Luke 5: 17 - 26 
On one of those days, as he was teaching, there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. And behold, men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they sought to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. And when he saw their faith he said, "Man, your sins are forgiven you." And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, "Who is this that speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?" When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, "Why do you question in your hearts?  Which is easier, to say, `Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, `Rise and walk'?  But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins" -- he said to the man who was paralyzed -- "I say to you, rise, take up your bed and go home."  And immediately he rose before them, and took up that on which he lay, and went home, glorifying God. And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, "We have seen strange things today."

This is the second "Four Men" reading from the Gospel and is important because it shows that prayers and sacrifices for the conversion of a sinner(paralytic) will affect many others as well.  Your paralytics, will glorify God and help others to be saved just like you are beginning to do now.  Also amazement will seize everyone who knows the paralytic once he/she is healed(Spiritually or Physically) and converted.  Everyone who knows the paralytic and sees the change will glorify God and will be filled with awe saying, "We have seen strange things today."    As part of the Four Men prayer groups you will be able to help many more souls than just your paralytics. 
Praise Jesus
Keep up the Great Work, the work of bringing souls to Jesus,  
Big Brother #2 

The first Four Men Prayer Group was started almost two thousand years ago when they carried their paralyzed friend to Jesus for his healing.  Not only was their friend healed but his sins were forgiven which is a far greater miracle.  These Four Men I believe are in heaven, so today is their feast day as today is All Saints Day.  Why are they in heaven? 

Whoever brings back a sinner will save his soul from death
and will cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:20). 

Now this is Sacred Scripture, inspired by the Holy Spirit Himself and thus can neither deceive nor be deceived.  These Four Men are in heaven through their bringing back a sinner(the paralytic) to Jesus.  They all saved their souls from death and covered a multitude of sins. 

Why would Jesus be so generous as to save your soul just by bringing back a sinner to Him?

He Loves Souls, He died for them.  He poured out all His blood on Calvary to save souls.  He Thirsts for souls.  So not only do you help Him save the sinners(paralytic's) soul, you help Jesus save yours.  That is what he wants anyway.  He did not come to judge but to save.  
For God sent not his Son into the world, to judge the world, but that the world may be saved by him. (John 3:17)
 
He wants to save us all. 
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
(1 Timothy 2:4)

So the original Four Men prayer group are all in heaven today and we celebrate their joining in the company of Saints.  I believe all other Four Men prayer groups will follow the same path to heaven by bringing souls to Jesus,

Keep up the Great Work,
Big Brother#2

1 Machabees 12:10

Chose rather to send to you to renew the brotherhood and friendship, lest we should become strangers to you altogether: for there is a long time passed since you sent to us.

As Four Men brothers it is essential to stay in touch every once in a while to maintain the brotherhood(about once a month).  As a Big Brother don't forget to email or send a real letter or phone call if no email is available to keep the brotherhood, you will never regret it and the insights from the fellowship will help you stay the course. 

1 Machabees 12:17

And we have commanded them to go also to you, and to salute you, and to deliver you our letters, concerning the renewing of our brotherhood.

See they used letters to renew the brotherhood, now we have email but the principal remains, stay in touch, stay in the brotherhood of the Four Men.  Stay in the brotherhood of Jesus.

Romans 12:10

Loving one another with the charity of brotherhood, with honour preventing one another.

The charity which binds us to the One God, we honour each other in love and help us to stay the course.

1 Thessalonians 4:9

But as touching the charity of brotherhood, we have no need to write to you: for yourselves have learned of God to love one another.

The brotherhood is a brotherhood of Love.  Keep it so that we have no need to write to you.  Learn of God to love one another.

Hebrews 13:1

Let the charity of the brotherhood abide in you.

You get what you give, Give much love and you will receive much love.  Love will abide in you.

1 Peter 2:17

Honour all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the king.

Of course, Love the brotherhood.

1 Peter 3:8

And in fine, be ye all of one mind, having compassion one of another, being lovers of the brotherhood, merciful, modest, humble:

Again

2 Peter 1:7

And in godliness, love of brotherhood; and in love of brotherhood, charity.

And Again, love the brotherhood.

To all my Four Men brothers, Love the brotherhood, God Bless you and Keep you,
Big Brother #2

Black Ops: A popular video game involves the kiling of enemy forces.  Light Ops with the Four Men involves converting enemy forces through prayer and sacrifice.  The choice of a spiritual paralytic involves choosing someone who currently is far from God and bringing him to Jesus.  The devil is losing one spiritual paralytic at a time someone who he was counting on to populate hell.  We are storming the gates of hell and taking out our spiritual paralytics one at a time into the Kingdom of Light.  The ultimate Light Ops.  Salvation of Souls.

Keep up the great work,
In Christ,
Big Brother #2   

The Story of the Four Immortal Chaplains

USS (USAT) Dorchester

A convoy of three ships and three escorting Coast Guard cutters passed through "torpedo alley" some 100 miles off the coast of Greenland at about 1 a.m. on February 3, 1943. The submarine U-223 fired three torpedoes, one of which hit the midsection of the Dorchester, a U.S. Army troopship with more than 900 men on board. Ammonia and oil were everywhere in the fast-sinking vessel and upon the freezing sea. 

The four Chaplains on board, two Protestant pastors, a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi, were among the first on deck, calming the men and handing out life jackets. When they ran out, they took off their own and placed them on waiting soldiers without regard to faith or race. Approximately 18 minutes from the explosion, the ship went down. They were the last to be seen by witnesses; they were standing arm-in-arm on the hull of the ship, each praying in his own way for the care of the men. Almost 700 died, making it the third largest loss at sea of its kind for the United States during World War II. The Coast Guard Cutter Tampa was able to escort the other freighters to Greenland. Meanwhile the cutters Comanche and Escanaba, disobeying orders to continue the seach for the German U-Boat, stopped to rescue 230 men from the frigid waters that night.

The four Chaplains were Father John Washington (Catholic), Reverend Clark Poling (Dutch Reformed), Rabbi Alexander Goode (Jewish) and Rev. George Fox (Methodist). These four Chaplains were later honored by the Congress and Presidents. They were recognized for their selfless acts of courage, compassion and faith. According to the First Sergeant on the ship, "They were always together, they carried their faith together."  They demonstrated throughout the voyage and in their last moments, interfaith compassion in their relationship with the men and with each other. In 1960 Congress created a special Congressional Medal of Valor, never to be repeated again, and gave it to the next of kin of the "Immortal Chaplains."

Excerpted from the Immortal Chaplains Foundation website:
http://www.immortalchaplains.org/Story/story.htm

A Story of Four Men, find out what your immortal Four men can do, 
Praise Jesus,
Big Brother #2

Tom Hanks' Four Percent Solution

From his remarkable speech at Vassar College

Posted by Marion Owen, Fearless Weeder for PlanTea, Inc. and

Co-author of Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul

How many cars would you have to take away from California's crowded roadway to rid them of gridlock? A computer similation supplied the answer: four percent, or four out of a hundred. The study provided inspiration for actor Tom Hanks in a remarkable speech at Vassar College's graduation ceremony on May 22, 2005.

Here is Tom Hanks' speech. Read it. Print it out. Pass it on. Share it with others...

THE POWER OF FOUR

by Tom Hanks

Not long ago I was reading about the problem of gridlock on the freeways of Southern California--the traffic jams which cripple the city, stranding millions and laying waste to time, energy, and the environment. Gridlock is as serious and as impenetrable a problem as any we face, a dilemma without cure, without solution, like everything else in the world, it seems.

Some smart folks concocted a computer simulation of gridlock to determine how many cars should be taken off the road to turn a completely jammed and stilled highway into a free-flowing one. How many cars must be removed from that commute until a twenty-mile drive takes twenty-five minutes instead of two hours? The results were startling.

Four cars needed to be removed from that virtually stuck highway to free up that simulated commute... four cars out of each one hundred. Four cars per one hundred cars, four autos out of every one hundred autos, forty cars from each thousand, four hundred out of ten thousand. Four cars out of one hundred are not that many. Two cars out of every fifty--one driver out of twenty-five drivers.

Now, if this simulation is correct, it is the most dramatic definition in earthly science and human nature of how a simple choice will make a jaw-dropping difference to our world. Call it the Power of Four. One commuter in your neighborhood could put the rush back into rush hour. So, if merely four people out of a hundred can make gridlock go away by choosing not to use their car, imagine the other changes that can be wrought just by four of us--four of you--out of a hundred.

Take a hundred musicians in a depressed port city in Northern England, choose John, Paul, George, and Ringo and you have "Hey Jude". Take a hundred computer geeks in Redmond, Washington, send 96 of them home and the remainder is called Microsoft.

Take the Power of Four and apply it to any and every area of your concern. Politics: Four votes swung from one hundred into another hundred is the difference between gaining control and losing clout. Culture: 2 ticket buyers out of fifty can make a small, odd film profitable. Economics: by boycotting a product 1 consumer out of 25 can move that product to the back of the shelf, and eventually off it altogether.

Four out of 100 is miniscule and yet can be the great lever of the Tipping Point. The Power of Four is the difference between helplessness and help. H-E-L-P: a four-letter word like some others with many meanings.

The graduating class of 2005 can claim, with perhaps more credibility than any other class in history, that during its four years of college the world went crazy. In the fall of 2001, our planet earth and the United States of America were different sorts of places--in tone, in tolerance, in peace and war, in ideas and in ideals--than they are on this spring day in 2005. These past years have been extraordinary in the express rate of change, well beyond the usual standards of culture, well above the personal watermarks you have stamped as college students. As college graduates, you now live in a brand new world, with new versions of political upheaval, global pandemic, world war and religious polarization, the likes of which have rarely visited our planet all at once--and thank God for that.

Today's main purpose is to celebrate your entering into society, but the fact is you have all been very much steeped in it already- Poughkeepsie being the proxy and microcosm of the whole wide world. None of you were untouched by the events in September of your freshman year, none unaffected by the ideological movements of local and geo-politics since. All of you have been staring your individual fate and our collective future right in the eye for the last four years. The common stereotype would have you today, cap in the air, parchment in hand, asking yourself "what do I do now?" You, the class of 2005, have already had many, many moments during your time at Vassar when you asked yourself that question. You might have added the word 'Hell', or some such four-letter word to the phrase: "What the HELL do I do now?" In which case, today might not be all that different from other days on campus-- except your parents are here and they might take you out for better food.

On Commencement Day, speechmakers are expected to offer advice--as though you need any, as though anything said today could aid your making sense of our one-damn-thing-after-another world. Things are too confused, too loud, and too dangerous to make 'advice' an option. You need to hear something much more relevant on this day. You need to hear the most important message thus far in the third millennium. You need to hear a maxim so simple, so clear and evocative that no one could misconstrue its meaning or miss its weighty issue.

So, here goes. It's not a statement, but a request. Not a bit of advice, but a plea. It is, in fact, a single four-letter word, a verb and a noun which takes into account the reality of your four years at Vassar as well as the demands of the next four decades you spend beyond this campus.

It's a message, once made familiar by the Beatles--those Northern English lads who embodied The Power of Four.

Help. HELP. HEEEELLLLLLPP!

We need help. Your help. You must help. Please help. Please provide Help. Please be willing to help. Help... and you will make a huge impact in the life of the street, the town, the country, and our planet. If only one out of four of each one hundred of you choose to help on any given day, in any given cause-- incredible things will happen in the world you live in.

Help publicly. Help privately. Help in your actions by recycling and conserving and protecting, but help also in your attitude. Help make sense where sense has gone missing. Help bring reason and respect to discourse and debate. Help science to solve and faith to soothe. Help law bring justice, until justice is commonplace. Help and you will abolish apathy-- the void that is so quickly filled by ignorance and evil.

Life outside of college is just like life in it: one nutty thing after another, some of them horrible, but all interspersed with enough beauty and goodness to keep you going. That's your job, to keep going. Your duty is to help-- without ceasing. The art you create can glorify it. The science you pursue can prove its value. The law you practice can pass on its benefits. The faith you embrace will make it the earthly manifestation of your God.

Here at Vassar whatever your discipline, whatever your passion you have already experienced the exhausting reality that there is always something going on and there is always something to do. And most assuredly you have sensed how effective and empowering it can be when more than four out of one hundred make the same choice to help.

You will always be able to help.

So do it. Make peace where it is precious. Help plant trees. Help embrace diversity and celebrate differences. Help stop gridlock.

In other words, help solve every problem we face - every single one of them--with the Power of Four out of a hundred. Help and we will save the world. If we don't help--it won't get done.

Congratulations. Good luck. Thank you.

From To Hanks speech at Vassar College 2005
http://www.plantea.com/Tom-Hanks.htm

Start your own Four Men prayer group and realize the POWER OF FOUR,
Keep up the Great Work,
In Christ,
Big Brother #2