VIVA LAS VEGAS (For God So Loved Las Vegas)

 Greetings and Salutations O Ye Bright Lights City fans...

If you hopped in your Way Back Machine with Mr. Peabody and Sherman (on the Rocky and Bullwinkle show in the 50's and 60's) and set the machine to 1964...you would have seen me...coming back from Camp Boxwell (Boy Scout Camp).  You would see me in a car with a bunch of fellow scouters...at a three way stop sign on Kingwood Drive in Murfreesboro TN...listening to WGNS...and hearing a brand new Elvis song called VIVA LAS VEGAS.  I was 13 years old at the time and an avid Elvis fan.  That song was electrifying to me.  Fast forward to April 25th 2013...and I am 61 years old (going on 62)...and on an airplane with Brenda...flying out to Las Vegas for a relaxing weekend in SIN CITY.  You know the saying..."What goes on in Vegas...stays in Vegas".  Of course...like James Bond had a "license to kill"...those who come into Las Vegas...have a "license to SIN." 

NOTE:  There are many people who live in Las Vegas...many people who work in Las Vegas...and many people who visit Las Vegas who are not overt sinners.  There are churches and synagogues...and many good people living in Las Vegas and the surrounding area.

Our Las Vegas experience was a mixture of fun and excitement shrouded by by a sense of sorrow. 

When we flew into Las Vegas...the first sign that we were descending into a different world...was the fellow passengers.  The plane was filled with an eclectic group of people with kids and parents...groups of guys headed to Sin City for a bachelor party...a group of ATT employees going to town for a convention...me and Brenda for a quick getaway to unwind and destress.  Sitting next to me...was a girl headed into Vegas for the ATT convention...who started out as a quiet girl...with a short dress that kept riding up to where the imagination was not needed...and silicon enhancements.   As we flew...she kept drinking...and you could watch her inhibitions lower...and she became more boisterous.  She took up a conversation with one of the group of guys headed to their bachelor party and loudly began talking about partying in Sin City...getting arrested in Vegas...getting "lucky" in Vegas, etc.  After departing from the plane she and they disappeared into the airport...stopping to play the slot machines.

NOTE:  The airport was filled with row after row after row of slot machines...for the opportunity to either strike it rich or lose your money before you entered the city.

By day...interesting looking city...by night...a neon jungle with electricity in the air.  We went to our hotel, unpacked...and headed out for a four hour tour of HOOVER DAM.  Wow... what a fascinating bit of history.  It was more than just a historical monument...but a tribute towards the ingenuity of man and a tip of the hat to the American spirit.

We came back and set out for a stroll down the Vegas strip.  It was glitz and glamour...as we walked through the Old Vegas on Fremont street and down New Vegas...one hotel/casino after another.

On Saturday we had a nice breakfast at The Peppermill.  We walked there and past by a lady sitting on the ground...who asked for spare change...and I gave her some money but stopped and talked with her and heard her story...and asked to pray for her.  A little money and a prayer seemed so inadequate but when we past by Maria...she smiled real big and blessed us. 

Back into the night a little later on...again...the glitz, the glamour, the flashing neon lights, the electricity in the air draws you in...as we walked the streets.  Show after show after show were drawing people into the various hotels.  When you walk in...you are immediately in a beehive of activity of slot machines, blackjack tables, poker, roulette wheels, drinking, revelry.  My mind goes to the song Viva Las Vegas:

Bright light city gonna set my soul...gonna set my soul on fire
Got a whole lot of money that's a ready to burn...so get those stakes up higher
There's a thousand pretty women way out there
And their all living the devil may care
And I'm just the devil with love to spare...Viva Las Vegas

How I wish that there was more...than the 24 hours in a day
Caus even if there was 40 more I wouldn't sleep a minute away
Oh there is black jack and poker and the roulette wheel
A fortune won and lost on every deal
All you need is a stone heart and nerves of steal...Viva Las Vegas

NOTE: And the song goes on and on...with the catch phrase...VIVA LAS VEGAS

The advertisement for Vegas now days not only includes "what happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas"...but also touting that Vegas is "family friendly" diluting the mobster, sex, gambling, drinking nature of the inner city.

Again...Brenda and I had a good time in Las Vegas...and we really don't care if what we did in Vegas stays in Vegas or not.  I did see a billboard on the way to the airport that said, WHAT HAPPENS IN VEGAS...IS KNOWN IN HEAVEN.

Hey...sin is sin...if you are in Murfreesboro Tennessee...or Las Vegas.  It is more in your face in Vegas...but we tend to hide our sins a little better back home. 

One verse popped nto my mind...that speaks of the nature of sin...that if indulged in...progressively becomes more blatant as our inhibitions are lowered...by either alcohol or by being surrounded by people who don't care.  It is found in the book of PRO-VERBS (the book of positive action in a negative world).  "This is the way of an adulterous woman (can be applied to men also...after all it takes two to tango)...she/he eats and wipes her mouth and says...I HAVE DONE NO WICKEDNESS." (Pro-Verbs 30:20 The Amplified Bible)  Combine that with James 4:17..."So any person who knows what is right to do but does not do it, to him it is sin." (James 4:17 The Amplified Bible)

The solution for SIN in Las Vegas is the same solution in Murfreesboro Tennessee, Kenaya Africa, Iquuitos Peru, Jerusalem Israel...or any other place in the world SIN IS SIN...and God's Grace Gift (G.G.G.) is the same for Adoph Hitler, Larry Flynt, Billy Graham, Mother Theresa, Rodney Boyd etc.

"For God so greatly loved and dearly prized the world that He [even] gave up His only-begotten (unique) Son, so that whoever believes in (trusts, clings to, relies on) Him shall not perish--come to destruction, be lost--but have eternal (everlasting) life.  For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge--to reject, to condemn, to pass sentence on--the world; but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him.  He who believes on Him--who clings to, trusts in, relies on Him--is not judged (he who trusts in Him never goes up for judgment; for him there is no rejection no condemnation; he incurs no damnation)....  But he who does not believe (not cleave to , rely on, trust in Him is judged already; (he has already been convicted; has already received his sentence) because he has not believe on and trusted in the name of the only begotten Son of God.  He is condemned for refusing to let his trust rest in Christ's name." (John 3:16-18 The Amplified Bible)

FINAL THOUGHTS...FINALLY

Las Vegas is known as SIN CITY...but SIN CITY is in any city that has SINNERS.  Lord, help me not be judgmental and condemning for others...but help me to pray for them and love them as God demonstrated His love towards them.  "But God shows and clearly proves (demonstrates) His [own] love for us (sinners) by the fact that while we were STILL/YET SINNERS Christ , the Messiah, the Anointed One, died for us." (Romans 5:8 The Amplified Bible with my emphasis)

Love and Viva Kisses
Rodney "Viva Las Heaven" Boyd