Worms are Low-Carb!

I had an interesting experience yesterday. My church hosted Apostle Caleb Jean.

I don’t know this man. He has made a very good impression on my pastor, who is careful about the people he sets before us. My old church would let any old crook in. What a difference.

The service ran from 10:30 a.m. until after 4:00. Usually, when our services run long, I start praying for God to help the team wrap up, so we don’t drive people away by making them miserable, and I admit, we started to reach that point a couple of times yesterday, but overall, people wanted to stay. When people believe God is manifesting himself, they’ll come to your church, they won’t want to leave, and they’ll be happy to support you financially. I tried to tell that to the pastor of my old church, but…water off a duck’s back.

As I said, I don’t know Caleb Jean, and I can’t swear he’s the real thing, but he was very impressive. He called people up and spoke in tongues and prophesied over them. He talked about their mistakes and the things about them that pleased God. He gave them advice. And here’s the weirdest thing: he gave things away and did not take an offering for his own ministry. He took a second offering for our pastor’s ministry, but that’s not the same thing.

If this man appeared on TBN and did things like that, they would have the prop guys build a cross, and they would crucify him on camera. TBN is a business, and they love greedy preachers who support their greed-based message. You don’t go on TBN to give. You go on TBN to take, and to help the owners take.

Apostle Jean called a couple of my closest friends up. They have five kids. The sixth–my first godchild–is about to pop out. I’ve talked to the husband a lot about the financial burdens he is facing, and the feeling we both have is that children come from God, and it’s best not to interfere. Look at Psalm 137:

Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord: and the fruit of the womb is his reward. As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth. Happy is the man that hath his quiver full of them: they shall not be ashamed, but they shall speak with the enemies in the gate.

The Jews say that when you kill a man, you kill a nation. Seems to me that the same thing applies when you abort a man.

Apostle Jean doesn’t know these people, but he gave them the same advice I did, more or less. He talked about the misfortune of people who put off having kids and then find they can’t reproduce any more.

I know a woman who had at least one abortion. Now she’s old, and her looks are completely gone. There is absolutely no way she could have a baby without the help of science, and if she manages to marry, it will be extraordinary, because her appearance, personality, age, and debts will repel men. I’ve heard her say God told her she would have a child of her own body. Some people will say absolutely anything and attribute it to God. I can’t tell you what God did or did not say to her, but it is my strong opinion that she wouldn’t know the voice of God if she heard it.

I know a man who complains bitterly that he has no grandchildren. He has even wished his daughter would have an illegitimate child, purely to satisfy his desires. He supports convenience abortion. I happen to know that one of his grandchildren was aborted. How can you be in favor of barrenness and expect your family to be fruitful? He would have been distraught, had he known about the abortion in advance.

It seemed remarkable to me that Apostle Jean gave the same advice I did. I believe God tells different servants the same things, and one of the marks of a person who knows God is that generally, he does not contradict other people who know God.

He spoke over several couples. I noticed something funny. He spent most of the time correcting the women. I believe he was right to do so. Our sick feminized culture has taught women not to submit. It has taught them to fight with men and to be narcissistic and unsupportive. Even Christian women are infected. They don’t listen to their men, because weak, cowardly pastors keep teaching that men and women are equal partners in marriage. Preachers don’t have the guts to point to the Bible, which honors Sarah for calling Abraham “Lord.” The fact is, there is a command structure in marriage, and women are not at the top. A desire to rule over a husband comes from the curse God pronounced over Adam and Eve; you can look it up. It’s not something to nurture. It’s a sickness that has to be stamped out.

He told one woman not to blow a lot of money on a fancy marriage, and she didn’t look pleased. He was right. It amazes me that people will spend twenty thousand dollars on a party, when they can’t afford it. We do everything we can to start marriages off badly. We go into debt. We drive our friends into debt, demanding ridiculous gifts and forcing them to spend money on costumes they can only wear once. We send our young men to prostitutes before the ceremonies (strippers are prostitutes). We require men to blow huge sums on silly rings which usually have to be financed. Then the babies come, and the fights over money start. And the women are already resentful because they know what happened at the bachelor parties. The men are resentful because of the money they’ve had to spend already. Apostle Jean told these kids to put the money toward a house. Good advice.

He advised another young lady not to wait to have kids. He said it was a mistake to worry about her figure. I think he was right. The figure is going to be ruined anyway. Time will have its way. Might as well get something in return for it.

He told one wife to get control of her emotions, and to stop raining her misery and worry on her husband. Wow, was he right. I know these people. The husband is trying to ground the family and provide stability, but the wife gets very emotional, very quickly. Then the husband has to restrain her emotions as well as his own. That’s a big burden. Our sick culture has taught her that she doesn’t have to honor or obey him, so it’s taking time for her to change, and during that time, he has to take the punishment.

Women want powerful husbands, but a husband can’t be powerful if his wife won’t permit it.

Watching the service, I was reminded of something Jesus said:

But Jesus, said unto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own kin, and in his own house. And he could there do no mighty work, save that he laid his hands upon a few sick folk, and healed them.

Jesus is our “husband.” How can he do great works in us, if we won’t honor him and submit to him?

It’s unfortunate that these women had to hear from an apostle, in front of the church, before taking these things to heart. I’m sure their husbands and parents have told them the same thing. You shouldn’t have to wait for a letter from the Pope before you accept good advice. People are inclined to listen to those who are arrogant or who are respected by others. They treat the humble like children, no matter how wise they are.

Apostle Jean gave a new baby car seat to a couple from my church. He didn’t have it with him. It wasn’t like a door prize. He saw their need, and he said he would have one delivered. And he told them he was going to send them to a nice hotel for a weekend getaway. I was stunned. Have you ever seen a preacher give anyone ANYTHING? I know they pass stuff out to the poor sometimes, but what preacher goes into his own pocket and gives things to strangers? Apostle Jean did that, and then he took up a second offering…for OUR church.

I think that if Benny Hinn had seen that, his combover would have burst into flames.

Meanwhile, my former church is teaching more nonsense. They work from fear, greed, narcissism, and desperation; they don’t care whether a message comes from God, as long as it serves their carnal aims. A bunch of preachers have started saying “tithing is the training wheels of giving,” and the message is that if you only give YOUR CHURCH ten percent, you’re not going to get blessed. It’s the same crap Steve Munsey teaches, from a new angle. It’s been going around for at least a few years. My old church got ahold of it, so now they’re teaching it. Meanwhile, they can’t pay their own bills. You would think a person who can’t prosper wouldn’t feel entitled to teach others how to prosper.

One of the things that soured me on that church was the way they ripped off other preachers. In 2010, they announced they had a “2020 vision” for the church. The idea was that God was going to give them 100,000 souls by 2020. I got on Google and entered “church” and “2020 vision,” and my screen was filled with earlier versions of the same thing. Imagine one of the prophets telling the ancient Jews he had heard from God, and then repeating what another prophet had said. He would have been stoned to death. It turns out churches rip each other off all the time. They don’t hear from God, because they disobey him and serve their bellies, so they call around and ask each other for material, or they simply steal it. They call these awful pitches “microwave sermons.” They’re like leftovers you heat up in the microwave.

When God blessed the Jews in the wilderness, he gave them fresh manna every day, and when they tried to hold onto the old manna, it spawned worms. That hasn’t changed. A real man of God will hear from the Lord on the fly. He won’t have to open Bartlett’s Quotations or steal from Reader’s Digest.

Apostle Jean told people things they did not want to hear, and he gave instead of taking. That impressed me. I hope he’s the real thing. We need more leaders like that.

“I’m Right HERE!”

The other day a kid I know went on Facebook and complained that five pastors had pushed him down in order to make it look like he had been “slain in the Spirit.”

If you’re not a charismatic, you may not know what I’m talking about. Sometimes when people get into the presence of the Holy Spirit, it makes them a little dizzy. Some claim the Spirit makes them unable to stand. They collapse and lie on the floor for a while. I don’t know whether this is real or not. The dizziness part, I can attest to. But I’ve never fallen down. I had a highly dubious preacher give me a dose of this, and all I felt was a sweaty palm.

If you go on Youtube, I’m sure you can find videos of people essentially whacking people in the forehead. Generally, two helpers will stand behind the person, and he or she will be caught and lowered to the floor. Sometimes the preachers push very hard.

Maybe some people lose the ability to stand when God touches them. But there is no doubt that there are bogus “slayings.” Christians let their guard down, trying to let God in, and sometimes other things that aren’t as clean come through the door.

Here’s an appropriate video.

The young man who made the Facebook post is a friend of mine. He used to help me make pizza every Sunday at church. He’s a good kid. He’s sincere. His mom died a while back, and he has been very unhappy. And he’s stuck in a church that takes advantage of people and offers them nothing. I pray about him from time to time. I wish he’d come by my church. It’s not perfect, but it’s very good. It would undo a lot of the damage the prosperity pimps have done.

I told him this: when preachers lose touch with God, they start faking miracles.

Perry Stone often talks about a Tennessee preacher who got caught doing this. He had a man in a golf cart driving around the parking lot in a venue where he preached. The man had a computer, and he used resources available to repossession firms. He was able to take car license plates and get the owners’ names and the last four digits of their Social Security numbers. Then he communicated the information to the preacher via radio, and the preacher announced it from the stage, pretending it came from God.

Now it looks like my friend’s church is doing the same thing, in a somewhat less egregious way.

It’s not a surprise. That church is a mess. God has not blessed it. The mortgage is huge, and the offerings are not. Strong Christians keep fleeing the place. They’ll teach just about anything in order to get people to give money. They do their best to enrich themselves using carnal tools, so why should God step in and help?

My friend is totally disgusted. Good for him! He has decided to look for the truth in the Bible and in his own experiences, instead of listening to carnival barkers behind pulpits.

I got very angry when I read about his experience. That church has nothing to do with the kingdom of heaven. It’s a family business. A place where a family of owner-operators go to make money and to be promoted. I wrote a few things that were highly critical of prosperity preachers. I had doubts about posting them, but I asked God what I should do, and I felt a powerful response, telling me to go ahead. I thought I was going too far, but it seemed that the Holy Spirit was telling me I wasn’t doing nearly enough.

A young lady who is a very serious Christian expressed concern. She worried that I might be becoming bitter, or that I was out of line. People come to me with these concerns, as though I had never thought about them. Of course, I do think about them. I don’t want God chastising me because I’ve been too hard on other people. I pray before I say critical things, and if the Holy Spirit tells me to hold back, I do it. If he tells me to go ahead, I do that. I have learned to recognize his voice. I’m not out there on a limb, doing what my flesh tells me to do.

This brings me to my subject. Christians still don’t understand what it means to be out from under the law. Jesus set us free, yet we have turned his own words into law. The irony is horrific.

Before Jesus, people were under laws. What are laws? They’re writings. Like books. What is their fundamental purpose? To replace living, thinking beings.

Imagine someone is looking to you for guidance. If you can’t be with him, and you can’t communicate with him in real time, what do you do? You record information for him to rely on. Some of that information will be in the form of rules. For example, if someone works for you as a house sitter, you might write things like, “Don’t leave the porch light on.”

What happens when the rules aren’t appropriate to a situation? They cause more problems than they solve. What if you tell the house sitter to leave a key under the mat, but then you learn that your sister the psychopath kleptomaniac is coming to town, and she knows about the mat? Suddenly, the rule is your enemy. If you let it trap you, you’re in trouble.

What if you’re in the house with the house sitter? Things are much better. When he has a problem, he can come to you and ask your advice. You can tailor your words to suit the situation.

THAT is the difference between the law and the Holy Spirit. When you learn to hear the Holy Spirit, God is with you. The things he tells you in real time supersede the law. The Holy Spirit told David to serve the temple showbread to his men, which was against the law. The Holy Spirit told Jesus to heal people on the sabbath. It told him his disciples were allowed to harvest grain on the sabbath. When the rulemaker is present, you don’t need the rules.

Jesus told us “Judge not.” Is that a law? How can it be, if it came from the man who set us free from the law? Remember, the Bible says this: “Do not answer a fool according to his folly, Lest you also be like him. Answer a fool according to his folly, Lest he be wise in his own eyes.” Is that a contradiction? No! It’s God, telling us the written law doesn’t work. He’s telling us we need to know him personally, so he can be our law.

This is why the Bible tells us, “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” In the Bible, “son” doesn’t always mean what it means in the secular world. It means one who emulates and obeys another as though he were a father. If you emulate the devil, it doesn’t mean he had intercourse with your mother. It means you behave as though you were his devoted son. If you’re a son of God, you are like God in your heart, and you are guided by him.

Satan loves the law. It’s so useful to him. He can use it to tie us up and render us helpless.

Imagine you go to a church where the pastor is a low-down, worthless crook. Let’s say he sleeps with several women in the church, teaches that there is no such thing as sin, and steals as much money as he can. What do you do? Other Christians will tell you that you have to submit. “Judge not!” In this way, Satan uses them to hold you down while he rapes the church. He uses good rules to achieve bad ends, and he makes you his accomplice.

What if you’re above the law? What if the Holy Spirit communicates with you, clearly and quickly? Then you may be allowed or even required to speak up. If someone tells you not to judge, they’re out of line, because you have complete authority. You’re breaking written rules and traditions, but you’re obeying the living God. No one can touch you.

This is why we have to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. We have to pray in tongues and get to know God as part of us. This is what “born again” means. The Holy Spirit is like semen, if you will pardon the expresson. Like the DNA a man contributes during sex, the Holy Spirit shapes a new being so it becomes like its father. People think “born again” means you raised your hand and accepted salvation, or that you repented of sin. Those things are just part of the process.

God is not breeding pets he can enjoy. He is reproducing. Jesus came into the earth to make us sons and daughters of God. He calls us “heirs.” An heir does not exist until someone dies (look it up), and heirs are almost always descendants. I’m not saying each of us will get a universe and sit on a throne as God, but we will be like our father. The Holy Spirit will shape us and build us.

Satan can’t misuse the Holy Spirit the way he misuses the law. He can mask him. He can get people to do stupid things and claim the Holy Spirit is in them. But he can’t get a Spirit-led person to defeat himself by obeying the Spirit. If the Spirit truly tells you to do it, he is right, and what you do is approved. If you’re not baptized with the Spirit, and you’re not praying in the Spirit daily, you won’t be able to tell his voice from Satan’s. But if you’re on your game, you’ll be on a path that will always be straight. You’ll be on the highway in the desert, mentioned in Isaiah 35. Even if you’re a fool, as we all are in our own right, you will not err.

I’ve judged people’s actions at God’s request. People tell me this is wrong, and they cite the word of Jesus as though it were law. They miss the point. When I do what God tells me, I have authority. He will not always tell us to do the same thing, in similar situations. Today I may be required to be quiet. Tomorrow, I may be required to stand up and point out error. If you’re not in touch with the Spirit, you can’t judge my actions.

The ancient Jews didn’t understand this. When Jesus told them things that conflicted with tradition, or with their understanding of the law, they asked him where he got his authority. He refused to tell them, because they would not have understood. His authority came from the Holy Spirit, with whom he had been baptized by John. Modern Christians still don’t get it. They say we’re not under the law, but in reality, they think we’re under new laws. That’s not true. People who know the Spirit are children of God, and they are not under the law. People who accept salvation but not the Spirit? Still under the law, in their daily affairs.

If you understand these things, the book of Galatians makes sense.

Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all; But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father. Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world: But when the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, To redeem them that were under the law, that we might receive the adoption of sons. And because ye are sons, God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your hearts, crying, Abba, Father. Wherefore thou art no more a servant, but a son; and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ.

Howbeit then, when ye knew not God, ye did service unto them which by nature are no gods. But now, after that ye have known God, or rather are known of God, how turn ye again to the weak and beggarly elements, whereunto ye desire again to be in bondage? Ye observe days, and months, and times, and years. I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.

He says, “I am afraid of you, lest I have bestowed upon you labour in vain.” Clearly, Paul had the same concern I do. Jesus bought us a hotline to the throne room, yet we prefer to live under laws we can memorize, while keeping God at a safe distance.

The law is a lot better than nothing, but the Spirit is a lot better than the law.

People need to quit worrying about me. I’m not bitter. I don’t sit around plotting death and destruction for people who have mistreated me. I do get angry, temporarily, when I see people doing rotten things. But that is a fleeting thing, and most of my life is very peaceful. I have absolutely no desire to punish anyone. I do speak up about bad things people do, but that’s not punishment.

Consider what happened to the man in the martial arts video. He faked power. He convinced others that he had it. Then he met a real adversary, and he was beaten and injured, with great ease. He was humiliated. That’s what happens to Christians who fake God’s help. We may be full of it, but our enemies are not. When they come against you, you better have something stronger than a phony anointing.

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.

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.

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.