No One to the Right

I’ve been thinking a lot about my complete lack of human role models.

The Bible says a number of things about God making himself a father to the fatherless. What does “fatherless” mean, though? Does it mean you don’t know your biological father? Does it mean he ran off? No. It just means no one is doing a good job of performing the functions of a father for you.

A father’s job is to correct and train. Someone has to tell you to get out of bed in the morning, get cleaned up and dressed, go to school, and work on becoming a functional human being. Someone has to tell you you’re not allowed to listen to rap music or leave the house in yoga shorts. Someone has to tell you no one respects a slut or wants one for a wife. Fathers are teachers.

My parents didn’t do a good job. My mother had the best intentions possible, but she didn’t know the Holy Spirit, and her own parents had their shortcomings. My dad was not interested in raising children. A lot of kids spend time with their parents, absorbing wisdom and values. Many parents make a constant effort to pass wisdom on, and because of it, their kids do well and avoid foolish mistakes. My parents didn’t teach me much, and I made terrible mistakes that wrecked my life.

It gets worse.

I have never known anyone who knew how to live a godly life. America is a dirty, trashy place now. What passes for righteous living in 2016 would have been scandalous in 1950. The people around me aren’t very useful in my efforts to improve.

Let me give you an example of what I’m talking about. I just turned on the cable box. I have plain old Comcast cable. Nothing weird or special. Here’s what’s showing right now on channel 541: “Rough, Raunchy 3some.” The other movies on the guide screen have titles too gross to mention. “Rough, Raunchy 3some” is an island of wholesomeness in the mid-500’s. The others mention orifices and fluids.

I’m a Christian, and this is in my house. I’m so used to ignoring it, I don’t think about it.

I mentioned yoga shorts above. Until yesterday, I didn’t know they existed. I went to the grocery, and I saw a teenage girl who looked like she had stripped naked and painted her pelvis black. I’ll bet she was about 15. She was wearing yoga shorts. These are extremely thin, very clingy shorts that stick to every feature of the wearer’s surface so strangers can see it. A hundred pairs probably weigh less than a pound.

As young girls who don’t know any better will do, she was making the most of her exhibition. She found it necessary to bend over for long periods and squirm while examining the fresh vegetables. Somehow I manage to pick out leeks without doing that, but then I’m special. I was in line at the checkout stand, and I stood so magazines were between us. Hooray for The National Enquirer.

This is normal life in 2016.

Imagine what would have happened if that girl had popped up in a store in 1950. They would have thrown her out, and she might have been arrested. Which would have suited me just fine. She is not a helpful person.

Guess what I heard over the speakers in the store? Prince’s song, “Little Red Corvette.” The title is a metaphor for a slutty woman’s genitals. Read the lyrics. They will make you gag.

I remember watching Steve Munsey preach at Trinity Church in Miami. What a nasty old goat. He was teaching the boys about the way to treat women. He said, “You can look; just don’t touch.” When he said that, he leered in a creepy way, held his hands out in front of him at face level, and made a gesture as if he were squeezing two oranges.

I am completely serious.

See if you can imagine what he might have been thinking about.

The truth is that you can’t look. He should have known that, but he’s all about money, not virtue. You can’t avoid seeing people, but it’s not okay to keep your eyes on them and fantasize.

We are swimming in filth all the time. Most people don’t really believe in God, and their behavior is out of control. When you go to church, you’re likely to have a preacher who knows just about nothing about living righteously. When we come home, if we want to enjoy secular entertainment, we have to make on-the-fly decisions about how much nudity and blasphemy is acceptable.

My parents didn’t know how to live. I don’t know any preachers who know how to live. I don’t have any friends who know how to live. I am fatherless, but for God.

This is important, because God is showing me that what I think of as a clean Christian life is actually an unclean existence. If I want to know him and receive his help, I have to stop living like someone who doesn’t belong to him.

Take a look at 1 Corinthians 6:9-10:

Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God.

Here is Revelation 21:7-8:

He who overcomes shall inherit all things, and I will be his God and he shall be My son. But the cowardly, unbelieving, abominable, murderers, sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars shall have their part in the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, which is the second death.

Look at that list. Why haven’t we memorized that and turned it into a checklist? Cowardliness is on it. Did you know that? How many Christians go to God and try to be delivered from cowardice? Most of us probably think it’s a virtue. We probably equate it with meekness.

The “kingdom of God” is something we’re supposed to receive right here, not just in heaven. If you’re living in the kingdom, you get the promises. You get miracles, healing, peace, provision, victory…the things we talk about constantly but don’t seem to receive. We don’t lead clean lives by God’s standards, so it’s no wonder we die from diseases God wants to heal. It’s no wonder ungodly people defeat us all the time.

We have to try to have clean lives, and we have to examine ourselves all the time. This is what communion is about. Paul said that if you don’t examine yourself when you take communion, you may get sick and die. How many times have you heard a preacher repeat that? I haven’t heard it once. I had to find out for myself. Refusal to come clean before God causes defeat, sickness, and death.

I keep asking God for correction. I ask him to criticize me. He’s coming through. I keep learning about new pockets of corruption inside me. He keeps showing me my excuses, which are as deadly as AIDS viruses. Excuses prevent us from receiving forgiveness and help. Think how other people’s excuses make you feel; it makes sense. Excuses don’t make you want to work with people.

It’s overwhelming when I think of the evil I’ve done and the evil inclinations that are still inside me. I shouldn’t be surprised. That’s how strongholds are. The devil builds them up, and then he says, “Look at the size of that. You’ll never get rid of it.” And we believe it.

I don’t have good human teachers or role models. Not a single one. I’ve quit listening to preachers. They’re crazy as they can be. I have to get closer to God and get his help in illuminating my faults and destroying them. There is no other way. He has to be my father. Fortunately, he sent his Holy Spirit to do the heavy lifting for me. That’s the kind of thing a good father does. A good father won’t condemn you for doing wrong without helping you do right.

When the Rapture comes and lifts us up, iniquity will be like lead that weighs us down. You can’t walk on the water if you’re carrying a millstone. Time is short. We need to be thinking about these things. I really do not want to be stuck down here with no good people to stand with me.

Going to church and trying to be good won’t save you, and money offerings won’t even budge the needle on the Rapture meter. You have to give God your heart and mind, and you have to get his help in order to do it.

By the way, I had another strange dream. I was about to get in the shower, and I heard a commotion out in the house. I tried to go out and check on it, but when I got into the hallway, there were no doors. Also, the hallway was not like my actual hallway. It was made better. The walls were sturdy plaster and lathe. It was painted a warm off-white. The light in the hallway, which had no windows, was like sunlight. I was stuck there for a while. Then I found myself standing with my hands in front of me and my eyes closed, and I felt a beautiful, warm, comforting wind blowing in my face. It filled my hands and washed over my body.

Suddenly I was out. I found myself in the parking lot of a company that sold used cars, like the restoration and hot rod companies on the Velocity Channel. The company had a couple of buildings; maybe a showroom and a shop. Two people who worked there–the bosses–were walking from one building to another. They were oddly dressed, as people from the bike/car culture often are. One wore a strange outfit that left his legs bare to the crotch, and he wore big goggles and a colorful scarf on his head. He had a ridiculous cape. He had long hair and a beard. Both men wore clothes with colors you would expect to see on clown costumes. They were racing from one building to another, but they were moving so slowly you could jog past them. The guy in the goggles was raising his knees very high on each step, more like an actor in a comedy than a real human being.

I stood there while they made fools of themselves, enjoying the wind. It felt peaceful. I was protected. I felt more comfortable than I had ever felt. I had never felt anything like it.

I woke up, and I was lying face down on my bed, with my hands in the same position as in the dream. The strange thing is that I still had the peculiar supernatural comfort. I felt like I was lying on a cloud. I didn’t want to move. Ordinarily, I don’t feel anything approaching that level of physical comfort.

Here’s what I took away from it. I spend a lot of time praying in tongues, which means I cleanse myself in living water, like a shower. I make some effort to take part in society, but God restrains me and keeps me in a safer, better place, like the hallway. The preachers I deal with are posers and clowns whose churches are businesses and who think mainly about money and attention. They think they’re making progress, and they compete against each other for acclaim and wealth, but in reality, they are barely getting anywhere. They have the ethics of used car sellers. Car restorers take rusty, broken-down cars and fix the outside while leaving rust and jagged welds all over the inside. There is really no such thing as a rusty car restored to new condition. Charismatic preachers sell old, wrong doctrine that looks good from afar, but when you get close, it’s painted excrement.

I look forward to the dreams God sends me. They’re pretty neat.

Think about where you stand and what benefits you qualify for. That’s what I’m doing. And don’t forget: the Rapture will not be announced in advance. You’ve had all the warning you’re going to get. If the horn blows and you’re not ready, you are just stuck.