Remember the Warsaw Ghetto

I think I’m starting to understand the anti-civil-rights hysteria that resulted in Obama’s soon-to-fail gun ban efforts.

All of this stuff has a supernatural root. We don’t pray for godly leaders, and we think we can get by with a little prayer here and there, instead of relying on God. We want to keep our dirty TV channels and dope and extramarital sex. We don’t want to give so much of ourselves to God that it actually has a cost. So God withdraws his protection.

Satan is real. He IS the Antichrist. He’ll have a human puppet some day, in whom he concentrates his power, but Satan is the hand in the glove. He hates America because on the whole, we have been God’s people. We’ve done missionary work. We’ve promoted Christianity and Christian values. We’ve fought sin. We’ve been somewhat helpful to the Jews. The rest of the world is pretty much lost, but in the US, Christians have been able to thrive. Satan wants to put an end to that.

Satan loves killing God’s people and taking away their ability to communicate. In the Old Testament, he tried to exterminate the Jews over and over. He tried to prevent the Messiah from being born. After the crucifixion, he destroyed Israel, scattered the Jews, and arranged for the imprisonment and murder of Christians. In ages past, he corrupted the church itself and used it to kill Jews. During the Holocaust, he built huge parodies of the temple and used them to kill and incinerate Jews and devout Christians.

Satan is raising an army in the US. He calls it Anonymous. He calls it “anti-bullying.” He calls it Islamism and Occupy Wall Street. He is growing a horde of people who rally around separate causes which have the same underlying, hidden goal. He is giving these people power to limit and oppress Christians and Jews, and in the future, he will use them to take what we have and kill us, just as he used their forebears in Rome and Holocaust-era Europe.

We are weak in the Spirit. The church itself blasphemes, calling tongues “gibberish” and “demonic.” We’re told we have to earn what we get, and that God doesn’t do miracles any more. We’re told it’s normal when he doesn’t answer prayer. We’re corrupted and weakened with iniquity; our chronic sins give the enemy the right to afflict us. We are not very good at defending ourselves using God’s preferred tools. But we do have guns. And it would be very helpful to Satan if those guns were taken away before we find our real weapons.

Which physical weapons does the enemy hate the most? High-capacity weapons. Why is that?

Historically, Satan has worked through mobs. He raised a mob of idiots against Moses during the Exodus. He raised a mob to slaughter the Jews under Ahasuerus. He used mobs to commit pogroms and other anti-Jewish crimes. Now, with the aid of technology, his use of mobs is getting more adept. If Anonymous or the jihadis don’t like you, they can come at you with computer attacks. If your neighbors envy what you have, they can coordinate through Facebook, Twitter, or even Craigslist and descend on you like locusts.

Mob crime is going to be the crime of the future. And to fight a mob, until you have a strong relationship with the Holy Spirit, you will need semiautomatic or automatic weapons with large magazines. You’re not going to have much hope if you rely on a seven-shot pistol or a double-barrel shotgun.

A time will come when mobs will gather at the homes of Christians and Jews, and the police will deliberately take their time to respond, or they’ll refuse to come at all, or they’ll participate in the crimes. When that age dawns, we’ll see robbery, murder, beatings, and rape (of men and children, not just women) on a new scale. And if Obama and his minions get our high-capacity weapons, we’ll be as helpless as Lot was in Sodom. He couldn’t defend himself against a gang of homosexual rapists, so the best response he could come up with was to offer his daughters. And the rapists rejected that offer, which is a good demonstration of the effectiveness of appeasement (the approach liberals recommend).

If you have a weapon with a puny magazine, a mob will be able to plan a way to beat you. It will be easy for them to come up with ways to waste your ammunition. If you have a couple of AK-47s with full magazines waiting, it will be another story. In the future, high-capacity guns will save Christian and Jewish homes and lives.

We need to get strong in the Spirit. But until we have that strength, we need to take the advice Jesus gave the pre-Pentecostal disciples. We need to own and carry weapons. If not, history will repeat itself. The slaughter in Egypt. The murders in Bethlehem. Saul’s murders of early Christians. Pogroms. The Holocaust. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising. It will all happen again.

Speak out against the attacks on our civil rights. That’s important. Give to the NRA. Wear an NRA shirt once in a while. But while you’re doing all that, pray. Make sure you pray every day that we will not be disarmed.

Satan is going to raise up more maniacs to shoot up schools and churches. He’ll do his best to make the gullible public think high-capacity weapons cause crime. We know this is coming; he’s already doing it. We need to pray for God to thwart these people, and for him to use civilians with high-capacity weapons to do it. The attack is supernatural. If we don’t respond with supernatural power, we have no chance of winning.

The press will be against us. For a long time, it has been Satan’s voice. It extols abortion, homosexuality, fornication, and just about everything else we know is wrong. It holds liberalism out as the philosophy of the pure. In its way, it portrays Lucifer as an angel of light, and it portrays the followers of Jesus as backward, ignorant, hateful fools who prevent peace and prosperity from breaking out. If we don’t pray, we will be seen the same way the Jews were seen in Holocaust-era Europe. We will be thought of as human vermin. “Responsible for all the world’s problems.” “The cause of all the world’s wars.” They already tell us about the mythical millions who have been killed by Christians, while ignoring the real millions killed by leftists who hate religion.

Pray for victory over the blind. Our God is stronger than theirs, and he has promised us that when a people turns to him, he will heal their land.

NEXT CHALLENGE!

I got my latest musical composition whipped into shape. I want to make it longer, but the basic idea is finished.

It’s a really sad piece. It makes me think of the way believers are going to have to leave others behind. I named it “Out of Sodom.” Maybe I’ll come up with a name I like better.

I put it on Youtube, with a bunch of photos I hope are in the public domain.

I’m starting to feel like I’ll be able to write good music whenever I want. Things are breaking loose.

It’s so great to be able to do the things I’ve always wanted to do. God opens doors, redeems, and restores.

Follow the Pillar of Fire

I want to pass on a little advice. It’s a piece of knowledge that has been useful to me.

As many Christians know, the Bible is like the Constitution (or any other set of laws). It provides many benefits, but you won’t necessarily receive them unless you apply. It’s like the Fifth Amendment. The cops can’t question you after say you want an attorney, but if you don’t assert your right, they’ll question you anyway. There are many things God will do for you whether or not you ask, but on the whole, it’s best to make your needs known and stand on God’s promises.

Here’s a promise which is particularly useful: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the Lord upholdeth him with his hand.” That’s Psalm 37, verses 23 and 24. It’s clearly a general promise available to all. It doesn’t say “a good Jewish man” or “a good man who sacrifices at the temple” or “a good man with freckles.”

Lately, I’ve been bringing this promise up in prayer, more than once a day. I ask God to honor it until the next time I ask. I believe prayer is like manna in that you shouldn’t rely on yesterday’s ration, so I think it’s important to ask repeatedly and not to expect the prayer to keep you going for the rest of your life. There are some things you only have to ask for once, or which you can stop asking for, once God confirms he will do what you want, but it pays not to take chances.

I remind him of similar promises. The Bible says that when your father and mother forsake you, the Lord will take you up. It says you will hear his voice behind you, telling you which way to turn. It says he will lead you in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

I also ask God to lead my enemies onto the points of their own swords and to hold them there until they repent.

What I’ve found is that when I make this request, things go better. There is less dead time in the day. I get things done. I spend less time goofing off or wandering in confusion. Life is more organized. There is less stress.

This prayer got me over the hump with CAD software. As I wrote earlier, I’m finally able to use it. And it has also led to greater musical productivity. I’m getting all sorts of good melodies written down. I really think I’m going to get to the point where I’ll be selling music. It’s going to be good enough to publish. That’s amazing. Music can be extremely lucrative. You only need one successful work to keep you fed and clothed when you’re retired.

I suggest you try asking God for guidance, daily. See what happens.

I’m very excited about music, because I’ve come to realize that writing music requires the same gift as cooking. It’s really no different. When you write recipes, it comes from inspiration. You’ll be sitting around thinking about other things, and suddenly you’ll imagine a flavor or a texture, and the way to create it, and you’ll write it down and try it. Your imagination tells you what will taste good, and your work only serves to confirm it. When you write music, melodies that “taste good” to the ear come into your mind, and all you have to do is write them in musical notation. If it sounds good, it IS good. That’s the only test.

I find that God is as willing to give me tunes as he is recipes. And here’s one great thing about music: you don’t have to make a mess in order to create it. You don’t have to drive to the store and buy food. You don’t have to wreck the kitchen. And when it’s done, you can preserve it forever, and you can email it and publish it with very little effort.

I don’t know how I would go about finding a market for music, but I’m sure there’s a way. When I have a portfolio built up, I should be able to do something with it.

I consider myself a writer and a creator of music. I think those are the things I should focus on. The other stuff is great, but I believe it deserves less priority. No one will ever pay me to run a lathe, and no one will ever draw closer to God while listening to me make a pizza.

I’ll put up the piece I’m working on now. I was shooting for something resembing a spiritual, but it has more of a classical sound. I love classical music. There’s no reason why I can’t enjoy writing it. I know it’s not fashionable, and composers are expected to come up with inventive new forms of music no one can stand to listen to, but only a moron would say the genre is exhausted. There is a lot of classical music, but only some of it is truly great. There is still a big need to fill. I’m always frustrated because my favorite composers (Chopin, Debussy, Rachmaninoff, and Beethoven) didn’t leave more work, and I’m sure other people feel the same way.

Chopin actually had some of his works burned when he died. Unbelievable.

This piece isn’t done. It’s very short, and there are lots of things I may want to do with it. But it does show that things are going well.

12 31 E Minor Piece

Get connected to the power supply and see what God will do for you. I think he is leading a lot of people out of the spiritual dark ages.

Can Aaron’s Rod Become a Fish?

Back in November, Perry Stone told about a dream a young woman had. This girl was under one of his ministries. She saw a blue fish being swallowed up by a big red fish. Stone had a strong impression that it was a prophetic dream, and he speculated that it might have something to do with the election. Red swallows blue.

We all know how that turned out.

Since then, he has been trying to figure the dream out. He says maybe red symbolizes leftism, as it has for quite some time.

I’ve noticed something about God. When he answers prayer, sometimes he gives you what you expect, but very often, he gives you what you asked for, in a way you don’t recognize at first.

Quite honestly, I think God enjoys popping Satan in the head from unexpected directions. Satan can’t predict the future, and God can, and I believe God likes fooling Satan by doing the unanticipated. The universe is a war zone, and in war, you generally don’t tell your enemy what you’re doing. You make him guess wrong, so he’s never prepared.

Maybe the dream was prophetic. Perry Stone is not perfect, but he knows the Holy Spirit. He is no idiot. If he thinks a dream is prophetic, you should listen, because he is probably–PROBABLY–right.

The dream suggested that conservatives would swallow up leftists in America, and the obvious thing was to conclude that it was about the election. Judging by the polls and by the confident descriptions of the GOP ground game, it looked like Romney was more likely to win than Obama. Romney was genuinely surprised that he lost. It was an unanticipated result.

We didn’t get what we expected. Does that mean the dream was wrong? That may be the case, but it may be yet another example of God keeping his enemies (and followers) guessing.

The current hysteria over gun control may carry the seeds of a reawakening.

There are a lot of centrist and conservative Democrats who vote stupidly, especially in the South and in the plains states. They don’t see the importance of having three branches of government which are aligned in purpose, so they don’t realize it’s suicidal to vote for Democrats who seem to share their values. If there are 60 Democrats in the Senate, and 12 are conservative, the Senate will be under the control of far-left Democrats. The 12 conservatives won’t matter much. And a Democrat President will get a rubber stamp whenever he wants it. And a Democrat President will appoint many, many insane liberal judges to lifetime positions. These judges, not Congress, will determine what the laws say.

People who don’t understand the importance of voting their beliefs do understand this: it’s very bad to be disarmed. Mob violence is increasing. The threat of government oppression is very real. Economic disaster is likely to spawn riots and looting before too long. Many people who vote for Democrats are very determined to hold onto their guns. Now that a gun-control propaganda campaign is sweeping the nation, it is conceivable that sleepwalking conservatives who vote Democrat (or skip voting) might wake up and switch sides.

Gun control is very unpopular. People like background checks, but they do not want registration (which is primarily intended as a means of obtaining lists for future confiscation), nor do they want laws which limit their arms so badly that they are ineffective. Important Christian interests such as the rights of the unborn and the preservation of Israel blow right by many conservatives, but, selfish things that they are, they’ll take notice when you come after their right to defend themselves.

You can’t vote for “free” Obama phones, extended unemployment benefits, and other tax-funded goodies without voting for gun confiscation. There is no line item veto at the polls. If you want the candy, you have to take the laxatives, too.

The Fiscal Cliff fight shows how weak the GOP has become. They gave up a great deal, and in return, they received virtually nothing. They got a promise to negotiate later, which means they didn’t get anything at all. They got the right to hear the Democrats say “no” again.

Now the extremist Feinstein is pushing a horrible bill that would utterly gut our Second Amendment rights. It doesn’t just go after fully automatic rifles or even high-capacity semiautos. It goes after your humble Glock 17. It contains registration and confiscation provisions. It’s very bad news.

What I wonder is this: given that the GOP is so feeble now, can we dismiss Feinstein’s shameful attack on our civil rights as hopeless?

It’s extreme, even for a Democrat, but so was the Fiscal Cliff deal Obama rammed down Boehner’s helpless gullet. So was Obamacare.

Maybe the gun-haters will get some traction in the near future, and it will snap people out of their complacent comas. And maybe other Democrat threats and failures will pile up and stun people awake.

God knows most Americans don’t care about the murder of the unborn. We don’t care about perverted “marriages.” We don’t care about Israel, or about laws forcing religious organizations to pay for abortions. Maybe he’ll use guns–something we care about–to help us understand how stupid we’ve been. And if that happens, the fish dream might turn out to be predictive.

Or maybe the dream means nothing.

One thing is for sure: focusing on the political side of things is a huge mistake. It’s like looking at the hands of a clock. We should be looking at the gears and springs that move the hands. Everything that happens in the natural world has a supernatural cause. We complain about the political policies of our leaders, and carnal conservatives think the answer is to increase our voting base by giving up our Christian morals. Let the gays in. Let the enemies of the unborn in. Drop Israel. That’s incredibly stupid. For one thing, when we open the floodgates in order to overcome the voting advantage of our enemies, we become like our enemies, so the purpose is defeated. For another, our blessings and success come from God, not votes, and if he’s not helping us now, he’s definitely not going to help us when we turn our backs on him.

Every day I pray for God to strike down the ungodly in the US and Israel, and among Jews and Americans everywhere. I ask him to help them turn to him and repent, but I ask him to find those who won’t repent in a reasonable time and take away all that they have. Their power. Their wealth. Their prestige. I ask him to make them ridiculous in the eyes of the public, so people won’t imitate them. And I ask him to pour his Spirit out on a generation of Spirit-filled, praying, God-centered believers who will do his will. I ask him to give them what he takes from the ungodly, and to raise them up before the public so they become role models people want to copy.

This is what will fix America. All the carnal whining and dancing will just make things worse. Remember what the Psalms say: “Fret not thyself in any wise to do evil.” Don’t let nerves make you turn from God and try to fix things with your own hopeless, weak tools. You will only make things worse. That psalm (#37) also says to cease from anger and forsake wrath. This is a hard thing to do when it comes to politics, because the things our adversaries do are so wretched, and it’s so tempting to ridicule and insult them. No one knows that better than I do; my history is full of errors. I still get mad and say things I shouldn’t. But getting angry at our political foes is like getting angry at a sword instead of the person swinging it. It will just draw us further into defeat.

Satan raised the left up against God’s people. That was smart. Even smarter, he is convincing conservatives that they have to abandon God in order to win. This is classic Satan. Cause a problem. Blame God. Reap a harvest of duped souls.

One of the greatest lessons God has taught me is to turn to him whenever anything important happens, good or bad. Satan knows that some people turn away from God when things go badly, and others turn away when things go well. When you have problems, the last thing you should do is give up on God; he’s the only way out. When things go well, you should live in terror of forgetting God, because as soon as you think you don’t need him, you will begin to lose his favor and protection. These days a negative event drives me to concentrated, prolonged prayer, and a big blessing drives me to spend time in thanks and praise. I do NOT want to end up like the ancient Jews who ran to false gods in response to both blessings and problems.

I quit giving money to political causes. I think it’s like putting bandages on wounds that haven’t been cleaned. We can fix this nation, or at least parts of it, but the only way to do it is repentance and concentrated, prolonged, mass prayer. We need a large number of godly individuals to pray for the defeat of the ungodly and the advancement of God’s servants. If we take this path, God will help us stand our ground, if only in “Jesusland,” and we’ll get a good measure of protection and success. If we continue to resort to carnal tactics, we’re going to turn into our enemies, and there will be no reason for God to protect any part of the US. If Lot had joined the orgy, he would have been burned up with the Sodomites.

If we don’t get with it, they’re going to kill us in the streets. It may be twenty years from now, but it will happen. We will have no country to which we can retreat. Israel can’t absorb us, and there are no other nations that serve God. We’ll be like Jews in prewar Germany and Austria. We should be building up our borders with prayer and repentance instead of moaning about the need for a big tent. Working to include ungodly people is like begging for cyanide.

Pray for God to break the teeth of the ungodly among Americans and Jews, and to close their mouths. Pray for him to raise up a generation of powerful leaders and believers. Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world, so we can’t fix the entire globe, but there is no reason we can’t establish a stronghold of considerable size.

Observations From the Life of a Runaway Slave

More stuff is breaking loose in my life.

For as long as I can remember, I’ve wanted to be able to use tools. I wanted to be able to fix things and make things. A few years ago, I started making it happen. I got a table saw, milling machine, lathe, welder, and a bunch of other stuff. I’ve enjoyed it tremendously, but it seemed like I was being restrained. I was never able to make myself come to terms with CAD software, and there were essential things I chose not to buy, because I was cheap.

Over the last couple of months, I’ve returned to the workshop. I’ve spent some money; a low four-figure sum. I picked up a few little things that made things much, much easier, and plans I had put on the back burner are beginning to come to fruition.

I also got started with CAD. Og and other Internet friends gave me advice about this a few years back, and I tried a few things, but I got nowhere. It was very frustrating. I’m not going to say what my IQ is, but it’s sufficiently high that you would think mastering a piece of software would not be beyond me, and I was completely confused. I could have fixed the problem by spending tons of money on training, but I already felt a little queasy about the money I had spent on tools.

A few weeks back, I started looking at the programs again. Og had recommended Allycad and Alibre Design, and I looked into other things, like Turbocad, Autocad, and Draftsight. I wanted 3D, because I don’t need the aggravation of trying to picture a pile of 2D drawings as an assembled machine, so I ruled out simple, free programs.

I signed up (again) for a free Alibre trial, and once again, I was utterly flummoxed. I could barely draw a line. If you ever want to fully grasp the meaning of the word “counterintuitive,” try this software, or any CAD software. Alibre publishes a book of step-by-step exercises, and I downloaded a few pages, but it turned out the book is completely obsolete. It goes with a user interface which bears little resemblance to the current version and is currently unobtainable. I was going to give up and get Turbocad, plus training, but then I found the Youtube video that appears below.

That guy does everything wrong. Anyone who produces training videos knows that you go step-by-step, and you include every detail. He doesn’t do that. He flies, and he leaves things out. And it WORKS. Watching the video, I managed to draw an oddly-shaped tub with chamfered edges.

That was a breakthrough. Using what I had learned, I was able to go through the first three exercises in the Alibre book. I managed to translate the old interface into the new. Here’s a useless and unrealistic part I created (but did not design).

I say it’s useless because you can’t really attach the flat piece to the handle and axle that way. If it’s a press fit, the thickness of the metal can’t go to zero around the inserted portion of the metal, and there is also nothing there to allow a real-world weld. But that doesn’t matter. I drew it successfully, so now I have a foothold in the world of CAD. I’m ordering the rest of the design book. And I bought the program, which, “coincidentally,” was on sale for 50% off this week.

This may seem unimportant, but it’s a huge leap. The actual work you do when you make things is of trivial importance. What really matters is the design. Most of the act of creation is mental. The actual cutting and welding…that’s just housekeeping. I would rather design a thousand parts and make one than make a thousand and design one. If I can use CAD, I can exercise my creativity, and I can keep the results forever.

You can do all sorts of stuff with CAD. I don’t know much about it, but my impression is that you can send designs by email, print them, use them in patent and product submissions, have parts made from them, and even send them to machines that crank the parts out for you. Compared to anything that existed thirty years ago, that is godlike power.

So I’m happy about that. And I’m getting interested in 3D printers. They make actual parts from sturdy plastic, at a cost which is not prohibitive for a hobbyist. My gut tells me that as the technology advances, ordinary CNC may go the way of manual machining. Who knows what they’ll be able to do with lasers and plasma in the future? Today it’s plastic. Tomorrow, you may be able to cut metal on a printer, in your own house. And prices are dropping. In ten years, everyone will have a 3D printer, or they’ll have them at Home Depot, to be engaged at affordable prices.

This is exciting. It gives individuals a level of control they’ve never had before. Democrats are already wetting their pants over it, because it will make home gun manufacturing easier. There isn’t one thing they can do to stop it. They can pass laws, but we all know how well gun control laws work. And the First Amendment will guarantee that people will be able to pass designs around.

Sooner or later, technology is going to make us so powerful that Democrats are going to have to give up on controlling the means and look toward improving the man. And only God can do that.

I am not interested in printing guns, but the possibility shows how powerful the new technology will be. The printing principal is packed with potential. It provides mankind with a type of leverage that rivals the mental augmentation of computers. In fact, it’s the reason computers exist. If we couldn’t print circuits, the PC would be impossible.

So the CAD thing is good news.

Here’s another thing: I’m getting more original music. I used to have a constant flow of variations on existing tunes, but I wasn’t really able to write original music. Common sense told me the same gift had to be the source of both types of music, but it wasn’t happening for me. Lately, that has changed. I get original tunes more and more often. I got several over the last few days, and they’re not bad. Composition is like cooking with sound, so if you know what tastes good to the ear, you should be able to write good music. I’m going to write some worthwhile stuff, if God stays with me.

I used to be bummed out because I didn’t receive original tunes. Now I realize there’s a new danger. Soon I’m going to receive more tunes than I can finish. What do I do then? I keep reminding myself that it’s better to waste than to want.

It’s wonderful to be able to budget and economize, but truthfully, I don’t think that’s what God intended for us. I think he wanted us to live in such abundance that things would serve us, instead of lack that requires us to serve things. If you have too much, you can focus on what you’re doing. If you have too little, you have to focus on getting more. You shouldn’t serve the dollar; the dollar should serve you. I would rather have more than I need and have to give things away or even throw them out than not have enough. It’s better to receive a hundred tunes and write three than to receive and write one.

Here’s a hard thing to accept: God is not against waste. Or at least, he reckons waste differently than we do. That’s my opinion, based on my observations. Consider the loaves and fishes. Did God pass out just enough? No, he gave the people so much, they had baskets of scraps left over. Consider Solomon. God gave him so much, he really didn’t know what to do with it. Consider the way America used to be blessed. We fed the world, and then we let crops rot, because we had no place to put them. God told the Jews not to harvest every square foot they planted. They were ordered to leave crops untouched, in case the poor wanted them. What we call “waste” is a symptom of abundance.

This principle is found over and over in the Bible. We are told that he who waters will be watered. We’re told that being stingy will make us poor. We’re told that when we’re asked to carry something one mile, we carry it two. God ordered the Jews to give up about 14% of every work week, plus holidays, in times that were very, very hard, when every penny counted. I believe we’re supposed to have and give more than we need. Otherwise, there will always be gaps that aren’t filled.

I don’t think God wants me to work hard. I think he wants me to have ample time to pray and minister every day. I believe that every hour I spend in prayer saves me hours of work, just as the sabbath made the Jews more successful. And I think God is going to give me many more tunes than I can complete. I am an heir, and this is how heirs live. Our cups run over, our yokes are easy, and our burdens are light. Or God is a liar.

I think excessive devotion to work is a Satanic notion. It seems very natural to expect people to earn things. The problem with that is that God wants to give us things that are greater than what we can earn. I believe we limit him when we insist on earning.

Think of the beggar the disciples healed. They didn’t ask him to do their laundry or make a pilgrimage on his belly. They touched him and healed him, for nothing, and he got the use of his legs back. If he had had to earn that, he would have stayed on the ground for the rest of his life.

A while back, some Obama underling told the press the Bible said, “God helps those who help themselves.” Clearly, this person was not familiar with the Bible. The Bible does not say that. It says you shouldn’t be lazy. But it doesn’t say blessings come primarily by, or with the prerequisite of, great effort. Not unless you’re cursed.

Adam didn’t earn the title to the earth or his life of ease in Eden. Noah didn’t earn preservation in the Ark. Lot didn’t earn his angelic rescue. Samson didn’t earn his strength. Gideon didn’t earn his improbable victory. These examples are shown to us to make us understand that faith, submission, and humility are what bring us blessings and power.

Offhand, I can only think of one person in the Bible who thought he had earned his blessings, and that person was Job. And God set him straight, but good.

Satan wants us to think we have to earn things. With this lie, he gets us to devote way too much time to work and way too little time to prayer. And then we don’t get what he promises. For example, you may get rich, but your family may be messed up because you weren’t around to pray for them and teach them.

Prayer is job one. I’m sure of it. Quite literally, prayer is an investment. It is the seed God gives the sower, and in your season, you will get the harvest.

I feel much freer than I did before. I feel like the restraints are being removed. In ignorance, I buried myself in curses, but God is washing me clean and killing their effects.

Spend time praying in tongues every day. Try to make it add up to at least an hour. And pray for God to guide your steps, leading you to the experiences you need to have. Good things will happen. It may take time, as a tree takes time to bear fruit, but it will happen.

Rain is in the Forecast

I can’t keep up with all the things that are happening, but I’ll try to capture a few. Ruth at Rockport Conservatives wanted to hear about a revelation I had.

I had a wild experience at church yesterday, but the foundation was laid earlier in the week. I was sitting around thinking about the book of Daniel, and I wondered why it said God sent an angel to “close the mouths” of the lions. If I had written the book, it would say something like, “God crushed the lions with big rocks,” or, “God transported the lions into the emperor’s bathroom while he was using it.” Why close their mouths? If I had been Daniel, I would have been pretty nervous, sitting in a stinking pit all night with lions who were completely capable of eating me, had they chosen to open their mouths.

I thought about another part of the Bible. Psalm 63 says, “the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped.” And in many places, lions symbolize spirits and possibly human beings who are hostile to God’s people. Psalm 34 says, “the young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” Samson killed a lion effortlessly, and later, he took honey from its dead body. In the New Testament, Satan is compared to a roaring lion, wandering the streets, looking for people to devour, and the word translated “devour” is “katapina,” which is also used to mean “drown.” I didn’t consider all of these things at that time; some, I am discovering as I type this.

It seemed to me that when the angel shut the lion’s mouths, he was showing what God would do for us. He would shut the mouths of those who try to destroy us with floods of evil words. A lion’s roar symbolizes these words, which are intended to be disproportionately loud and scary.

And sure enough, yesterday, the Holy Spirit took over, and my pastor started talking prophetically, and he mentioned Daniel, saying God would defeat those who spoke against us in the coming months. He said enemies were going to rise against us, but that we would win by walking by faith.

It was pretty crazy. I was considering all this, and suddenly, I heard a nice hook for a song. It came into my mind. I had to leave the room to record a few notes on my phone. When I came back in, he was pointing at one of the singers, and he was telling him God had said the singer was going to write music. He said he was going to write “new songs” for God.

At that moment, my second complete piece of music was sitting on the stage behind the worship leader. I had dropped it off for him before the service.

I don’t think it’s a coincidence that when God describes what lions do, he uses a word that means “drown.” The Bible uses water to symbolize speech. Words are the most powerful tools there are. It may not be clear, but it’s true. Every war started with words. Every great weapon was designed using words. Jail sentences are just words. If enough people speak against you, bad things will happen to you. Look at people like Dan Quayle and George Zimmerman. Goebbels was right. The power of evil speech is very great. If enough people say the same thing, justice and the facts will make no difference.

When God drowned Pharaoh’s army, it symbolized the damage his word would do to Satan’s kingdom, in time.

Look at the man who made the video which was falsely blamed for the Benghazi attack. There are still people today who believe the lies our President and his people told. That man ended up in jail. The slanders were so strong, no one cared when the President had him investigated. It turned out he was guilty of a probation violation, but that would never have come to light, but for the improper investigation, which was motivated by a lie. But for the lie, he would be a free man, regardless of his probation problems.

If you think about it, the real lions in Daniel’s story were the people who had him cast into the pit. More fundamentally, they were the spirits that motivated these human pawns:

It pleased Darius to set over the kingdom one hundred and twenty satraps, to be over the whole kingdom; and over these, three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them, so that the king would suffer no loss. Then this Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him; and the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm. So the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom; but they could find no charge or fault, because he was faithful; nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, “We shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God.”

So these governors and satraps thronged before the king, and said thus to him: “King Darius, live forever! All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisors, have consulted together to establish a royal statute and to make a firm decree, that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days, except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. Now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing, so that it cannot be changed, according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter.” Therefore King Darius signed the written decree.

They sought to find “some charge” against Daniel. What is a charge? Words. Daniel hadn’t done anything wrong, so it was necessary to change the law–words–in order to come up with a club they could use to beat him. The conspirators said words to Darius, and he said words which became law. Then those words were used to put an innocent man in a pit with hungry lions. Unarmed, as Second Amendment activists should note. Gun control is imposed through words.

My pastor told us we would be rewarded for confronting our enemies, and that our rewards would depend on how great the enemies were and the extent to which we walked by faith. So, like Samson, we will profit from overcoming our lions. They will try to harm us, but they’ll end up sweetening our lives and doing our work for us.

We should have known this already. The Bible demonstrates this principle over and over. Esther. Moses. Jesus. Abraham. The enemy does his best to kill innocent people who are precious to God, and he ends up shooting himself in the foot. God gives his people victory, and after the battle, they’re more blessed than they were to begin with.

I think this is why Jews tend to do well. I realize not all Jews are successful, but on the whole, they are very prosperous. Lies come against them over and over, and sometimes they suffer terrible violence, but they are not going to disappear, and they will probably become more and more prosperous before the Messianic Age begins. I think they’ll suffer badly outside of Israel, as will real Christians, but I believe Israel is going to continue to get stronger.

Christians don’t have the same promises Jews have. God is going to bring the Jews through the fire no matter what. Weak Christians, on the other hand, don’t seem to have much protection. It seems like we have to be stronger in faith in order to do as well. I think this explains America’s economic decline. We are becoming a second-tier power because more and more of us are slandering and belittling God. We welcome demonic influence. Everybody wants to be bad. We are opening our gates, and the lions are coming in.

We’re being swallowed from within, by the words of our enemies. They close over our heads like water. Gun control. Global warming. Gay marriage. Anything that will diminish our prosperity or power or take us farther from God. We hear it constantly, and the TV heads nod in unison, because there is CONSENSUS. Like the psalm says, “The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.”

Like the Nazis, they clothe themselves with righteousness. They’re not pro-perversion; they’re anti-bullying. They’re not anti-prosperity; they’re pro-environment, pro-labor, and anti-poverty. They’re not anti-Semitic; they’re pro-”Palestinian.”

It’s all a load of horse manure, but people buy it, and as a result, the water is rising around us. We can’t stop it. We can’t BEGIN to stop it. Only God can stop it. But we shut him out. So he waits. Will we drown, or will we let him come in and shut the lions’ mouths?

I think most of us will drown. Most of us feed and pet the lions.

The angel closed the lions’ mouths. The Jewish word for fasting means “cover the mouth.” It means to put a hand over your mouth or obstruct it, just as the angel put his hands over the lion’s mouths. We should be starving our lions, but we’re doing our best to breed them as big as we can.

If God let Hitler kill six million Jews, and if he himself killed the entire human race, excluding one family, he will definitely let the Guy Fawkes crowd cut Christian throats on American streets. Keeping us safe is not God’s job. It’s ours. He preserves a remnant. The safety of the rest is our problem. He will not step in unless he is made welcome and his enemies are shown the door.

From dealing with a relative who is consumed with evil, and from practicing law, I’ve learned that there is no relief from liars while they’re alive. A determined liar (or an honest advocate who is allowed to present only one side) can argue about anything. The facts are irrelevant.

I recently read a book by a lady who claimed she had visited hell, and even there, the damned were lying. They told Jesus they had changed completely, and that they were ready to go to paradise. When he smoked them out, they cursed him. I believe that’s completely realistic. That’s how people get to hell in the first place. Why would they stop once they arrive? Blame humanity. Blame Jesus himself. Slander God. Slander everyone before you take a single honest look at yourself. If you’re like that, you can’t be fixed. You’re stiff-necked, like a defective clay vessel that has already been fired. The only thing left to do is to get rid of you, like the pottery that ended up in Gehenna. So you go to hell, and then eventually, hell goes into the lake of fire, and…the mouth of them that speak lies is stopped. As Psalm 63 says.

Determined liars are like flies. They bite over and over, and you have to keep swatting them. Maybe this is why the Bible calls Satan the Lord of the Flies. It also calls him the Lord of Dung (or garbage), signifying that he only controls people who are going to be discarded. It’s a terrible thing to say, but one of the great blessings of paradise is that these people, and the doomed spirits that run them, will not be there. The flies will be dead, and the just will finally have some relief.

My advice is to get on board, receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit, work to confront and root out your faults, and try to get close to God. I don’t think you will be safe anywhere else.

Meanwhile, Have a TV Dinner

Today I’m fixing pizza at a friend’s birthday party. Should be fun. But I have to admit, lately I’ve started to realize I’m not getting a huge ROI on the things I do for people.

I don’t think I’m generous by nature. Whatever progress I’ve made has been through prayer and effort. I’ve managed to improve a lot. But over the last few weeks it has occurred to me that there are only two people on earth who ever do anything for me. That’s surprising. I don’t think of myself as a martyr or a victim, but it would be nice if someone occasionally gave me a little help, just so I could relax for a short time.

If I need to lift something, I use a hoist, not a friend. I never borrow. I rarely ask for prayer. There are some things I just don’t do, because I would need help. Part of it is my own fault; I don’t ask much. But I know people are not anxious to help.

I know a lot of people whose calls, texts, and emails are usually preludes to requests. They usually contact me because they need things. That’s okay; one of my purposes on earth is to give. But it’s also good to hear from people when they don’t want anything.

This year I didn’t cook on Christmas or Christmas Eve, apart from two steaks for my dad and me. I was too tired. When the holidays roll around, I spend days working so people can show up, do almost nothing, provide almost nothing, and leave without cleaning up. This year I enjoyed being alone on Christmas Eve, watching machining videos. I felt like I was playing hooky.

My parents and grandparents didn’t teach me much, but every so often, one of them said something worth remembering. My grandmother told me that people would always let me continue doing more than they did. They will never say no. That was a valuable insight.

My former church was all about taking. I keep getting more revelation about this. The vast majority of the time, when they talked to the core members, they were pushing them to do more to promote the church. And promoting Trinity Church means promoting the family that runs the church. They didn’t talk all that much about ministering or praying. They said we had to get out there and Tweet and Facebook, to get people to show up, volunteer, and give money. We had to help them get publicity. We had to fill, fill, FILL those seats. It was never about love or grace. It was never, ever about helping people. It was always about using carnal means to pump up the church and help some of the pastors–the ones in the family–succeed.

I don’t think they’ll ever promote any of the other pastors in any meaningful way. I’ve never seen them do it. Maybe I’m wrong. They give them a little bit of promotion here and there, and one of them is more or less in charge of a small branch church that used to be the main building, but not one of them is on the same level as the family.

They’re going to keep using these pastors, and they will keep them small, until they get fed up and leave. Then they’ll pull the same game on whoever replaces them. That’s what I think. Any preacher or performer dumb enough to think those people will help him succeed deserves to remain a slave.

I have a friend they’re trying to con into staying at the church. The other day I pointed something out to him. I asked him how often they talk about his needs and how often they talk about what he can do for the church. They love saying, “We NEED you, bro.” They love that unpaid labor. But when people have problems, they generally don’t help. Once in a while, they do. But there are always strings attached. A sale isn’t a gift. And if God isn’t blessing your church, it doesn’t matter how many underprivileged kids you can con into working for you. It will not work. You should set them free to work at a church which is profitable to God.

A church exists to serve, not to be served. Trinity does not care about the people who worship there. They preach constantly about what people can do for them, and the pretext is that serving Trinity is the same as serving God. How many thieves and pimps on TBN have gotten rich off that same grift? You can serve a church every day all of your life and never serve God. Unless the church serves God, those who serve it serve the devil.

I have been thinking about this in relation to marriage. As I wrote the other day, I went crazy and put up profiles on a couple of dating sites, and the results were actually frightening. They keep sending me obese women who are older than I am. Some normal women have started to appear in the feed, so maybe they try to move the stubborn products first. Not great marketing.

Anyway, two people can get a lot more done than one. One of the purposes of marriage is to provide ONE person you can call on and rely on. God only gave us two hands. Once in a while, it would be nice to be able to say, “Can you handle this for me?”

Our relationships with God are marriages, so I think the issues I face are like the ones he faces. People moan and whine about the things they need (or just want). They don’t ask God what he needs. They take, take, take. And here is this ruined world, which we have turned into a septic tank. There is so much that needs to be done. No wonder he doesn’t listen when we pray for Gucci shoes instead of Ferragamo.

God doesn’t get many of the hot chicks and sought-after bachelors. He gets the least-desirable applicants. The divorcees and widows. The Bible flat-out says the smart and the successful don’t make up much of the body. He gets people who aren’t bright or capable. Like the strange men he gave Gideon; they didn’t even know how to drink water.

It would be nice to go to a party and do nothing except enjoy myself. I wonder if God feels that way. He is the most cheated, abused, slandered being in the universe. There ought to be some way to fight that.

The Papers are Already Drawn Up

I’m starting to wonder if we understand marriage.

A guy appeared on Sid Roth’s show a while back. His name is John Benefiel. He teaches that we have “married” evil spirits such as Baal and Ashtoreth, and that we need to be divorced. Something like that. I am not going to watch the whole thing again and take notes. The upshot appears to be that, like any spouse, an evil spirit who is married to a human has rights. If you get rid of them and exercise your rights, obstacles in your life disappear.

He also says we can loose angels to help us.

I suppose it will be a surprise, but I agree with him, to an extent. I don’t believe in talking to angels. That’s idolatry, or at least it has been throughout history. Magic and occultism are basically ways to command angels and demons. The Bible complains about human beings worshiping “the host of heaven.” Satan, an angel, offered Jesus all sorts of things in exchange for worship. In effect, he offered to be his genie (from the Arabic “djinn,” which means “demon”). In order to get his kingdom, Jesus had to turn him down.

I know of no scriptural example of a righteous person commanding an angel. I won’t fool with it.

The marriage stuff, though, that has me thinking.

What is marriage? It’s not sex. If you have sex with someone, you can walk off immediately afterward and never speak to that person again. Generally, that person will not get any power over you. Marriage is different. According to Paul, in a marriage, each spouse gives the other authority over his or her flesh. See 1 Corinthians 7:4. In a marriage, a woman takes a man’s name, which means she derives her authority from him and can use his wealth. She relies on him. She gives him (in an ideal universe, not this one) unrestricted access to everything about her. It’s a little bit like becoming a slave, except that the partnership is more like 60/40 than 95/5.

If you sin, you give spirits claims on you, just like a woman who marries a man. They may serve you to some extent, bringing you pleasure and so on, but you will be the subordinate member of the relationship. They will have authority over your flesh. They will be able to influence your behavior. In extreme cases, like drug addiction and possession, spirits take away free will. In possession, they take over completely, replacing you as the operator of your body.

It’s funny, but people are becoming more and more like demons. “Respectable” people now do what demon-driven convicts used to do. They cover themselves with convict tattoos, and they wear little convict chin beards. They shave their heads like convicts. And what do they call people they want to dominate? “Bitch.” That’s Satan’s word for “wife.” It’s a person you humble, degrade, and control. In the vilests sense, you enter them, and their struggles enhance your pleasure. Thirty years ago, men didn’t call each other “bitch.” I think the workings of the supernatural realm are becoming exposed, as we get farther from God.

Odd thing: when dogs couple, they become attached temporarily. During that time, it’s impossible for the female to get away. Free will is gone.

What does Jesus want? Marriage. He calls us the Body of Christ and the Bride of Christ. He says there will be a wedding feast. He wants authority over our flesh, and he pursues it through the baptism with the Holy Spirit, which is what evil spirits are imitating when they try to control or possess us.

The story of creation is a story of two beings who fight for control of your flesh. God wants you to give him control through consent. He will fill you with the Holy Spirit and guide you in various ways, but you will always be able to say no. Satan will try to convince you to consent to control, but he will also trick you into giving up free will, so he gets control without your express agreement. He comes in through the window or however he can. Jesus comes in through the front door, after telling you exactly what he is.

We beg for spirit marriage from the days we’re born until the days when we give ourselves to Jesus. I didn’t say “when we accept salvation,” because most people who accept salvation want to continue serving themselves and Satan while they’re on earth.

We beg for spirit marriage through sin and iniquity. We’ve become so ignorant, we actually believe that evil things we do to open the doors are good. We think pride, excessive ambition, lust, greed, aggression, and cruelty are positive things, because they help us get ahead in life and they bring us fleeting pleasures. We work hard at becoming what the Bible says we should not be, and in the process, we tear down the walls that protect us from spirits that want to enter and control us. We invite them in and prepare a feast, when we should be working to keep them out. They’re like rats. Would you prepare a meal for a rat? Three months down the road, you’d have a hundred rats.

When I was younger, I actually worked at being less good. I had some good traits that worked against me in the secular world. I tried to be more aggressive. Nastier. Less honest; honesty had caused me a lot of problems. I tried to be less clean sexually. I practically advertised, looking for supernatural rats to come aboard. Now I work to get them out. And I shouldn’t say “work,” because the stuff that works is prayer and speech. It’s easy. I use God’s supernatural power. I filled the Augean stables, and only the river of the Holy Spirit’s living water will get them clean.

In the Bible, we don’t see a whole lot of stuff about declaring things in God’s name, or other ways of using language to fight our battles. I think some people go overboard, making claims God won’t back up. They declare this or that, or they “take authority” over things they can’t really control. They challenge Satan directly, by name, which seems like a really bad idea. But the Bible proves we can bless and curse, and we can order common spirits out of our lives and out of the lives of others, if our authority is strong. So I think Benefiel is right when he says it’s good to formally divorce spirits that screw up your life.

Much sickness and defeat comes from sin. It comes from making yourself the wife of a bunch of spirits who are associated with sin. If you’ve invited these creatures in, they have a right to be there, and they may have the right to give you cancer, wreck your marriage, or prevent your prayers from being answered. Maybe you need to declare a divorce.

I’ve learned that the Bible is like a statute book. It’s full of promises a powerful authority will enforce. But they don’t necessarily work before you claim what’s yours. It’s like the Constitution. The Constitution is well over 200 years old, but jails are full of people who would be free, had they exercised the rights it grants. In that way, jails are like hell.

You need to know your rights, and you need to enforce them. Remember what God said through Hosea? “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.”

I believe ancient people knew much more about the supernatural than we do. That knowledge has been piddled away. Every so often, God brings some of it back to us, and we piddle it away again. But if you pray in the Spirit every day, even if the people who came before you didn’t teach you what they should have, God will bring you revelation and tell you things you should already know. I believe this is what God meant when he said, “When my father and my mother forsake me, then the Lord will take me up (Psalm 27).” Our parents and ancestors failed us, but God is there to restore.

I think it also refers to non-Christians who infuriate their relatives by becoming Christians, but that’s another story.

The Trinity is confusing, but one thing is clear. The throne room of God is a court. The Bible points out that spirits appear before God and make their cases. Consider the book of Job, for one example. Jehovah is the judge. Even Jesus has to make requests of him, like a lawyer. He is the final arbiter. What if you’re praying to be healed of cancer, but a spirit can appear before Jehovah and say, “This person ‘married’ me willingly and has not cast me out, so I have the right to stay and give him cancer. His flesh is my flesh, and I have authority over it, as Paul said”?

This has been on my mind for a few days. It sounds reasonable to me. Jesus has a body, or bride, in the earth. So does Satan. We are expected to “marry” Jesus, so our relationships with Satan and his underlings must be similar. In fact, we “marry” little insignificant human beings, giving them power they should not have. We let them abuse and use us. Can we complain, if we give them title?

There may be great power in this. This may be the correct explanation for demonic occupation and influence. It may explain what “casting out” is all about.

Jesus told us we could not plunder a strong man’s house unless we bound him first. He also told us we are houses. “Binding” is a verbal thing, done in the name of Jesus, using his authority. It may be that in spite of your faith, you are like a home full of squatters who need to be shown the door.

When I pray for people to be healed, I always pray that God will cleanse them of any sins or iniquities that cause their illnesses. This offends people. I don’t care. We know for a fact that many illnesses are the result of sin or iniquity. We have to address that. It may be that if you’re stuck waiting for the answer to a prayer, you need to rid yourself of the guests you’ve allowed to block God’s help.

I would not follow Benefiel’s teaching and “loose angels” to help me. Seems to me that if your goal is to drive spirits out, you don’t want to turn around and invite new ones in.

Here is good evidence that this is right. It’s a longer quote from Hosea: “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge, I will also reject thee, that thou shalt be no priest to me: seeing thou hast forgotten the law of thy God, I will also forget thy children.” Here you can see that choosing not to KNOW God (which is a term related to marriage) will cost you his protection and his ear. And because you have no knowledge, you will not be able to help your children. You will forsake them, as Psalm 27 says, so only God can take them up and restore them.

Interesting stuff.

Marvel at my Video Skills

Here is the more-or-less final version of my second original composition. I decided to name it New Dawn, after my church, and after what I think God is up to in the world. I had to use Youtube. Couldn’t figure out any other way to put in on Facebook. Hope you like it.

Psalms 37:4
Zechariah 4:6

Yenta 9000

I had a funny experience yesterday.

Actually, it started last week. My music teacher was all bummed out because he and his girlfriend had broken up. I started telling him he should get out there and see what’s available. Check out the Christian dating sites. No point in sitting around moping.

A few days later, I realized I was telling him to do something I will not do for myself. Arrgh.

Just to see what was out there, I signed up for a couple of sites. I’ve tried this before, but the results were pretty scary. I guess I never learn. Something about the “scientific” approach appeals to me.

Last time I tried this, the first person they sent me was a beautician with no education. Now, before you get started, I realize there are smart people out there who haven’t been to college. I don’t write people off that quickly. But a computerized service should! If you show up with a physics degree and a law degree, and the FIRST person they send you barely made it through high school, it does not inspire confidence. Out of the five zillion women out there, surely the computer could have found one who was less risky.

Anyway, yesterday, I checked my “matches.” There were very few, and a whole bunch were OLDER than I am. OLDER! Not “nearly as old.” Not “same age.” OLDER. OLDER. OLDER. And this was after I told the machine not to do it! MOST of the women were my age or older.

You know what? It’s normal for men to date women somewhat younger. It’s unusual for men to be attracted to women who are older. That’s a fact of life. God wired it into us. If you don’t like it, send him an email. God gave us Ruth and Boaz, not Ruth and David.

I also specified just about every body type except for huge, including women from 4’8″ to 6’1″, and they sent me several obese women. OBESE! AND OLDER!

You know, I don’t care who calls me shallow. I will never date an obese woman. I don’t care if she has the fourth-greatest personality in history, next to the Holy Trinity. Call me whatever you want. I’m not doing it! A couple of extra pounds, on a woman who can carry it…not a problem. But food addicts are a real pain to be around. They ruin furniture. It seems like they’re always standing in doorways and hallways so you can’t get past. They’re awful to sit beside on planes and in theaters. There are things they can’t do with you, because they get tired or they can’t bend over or climb hills. You can’t have any decent food in the house, because they get up and eat all of it in the middle of the night. Then a lot of them get diabetes and fall apart. Not interested!

The third problem I had was that almost all of the women were Latin. I guess it sounds awful, but I’m kind of tired of the Latin atmosphere. Everyone around me speaks Spanish, everywhere I go. I do not want to hear it at home. I would like to feel like I’m going to bed in the United States. And I’m not all that thrilled about Cuban culture. The materialism and aggression wear me down; Cuban women can be very hard and brassy. And the sites don’t have a line where you can type things like, “Venezuelans and Colombians fine, but go easy on the Cubans.”

I knew better! The women you meet on these sites are worse than the ones you already know!

I’m not desperate. If I were, I’d be married already. Probably to a real prize. I’m one of those people who prefers nothing to something bad. When I’m really thirsty, I’d rather stay thirsty than suffer through a Budweiser. I am content to wait, and if I die, at least I won’t die with some awful wife who makes me wish I were single.

I’m starting to think the real purpose of these sites is to show you how hopeless things are. You’re supposed to look at the terrifying women they pick and say, “Man, my expectations are too high.” Then once your spirit is crushed, you settle, and they put you in a commercial.

Actually, they only put the winners in commercials. “We’re both astrophysicist fashion model billionaires, and Eharmony put us together!”

Then the men turn out to be gay.

Okay, maybe not.

Here’s something horrifying. There are men cruising Christian dating sites. For men. The sites discourage them, but they still take their money. THERE’S a package you don’t want to find under your Christmas tree. Yeah, I came to a Christian dating site so I can commit abominations and hang out in bathhouses! How did you guess? Thanks for making EVERY area of society disgusting. For a second I was afraid I might have a refuge here and there.

The upshot is this: I quit. I will meet someone normally or die alone surrounded by machine tools. I will get to drive however I want, eat whatever I want, buy whatever I want, and never, ever have to smell another cat, unless I’m in someone else’s house. Could be worse.

I can leave a motorcycle engine on the dining room table for a month. That’s pretty cool.

In real life, I am not drawing or even meeting any prospects. On rare occasions I get a really unpleasant series of advances from someone I could never, ever date, and sometimes they are actually rude and persistent, as if that will score them points instead of making me want to buy a taser. That’s about it.

In other news, something really weird is happening. I keep seeing greenish specks of light on my pillows. I can’t figure this out. I’ll be lying in bed, in a dark room, and I’ll roll over and move the pillow, and for a second or so, I’ll see these little specks on it. Then they disappear.

I Googled it. I figured I could not be the only one. But I can’t find any other examples, nor can I find an explanation. I Googled “bioluminescence” and “piezoelectric,” but I got nowhwere. It happens with down. It happens with foam.

Naturally, I’m wondering if there is a supernatural explanation. I have very powerful prayer sessions while lying on these pillows. Maybe something is going on.

Last night I lifted a pillow just to see if the specks were there, and sure enough, there was one right in front of me.

The first time it happened, I thought little shafts of light had to be filtering through the blinds and hitting the pillows, but I was wrong.

Totally weird.

I don’t think it means I’m going crazy. I think insanity is more complicated than green specks of light on a pillow.

Hell is an F; Earth is a D

I have continued reading The Name of the Rose, and it keeps disturbing me.

The book is fiction, and the author is no longer a believer. I realize those things. But he’s a medievalist, and he was a Catholic in his youth. Unlike Dan Brown’s clumsy claptrap, Eco’s book has a good historical basis. I think its depiction of the church is not too far off.

In the book, the monks walk on eggs around each other. They talk about inquisitors and heretics. They criticize this one and praise that one. But they continually insert disclaimers to avert disaster. They know that one slip of the tongue could mean prison, torture, and even a visit to the stake.

I got two messages from this. 1) Satan has always owned the church, apart from little periods when the sun popped through the clouds, and 2) there have been many periods during which Christians lived in utter terror…of each other.

Imagine yourself living in the Dark Ages in Europe. You could do business. You could get an education. You could marry and raise kids. You could write fiction. You could write secular nonfiction. You could carry on most of the normal functions of life in relative security. The one thing that could land you on a heap of burning faggots was speaking your mind about God. And what more-important thing is there, about which a person can talk?

It’s appalling to see these imaginary, but realistic, characters scurrying in conversational shadows, like frightened rats. The liars speak loudly and publicly. They don’t threaten the status quo, so they have nothing to fear. The honest men use code words. They use gestures where words are too dangerous. They stifle each other in order to protect each other from suspicion.

It’s like working at MSNBC.

We are living in the Dark Ages. The earth is much more like hell than heaven. Satan does, in fact, rule the earth, even though he lost the title at the crucifixion. On the cross, Jesus wrote the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but we have not enforced it. We have not chosen to be citizens, and we haven’t claimed our rights and done what is necessary to enjoy them.

The darkness of the age is more obvious when you look to medieval times (or when you look outside of Christendom), but it’s there.

Look how screwed up the world is. Animals eat each other. Weeds grow more easily and abundantly than crops. Diseases not only exist, but adapt to defeat medicine. Most marriages are not good. Most governments are very corrupt. Prisons are full of innocent people. Natural disasters kill us and rob us. This is not a blessed planet. The Adamic curse is alive and well. This is not what blessed life looks like. We’re used to it, so we think of it as normal and acceptable. But it’s not. Things could be better, if we were doing our job.

The church is a complete mess. The other day on Facebook and Twitter, I used the word “whorehouses” to describe the money-obsessed charismatic churches. As for the mainstream churches, their hopelessness is to obvious to even discuss. At least the charismatics know the Holy Spirit. They ignore him, much as Catholics ignore the Pope, but they know him.

We were supposed to maintain this place, using God’s power and teaching. It’s not working. Every time God chooses a people, they drop the ball. This is why God now works through individuals. He made his point about institutions and nations in earlier ages. Now he’s showing us we can still screw up when he comes and lives inside of us.

Last night I took another look at Mary K. Baxter’s book about hell. I’m still not convinced she’s for real, but in the book, Jesus tells her something that makes complete sense to me. He says MOST people go to hell. They are kept there in suffering, and at the appointed time, hell will be thrown in the lake of fire, presumably putting an end to everyone who lives there.

MOST people. That’s astounding. But who can doubt it?

I believe God arranged the body to teach us about his nature. I believe that, to God, people are like sperm cells or ova. A typical man creates something like 300 million sperm cells every day. Over a lifetime, he’s doing good if he manages to make use of ten of them. The rest die and vanish, as do unfertilized eggs. Human beings who reject God end up the same way. They die unfertilized.

I do not believe life on earth will be perfect, even in the Messianic Age. Human idiocy has no limits, so no matter what God does, as long as he doesn’t free us from the inclination to do evil, we will have some problems. But I believe God can bless the lives of individuals, and it’s possible for him to have great power in certain limited geographical areas. A house may be blessed. A city. A nation. And I think the upcoming generation of Spirit-empowered believers may prove this in Israel and possibly the US. Their success may bring about the final wave of authoritarianism and violent persecution that precedes the Tribulation and the arrival of Jesus. They will scare Satan into making a final push.

If I had to make a recommendation, it would be: “Don’t settle.” Keep pushing, in prayer and good works. Don’t assume things are as good as they can be. Don’t settle for a B- world when an A may be within reach. You don’t know what God is willing to do. You have never seen a blessed world, so you have no frame of reference. Make things as good as they can be, within you and around you, and don’t be overly unhappy about the way things go for people who won’t listen. Like the poor, they will always be with you. In fact, when Jesus said the poor would always be with us, he was probably referring to the spiritually poor, more than the financially poor. In this age, we will always be surrounded by people who are going to hell and who will not be with us in eternity.

Honest criticism is the beginning of recovery. If we insist on saying we’re doing fine, and that the world is not so bad, we can expect to stagnate and to continue to fail and lose.

Let me know what you think.

And I am a Kangaroo

I’m going to have to quit listening to the radio.

Once a week, while I’m on the way to have breakfast with my dad, I hear talk radio. Usually, it’s a guy named Jimmy Cefalo. He’s a former football player. He claims to be conservative, but the more you listen to him, the more you realize he’s the lowest grade of RINO. Couldn’t care less about moral (“social”) issues. Likes using our money to buy football stadiums for rich people. Supports increased gun control.

Today he was joining in the mindless hysteria over the Newtown shooting. Never mind that these atrocities are on the decrease in the US, or that they also take place in nations with gun control, or that the worst mass murders in US history (I may be wrong if we include those committed by the government) used kerosene and fertilizer instead of guns. Liberals like Cefalo are flipping out, based on the following evidence that mass murder is on the rise: two mass murders occurred within a year of each other.

Today he declared that it was a settled fact that gun laws had to change, and he said it was reasonable to force people to take exams and get licenses in order to get guns. This is pretty much what people said about literacy tests and poll taxes, and if anything, the racists were more credible than the gun-haters. Facially, it seems smart to prevent stupid people from voting. Problem is, we have a Constitutional right to vote, and apart from that, literacy tests were applied just a tiny bit UNFAIRLY. It may seem bright to license gun owners, but the right to bear arms is a RIGHT, like the right to breathe, and according to the highest law of the land, it can’t be “infringed.” And like the literacy tests of the past, licensing requirements will be (ARE) corrupted and used primarily as barriers. Ask anyone who has tried to get a permit in DC.

He interviewed Ed Schultz today, as he often does. ED SCHULTZ. The guy who called Laura Ingraham a slut. Do I even have to explain what Ed Schultz is, or that it’s insane to treat him like a credible commentator? Of course not. Some people on the left are merely wrong. Schultz belongs in the wacko pen with people like Saul Alinsky, Abbie Hoffmann, and Emma Goldman. He would gladly take away all of our rights and install a hardcore Stalinist regime.

Cefalo, the “conservative,” didn’t disagree with a single thing Schultz said. He did no research. He presented no facts. He let one of the nuttiest leftists in the mainstream media say anything he wanted, and he agreed. He thinks like a woman in a shoe store. All emotion. No brain involvement.

Honestly, I am starting to think RINOs are more dangerous than socialists. They’re like kapos. They supposedly come from within our ranks, so they have our ears. They drip socialist, anti-Christian soft soap into our minds, killing our brain cells with friendly fire.

Look, if you’re for substantial gun control, and you think morals can’t be discussed in a political context, you are not a conservative. End of discussion. You’re just a stingy guy who wants lower taxes and tough judges. You should do what the other liberals do. Vote for higher taxes and then avoid paying them.

Here’s the truth. 1) Mass shootings are on the decline. 2) Semiautomatic weapons are essential for effective self-defense. 3) Licensing and registration are used dishonestly to prevent deserving people from owning weapons. 4) We aren’t providing armed protection for children the way we do for politicians and judges, and we need to fix that before we start taking away civil rights. 5) There are some problems the government can’t solve, and we should accept it.

The fact that the hysterical mainstream press is currently engaged in tendentious, histrionic bedwetting over a non-issue doesn’t mean all the smart people in the universe agree with them. The current surge in gun sales proves Cefalo is part of a small minority.

I really did not want to buy any more guns this year, but I may have to join the intelligent people and stock up. I don’t know what I’ll need in the future, but I do know I don’t want to be stuck with a duck gun or a 5-shot pistol when I need an AK-47 or a full-size Glock. I feel like our Chauncey Gardiner President and his talking-head flying monkeys are forcing my hand. I might have to suck it up, set several thousand dollars aside, and buy a bunch of guns and shells I don’t even want. The wise thing would be to get the products we are in danger of losing. High-capacity rifles like AKs and AR15s, and high-capacity semiautomatic pistols. Maybe I should get a couple of Springfield XDs and three or four AMD65s.

Thanks, Jimmy Cefalo. You and your pals are putting more guns in the hands of the American public than we know what to do with. We should be grateful for the kick in the rear end.

Catch as Much Light as You Can

I got a wonderful email a few days back, and I have been given permission to share it.

Steve,
I’ve been reading your blog (in all its permutations) for years and have always enjoyed your narrative style and content. I don’t drop in on your site as often as perhaps I should, but it is always a pleasure when I do.

I wanted you to know that you have had a positive impact on me. Your admonitions to pray in tongues encouraged me to try it – and the Holy Spirit has never been stronger in my life. Bear in mind that I’m from a straight-laced Methodist background (where even raising one’s hand in praise makes some congregants uncomfortable) and, at 58 years of age, the old dog / new tricks effect is in full play.

All that said, I recently had a failed business, lost a lot of what I’d materially accumulated, was looking at foreclosure, had college bills to pay for my two kids, etc. Dire times. In that state of despair, I prayed – for the first time – in tongues. I came so naturally to me that I was amazed (which detracted, at first, from my focus). Now it is a morning routine. The Holy Spirit moves in me for perhaps the first time in my life. It has been a great gift, Steve, and I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. The Lord clearly steered me your direction and had me accept your admonitions.

I just started a consulting engagement on a one year contract and am looking forward to this new career. I’ve still got a hard row to hoe in order to get out of debt, but I now have hope. And that, my friend, is something that lifted a crushing burden. At my age, getting hired (and particularly in this economy) wasn’t likely to happen. And as we age (particularly men who have taken the responsibility of supporting their family), that fear can be all-consuming. Absolutely crushing. It is now gone. I can function with some sense of confidence. The Lord has lifted me and prayer in tongue has given me the conduit to reach out and accept the lifting.

Thank you, Steve. It has been a blessing.

Can you believe that?

It amazes me that God is actually using me. Much of the time I feel like I’m accomplishing absolutely nothing, and I know I don’t do all the things I should, but occasionally God does something in a way that involves me, even though my activity is so slight, I’m practically a spectator.

Sometimes I’ll find myself in a group of people, and I’ll see an opportunity to pass on something I’ve learned about God. While I’m praying and trying to get it out, someone else will pipe up and say (or do) something. On these occasions, I don’t have to do much of anything. In fact, I tend to feel as if I’m being restrained. Often it will seem as people are talking over me and ignoring me, as though God is stimulating them to keep me quiet while he moves. It’s very strange.

On the one hand, it can be frustrating to be unable to speak when I feel sure God has told me what to say. On the other, it’s really neat to sit back and watch God work. It’s also nice to know I don’t have to worry about getting the glory. I think glory is like vitamin A. You need a little in order to get by, but too much is a poison.

Sometimes I’ll show up somewhere thinking I’m going to get something done for God, or I’ll be asked to do some chore or other for the church, and people will show up and start doing things around me. Sometimes they’re borderline rude. It’s as if they don’t see me. For example, someone may ask me to help move chairs, and I’ll try to get in there and work, and people will barge in and make it impossible for me to do much.

I wish something like that had happened yesterday. A toilet got clogged up at church, and God seemed content to let me handle the plunger.

The wonderful thing about teaching people about tongues and the Holy Spirit is that it’s a perfect act of charity. When you give a bum five dollars, you get him drunk for half a day, and then he’s back where he started. When you get somebody started with tongues, they get everything they need to lead a successful life for God. If they keep it up, they won’t need you to teach them much. God will teach them directly, and the first thing you know, they’re spiritually independent (of other people), and they may come back and teach YOU. That has happened to me.

One of the reasons I like the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews is that you can get together with people and send a donation, and they’ll move a Jew to Israel, permanently. It’s not a fleeting blessing. You can rescue someone from anti-Semitic neighbors in the former USSR and put them where God wants Jews to be. Salvation and the baptism with the Spirit have the same quality of permanence (assuming those who receive them don’t screw things up). It’s like conceiving a child; using you, God creates the potential for a new life. In comparison, other acts of charity are a little bit like feeding a mule for a day.

SEGUE!

Slick, huh?

The other night, The Name of the Rose popped up in my cable box’s free movies list. I always have to have something to watch when the birds are out, so I turned it on. I totally forgot about the ridiculously long sex scene, which I had to blast through with fast-forward, but other than that, it was a worthwhile experience. It’s based on a novel by Umberto Eco. It’s about a Franciscan monk who visits an Italian abbey in 1327 and solves a murder mystery.

I don’t really care about the story. It was great, but that’s not what stood out to me. The thing that impressed me was the way things have changed.

I looked up the terms “Middle Ages” and “Dark Ages,” thinking they were not quite synonymous, but it turns out you can use them interchangeably. More or less, these were the years between 400 and 1400 A.D. The Holy Roman Empire collapsed, and after that, nothing good happened until the Renaissance. If you believe what you see in The Name of the Rose and various Monty Python movies, people wallowed around in the mud in filthy grey robes, eating dirt and excrement, and that was about all there was to life. There were nobles, kings, monks, and far-off heathens who were better off, but in the Christian world, life was rough.

I think the movies exaggerate. Don’t misunderstand. I’ve read books on the Middle Ages, and they were actually pleasant, prosperous times for many Europeans. The word “house” really meant something we would now call a compound (which automatically appeals to my far-right, gun-and-Bible-clinging personality). A person Obama would call “rich” would own the house, and it would be home to his family, as well as a number of servants. The bottom floor would likely be devoted to business, so you might see a workshop (see previous parenthetical), and everyone worked to keep the place prosperous (Ibid.).

People had things like soap and combs, and servants were expected to tidy up, so it probably wasn’t as bad as Dennis the Peasant and his filth-based anarcho-syndicalist collective.

Still, people had a lot of problems, and the movies emphasize that. The Name of the Rose served to remind me how rare knowledge was in the Middle Ages, and how far people were from God.

I don’t think the Middle Ages began because the empire fell. I think they started because carnal people succeeded in exterminating charismatics.

In the early church, tongues and the other gifts of the Spirit were not considered extreme. They were staples of the faith. Everyone was expected to partake in them. As a result, God worked great wonders through people, and the church actually threatened the supremacy of human government, as God intended it to. The human race made its choice, as it has so many times, murdering those who came to deliver it. The gifts and fruit of the Spirit disappeared, and backward, hopelessly ignorant Catholic and Orthodox clergymen took over, misinterpreting the scriptures and ensuring that generations would die powerless and captive.

In The Name of the Rose, a sub-plot centers on a huge debate in the Catholic Church. The Franciscans thought poverty was a huge virtue, and the Pope–a billionaire warlord in a mitre–disagreed. The events in the movie took place during a sort of convention, in which clergymen from various factions met at a remote abbey to debate the issue. The Pope’s big advantage was that one of his representatives was an inquisitor who could burn people instead of responding to their arguments. I guess you could say this guy was the Chris Matthews of his day.

The fictional debate centered around this issue, on which the welfare of the universe pivoted: did Jesus own his own clothing?

I’m no historian, but I don’t think that’s unrealistic at all. Christians fight bitterly about all sorts of stupid things. You might think the thing that disturbs me is that we get angry over trifles. That’s not really it. The thing that bothers me is that we have been so lacking in Spirit-given enlightenment, even if we argued about big issues, they would be the wrong ones! When the light of the Spirit goes out, the darkness of human tradition spreads across the land, and the first thing you know, the kosher laws have been augmented to the point where chicken parmigiana is forbidden.

The abbey held the biggest library in the Christian world. The books were piled up in a tower, and the top floor was a labyrinth only two people were allowed to access. The justification for locking the books up was that many of them disagreed with scripture and/or tradition, and the monks didn’t want to see the populace seduced by ideas on which the Pope had not signed off. As it has in real life, the Catholic Church actively suppressed knowledge.

I don’t really care if the church hides erotic fiction written in Latin. But over the centuries, traditional churches have hidden God himself. At times, possession of the Bible has been illegal, not under secular law, but church-made law. That’s insane.

I had the misfortune of visiting an Episcopal church for a funeral a couple of years back. I was stunned by what I saw. I had forgotten what traditional churches were like. People sat in pews fidgeting while womanish old white men in fancy robes muttered and gestured behind a heavy altar, yards away. The priests handled all the God stuff. The people watched, like miserable spectators. It’s funny; when God makes me a spectator, it’s a great gift. These people…not so much.

It reminded me how I had hated church as a kid. Back then, I fought when my mother tried to take me to church, and once I got there, I suffered and squirmed and lived for the moment it would end. It was only natural. I felt no connection with God. The dry lectures I received were dull and not very useful. I was offended and repulsed. I felt that I had an obligation to be there, but the experience was awful.

At my church, I literally feel God moving inside me. I get revelation upon revelation. The speakers prophesy. The Holy Spirit shapes the sermons so that, simultaneously, they meet the unique needs of dozens of people. Church is alive because God is alive, and because he is welcome. The traditional churches dispense God’s presence and power with an eye dropper. Satan owns them, and he controls the tap.

What I’m trying to say is that we still live in the Dark Ages. The real Dark Ages started when the baptism with the Spirit died out and Satan’s blind, carnal servants took over. We spent over 1500 years in defeat and helplessness.

Since the Azusa Street revival and similar outpourings, things have been improving. A new dawn is transpiring. God could have let is continue to grovel and meander in blindness, because he is under no obligation to fix our problems, but he has chosen, once again, to give us a new light. Like the monks who kept knowledge to themselves and denied the laiety the right to approach God without proxies, the traditional churches have been a barrier between God and man, but now that the baptism with the Spirit is back, God drops behind enemy lines, without having to battle his way across the front. God comes to live inside us, and there is no carnal weapon that can get him out.

This is why carnal people like to kill us. There is no way to “fix” us. They can either exterminate us or put up with us and wait to be overrun. They came after us in the “Holy” Roman Empire, and they’re going to do it again, because Satan can’t deal with us any other way. Most human beings, including Christians, serve him. In the flesh, he is vastly superior. The closer we come to fulfilling God’s mission, the more violent and numerous our enemies will be.

We are so privileged. We can know God, in a way only a small percentage of human beings have been able to do. And we have an incredible wealth of human knowledge, too. A disciplined person with an Internet connection quite literally has no need of a high school or university. I’m so glad I don’t live in 14th-century Italy, relying on homosexuals, politicians in cassocks, and the rejected sons of nobles to tell me who God is and how to serve him.

The Inquisition is still with us, unfortunately. It has been dormant for a long time, because there hasn’t been any need for it to act, but now that Spirit-filled believers are increasing, the voices are rising against us. Suddenly, sincere Christians are “bigots” and “haters.” We are the problem. The Jews are just as bad. Something has to be done about us! And it will.

But the Spirit is always stronger than the flesh. By the time they get around to boiling us alive again, we may have so much supernatural strength, it won’t bother us at all. That was the situation with many of the ancient martyrs. They joked while they were roasted or flayed. They were glad to get out of this place.

God is pouring grace out on us, and I am really grateful for it. For a believer, this is a wonderful time to be alive. It’s easier to get God’s help than it has been in centuries. They may round us up and gas us, but until they get us, we’ll live in a state of victory our grandparents could not have imagined. We will be untouchable, until the harvest. That’s what I expect. Some will go sooner, and some will go later, but many of us will not go until we are warned by God and we are ready to lay down our lives.

I believe the Dark Ages are coming to an end. War is going to heat up, but at least we’ll be serving our purpose.

How Can he Give Advice on Success?

I’ve said a lot of critical things about Steve Munsey, the prosperity preacher who influenced my former church so heavily. He teaches doctrine he made up from thin air. He claims the ancient Jews did well because they gave huge money offerings to the Temple three times a year. This nonsense is not mentioned in the Bible. Munsey tries to string together unrelated scriptures to support it, but Jews will tell you it’s a fantasy.

Munsey is a very close friend of the pastor at my former church.

I don’t want God to chastise and humiliate me the way he has chosen to chastise and humiliate Munsey, so I prayed before deciding to mention this publicly. It’s not like I’m revealing a secret; it’s a news story several months old. But I don’t want to promote stories like this without asking God carefully, in advance, if it’s his will.

Here it is: Steve Munsey’s church in foreclosure.

The foreclosure action was filed in 2011. The church has paid $8,000,000 in interest. It has accumulated less than $200,000 in equity. The principal has been increased, so Munsey is actually farther in debt than he was the day he signed the papers.

This is not prosperity.

The big problem with hardheaded prosperity preachers is that they believe that when they are faced with financial failure, the answer is to beg, not to reform. This is why prosperity preachers tend to fail upward. They blow tons of money. They go to their flocks and say the devil took it. They say the flocks have to give more. The drain is endless. It’s like giving an ATM card to a meth addict. These ministers are cursed, so it’s impossible for their churches to succeed. The more you give them, the more will be lost.

This is the nature of the universe. Some people are under blessings, so if you give them things, they profit by them. Some are under curses, so whatever you give them disappears and ends up hurting them. Until you get out from under your curses, the things you do to create success will pan out pretty badly. And if you convince other people to finance your efforts, you end up attaching the curse to them.

This is what happens with addicts. Say you’re a compulsive gambler. You lose money. First thing you know, someone is threatening to break your arms. You go to your parents, who have saved for retirement. You tell them about the threat. They pay off. Now you know that whenever you get behind, they’ll save you. So you go on gambling. You lose and lose and lose. Your parents try to bless you, but instead, your curse becomes their curse. You get your arms broken in spite of your efforts, and your parents lose their house. Instead of one person suffering that which he deserves, three people suffer.

What matters in life is not where you are, but which way you’re headed. A person who will not repent will end up defeated and desperate, even if he has a billion dollars today. A person who listens to God and prays and reforms will eventually be blessed, even if he’s in the gutter outside a homeless shelter at the moment. Once you repent, you should consider yourself blessed, even if you don’t have all the things you need. You should realize they’re on the way. If you won’t repent, as Jesus said, you are wretched and miserable and poor and blind and naked, even if you can’t see it. God sees you in terms of your destination, not your location.

I don’t know what Munsey has done since his problems were revealed, but it would not be a big surprise if he had gone to his flock and begged for more cash. I know he blamed Satan, as I suggested above. That’s in the news story to which I linked. He said, “The devil wanted to take us out.” A cynical person might say the worst thing the devil did was putting Munsey in charge. But I don’t know if that’s true. Maybe he has a genuine calling, and he’s just way off course.

I’m tired of Munsey, and of the cabal that runs my old church. I keep asking God to get them out. Just get them out. Help them change, sure, but get them out. They know what they’re doing wrong. They abuse those who point it out. They need to go. They are hurting too many people, and time is too short.

Last night, to kill time while I was hanging out with Marv, I was flipping channels, and I ended up watching a little bit of Interview With the Vampire. Probably not the greatest choice for a Christian, but I don’t think I’m in any danger of coming to admire people who drink blood. Anyway, I kept noticing that the commercials were disgusting. They were all about homosexuality. One promoted a show hosted by a notorious pervert named Rupaul. Another promoted a gay resort in Key West. I also saw promotions for a series of shows with a sin theme. They actually used the word “sin,” and they said the first show was about greed. I wondered what was going on. Finally, I realized I was watching a gay channel. I’m not sure why they show vampire movies, but there it is.

It reminded me how insane America has become. We’re not just under attack. We’ve lost. We’re in supernatural foreclosure. Society has ruled in favor of pride and perversion. We are now seen as vicious bigots, not upholders of the faith. You can sit in your own home now and mind your own business, and the cable box will bring you homosexual programming and shows proudly and expressly promoting sin.

I don’t think we have time to let kooky, greedy preachers work out their issues. They need to be expelled and replaced before they destroy the rest of us. They can get secular jobs while they figure things out. If you’re draining 5,000 people financially and preventing them from getting to know the Holy Spirit, it’s not a bad thing if God forces you out so you have to become a car salesman.

We need to become strong in the Spirit and pray as a body. Otherwise, we can kiss America goodbye. There is no place left to run, so once Satan receives the title to America, we will have to hide in the crevices until Jesus returns.

The pastors at my church never said a word when Steve Munsey’s church failed. They went right on teaching his garbage. Amazing. How can they explain that?

Pray in tongues. Read the word and try to live it. Fast occasionally. Try to hear the Spirit and obey him. Examine yourself and repent of sin and iniquity. These things will bring you power. The other stuff is worse than dung.

You Know Things are Getting Weird When Kim Kardashian Visits Your Old Church, and YOU’RE the Scandal

I feel like I ought to say a few things, in view of what I wrote about my former church the other day.

I was mad. No doubt about it. I think of the good people over there who could get so close to God, so fast, if they were being told the right things. I think of their poverty. I think of the way they try to improve their lives and fail, because they don’t know how to deal with their supernatural enemies. I realize they could be in touch with the Holy Spirit, and that he would help them and give them victory and peace. I think about those things, and then I think about the utterly useless things they’re being taught–and the ways in which they’re being used–and of course, it gets under my skin.

It also makes me angry when I try to say something helpful, and the response is a false accusation. I’m a divider! I’m “touching God’s anointed.” I’m “judging.” This is what I hear. From people who know four Bible verses.

If people said, “Thanks for the input, but I disagree,” it would be one thing. But these transparent attempts to put me on the defensive, in order to avoid discussing the truth…they are not easy to deal with. I do not like being demonized. Contradict me if you want, but don’t level a false accusation in order to avoid examining yourself.

So what I’m saying, with all that, is that I was very irritated. I hope I didn’t go too far. I didn’t go as far as John the Baptist did. I didn’t call people “a litter of vipers.” I didn’t call anyone a son of Satan or child of hell, which is something the Bible would permit me to do, if it was appropriate. But I was pretty harsh.

It turns out people have been reading my blog. I don’t know what to think about that. Is it bad, because they’re spying on me, or is it good, because they might try to understand me and, in the process, learn something that would help them?

Here’s something they need to know. I spend a tremendous amount of time in prayer these days. Much of it is prayer in tongues. My relationship with the Holy Spirit is getting very intense. Some people go to church to feel God’s presence. For me, it’s a routine thing that happens wherever I am. Very often, I’ll feel the Holy Spirit descend on me with great force. It’s not because I’m a great person. It’s because I’ve become addicted to prayer. It has nothing to do with anything good about me.

I have reached the point where I physically feel the Holy Spirit pouring through me, in the form of faith and power. I believe I can ask questions and get the answers. I don’t think this is an illusion. If you look at the things I’ve written about God, if you have any discernment at all, you should be able to see that I didn’t come up with them myself. I’m getting revelation. If I’m getting revelation to that degree, people shouldn’t doubt that when I feel the Holy Spirit communicating with me, it’s real.

I mention these things so people will understand me when I say this: I ask God what I should say and what I should not. I don’t want to write things that will work against God’s plan. From time to time, I’ll put time in, writing something, and I’ll ask God whether I should publish it, and I’ll get a strong sense that the answer is “no.” When that happens, I delete it. I don’t care if it took half a day to write it. So if you see something I’ve written, and it seems too severe or too negative, you should be aware that unless I forgot, I consulted God before I posted it.

It may surprise people to read it, but the truth is that I feel that God has told me over and over that I’m not bold ENOUGH. I’ve worried about offending people, but it seems like God thinks I’m too restrained.

That’s where all this comes from. So decide for yourself whether you want to judge me. Maybe you’re the one who is touching God’s anointed. And while you’re at it, think about all the solid people who agree with me. Think of all the people who got up and left the church. Don’t you wonder why that happened? A whole bunch of them talk to me and tell me they agree with me.

I should also add that I didn’t get mad just because the church entertained one woman famous for posing nude and performing in a sex tape. I got mad because it was part of a lasting, consistent pattern of strange behavior. They don’t treat employees or volunteers right. They teach doctrine even a child should be able to debunk. They run a failing business, yet they take money from poor people, claiming to know how to make them prosperous. They honor people like R. Kelly and Luther Campbell. They are not good to the poor. They invite useless people to preach. It’s how things go over there. The Kardashian thing was just the latest failure.

Imagine what would have happened if Kim Kardashian had shown up at any God-fearing church in 1950. They might have encouraged her to attend. They might have welcomed her. They would not have bragged about her presence. They would have tried to change her. They would have kept her away from services until she had repented in private. They would have used some common sense. My old church treats lost people (who are famous and/or rich) as though they were honorable ministers of God. That’s wrong. It’s not “love.” It’s not “longsuffering.” It’s not “meekness.” It’s self-promotion. “We know R. Kelly! We know Kim Kardashian! We’re important! We’re going to be just like Keith Craft and Steve Munsey!!!”

It’s amazing that this has to be explained. The people who run the church work so hard to convince people that church is cool, their consciences must have become seared. They don’t seem to perceive things the way healthy Christians do. They don’t seem to see the obvious impropriety of appearing to endorse celebrities whose behavior is extraordinarily trashy.

Here’s a principle from the Bible. If you’re doing something stupid, and people of comparable knowledge are not, they can judge you. Example: Jesus said, “The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here.”

If the best churches on earth are blowing it the way my old church is, then who can criticize? But that’s not the case. The church I go to know is a thousand times healthier. The pastor talks about the Holy Spirit. He promotes other people, at his own expense. Prophets come in and denounce homosexuality and false religion. The services start with at least 45 minutes of prayer and worship. We get all sorts of help and manifestations from God.

If my little church can do it, then it’s okay to criticize other churches that don’t even appear to be trying. It’s not just okay; it’s vital. Someone has to warn the people who are being dragged down.

No church has to be perfect. But it’s not all right for a church to be stupid. There is a wide gulf between “perfect” and “stupid.” You shouldn’t use human imperfection as an excuse to settle for extremely poor performance.

If you came here to spy, maybe you’ll read this and think about it. I urge you to compare your church’s actions to scripture. The WHOLE Bible, not just Matthew 7:1. That verse is really getting worn out.

I don’t always say nice things, but then God is not nice. God is loving. God is just. When being nice and being righteous happen to be compatible, THEN he’s nice. The rest of the time, it’s not important to him. Who do you think he is? Remember what he has done. He has killed more people than Adolf Hitler; some of them with burning sulfur. He is going to kill again, in the future. He created hell, and people you know are burning there. No, I’m not always nice. I take after my father, as well as his grace permits.

If you want to know the Holy Spirit, pray in tongues every day, a lot. Try to get up to two half-hour sessions. When you pray with your understanding, don’t just ask for money. Ask God what he wants. Try to hear from him. Try to remember that his purpose isn’t to bless you. He is the king of the universe, and your purpose is to serve him. He will supply you best when you do his will; a man will love his own flesh, and so will God. If you have chronic sins, fast repeatedly and pray for God to remove them. Dancing in a nightclub that pretends to be a church isn’t going to get you where you need to be.

I hope someone will get some benefit from this.

Ride, Don’t Walk

For a long time, I’ve believed that the story of Samson was given to us to show what happens when the Spirit-filled church gives up the Holy Spirit and does what seems right in its own eyes. I thought I’d write about it today.

A lot of weird things happened in the Old Testament. Improbable things. I have learned that when very odd things happen, it often means there is a supernatural reason. Many things that happened in the Old Testament, among physical beings, were intended to teach future believers about warfare in the supernatural realm. Abraham tried to sacrifice Isaac, and God sacrificed himself through Jesus. Moses led the Hebrews out of Egypt, through a body of water; Jesus leads believers out of the kingdom of Satan. And so on and so on. The story of Samson has symbolic value.

Samson was given to us to symbolize a believer (or body of believers) filled with the Holy Spirit.

An angel appeared to Samson’s mother and told her he would be born, and that he was to be a Nazirite, set apart for God (as we are set apart – Psalm 4). He was not to drink wine or let a razor touch his head.

The Bible doesn’t mention the mother’s name. Why? Because a mother is the source of one’s flesh. Women symbolize flesh, which is supposed to be subject to authority. God provides the seed which transforms flesh. When you’re baptized with the Holy Spirit, God’s supernatural “DNA” takes over, and you grow to be like him. It doesn’t matter who your mother is. You may be a Gentile, or you may be a Jew. The source of your flesh doesn’t make any difference. It’s your past. It’s the dirt you grew from. God is about the future.

This is why it’s wrong for Catholics to worship Mary. Jesus himself discouraged this. Mary was probably a wonderful woman, but she did not earn the right to carry Jesus, and she was not the reason Jesus was good. Jesus was good because half of his genetic material came directly from his father, God, and that contribution dominated his development. He was also good because God guided him through life.

When the Holy Spirit was on Samson, he could do anything. As a result, his enemies could not touch him. They were like worms before him. Powerless. The only way they could ever get to him was to use ungodly women, who symbolize the iniquities of our flesh. A woman, like our flesh, is supposed to be in submission. When a husband lets an ungodly wife rule him, the result is shame and defeat. Look at Solomon and Ahab. The same thing happens when you let your flesh–which is like a wife–tell you what to do. It’s supposed to be a helper, not a boss.

On one occasion, Samson went to Gaza and pulled up the gates of the city. He carried them away and stuck them on a hill. What does that mean? In his time, gates served two purposes. They let things in and out, and they were the locations of courts. Our minds are gates. Things go in and out of us through our minds, and we are judges who decide when to open the doors.

When Samson picked up the gates, he was picking up the authority of the city, as well as its ability to keep enemies out. It was an extremely destructive act. He was showing the Gazans that they had no sovereignty and no protection. He was the head, and they were the tail. God was with him, so his enemies were helpless.

Jesus said the gates of hell would not prevail against his kingdom. Although he was standing in a place that may have been referred to as the gates of hell (Caesarea Philippi), he was referring to the authority of hell, as well as the physical temptations that assail our flesh. By paying for our sins, Jesus destroyed Satan’s standing as a supernatural litigant. He no longer has the right to rule us. We don’t have to be judged in Satan’s courts any more. And by sending the Holy Spirit, Jesus gave us the power to overcome our iniquities and close the door to sin, which gives power and ingress to our enemies.

On another occasion, a lion attacked Samson. Lions symbolize hostile spirits, as well as people who serve them. The Bible says Satan prowls around like a lion. Of people who serve Satan, it says, “The young lions do lack and suffer hunger, but they that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.”

In the natural world, lions are a whole lot stronger than men, but Samson picked the lion up and tore it apart effortlessly. It wasn’t just a defeat. It was a crushing, complete, pure defeat. The lion didn’t even register as a problem. And later, when Samson saw the carcass lying in the road, he found a beehive in it, full of honey, which he ate.

When the Holy Spirit is with you, God will defeat your enemies for you, decisively and easily. Beyond that, he will use their attacks to bless you with things that are pleasing. Like honey. In this way, he takes attacks that are intended to harm you, and he turns then into great blessings, which compounds the humiliation of your enemies.

Samson is remembered for taking the jawbone of an ass and killing a thousand Palestinians (Philistines) with it. An ass is a stubborn beast of burden which is wise in its own eyes. It’s supposed to serve, but it wants to rule. It symbolizes the flesh. This is why the Bible calls Esau a wild ass of a man. He was a slave to the flesh. He preferred a bowl of soup to his inheritance.

A jawbone symbolizes speech, and teeth symbolize natural weapons. In the psalms, one author asks God to smite his enemies on the cheekbone and break the teeth of the wicked. He is asking God to destroy the power of the evil words his enemies say, and to destroy their earthly weapons.

When the jawbone was in Samson’s hand, and Samson was guided by the Spirit, the jawbone was a powerful weapon. When the jaw of a flesh-and-blood servant of God is controlled by the Spirit, that servant will be able to use his words to inflict terrible defeat on God’s enemies. Every time you see a preacher speak by the Spirit, you’re watching Samson swing the jawbone of an ass. When the Spirit leaves, only the ass is left.

Later, Samson was thirsty. He was so thirsty, he thought he would die. He begged God for water. God removed a tooth from the jawbone, and water poured from the socket. Samson drank it, and the Bible says his SPIRIT was revived.

The loss of the tooth symbolizes the way we have to give up reliance on our earthly weapons in order to be empowered and delivered by the Spirit. It symbolizes humility and submission.

Spirit-filled believers are supposed to be rivers of living water. We are supposed to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and we are supposed to pray in tongues to build our spirits up. Paul said this repeatedly. He said prayer in tongues builds faith. The Bible says those who hunger and THIRST for righteousness will be filled, and it says God calls faith righteousness. When you pray in tongues, you will find that it builds your faith. When you get good at it, you’ll actually sense it. You will feel God reviving your spirit, as Samson did.

Samson liked trashy women, so he slept with Delilah. He ended up telling her how to take away his strength. His strength came from the Holy Spirit, so what he was really telling her was how to disconnect him from God. He told her that if his hair was shorn, he would be like any other man.

Delilah got him to sleep on her lap. This is what the world does to Spirit-filled Christians, when it can’t beat them any other way. It puts us to sleep. The attacks stop. Things seem to go well. We get excited about our blessings. Like manic-depressives who stop taking their lithium when things go well, we stop praying and relying on the Spirit. This is what happened to the early church. They got the support of the political system. They got fat. They quit teaching about tongues, and they lost their power.

The Holy Spirit has seven parts. This is reflected in the seven-armed structure of the lampstand in the Holy of Holies, and Jesus himself (in the Revelation) stated that there were seven spirits of God. As the lampstand illuminated the Holy of Holies, the Holy Spirit is supposed to illuminate a Christian from within. Seven is the number of completeness (also called perfection). The Holy Spirit completes us.

Samson’s hair had seven locks. Delilah removed them from him. When that was done, he had no strength, and the Palestinians put out his eyes. They took away his light. He carried off the gate of Gaza, and the Palestinians entered through the gate of his flesh and returned the favor, destroying his authority.

They made him a slave, just as Christians have served Satan’s world since the church gave up the Spirit. Samson ground grain to make their bread. He used his natural strength to do a menial task, when he should have been using supernatural power to do lasting works for God.

When his strength returned to him, he was able to kill many Palestinians. But he would have been better off listening to God in the first place.

You can be like Samson. You can be baptized with the Holy Spirit, and you can pray in tongues every day. You can be built up supernaturally, and you will grow stronger than your enemies. God will do amazing things through you, and you will live in victory. If you reject the baptism, expect to live in defeat. You have rights, but you can’t exercise them unless you do it God’s way.

This is working for me, and I’m sure it will work for you. Life isn’t perfect, but remember: Muhammad Ali never won a fight without taking a few punches to the face. You may be blessed with effortless victory, like Samson’s victory over the lion, or you may be like Paul, who got a number of beatings. But overall, you will win.

Our abandonment of the Holy Spirit is the reason Christians do not live in power. It’s why we claim the promises of the Bible and don’t receive them. The Bible is true, but you can’t have it your way. You have to go through the gate God prepared, and that means Holy Spirit baptism and prayer in tongues.

I hope this is useful.

They had it Coming

My former church has finally gone completely insane.

Today they welcomed Kim Kardashian. Yes, the Kim Kardashian who poses nude. The sex-tape Kim Kardashian. I don’t know if they took her into the green room so she could bless the pastors with her wisdom, but she tweeted about her presence at church, and they proudly re-tweeted it.

People are saying it’s wonderful that she went to church. Uh…no, it’s NOT wonderful. Not unless she repented. Churches are supposed to welcome REPENTANT sinners. The other kind screw churches up.

Think of it as an immigration problem. Say you live in a Christian nation, and Muslims start showing up. When there are 50 of them, it’s no big deal. When they’re 50% of the population…big deal. You’re going to have Sharia law, honor killings, an end to the pork industry, lots of terrorism…it will be bad. When sinners come to a church and don’t change their ways, and their numbers get too high, they convert the church. Not that this would be a big change for Trinity. It’s barely a church as it is.

I was furious when I heard about this. It’s bad enough that the pastor sucked up to R. Kelly, who narrowly avoided conviction on a statutory rape beef with video evidence. Do they really need to use Kim Kardashian to prove they’ve made it?

The name “Kardashian” used to be associated with top-notch legal representation. Those days are gone. Now it connotes promiscuity, nudity, stupidity, and shallowness. As the good book would put it, it has “become a proverb.” Why would any pastor be proud this person came to his church? Only a desperate self-promotor or a feckless infant could think this was a good thing.

It would be wonderful if Miss Kardashian went to a church and told everyone she regretted all the dumb things she had done. I’d be the first to welcome her. Well, actually, I think a woman should do that, just to be safe. But I would be all for it. But for her to roll in and out with no evidence of change…how is that a victory for anyone?

I really blew up about this on Facebook. The gloves are off. I said the leaders of the church clearly did not know the Bible, and I posted a long series of verses about respecting persons. The pastors are like children. It’s as though they had never heard of the Bible. This stuff is obvious to teenagers who read the word, but these adults don’t have a clue. Or they just don’t care, which is looking pretty likely.

Some lady tried to “correct” me, saying I should not “touch” God’s “anointed.” That’s sad. Preachers have succeeded in brainwashing many Christians, so they will cover up their pastors’ backslidden behinds. They say all sorts of curses fall on those who speak up. But God didn’t curse Jesus, Paul, Isaiah, Micaiah, Malachi, Peter, Jude, Jeremiah, Samuel, Nathan, or any of the other Biblical figures (or if you’re Catholic, figurines) who spoke up. If you took the negative remarks out of the Bible, the remaining text would be a pamphlet.

She said I should only correct people privately. But she said that publicly, which is a little hard to explain.

As Perry Stone teaches, there is a difference between “anointing” and “gift.” A person who is anointed has God’s authority to do some job or other. He has God’s approval. Anointing is not always permanent. God anointed Saul, and he took the anointing away. A gift is a natural or supernatural ability. It may persist when the anointing leaves. This is why truly foul preachers sometimes continue to function in their gifts. It helps explain why some very bad churches stay very big for quite some time.

Anyway, a preacher who teaches false tradition and serves his belly is not acting under an anointing. Not in my book. And because they commit their sins publicly, it only makes sense to correct them publicly. Besides, the leaders of Trinity Church know exactly what they’re doing wrong. People have spoken up. They just don’t care.

God is not going to stand up and give me leprosy for criticizing people who milk the poor and lie to them. If he did things like that, John the Baptist would have exploded. Repeatedly.

Quite honestly, I think these people are idiots. I have tried to show restraint. I’ve said I disagreed with them. I’ve said they were off the path. But after a time, you have to start using terms like “idiot.” Even Jesus did it. After a certain point, mildly critical language just doesn’t do the job. If you speak about foolish people too respectfully, there is a danger that other people will not understand just how foolish they are. “I’m going to try Trinity Church.” “DON’T!” “Why not?” “They’re…missing the mark.” “Well, I’ll just check it out.” “THEY’RE IDIOTS! THEY’RE IDIOTS! DANGER! DANGER!”

I think God takes a similar approach. He starts by sending you little hints. Then he sends people to correct you. Then he might let you get a physical illness. He might let you suffer defeat. Eventually, if you keep pushing it, he buries you in burning sulfur and pitch. Or he sends you to hell.

I wish I had never heard about this. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life reflecting on the stupid behavior of a group of carnal ministers. But there it is. And I don’t investigate this stuff. People bring it to me.

How about some positive news? Today Apostle Michael Tomasulo visited my church. My denomination, or whatever it is, is big on apostles. They seem like the real thing. They have shown up and said some very solid, very impressive things. Mr. Tomasulo is one of them.

I met him on his last visit. He’s an EE (electrical engineer). I was building guitar amps at the time, so I was really glad to meet him. I have a lot of weird interests, so it’s always comforting to meet someone who can relate. When I meet a person who shares one of my interests, it’s like meeting someone from home. Which is odd. And I can’t combine all, or even most, of my interests in one friend. I have to have an assortment. The gun friend. The cooking friend. The physics friend. The law friend. And so on.

Today he lit into TBN (he can’t stand watching it) and megachurches that teach self-help and motivational gibberish. LIKE TRINITY. He said exactly what I was saying to my prayer group three years ago. I said we didn’t need Dr. Phil and Oprah. I said motivational speakers were not what God wanted for us. He said these things today, even referring to Dr. Phil and his mothership. I saw a preacher on TBN say the same things last year (no word on whether his body has been found). God tells all of his people the same things. The church is unified, as Jesus prayed it would be. It’s just scattered. Like golden tickets in a pile of worldly Wonka bars.

Before he spoke, and before I knew what he would talk about, I put this on Facebook: “At my old church we had great motivational speakers who promised God would make us rich if we gave them money. Here at New Dawn Ministries, we have to settle for prophecy.”

Lately I’ve been getting back into tools, and I’ve started watching engineering lectures. Engineers don’t know where formulas come from. Physicists do, but they don’t know what to do with them, so I’m hoping to bridge the gap a little. I’ve been watching EE and ME stuff from NPTEL (Indian universities) and other sources. Today I decided to ask Mr. Tomasulo a few things, to see if he could steer me in the right direction. So far I’ve learned how much a truss can hold when the beams have been tempered in a tandoor.

Lo and behold, it turned out he wanted to talk to me. He remembered that I had been building tube amps. We started talking. I kept trying to tell him how much I admired engineers for knowing how to do USEFUL things, and he kept trying to tell me how much he admired physicists for knowing the root causes of stuff. Anyway, it turned out he was considering supplementing his income with EE work, and we started talking about amps. I told him it might be possible to generate some money building amps, and now he wants to come check out what I’m doing. Even if it goes nowhere, now I’ll have a friend who is almost a physicist. An EE is really not that far off. They are not the dumb engineers. What they do takes brains. They don’t seem to realize that, though.

An EE is actually more useful to me than a physicist, because a physicist wouldn’t know anything new.

We talked for quite a while, and unfortunately, his wife was standing right next to him, and she was bored so severely she required medical attention.

So here is what happened today. As a former physicist and amp builder who was recently told he had the anointing of a prophet and teacher, I met a guitar-playing EE apostle who wants to build tube amps. Tell me that’s not a weird day.

I want to introduce this guy to my dad as “Apostle Mike,” and I’ll insist he call him that. Come on. That’s irresistible. “Glad to know you, Mike.” “APOSTLE Mike, Dad.” “Uh…”

“Dad, I’m going to Five Guys with Apostle Mike. Do you want anything?”

I guess I’m stupid. That cracks me up.

But hey, it’s what he is.

I think if I could pick a job, it would be prophet. Apostles have to travel. Prophets can hang out in their garages and mess with tools most of the time, and every so often, they pop out, go to the local church, and say something that scares the living daylights out of everyone. Then they go home, and people leave them alone. It’s like Punxsutawney Phil, only holy.

“An earthquake is going to destroy the city next week, and afterward, an omer of organic dove’s dung from Whole Foods will cost as much as an Ipad 2. Plus God is going to give Deacon Fred a withered foot for playing Powerball. See you later, and stay off my lawn!”

I’m not positive my expectations are totally realistic. But it’s my understanding that a prophet can command a she-bear to eat punks that get on his nerves. That could be really handy.

Inherit the Earth; Don’t Earn the Wind

People have offered prayer and kind words concerning my sister’s situation. I don’t want to turn the blog into a reality show about someone’s bad decisions, but I felt I should write a little more.

During the week of Thanksgiving, it was my misfortune to speak with her, and she claimed she had broken her collarbone. Such things do happen, but–to be realistic–going to the hospital and complaining about a sore shoulder is a good way to get drugs. In any case, according to the courts, she has been given a continuance based on a shoulder injury. My best guess is that the injury is nonexistent or self-inflicted, and that she has managed to parlay a lie into a two-month reprieve. But you never know.

Anyway, thanks.

Last night I got a text about the pastor of my former church. Apparently, he was having back problems so severe, he was crying and screaming. The person who texted me used the phrase “falling apart.”

He has other problems. He’s diabetic, he has one artificial knee, and he has a blood disorder which would be fatal but for regular treatments. He also had kidney stones that had to be blasted out, during the same time period in which God healed two of my kidney stones miraculously. The person who texted me attributed the ailments to the exodus of the older armorbearers, who used to pray for the pastor.

I am hesitant to point to people’s problems and claim God has cursed them. Some people try pretty hard and still have hard lives, and many, many evil people have it easy. Also, I don’t want to invite judgment by suggesting I’m better than other people. I have plenty of stuff to work on. Nonetheless, I think it’s safe to say that when your body deteriorates consistently over a period of decades, it means something is wrong with your relationship with God. Especially when you’re a minister. A person in a holy office should be able to get good results from prayer.

That church is a plantation. They might as well hang a sign over the front that says, “Arbeit macht frei.” They cheat employees and con the poor out of offerings they can’t afford, and they brainwash people so they won’t speak out, leave, or even acknowledge the truth.

They tell people positive thinking and hard work will save them, except when it comes to money. If you want money, you have to give the pastors exorbitant offerings out of your lack, even when it means ignoring your just debts. If you do that, well, sure, God’s supernatural power will kick in, to make you rich! Otherwise, it’s all self-help.

Moses learned about self-help at the spring of Meribah. Eve learned about self-help when she performed the first act of drug abuse, in an attempt to gain supernatural wisdom. Nebuchadnezzar learned about self-help when God drove him mad and let him live like an animal for seven years. Self-help does not exist. You can do little things for yourself, with effects that are limited in power and duration. But you can’t give yourself a blessed life.

The Nazis put signs reading “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work makes you free”) at the entrances of camps like Auschwitz. That’s interesting, because the death camps were Satanic parodies of the temple in Jerusalem. At the temple, animals were sacrificed and burned to make God forget men’s sins. In the camps, God’s people were sacrificed and burned, in the hope that man would forget the Jews.

This is why God doesn’t like cremation. He knows that when the bodies of his people are destroyed, men will rise up later and deny they existed. God would not permit Joseph’s bones to remain in Egypt, where they could be lost. Even after Joseph’s death, the bones served a purpose.

The Nazis claimed their slaves would gain freedom through work, but no matter what the slaves did, they lived in servitude, lack, and defeat, and their ultimate destinations were fire and pits. I don’t know how the parallels could be more clear.

Satan works hard. Is he going to end up free?

The work we do outside of God’s will is vanity. It is futile. It is waste. It accomplishes nothing, except to bring us closer to hell. Like prosperity preachers, the Nazis kept the Jews busy with promises of good things that would never come. They worked, like hamsters on wire wheels, and they never advanced, except toward destruction.

The temple was not a place that celebrated work. It was a place that celebrated the fact that God had done the work for us. It celebrated grace, which is unearned divine help. It’s only natural (on more levels than one) that the Nazis praised the power of human effort in their diabolical slaughterhouses. Their teaching was the opposite of the truth.

Any church that glorifies human effort is screwed up, and any pastor that teaches that nonsense, while milking the poor like cattle, is likely to find that there are serious gaps in his divine protection.

I don’t think the folks who run that church believe in God. Maybe they do, but my impression is that they don’t. I don’t see how anyone can believe in God while cheating employees and teaching get-rich-quick doctrine which has been proven to be false. If these awful teachings appeared to work, I could understand how believers could teach them, but they don’t produce results. The people at the church were poor when they showed up, and they’re still poor. The church itself is poor. How long do you have to stand in the rain before you realize it’s time to go in the house?

I don’t pray for this man to be healed, except through repentance and faith. If God healed him miraculously today, he would surely take it as a sign that everything he’s doing is okay. He needs a change of heart, not a physical healing that doesn’t affect his beliefs.

I keep praying God will drive the leadership out of that church and replace it, and my faith says it will happen. There is no clique or family whose comfort justifies oppressing and misleading thousands of people. They know what they’re doing wrong. It’s not rocket science. If they were blameless, I’d feel differently, but I can’t see any way to excuse what they do.

The church–the body of believers all across America–is extremely sick. We are declining rapidly. God gives us teaching after teaching, and sign after sign, and we keep throwing it away. In a sane world, the charismatic movement would have put an end to Satan’s rule. So much power fell on us. But we’re using it to buy jets for Kenneth Copeland and Paula White instead of transforming people’s hearts. There is no gift so powerful we can’t corrupt it.

We are truly amazing. God dealt with Adam face to face, and Adam fell. God gave the Jews prophets and priests and blatant signs, and they fell. God gave Christians the Holy Spirit, living inside us, and we fell. There is probably nothing God can do to protect us from our own stupidity, short of abolishing free will.

The news for the human race is bad, but the news for you is very good. The Titanic is sinking, but you can get into a lifeboat whenever you want. Many people you know are going to die and burn, and you can’t save many. That’s terrible. But you don’t have to join them.

The Courts of Man are for People Too Stupid to Take God’s Plea Bargains

Before I posted the entry I wrote last night, I asked God if I should do it, and it seemed that I had his approval. Having put it up, I might as well continue.

Today I went to the Richard B. Gerstein building, otherwise known as the criminal courthouse. This is a depressing concrete Sixties structure that could pass for Soviet architecture. The online docket said my sister’s trial was scheduled for 9:30 a.m., in courtroom 5-4, before Judge Migna Sanchez-Llorens. I don’t have any idea where my Florida Bar card is. If I did, I could have used it to circumvent the line of impatient people going through the metal detectors. I found myself shuffling forward among people with face tattoos. Individuals who talked too loud and made gestures which, among polite people, would nearly be considered assault.

I found the courtroom, and I asked where they kept the docket. I had forgotten. It was sitting beside the door. My sister was on page 19. The paper docket is more complete than the one they put on the Internet. It clearly stated that she had failed PTI, or pretrial intervention. That meant there were two remaining options: trial or plea.

I went into the courtroom and noticed, as I have in the past, that it resembled a church. The seats were pews. There were pulpits facing the bench. There was even a tacky stained glass wall behind the judge.

It was dark. I have no idea why they keep the lights so low. It’s as if demons work there and can’t stand the light.

The people looked grungy, as always. They look pretty grungy in civil court, but in criminal court, they look even worse. The lawyers don’t try to dress well. Even the women look baggy and frazzled. Their hair looks like they combed it while driving to work, and it has no shine. Their skin is dull. The men wear suits the way I wore a suit when I was a kid and my mother forced me to go to church. They don’t take pride in their suits. They wear them simply to be allowed to work. They throw them on and add cheap, boring ties that aren’t tied well, and their reward is the privilege of speaking in court without being cited for contempt. That’s all they’re shooting for.

The judge is a fortyish lady who looks like she hasn’t slept in days. She seemed to squint, like someone who works in a haze of irritating cigarette smoke. She was polite and quick, but she rarely smiled, and there was nothing even remotely social about her dealings with the attorneys. Pure business. Get them in; get them out. Get it done. Go to lunch. No jokes. No teasing. Some judges manage to bring a little life to their courtrooms, but it seemed as though that idea had not occurred to Judge Sanchez-Llorens.

I’m not faulting her. She seemed to do a fine job. I’m just characterizing her style as I perceived it.

A girl I went to high school is a criminal judge. I haven’t seen her at work. I’ve often wondered what it would be like. In high school, she was one of the girls who took nothing seriously. She sat across the room from me in Latin class, with her friend Maria. Giggling at the socially awkard teacher and waiting for it to be over. Perpetually bored. Not the kind of person you would expect to see in a judge’s robe. Sometimes people get serious when they realize they have to make a living.

The people in the pews looked really bad. I saw young men who apparently thought sagging was a good way to impress a judge. I was surprised the bailiff didn’t tell them to pull their pants up so the rest of us didn’t have to see eight inches of boxer shorts. He snapped at people for talking, but the ghetto lingerie show didn’t seem to faze him.

I saw one girl in hot pants. No kidding. I mean shorts that ended about an inch from her crotch. There used to be judges who would send attorneys home for wearing expensive dress shirts that weren’t white. Now people show up in hot pants.

I looked around, and I thought, “This place is the gate of hell.” As far as we know, there are three levels of human existence. In hell, people have no liberty, and they live in constant defeat. In paradise, they have liberty and satisfaction, and they live in victory. On earth, things go both ways. If you can get God to bless you and protect you, life is pretty good, for the most part. If you live under curses, you end up in court, and you get a little foretaste of hell, which should wise you up. You’re subjected to great anxiety. You may be physically restrained. You may end up confined to a box in a building that smells like urine, much like the unsaved people who are confined in the afterlife. The people who work at the courthouse will try to help you minimize the defeat, but if you don’t listen, you’ll descend deeper and deeper into misery.

It seemed like a church dedicated to Satan. We are taught that Satan rules this world, and that means he’s a big part of government. Blessed people go to God’s churches. People who rely on themselves and the government end up in Satan’s municipal and federal churches. Christians plead their cases before God. The non-blessed plead their cases before judges.

No wonder the atmosphere in courthouses is so depressing. You don’t end up in a courthouse until Satan gets a grip on you and pulls you there. A courthouse is a place where people go to lose their liberty, their children, their jobs, their money, their spouses, and even their lives. It’s not a place where you want to be.

It reminded me how badly I want to avoid going into courthouses in the future. I’m so grateful that I have been spared. I’ve done stupid things and gotten away with them. I’ve nearly done stupid things, and I’ve changed my mind or had my path changed for me. I could have been just like these people. At the mercy of the moderately bright girl who giggled in Latin class, instead of the all-knowing God who created the galaxies.

I was there for several hours, and when my sister’s name was finally called, it turned out the defense had filed for a continuance. The defense attorney wasn’t there, and neither was my sister. I had wasted my time. I got up and went home. I was so glad to leave; the whole time I had been there, I had felt as though I had been the one on trial.

I heard no mention of a plea, and the trial is still set to take place. The date is February 4.

It’s starting to sink in. She may be headed for at least three years in the penitentiary. If she can’t shake the battery charge loose, it will be eight years. No probation. No time off. I don’t think they permit concurrent sentences for crimes with mandatory minimums. Maybe they do. If so, she might do only five years, even if convicted of both crimes.

She has a misdemeanor trial tomorrow. I don’t think I’ll go. I’m weighing the pluses and minuses.

I wondered: should my father and I have sprung for a better attorney? The answer is no. She chose her attorney, and she can afford to make a change if she wants. The attorney she’s using now is working for nothing, and that’s probably why she chose him. I would be happy to provide cash for a different lawyer, if she transferred some assets to me, but there is no way on God’s green earth that I’ll spend my own money while she has a dime to her name.

My advice to everyone is to live right and get under God’s protection. The courts are inept and slow, even when judges do their best. And like defendants say, you can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride. Court is a miserable experience even if you “win.” It’s like the WOPR said: the only way to win is not to play.

Every Chip a Year

Tomorrow will be interesting. My sister is slated to be tried for two felonies at 9:30 a.m. When I researched the penalties a long time ago, I learned that they carried mandatory minimums of 3 and 5 years, with a total of 30 years as the maximum. That’s assuming I understood the charges correctly.

She can’t serve less than the minima if she is convicted. She can plead it down to something less devastating, but only if the victim, prosecution, and court agree. The problem is that when it comes to battery on a law enforcement officer, bargaining is less likely than with other offenses. And she has a bad record as a defendant. She was placed in diversion programs for her felonies and misdemeanors. She failed to complete the misdemeanor program. I think she failed the felony program, too. I’m not sure. She was arrested for failing to attend the required hearings. I don’t think the case would be set for trial, had she completed it. She also has a pile of unpaid tickets, so the court will know she has a bad attitude.

I’m thinking I’ll go tomorrow. I won’t be going to support her. She will be enraged if she sees me there. I’ll be going to find out what really happened, and what the disposition of the case is. I would never get the truth from her or her attorney. She has a misdemeanor trial the next day. Maybe they’ll play the video of the stop. I would like to see that. If she allocutes at the felony hearing, they won’t play it.

Tonight I ran an errand in the truck, and I looked through my Ipod for music to listen to. I had a hard time choosing, and I ended up picking James Taylor. I don’t know why. Then I realized the song I had chosen–Fire and Rain–was about suicide.

My sister has never been inclined to commit suicide. She has made plenty of threats, but that was just manipulation. She loves and admires herself in a very strange, somewhat idolatrous way. I would say she venerates herself, the way crazed fans adore people like Elvis or Michael Jackson. It approaches worship. Although she has always been willing to sacrifice others in exchange for small rewards, she wouldn’t harm herself out of shame or despair. But tonight it occurred to me that she is capable of doing absolutely anything out of spite. If she thought she was getting away with something–cheating justice and proving she can’t be told what to do–she might do it. Sort of like Hermann Goering.

My best guess is that she won’t get prison time. But I’m not a criminal lawyer.

I’m sure I’m more concerned than she is.

Anyway, I better get to bed. There is nothing more I can do.