, Ed Young Ravi Zacharias, Tom Zobrist, and Richard Zowie.

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In this letter below I quoted the sermon outline from Adrian Rogers when I wrote, “Hugh you remind me of Solomon because you are looking for  lasting meaning in your life and you are looking in the same  6 areas that King Solomon did in what I call the 6 big L words. He looked into  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).” I also quoted Ravi Zacharias when I wrote, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”

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Plus I quoted Francis Schaeffer concerning comparing both Leonardo da Vinci and King Solomon to what he called the UNIVERSAL MAN. I added Hugh Hefner and Ted Turner to the list of UNIVERSAL MEN because like Solomon  they had empires at their disposal, and with those empires they tried to find satisfaction and meaning from life and like Solomon they found life’s answers UNDER THE SUN unsatisfactory without God in the picture.

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In this letter of June 6, 2016 to Hugh Hefner, I also quoted from a book I read called BEEN THERE. DONE THAT. NOW WHAT? (THE MEANING OF LIFE MAY SURPRISE YOU) by Ed Young written in 1994. Below is the letter.

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 June 6, 2016

Hugh Hefner
Playboy Mansion  
10236 Charing Cross Road
Los Angeles, CA 90024-1815

Dear Mr. Hefner,

In the article MAKE LOVE NOT WAR  you asserted, “I had been promoting the basic premises that became the sexual revolution from the very beginning and from early 1960 with the Playboy philosophy…”

Hugh you are an universal man in a way since you have succeeded in business and are recognized throughout the world as a leader in the sexual revolution. However, have you found a lasting meaning?

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Below are the comments of Francis Schaeffer on Solomon and the Book of Ecclesiastes:

Leonardo da Vinci and Solomon both were universal men searching for the meaning in life. Solomon was searching for a meaning in the midst of the details of life. His struggle was to find the meaning of life. Not just plans in life. Anybody can find plans in life. A child can fill up his time with plans of building tomorrow’s sand castle when today’s has been washed away. There is  a difference between finding plans in life and purpose in life. Humanism since the Renaissance and onward has never found it and it has never found it. Modern man has not found it and it has always got worse and darker in a very real way.

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We have here the declaration of Solomon’s universality:

1 Kings 4:30-34

English Standard Version (ESV)

30 so that Solomon’s wisdom surpassed the wisdom of all the people of the east and all the wisdom of Egypt. 31 For he was wiser than all other men, wiser than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, Calcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol, and his fame was in all the surrounding nations. 32 He also spoke 3,000 proverbs, and his songs were 1,005. 33 He spoke of trees, from the cedar that is in Lebanon to the hyssop that grows out of the wall. He spoke also of beasts, and of birds, and of reptiles, and of fish. 34 And people of all nations came to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and from all the kings of the earth, who had heard of his wisdom.

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Here is the universal man and his genius. Solomon is the universal man with a empire at his disposal. Solomon had it all.

Ecclesiastes 1:3

English Standard Version (ESV)

What does man gain by all the toil
    at which he toils under the sun?

Solomon took a look at the meaning of life on the basis of human life standing alone between birth and death “under the sun.” This phrase UNDER THE SUN appears over and over in Ecclesiastes.

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The Christian Scholar Ravi Zacharias noted, “The key to understanding the Book of Ecclesiastes is the term UNDER THE SUN — What that literally means is you lock God out of a closed system and you are left with only this world of Time plus Chance plus matter.”

Hugh you have your sexual exploits just like Solomon did, but also you have thrown your efforts into your business too. Sadly Solomon also found the pursuit of great works in his labor just as empty. In Ecclesiastes 2:11 he asserted, “THEN I CONSIDERED ALL THAT MY HANDS HAD DONE AND THE TOLL I HAD EXPENDED IN DOING IT, AND BEHOLD, ALL WAS VANITY AND A STRIVING AFTER WIND, and there was nothing to be gained under the sun.”

Hugh you have been under the impression that all of your efforts have been an effort to pioneer something new.  But Solomon noted in Ecclesiastes 1:9, “What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done, and there is nothing new under the sun.”

Hugh you remind me of Solomon because you are looking for  lasting meaning in your life and you are looking in the same  6 areas that King Solomon did in what I call the 6 big L words. He looked into  learning (1:16-18), laughter, ladies, luxuries,  and liquor (2:1-3, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20).

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In the Playboy of August 1978 there appeared the interview, “Turner a candid conversation about big-time sports, sex, money and the media with Atlanta’s hip-shooting team owner and america’s cup winner.”

PLAYBOY: After college in Rhode Island, did you go to work for your father?

TURNER: Well, I was in the Coast Guard for six months first. Then I went into my father’s outdoor-advertising business. I had been putting up billboards with a hammer in my hand every summer since I was about 12, anyway. One summer, my father started making me pay for my room and board at home. Charged me $40 a month. When I complained, he suggested I look around town for something cheaper. So I stayed. But I admired my father a lot.

PLAYBOY: It wasn’t long before you took over the company, right?

TURNER: That’s right. My father committed suicide when I was 24 years old. Blew his brains out. I think he made the mistake of limiting his horizons. When he was a boy in Mississippi, he had told his mother that someday he would make $1,000,000. And when he did that, he had nowhere to go from there. When he killed himself, he was extended for about $5,000,000 or $6,000,000 and had assets of only about $2,000,000. But the situation was not hopeless.

PLAYBOY: How did you handle it?

TURNER: Well, just before he shot himself, he had actually sold the company. But I wanted to keep it. So I had to return the down payment, plus a penalty to the guys who had bought it, to annul the deal. Everybody said I was crazy. I could have taken that money and started something else. Those were very bad times in outdoor advertising. Television was killing billboards. 

Did you notice how Ted Turner totally missed the point of the question “How did you handle it?’ because the interviewer was really asking about the aftermath of Turner’s father’s suicide and Ted just told how he financially guided the company?  It seems money has blurred the Turners’ vision of what is really important in life  Ed Young will specifically comment on that later in this letter!!!!!

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(Clockwise from top right: Turner with his first wife, Judy Nye; his second wife, Jane Smith; and his father)

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Image result for Buhrman-Pharr Hardware

In 1983 I visited Buhrman-Pharr Hardware in Texarkana which was one of our customers here in Arkansas and the owner Stanley Jones told me a very interesting story about who his grand kids were.  His daughter was married to Ted Turner and his three grand kids lived in Atlanta. Since that date I have taken to read up on Ted Turner’s life and I came upon this passage in the book BEEN THERE. DONE THAT. NOW WHAT? (THE MEANING OF LIFE MAY SURPRISE YOU) by Ed Young written in 1994:

One of the world’s wealthiest men, Ted Turner, has amassed a personal fortune estimated to exceed $3 billion. In 1980, Turner confided to his business adviser that he had four great ambitions for his life: to turn station WTCG into a national network, to go into the movie business, to be the country’s wealthiest man, and to be president of the United States. 

Eighteen-year-old Turner enrolled in Brown University in the 1950’s and majored in the classics, to his businessman father’s disgust. While he did well academically, he was eventually expelled and went to work for his father’s business, Turner Advertising in Charleston, South Caroline. He married for the first time in 1960 and divorced his wife while she was pregnant with their first child. Two years later he married again. By this time, his parents had separated and in 1963, his father (a millionaire himself by age fifty) committed suicide and left the family business to his son.

Strategically building his empire one block at a time, Turner never looked back–or so it seemed. But in 1982, in front of thousands of Georgetown University students, the man who appeared bullet-proof exposed a deep, deep heartbreak: “In the middle of a rip-roaring speech about entrepreneurship, Ted pulled out a well-worn copy of SUCCESS magazine, the journal his father used to read to him in the car on those long trips to inspect their billboards. His own face was on the cover. His booming voice trickled to a whisper, and he stared up into the rafters: ‘Is this enough?’ he asked in a hoarse voice.’Is this enough for you, Dad?'”

If you have a love affair with money you will never discover true riches because you will never have them. If you have a love affair with money, you will not enjoy your meals as much or sleep as well as the man who does not share your mistress of mammon. If you have a love affair with money and horde it, you will do so at your own peril. And finally, as Turner’s father proved, if you have a love affair with money you will not have anything but money to leave your family–and you can be sure of one thing: it is as likely to hurt them as it is to help. 

Wealth does not last. That’s right. It doesn’t last. “As he had come naked from his mother’s womb” said Solomon, ” so he will return as he came. He will take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand. And this also is a grievous evil–exactly as a man is born, thus will he die. So, what is the advantage to him who toils for the wind?” (Ecclesiastes 5:15-16). 

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HUGH do you agree with fellow universal man Solomon that UNDER THE SUN there is no advantage for man when he toils for the wind? Naked we all came into the world and naked we will leave.

Thank you again for your time and I know how busy you are.

Everette Hatcher, everettehatcher@gmail.com, http://www.thedailyhatch.org, cell ph 501-920-5733, Box 23416, LittleRock, AR 72221

PS: This was the 39th letter I have written you and today I not only compared you to King Solomon but also to Ted Turner who took time at the peak of his success to give Playboy an in depth interview. Do you think Ted ever found satisfaction UNDER THE SUN when Solomon admitted that he certainly didn’t?

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( The Playboy Interview: Moguls eBook: Jeff Bezos, Playboy, Steve Jobs, Lee Iacocca, Bill Gates, David Geffen Malcolm Forbes Ted Turner)

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(A young Ted Turner with his father)

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