A Pastor Has to Have Guts

Yesterday morning, my pastor sent people a text. He said the Holy Spirit had come over him and given him visions concerning certain people in the church. He was planning to talk about it at the evening service.

I thought that was pretty exciting. It’s much better than the mundane, disappointing communications I received at my old church.

At the service, he told us he had been taken to a place where there was a table. A man was sitting at the table. He introduced himself as “Mr. Fire” and said he had been waiting to meet my pastor for a long time.

He took him directly into the church, and from the front, they watched people praying and worshiping. I don’t have the recording of the service, so I don’t remember everything, but he pointed out three women. One had some kind of purpose related to worship, another was anointed to pray for the salvation of the city, and the third was going to have a ministry in which she basically set people straight, speaking the truth for God’s sake.

As my pastor talked about the anointings people had received, he called them up so he could talk to them face to face. He called me up and told me he had seen me with an American flag draped over my shoulders and a sword in my hand. He said the sword became a pen. I was anointed to be a prophet, and I would write God’s word down and help Americans come back to God. He said he saw me at a book signing with people lined up to see me. There were also people who hated me and wanted to get at me, but God was holding them back, so they couldn’t do anything.

I was a little freaked out. I am not used to getting attention at church. At my old church, you had to get with the positive thinking program or get used to being ignored. I spoke up about things that were not right, so I was perceived as someone who could not be relied upon to echo the party line. At New Dawn, people treat me with a surprising amount of respect, and while I am honored–and somewhat relieved–to be taken seriously, I don’t feel comfortable as the center of attention. It’s good to get up there, do whatever God wants, and go back and sit down.

It may seem strange that a character with a name like “Mr. Fire” would appear in a vision from God, but wisdom and wickedness have been described prophetically as individuals, as have conquest, famine, and so on.

At a recent service, an apostle named Byron Walters came and criticized modern churches for having no guts. My old church was run by anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality conservatives who praised Obama in front of their mostly black congregation. Apostle Walters would not have liked that too much. He criticized churches that showed secular movies and then interrupted them so motivational speakers masquerading as preachers could comment. My old church did that, and my former pastor has billed himself as a motivational speaker.

It looks like the movement to which my church belongs is being used by God to correct the foolishness of mainstream charismatic churches. That suits me fine, since I’m appalled at the way prosperity preachers and positive thinkers enslave people in order to get their tithes and offerings. The “fire” message we received yesterday is just part of this new assignment. In the Bible, fire is often mentioned in connection with righteous anger, zeal for God’s house, cleansing, punishment, and the destruction of God’s enemies.

I looked at Matthew 3 while the pastor was talking. In that chapter, John the Baptist said Jesus would baptize us with water–the living water of tongues and so on–but he also said Jesus would baptize us with fire. I hadn’t thought much about that in the past.

Fire is part of God’s heart. It is motivation. It is energy. When it’s inside you, it may feel pleasant. But to the people you deal with, it may not be pleasant. If you’re full of God’s fire, you’re going to correct and criticize when you have to. Like Samson, when he sent foxes to set fire to the harvest of the Philistines, you will burn the enemy’s crops. Like Jeremiah, who said the word of God was like an uncontainable fire in his bones, you will say things that turn carnal people against you.

During the service, I noticed something. Fire tends to come after water. John mentioned fire after water. God destroyed mankind with water, but when he destroys the world again, it will be with fire. After the service, my pastor and I were talking, and he mentioned Elijah, who poured water on a sacrifice which was then consumed by fire. Fire represents a decrease in God’s patience. This is why fire was used to burn the flesh of sacrificed animals.

I looked at Jeremiah today. Jeremiah kept telling people God’s wishes and passing on God’s critiques, and generally, he was punished for it. He was not a POSITIVE THINKER. He refused to tell people God was going to bring them PROSPERITY. At my old church, I was just like Jeremiah.

You wouldn’t believe how people twisted the Bible in hopes of shutting me down. They quoted Matthew 7:1; “Judge not,” etcetera. They quoted Matthew 7:3; I needed to look at the beam in my own eye. Those are fine scriptures, but these people were abusing them.

It is essential that we speak up when things are going wrong, especially when people who speak for God are endorsing evil and condemning good. The soft, mushy people who are hung up on Matthew 7:1 and 7:3 didn’t get that way because they don’t judge or because they always consider their own faults. They got that way because they love having a weapon to use against people who say things that require them to repent.

If you think Matthew 7:1 is the highest law in the Bible, and that anyone who criticizes is “judging,” then you should never use it to correct someone, because if you do, you’re judging. Think about it. If you tell me I have a beam in my eye because I criticize, doesn’t that mean you have a beam in your eye?

It looks like God is bringing the Jeremiah anointing back, in hopes of saving America. And the only weapons weak Christians can use to fight God are his own words from Matthew 7. We’re going to hear them over and over and over.

Jeremiah lived under Josiah, the last righteous king. Then he lived under the kings who were beaten by Nebuchadnezzar. The last king, Zedekiah, had to watch while the Babylonians murdered his children, and that was the last thing he ever saw, because they then held him down and cut his eyes out. Jerusalem was razed, the Temple was destroyed, the most successful people were carried off as slaves, and the sons of nobles, including Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, were castrated and turned into servants.

This is what Jeremiah, the most hated man in Judah, was trying to prevent. I’m sure he wished he could speak words of comfort and warmth, but by the time Josiah’s successor made it to the throne, it was too late for that. It was time for God to get out the belt. Zedekiah should have listened instead of tormenting the prophet who brought him God’s guidance.

The Jews could have retained power in Jerusalem. The Temple could have been preserved, and within it, the priests could have continued to receive God’s guidance. The nation would have prospered. But they preferred idolatry and arrogance. They preferred shooting the messenger, even while acknowledging that the messenger spoke God’s word.

The Osteens and Schullers of the world are building churches just like the palace of Zedekiah. If it’s not soft and mushy, they don’t want to hear it. Guidance is “division.” I guess that’s true. It divides people from their own stupidity.

America needs Jeremiahs. Secular America is beyond hope. People behave as if homosexuality, greed, and arrogance were vital virtues. Christian America is headed in the same direction. We talk about love, love, love…not because we love, but because it makes more money for preachers. If you take out judgment, you get bigger crowds, and that means more money. And it also means adopting secular values. It won’t be long before a charismatic megachurch preacher goes on TV and tells us Jesus may have been gay.

If you really love people, you tell them what they need to hear, and that doesn’t mean kissing their rear ends. The only love the feelgood preachers really possess is love for admiration and money.

The non-Christian establishment is gaining power very quickly. Government officials are persecuting us openly now. Romney is not a Christian, but he’s a friend of Christians, and the press is going after him with a fresh surge of venom and dishonesty. People who should be standing firm are kneeling down. Even Chick-fil-A has crumbled. Their charity arm no longer contributes to the fight against homosexual marriage. We need Jeremiahs to stand up and speak. We need fire. And as John the Baptist pointed out, it only comes from one place: the baptism with the Holy Spirit. If you don’t have it, you are not going to stand. You will deny God just as Peter did. Many of our most popular TV preachers deny him every day, in front of nonthreatening Christians. If they can’t tell the truth to Christians–if they are that cowardly–we already know what they’ll do when non-Christian persecutors show up. They won’t be heirs to Jeremiah. They’ll be heirs to Judas. And for the same reason: love of money.

It’s going to be interesting to see where God goes with this. One thing is for sure: it’s better to have God’s fire inside you while you live than to be bathed in it after you die.

Obama’s Response to Terrorism: Threaten Innocent American Citizens With Jail Time

Nobody cares what I blog about, now that I’ve gone from 3,000 daily uniques down to something like 140. Nonetheless, I thought I’d repeat what I wrote on Facebook this morning:

In order to investigate filmmaker “Sam Bacile” for a possible probation violation, before the Obama administration knew who he was, they had to mount a deliberate investigation, determine his identity, and then do a comprehensive background check to find out if there was anything they could do to him. Doesn’t that scare you? Our government found out someone had exercised their freedom of speech, and they INVESTIGATED him and looked for charges to press!

He may not be the person who made the film. That hasn’t been proven yet. If he’s not, will the Obama team force him to out the real filmmaker, ensuring a Muslim death sentence for that person and his or her family?

Right now, he’s being investigated for a technical violation of his probation. If they didn’t have that, the Obama team would be using unpaid parking tickets, overdue library books, or anything else that turned up. You and your children could be next! Why isn’t Obama protecting this American citizen instead of exposing him to grave danger?

It shocks me that so few people have any understanding of the gravity of the situation Christians and Jews are facing. Notice I didn’t say “Americans.” No one in the US is being persecuted for patriotism. People are being persecuted–by our government–for their religious beliefs.

In these days of razor-thin election margins, it’s very fashionable to discard God and say stupid things like, “I’m socially liberal but fiscally conservative.” What that really means is, “I don’t care about God, but I do care about the economy, and I believe abandoning God will help us win elections.” People believe that if we somehow disentwine our religious beliefs from our political policies, the GOP will be more popular, and we’ll get control of the government.

That may sound smart, but it’s where the Democrats went fifty years ago. Look what happened to them. Big tent, little brain. The moral compass of the Democratic Party does nothing but spin.

Now we have Ann Coulter–a party icon–working as a proud spokeswoman for gay Republicans. I dropped my support for Coulter years ago, when I learned that some of the things liberals said about her were true. She really did say bigoted things; no one made that up. I was excoriated by followers of “Saint Ann.” They felt that anyone who was really good at insulting liberals had to be an asset to the movement. Look where that led. Who will she be representing next? Conservatives for incest? How about conservatives for socialism? When the salt loses its saltness, what difference does it make which new flavors it takes on?

The issue is not conservatism v. liberalism. It’s God v. the unteachable. At the moment, the unteachable have much more control over liberals than conservatives, but that is changing. If it keeps changing, conservatism will cease to exist. We love co-opting liberal policies in order to get votes. Before long, we’ll be competing to see who leans farthest to the left, and conservatism will be dead.

So. The battle is between God and everyone who rejects God, and one manifestation of that battle is the left’s fight against American Christians and Jews.

Let’s go back to the Chick-fil-A mess. Almost no one understood it or analyzed it correctly. The problem wasn’t that liberals boycotted a business, although to read the brainless “pundits,” you would think this was the nexus of the conflict. The real problem was that government officials in several far-flung locations threatened businesses based on the religious beliefs of their management.

That’s a huge thing that blew right by virtually all commentators. They were so excited about the long lines at Chick-fil-A and the embarrassment of the mainstream media, they didn’t even notice the chilling similarities between the chicken battle and the early persecution of Jews in Nazi Germany. The persecution of Dan Cathy was perpetrated by government employees.

Let me repeat that. The persecution of Dan Cathy was perpetrated by GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES. Mayors and such. That brings the Constitution (and its purported protections) into the discussion. The individuals who threatened Chick-fil-A violated the First Amendment, if not in letter, then in spirit. They did it openly. They did it proudly. They did it without regret. That means we crossed a fateful threshold: the same threshold the Nazis crossed with the early persecution of Jewish businesses. There is no difference.

It’s unfortunate if Bill Maher or some other private individual boycotts a Christian business, but it’s one hundred percent legal. The Constitution has no relevance, except perhaps to protect Bill Maher’s right to boycott. But if Bill Maher gets the Mayor of New York to help him, it is a clear, blatant, game-changing violation of the First Amendment, and it can lead to bigger and more dangerous things. It can quite literally lead to American Nuremberg laws, and that can lead to things like the repeal of the Bill of Rights. After that, anything is possible. Camps. Ovens. No limits.

The Bill of Rights can be repealed. There is no law preventing that. Look it up.

Now we have an American filmmaker who made a movie criticizing Islam. Is the movie fair? Irrelevant. Is it offensive? Irrelevant. Will it provoke attacks that will result in the deaths of many, many Americans? Get ready for it: irrelevant. That is not a valid consideration, except perhaps in martial law or during a particularly severe emergency in which police powers have to be expanded temporarily. The government is barred from using these grounds to stifle free speech. There is no point in discussing the nature of the movie, because regardless of what it was, Sam Bacile did nothing illegal.

What did Barack Obama do, in response to Muslim attacks purportedly grounded on the offense caused by the movie? Did he go on television and remind us that our rights are more valuable than our lives? Did he tell us we would never give up our Constitutional freedoms, regardless of the cost? Did he revile those who would use violence and terror to stifle us within the borders of our own nation?

Of course not. A statesman would do that. Barack Obama is no statesman. He doesn’t care about the Constitution. He thinks it’s a “living document,” which is a dishonest way of saying it is disposable. It’s not a set of rules which are immutable save by extraordinary moves of Congress. It’s more like a set of working guidelines that have to be adapted in order to train the American people to accept their status as integral, obedient members of the state. We are wild and woolly and ignorant, so the government needs to turn us into sophisticated, selfless servants of the Uncle Sam’s replacement, Nanny Samantha. For our own good. We can give the Constitution lip service, as a set of aspirational goals, but we can’t take it too seriously, because it was written by the wild and woolly and ignorant.

Barack Obama’s response to the anti-Bill-of-Rights terror was to apologize to Muslims, criticize the film (now the President and Secretary of State are movie critics and arbiters of theology) and threaten the alleged filmmaker with prison.

I don’t want to help the feds end this man’s life and those of his loved ones, so I’ll refer to the victim by his purported alias, “Sam Bacile.” Mr. Bacile was convicted of a crime that has no relevance to the film. He used the Internet to defraud people. He was forbidden to use the Internet for five years. This was a condition of his early release. The “offensive” film was distributed on the Internet, so the federal argument is that Mr. Bacile is now liable to be sent back to prison.

The prison threat is small potatoes. The bigger danger is his deliberate exposure. Now he will never be safe again. It’s almost as if Obama’s team deliberately caused him to be subjected to a fatwa, as punishment for his “crime.” You can’t sink much lower than that. A month from now, this man may be dead because of the government’s lack of discretion. It’s as if the government has gone into the extortion business, with the Islamists of the world as partners. Barack Obama is Don Corleone, and Al Qaeda (or your Muslim neighbor) is Luca Brasi.

I’m trying to think of a more egregious (possibly criminal) violation of the Bill of Rights. Jailing someone for disfavored expression would be bad. Helping angry Muslims kill him is infinitely worse.

Here’s an important fact no one seems to be talking about: the federal government made a deliberate effort to determine Mr. Bacile’s name and look for leverage to persecute him. How do I know this? Common sense. In the beginning, no one knew who he was. In order for his identity to be determined, an investigation had to occur. That proves he was investigated deliberately. How do I know they looked for leverage? Again, common sense. When you learn a person’s name, you don’t automatically know the details of that person’s criminal record. Barack Obama has not memorized the names of all criminals in the United States. Someone in the government had to run a check on him. How do I know it was to gain leverage? Because there is no other explanation. If I do something to upset Barack Obama, but I do not commit a crime in the process, he will have no reason to check for a criminal record. If he does so, there has to be a reason. In the Bacile case, no reason other than leverage has come to light.

What does it add up to? If you bother Barack Obama enough, he is going to have a government smear squad look you up, dig up dirt on you, expose you publicly, and make you sorry you were ever born. He will choose not to take steps to conceal you from people who want to murder you and your family. That is not just bad policy. That is EXTREME CORRUPTION. If it’s allowed to happen in the future, on an ongoing basis, it will be the end of free speech and freedom of religion.

This is the kind of thing Hitler, Castro, and Stalin are known for. To see an American President do it is beyond appalling. If he can get away with this, we could be ten years away from killing fields.

Why is this happening? I can’t give you a political or social answer, so leave the blog now if that’s what you’re looking for. The answer is supernatural. We have abandoned God, so, by degrees, God is abandoning us. It started small, with the failed bombing of the World Trade Center. We didn’t listen, so we were opened up so 9/11 could occur. Now we’re looking at the Arab Spring, with all its horrifying ramifications. Our ambassador was raped and murdered AT A SAFE HOUSE. We have embraced and included our enemies to the point where they are privy to our secrets. What’s going to happen next?

God gave us great natural resources, extraordinarily defensible borders, a gigantic internal market, and a bevy of great brains. He defeated our enemies over and over. He made us the most powerful nation that has ever existed. We rewarded him with gay marriage, paganism, atheism, all types of sexual sin, a national celebration of arrogance, selfishness, and a host of other putrid fruit. We are even working to dismantle Israel. Our decline is nearly complete. We are now the enemies of God.

Did you see the Democratic Convention? They took God and Jerusalem out of the platform. The press exposed it. Ignorant people–the kind of people who think Jesus was a socialist–were surprised. The Democrats decided to put the language back in, as lip service, and they sent Villaraigosa out to have a sham voice vote. Three times, he asked if the delegates (valid, fully authorized representatives of Democrats everywhere) approved, and three times, they voted “no.” He lied and claimed they had voted “yes” (because the result was determined in advance), and the crowd outdid Peter, who only denied Christ three times. They booed loudly, which constitutes a fourth vote against God.

We have seen this in the Bible. Samuel spoke before the Hebrews, who wanted a secular king. God preferred priests, but the Hebrews weren’t having it. There was a vote, just like the one at the convention. Samuel warned them that a king would bring curses such as corruption and excessive taxation. They voted against God anyway. And look what happened to Israel and Judah. God drew the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt, rich and well-armed. As soon as Moses turned his back, they voted against God and swore allegiance to a statue of a cow, and God threatened to exterminate them. As it was, he killed 3,000. When Jesus was crucified, Pilate told the Jews it was all on them, and they publicly accepted the responsibility, even laying it on their children. Forty years later, their temple was razed, and they went into a diaspora that has lasted until the present day.

Now God has used the networks and Youtube to show us how the Democrats voted against God. Judgment is always harsher when sin is performed knowingly. We know exactly what we’re choosing if we vote for Obama. We are choosing sexual sin, pride, the murder of the unborn, the destruction of Israel, and the persecution of Christians and Jews. In his dealings with our enemies, Obama is already disfavored. God makes him the head, not the tail. The mess in the Muslim countries shows that, as does the illegal immigrant situation. How much worse will things be if we accept him again, after the voice votes and his open betrayals of Israel?

We are about to make a fateful choice. We are already in a deep mess, because God will judge us along with our President, but things can still get worse. We have to choose between a friendly heathen and a false Christian who thinks he knows better than God.

By the way, I believe we ended up with this choice because we tore apart the Christians who ran for office. Sarah Palin, Michele Bachmann, and Rick Santorum are all sincere Christians. We gutted them. I suspect that God has refused to put a Christian in the Oval Office, simply because he wants to spare his servants the abuse we heap on them.

I believe that if we vote for Obama and continue to walk away from God, we will be facing a complete loss of liberty in the near future. We used to serve God, so we were part of his kingdom, and he took care of us. Once we turn against him completely, we will serve no useful purpose. What incentive will he have to continue defending us? People seem to think God’s purpose is to bless us, no matter what we do. That’s not right. Our purpose is to serve God, and he blesses us because we submit. If his blessings were unconditional, life would be a lot different in places like India and Myanmar.

Israel will survive. Israel is the center of human existence. It is the only nation on earth which is guaranteed God’s unconditonal protection. God’s promises to Abraham will never expire, regardless of what his children do. God may have allowed Israel to be defeated for centuries, but the Bible tells us he will restore it eventually, because of Abraham. That restoration appears to be upon us. But the Bible promises nothing about the continued blessings of the United States of America. We’re a peripheral nation, just like Chile and Indonesia. We are expendable. It’s too bad we don’t understand that.

Very few people will read this and other writings expressing the same thoughts. Maybe that, in and of itself, is a judgment.

Anyway, I thought I’d throw it out there. The sad thing is that the people who will agree believe it already, and the ones who will scoff wouldn’t believe if Jesus himself showed up and grabbed them by the shoulders.

Natural and Otherwise

I am still thinking about a dedicated vehicle gun.

I dealt with my inner child and resisted ordering a Vz 58 or AK47 pistol. Now no one has them for sale at a good price, so I have some time to weigh the options.

There are a couple of serious drawbacks to pistol-length 7.62mm guns. They make a huge flash, and they are extremely loud. I am wondering if these things are important enough to make a longer gun a better option.

I’m not concerned about accuracy. I’m planning to take my Vz folder to the range, now that I have the laser fixed, and I expect to confirm what I learned from my experience with my shotgun. I think the laser will give accuracy superior to pistol sights, without the aggravation and delay of sighting down the barrel. But the flash could be a problem.

If your gun generates a big fireball, it can affect your vision. Self-defense situations often occur at night. You don’t want to be blinded after your first shot. I can compensate with a high-powered light mounted on the gun, but I’m already relying on one electrical crutch, and I’m nervous about adding a second. I don’t want to rely on two separate items, both of which are somewhat likely to fail.

You have to wonder why no one makes shooting glasses that darken when a round is fired, like a welding mask. Maybe they do. Or maybe it’s a stupid idea, because it would be cumbersome.

I can fix the flash with a suppressor. That’s pretty cool. But it will add inches to the gun’s length. One of the big advantages of a pistol is the shorter length, but is it really worth it to go from 26″ to 23″?

I don’t know if the noise is worth worrying about. Firing any self-defense-grade gun in a vehicle is bad for your ears. A Glock 10mm is pretty danged loud. Presumably, if you get in a real pickle and you have to shoot, you’re going to have the muzzle outside the window, so you would think the lion’s share of the blast would be outside the truck. I think anyone who carries a weapon in a vehicle should also carry electronic ear protectors or at least a set of plugs.

It appears that a gun bag under the rear seat of my truck would satisfy the requirements of Fl. St. Sec. 790.25.whatever. You can stick a rifle or pistol in a zipped bag and keep it in your vehicle interior. I’ve seen neat locks that secure weapons under rear seats, but do I really want to play around with a lock when bath-salts-slurping zombies are looking at me like I was a plate of ribs? No. That’s stupid. Zippers are bad enough. In reality, even a zipper is unnecessary, so there may be better options. Maybe I could get a cardboard box labeled “used catheters” or some such.

If I can deal with the added length of a 26″ weapon, I won’t have to fool with a flash hider, and I’ll have the option of unfolding the gun’s stock so I can shoot at longer distances. Interesting consideration: cleverer people than I have pointed out that it’s pretty unusual to have a legitimate self-defense argument when you’re shooting from a great distance. If someone is fifty yards away, you will probably be able to drive off. Maybe it’s dumb to be concerned with the sights.

Here’s a funny difference between AKs and the Vz 58: you can’t shoot an AK with the stock folded. At least, not with most stocks you’ll get at a decent price. The standard Czech folding stock does not interfere with shooting, so I could grab the gun in its folded state, flick the laser on, and start blasting. The stock works okay unfolded. It’s a bare-bones kind of thing, but I’ve used mine at the range, and it’s more than adequate for shooting a tennis-ball-sized pattern at 50 yards.

If I get an AK pistol and a flash hider, and then I add a Chinese laser and a bag and so on, I’m out something $700. That’s not bad. If it gets stolen, I’ll be upset, but it beats losing over a grand on a Vz 58.

I’ve thought about the moral consequences of having a vehicle weapon stolen. It’s a concern, but there are millions of illegal guns out there, and mine isn’t going to make difference. I could minimize the risk by keeping it indoors at night.

In other news, weird supernatural things keep happening. I came across another tool the other day. I’m still evaluating it. I conferred with my pastor, and he believes it’s kosher. So to speak.

One of the biggest problems Christians face is overcoming iniquity, which is the inclination to sin. One of the words translated as “iniquity” means “crookedness.” That’s interesting, because we use the English noun “bent” to mean “inclination.”

We’re supposed to develop and exercise authority. The concept of authority is extremely important in the Bible. Jesus is part of God, yet the Bible speaks of him as one who accepts the judgment of God the Father, as though bound. The Bible suggests that the Holy Spirit subjects himself to Jesus’s authority, carrying his power, knowledge, and inclinations to us. We, in turn, are supposed to submit to the Holy Spirit, as well as to the rest of the Trinity. Our flesh should be submissive to us, and there is Biblical evidence that our authority can be so great, even objects will submit. Jesus told us we could command mountains to jump into the sea.

The other day, I somehow got it in my head that I might be able to command my own flesh. I know it sounds stupid, ordering your flesh around, when your flesh is part of you. But telling mountains what to do is also a bit strange. I know the flesh has an awareness of its own. It perceives things, maybe the way an animal does. It has emotions and drives, with which it tries to control us. I think it may even punish us when we don’t do what it wants. It may become ill or break down when you want to get something done. It may be that physical problems we blame on spirits or our own minds come from the flesh itself.

Anyway, I decided to take authority over my flesh. I actually addressed it. Here’s what I found out. I was able to make it stop thinking about things I didn’t want to think about. I was able to make it become drowsy and go to sleep, instead of keeping me awake by being too alert. I even got relief from congestion, so I didn’t have to use nasal spray.

Sound crazy? I agree. But it worked, and it has kept on working. It’s one of the most amazing things that has ever happened to me.

I’m starting to wonder if this is how hypnosis works. Maybe hypnosis is simply a way of commanding the flesh and bypassing the soul.

If you’re brave, and you’re all prayed up and so on, give this a shot. The next time you feel a compulsion to do something stupid, order your flesh to stop thinking about it. Do it in the name of Jesus. You don’t have to do it out loud. Your flesh knows your thoughts.

A couple of years back, I was supernaturally delivered from overeating. I assumed there was some kind of spirit that had been driven off. Over the last ten months, I’ve seen the iniquity try to creep back on me. I figured I needed to fast more. But I’ve found that if I order my flesh to quit craving food, the desire to eat leaves me.

It seems like the effect has a limited time span. It’s like dealing with a rotten kid who needs a kick in the rear end every so often. But if you can get a few hours or a day of relief, that’s really something. You have to brush your teeth several times a day, and you probably don’t complain about that. What’s the difference?

Here’s the advice I got from my pastor: “David said; Bless the Lord, O my soul; Bless the Lord, O my soul, (Psalm 103:1 in other words he ordered himself to bless the Lord. Best place to take authority first is self. Absolutely!!”

I should add that at one point in the gospels, Jesus said he had been given authority over all flesh. You have to take every word in the Bible seriously. He didn’t say that just to sound flowery and poetic. He had a reason. I don’t believe his reason was to indicate that he was the son of God. The people he was addressing already knew that. I think he may have been referring to the authority I’ve been discussing.

I know this stuff will sound insane to Catholics and Baptists and other people who see Christianity as a toilsome labor of love. I don’t see Christianity that way. I see it as a path to supernatural power, freedom, and virtue.

Jesus and the Apostles weren’t people who were known for working hard. They were a lot like wizards, except that they were submitted to God, and they did not use their power to satisfy the flesh or the enemy. This kind of talk has led to lynchings in the past, because Christians are so used to living without supernatural power. Christians have become used to ostracizing believers who exhibit supernatural power. We tend to accuse them of demonic possession and so on. But the Bible shows that what I say is true. Our forebears in the faith raised the dead, walked on water, read minds, and even performed feats of superhuman strength. Those are supernatural acts.

If you think about it, it’s a little odd that we expect evil spirits and wicked people to have supernatural power, while flipping out when Christians have it. Don’t forget the story of Moses and Aaron. When they argued with Pharaoh, the magicians came in and performed real miracles. Moses and Aaron responded with “magic” of their own, much greater than that of the Egyptians. Were Moses and Aaron sorcerers? Were they enemies of God? Of course not.

What if you can command your flesh to be healed? What if you can command it to stop being mentally ill? What if you can command it to stop being afraid, or to cease from laziness? Imagine the changes that would come.

On Sunday, a friend was prophesying in church. I was way in the back, minding my own business. He called me out and started telling me changes were coming. He said people would look at me and find it hard to believe I was the same person. Then these ideas came to me during the week, and things started happening.

We had an astounding teaching last night. A man named Byron Walters came. He had us all kneel at the end of his message, and he told us he was conferring his prophetic and teaching mantle on us. I’ve never seen anything like it. I’ve seen prophecies made in this church come to pass, so I took it seriously. What a powerful environment it has turned out to be.

I thought I’d pass this stuff on. Maybe someone else will benefit from it.

I’m In

On Saturday, I drove to Winter Haven as part of a church expedition. A friend of my pastor has established a new church up there. We went to help get it going. The church is called New Dawn Ministries of Winter Haven. For Google purposes, I will add more information. The pastor is Ricardo Cardona, and the address is 225 Avenue O Southwest, Winter Haven 33880. They’re not really on top of the business of publicizing themselves, so I figure this can’t hurt.

The event was planned a long time back. I wanted to go, because I’m dying to leave Miami. Central Florida is the area that draws me, although I’m not completely sure that’s where God wants me. When I learned about the trip, I started searching for homes in the area, just so I could look at them. The prices are ridiculous. For a hundred thousand dollars, you can get something really nice. For twice that much, I could get a home which would be almost exactly what I dream of.

When the time to leave drew near, Tropical Storm Isaac popped up. I kept watching it. I’ve been through so many hurricanes, I know exactly what you can and can’t get away with, so I knew I had to stay informed. As of the day before the trip, I thought everything was okay, so I got up on Saturday and hit the road at 6:30.

There is nothing like leaving Miami. It makes me feel like there’s a fist inside me, clutching my guts, and it opens its grip as I pass through Broward (the next county to the north). It’s a beautiful sensation. I was alone in the truck, but as I drove, I wasn’t bored for a second. I enjoyed it thoroughly.

I had a choice. One route goes up the coast, via the Turnpike. The other goes by Lake Okeechobee and the sugar country. One route is longer but faster. The other is slower but more interesting. I took the fast route up and the slow route down.

Florida is a fairly ugly state, at least in the southern part. Most people don’t realize that. The southeastern part has been prettied up. Over the decades, the swamps were drained, the native plants were killed off, and nicer plants were brought in. Virtually none of the best-looking trees in southeast Florida are indigenous. People brought in palms, fruit trees, poincianas, banyans, seagrapes, and other things that looked better than the native scrub.

Once you get away from the big clump of cities, you will see nasty-looking cabbage palms and palmettos all over the place. The ground is full of sand spurs and ground spikes. The grass is brown. There are weeds everywhere. The ground itself tends to be rocky and sandy. The wildlife looks ratty and mangy; maybe the heat and humidity is hard on animals’ coats. We get a lot of bald dogs down here.

Even though the landscape deteriorated as I drove, I felt the pressure inside me releasing. The sight of the horizon was like a drink of cool water after a day in the desert.

During the second half of the drive up, I started seeing wonderful things. Bush stickers. Romney signs. Big billboards offering help to women considering abortion. Just writing about it, I feel hope rising inside me. It reminds me that not all of America is corrupt.

This is one of the things I love about the rest of the state. I guess it’s the main thing I love. Miami is full of nasty, aggressive people who–I don’t know how else to say it–remind me of hungry pigs. They root, root, root, and they accumulate everything they can, and then they die. That’s what life is all about in Miami. Generally, though, Florida isn’t like that.

Down here, even the Christians can be trying. My old church was full of Obama Democrats. Christianity is not a political movement, but liberalism is a political movement which is incompatible with Christianity, and you can’t say that about conservatism. It’s impossible to be a good Christian and support politicians who condone the slaughter of the unborn, the dismantling of Israel, increased taxation on churches and charities, sexual perversion, and the exclusion of Christianity from public life. It can’t be done. But there are plenty of Christians who do not understand that, and it’s fatiguing to be around them all the time.

Liberal Christians tend to use socialism to defend themselves, as though confiscation and redistribution were the same thing as giving from the heart. They don’t have the spirituality to realize that human beings do not get credit for the government’s giving, especially when the things that are given are taken from others, by force. God has always been against big government, as the story of the anointing of Saul shows. We were supposed to be ruled by godly men and the Holy Spirit, not a secular vote-buying machine.

It’s funny, but when I persuade people to start praying in tongues more, they start becoming more conservative. They start to see that Obama is an enemy of Israel, and that his support for perversion and unrestricted abortion is wrong. The Spirit opens people’s eyes. Christians who aren’t operating in the gifts of the Spirit don’t have the capacity to understand anything properly. They’re like puppies whose eyes never open.

As Winter Haven drew near, the landscape changed. Suddenly the grass looked better. There were lakes everywhere. There were hills! I hadn’t expected that. It was surprising. It looked much better than nearby areas like Frostproof. And while it was definitely a rural community, they had stores. There was a mall. It wasn’t like living in the middle of Montana. A person living near Winter Haven can find a Lowe’s when he needs one.

When I got to Winter Haven, I was not able to check into our hotel, because the pastors had not worked things out with the clerk yet. I went to the church to check it out. It was in a storefront. Guess what I saw a couple of doors down. The local GOP headquarters. On the other side, there was a pizzeria. Anyone who knows me will understand how funny this is.

As I walked across the parking lot, a stranger waved his hand at a car and started talking to me as though he had known me all his life. He pointed out that the car had an Obama banner inside it, and it was parked by the GOP headquarters. I smiled and told him it was offensive. It was so strange to be among friendly people, so soon after arriving. Miami is not like this.

I met the pastor. Like my current pastor, he’s a former Coral Gables employee. They both did something involved with codes or zoning. I forget what. That’s hilarious. These people have always been my sworn enemies. You can’t do anything in Coral Gables without ten permits. I call the place “Karl Goebbels.”

They sent us out to evangelize. I hate evangelizing. After a few minutes of listening to me talk about Christianity, most people become convinced that it’s the one religion they need to cross off their lists. And I always wonder if I’m going to get payback for refusing to open the door for peddlers and Jehovah’s Witnesses. But I will evangelize if my church asks. We broke into teams and drove to a seedy area and knocked on doors. Nobody punched us. One lady gave a highly response to one of our teams. She asked if we prayed in tongues, and a volunteer told her we did it “all day.” The lady said she had been praying for such a church for a long time. She was thrilled to hear about it.

Back at the church, we ate lunch, and I talked to my friend George. He’s a member of my church. He’s a minister, although he’s not a paid employee, and he’s not full-time. He’s full of the Holy Spirit. When I first showed up at the church (in Miami, not Winter Haven), he told me he had a word for me. He had received it before he knew me, probably after a friend had told him I might switch to New Dawn. He told me that, even though my life up to that point had seemed chaotic, I had been on a path God had chosen for me, and it was all preparation for the things I would have to do. He said I was headed for a financial breakthrough, and that I shouldn’t worry.

In Winter Haven, we talked some more, and he said things were going to blossom in my life. God was removing the obstacles and hindrances.

He’s right about that. I’m already seeing it in my prayer life and my music. Moving from my old church to New Dawn was, itself, an example of God’s restoration and liberation. I had begun to feel like a slave in my old church, building bricks for the Pharaoh’s self-aggrandizing monuments. At New Dawn, I receive all sorts of good things, and I make progress. I hear prophecy. I get new supernatural tools that break down walls. I change, sometimes during the course of one service.

I went back to the hotel and checked in, and I worked on my music for a while. I started checking the weather. It didn’t look good. They were calling for 30 mph winds in Miami, as of 6 a.m. Sunday morning. Gusts would be in the fifties. You can’t drive in that. I started to feel that I was not going to be able to stay, unless I wanted to be stuck up there until Tuesday. I conferred with other volunteers, and I called my dad. He was down here rigging his enormous boat up for the wind, without my help. If I could not get back in the morning, he would be down here alone, possibly without power. And he would have to feed my birds.

I let everyone know what was going on, and I checked out around three hours after checking in. The church was going to have an inaugural service in the afternoon, and I didn’t want to miss it. And I had a list of homes I wanted to drive by. But I prayed for guidance, and I believed the Holy Spirit was telling me to go. I expected the others to follow me after the service.

The drive home was astonishing. I went through the sugar country. It was a nicer drive than the coast route. But the thing that amazed me was the presence of God. I turned off the stereo and spent the whole trip in prayer. I kept feeling God’s power and presence rushing through me, scaring me at times. Sometimes I just talked to God. Sometimes I asked for things I believed would advance his goals. And his faith–not mine–kept telling me the things I mentioned were DONE. God had put his seal on them. It was overwhelming. I told God I felt that as of that day, my time as a citizen of earth had ended permanently. Eventually you reach a point where you are so far into the kingdom, you know (and feel in your heart) that you can’t turn back. And you are so disgusted by the way the world is, you wouldn’t want to turn back if you could.

As it turned out, the storm was not as bad as predicted. I drove home in clear weather. There was a strong wind south of Lake Okeechobee, but I didn’t see real rain or gusts until I hit South Miami. I felt bad about abandoning my church, but given the information that was available at the time, I had done the intelligent thing. And I had asked God, and I had obeyed what I perceived to be his answer.

The storm has been very strange. It didn’t come as close to Miami as the forecasters said it would, and it took longer for the winds to arrive. And the intensity has taken a long time to build. It was supposed to be calmer this morning than it was last night, but it’s worse. It’s really nasty right now. Torrential rain with gusts that push the rain sideways. It’s supposed to quit this afternoon, but I’m wondering.

They’re saying Isaac may wipe out New Orleans, and that its arrival will disrupt a perversion celebration known as Southern Decadence. Gay men put on their own version of Mardi Gras, and they expose themselves in the street and so on. Some preachers think the storm is a punishment from God. Of course, New Orleans citizens see the festival as a big economic boost. A plus, not a curse.

Perry Stone pointed out that “Katrina” comes from a root meaning “to cleanse.” The word “catharsis” comes from the same source. I know a young man from New Orleans. He says the post-Katrina atmosphere is different, as though God really did cleanse the place. Maybe there is something to it. “Isaac” means “laughter.” Not something I would want to think about, in the wake of cleansing, in a city that continues to welcome sin. If I were rebuilding a city, I would not want to find out that God was laughing at my efforts. Psalm 2 says God laughed at Satan and his principalities when they crucified Jesus. They thought they were breaking God’s bands off of themselves, but in reality, they were nailing themselves to the cross.

In 2005, Southern Decadence had to be cancelled because Katrina arrived two days before the festival’s opening date.

It’s funny that gays are so candid about what they’re doing. They’re not even trying to disguise it. They’re calling the festival what it is: “decadence.” How much more open can rebellion be? I guess soon we’ll be seeing things like, “The San Francisco Blasphemy and Hate Festival.” Once your conscience gets seared, you lose all perspective.

I can’t cover everything that has happened since my last blog post, but this will have to do for today.

Breakthrough has me Butchering Standards

I have a new music teacher.

Longtime readers will remember that I bought a grand piano in 2003 or 2004. The main purpose was to learn about music so I could compose, but I ended up learning to play a few things and focusing too much on becoming a musician. After a few years, I quit. I forgot things as soon as I learned them, so at any given time, I had a repertoire of four songs. And I could not sight-read well or write music competently.

A couple of years back I started working on the electric guitar. I built most of a Telecaster, and I built a few amps. I worked on sight-reading and other skills. I went through two teachers. I got to the point where I could play a few things, but I wasn’t any closer to composing.

I started looking for a real teacher. Someone who really knew what he was doing. I checked out Craigslist, the center of all knowledge and enlightenment (after Wikipedia and Fark). I found a guy who wrote long, opinionated ads. He seemed to be truly disgusted with virtually everyone else who claimed to teach people how to play the guitar. He explained why their methods were a waste of time and money. He provided wordy insights into his personal philosophy of music teaching. Stuff I didn’t really need to read.

I was impressed. He reminded me of me.

As I told him later, I like opinionated people. Some are opinionated because they’re just stupid, and I’m not real fond of that group. But others are opinionated because they have had it up to HERE with BS. I figured anyone passionate enough to write an ad like that was someone I needed to meet.

Eventually, I called for an appointment. He wouldn’t give me one! Instead I had to talk to him for about half an hour, explaining my goals. Then he made me spend a week writing down goals and influences. I had to create two Word documents and send them to him.

Finally, I was cleared to go for a lesson. I drove all the way to Davie, and when I knocked on the appropriate door, an enormous human being answered. At first I thought he had to be standing on a box. But no, that was all him. We shook hands and got started.

The lesson went like this: I showed him what I knew, and he told me it was wrong. Then I showed him something else, which I was really pleased about, and he told me that was wrong, too. By the end of the lesson, I had learned that I was doing the following things wrong:

1. Playing position
2. Guitar position
3. Right hand position
4. Left hand position
5. Holding pick
6. Fretting
7. Picking
8. Foot tapping
9. Breathing

I think there were some other things I was doing wrong, but I can’t remember what they were. As far as I could tell, there was not ONE thing I was doing right.

Here’s something weird: he seems to share the personality of my buddy Aaron. If Aaron were a non-Jewish musician, he’d be this guy. It’s freaky how similar they are.

He gave me an exercise straight from hell, to enable me to stretch my left hand, and he told me to play the same scale a billion times in different positions, at glacial speed. And home I went.

I worked on this crap for two weeks, and the net result was that I was no longer able to play the guitar. I mean, I could not play ANYTHING. My fingers missed the frets. I forgot entire passages. My left hand was in constant pain, because I was using a couple of shriveled muscles I had never used before. It was bad. But I had faith, because he seemed to know absolutely everything there was to know about music. Plus he once spoke on the phone with Billy Gibbons. I was sure I was headed for a wax on, wax off moment.

My third lesson was last week. I could not play a thing, but we spent a very long time talking. This is how the lessons go. I barely touch the guitar. We discussed the correct mindset for making pizza. We covered our mutual disdain for Prince. And after a while, we got onto conservative politics. I told him it was hard to hold the guitar the way he had told me to hold it, because it rested on my pistol. From there, we moved into a discussion of things like labor unions and Chick-Fil-A. He’s way out on the right, which probably explains why he’s not a famous musician. He has played in some worship bands.

Last week, we got off on sight-reading and composition. He told me something I had never heard before. He said it was a mistake to start with sight-reading. He said I should start by transcribing things. I told him I would try, but that the software was a pain to use. He told me the problem was that I was using software in the first place. He said I should transcribe things on paper. That had never occurred to me. In the past, I tried to compose things on the computer so I could play them back immediately and check them out.

A day or two later, I decided to try transcription. But I hate transcribing on the guitar. So I sat down at the piano with some blank paper, and I started working on “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” in C major. I was amazed at how much I knew about music. I thought I had forgotten it all. I managed to write and play a very coherent version, and then later I made up a left-hand part.

You can’t imagine what a breakthrough this was for me. When I first started studying the piano, it was because I had music in my head, and I could not write music fast enough to capture it. It drove me nuts, especially at night. I’d lie in bed with wonderful original music playing in my head, and it would keep me awake for an hour and a half. When I started transcribing, I saw that there was finally some hope that I could save some of it.

I texted my teacher with a question, and he called me up. I told him I had bad news. He had driven me back to the piano. He didn’t care. He thought it was great. He helped me out with a few clues, and I fired off some files by email, so he would know what I was up to.

I am accomplishing squat on the guitar, but I’m finally getting a grip on music writing. And I learned something else: the software isn’t so bad, if you write the music on paper first. You use a pencil, and then you have a stationary (or stationery) target. The notes are written down, so they don’t vanish while you’re cursing Finale’s horrible interface.

I’ll post a MIDI file, so you can see what I’ve done so far. I’m thrilled with it. I’ll write more variations, but as far as I’m concerned, this is a wonderful start. The left hand part reminds me of Bach, and I’m no Bach fan, but I’ll take it.

Over the Rainbow Transcription

Now I have hope that I’ll succeed at this, so I have new motivation to go forward. And the music in my head is back. I laid awake for quite some time last night while variations of “Sweet and Dandy” roared through my mind. On the one hand, it was annoying, but it was also intoxicating. I know I can do this.

http://youtu.be/GopekAOMCE4

God is a restorer. If you’re on the wrong path, he may put roadblocks in front of you, and when he’s ready for you to succeed, he can remove them so fast, you won’t believe it. You may have a problem you think is insurmountable, but the answer may be a change you can make in five minutes. If someone had given me the right advice about music in 1998, I’d have a pile of original compositions by now. The advice was all I needed.

I’m practically beside myself, thinking about the things I’ll do. I feel like I’ve been turned loose in a toy store.

I know this will go somewhere. Sooner or later I’ll come up with something fit for use in a church. It’s only a matter of time. That will be a huge milestone.

It’s more evidence that prayer in tongues straightens out paths. The more I do it, the better things go. I knew this in 1987, but I didn’t get serious until about five years ago. So much time wasted. Since then, the progress has been continuous.

Try it yourself. You have nothing to lose.

Shove the Thief Out the Window and Shut it

I got an interesting breakthrough this week.

Usually, when charismatic Christians use the word “breakthrough,” they’re talking about money or sudden healing. Sorry to tell you: that’s not what I got this week. I got a supernatural breakthrough.

A few weeks back, one of the pastors at my church started prophesying. The whole church had spent a good long while praising and getting into the Spirit, and eventually, she started to speak. I recall two basic parts to the message.

1. We should not be picking at each other and causing disunity. I wondered if that was for me, since I’ve been pretty hard on the people at my former church, but I asked God sincerely, and I believe he indicated that it was about other people at the current church, New Dawn Ministries. There must have been some squabbling going on. I don’t have much to criticize at New Dawn. I will offer suggestions about things, like buying new ropes for the ushers to cordon chairs off, but that’s about it. Attending New Dawn is like being married to a gorgeous woman who treats you like a king. You’re not going to make a scene because she burns the toast once a month. This is earth. You can’t expect “perfect,” and if you receive “excellent,” you should get on your face every day and thank God.

2. The second part of the message consisted mostly of the sentence, “Don’t entertain it!”, repeated a number of times. I thought that was weird.

As time passed, I started to see the value of the prophesy. While spending time in prayer, when unbelief rose up in me, I would say, “Don’t entertain it!”, or, “I won’t entertain it!” The results shocked me. Not only did the unbelief wither instantly; the faith that had been competing with it shot out of me like soda from a can that had been sitting in a hot car all day.

I felt crazy faith running through me, up from inside my belly and out through my head. I physically felt it. I felt strength and freedom and confidence. I felt confidence in God’s deliverance, not in myself. It was really something.

Yesterday was a fast day. Ordinarily I try to keep quiet about fast days, but sometimes it’s best to disclose things. Usually, when I fast, I feel like God is a million miles away. I get a horrible headache, and I have no energy. When I pray, I feel like I’m on a basketball court, shooting free throws with a medicine ball.

Yesterday, during the fast, I was praying in the Garage of Blues, and I was using the [prayer] tools I had been given. I prayed in tongues and used praise and thanksgiving to get into the Spirit. I asked for things that would advance God’s kingdom. I waited for God’s faith after each request, and I thanked God profusely when I felt it come. And whenever I felt unbelief, I said, “I won’t entertain it!”

I felt faith rushing through me so hard, it hurt. I had pains in my jaw and behind one ear. I found myself gaping, as though vomiting out something invisible.

I know how nutty it sounds, but I would not make it up. And it shouldn’t sound nutty. God is a supernatural being, and he does supernatural things. His work is the pure, righteous reflection of the fetid, pus-oozing magic performed by ungodly people like santeros and voodoo priests. God is the original; Satan is the copy. If a witch can experience the supernatural, it’s only because he or she is aping the tools God gave his people. It should not amaze us if a Christian raises a dead person or reads someone’s mind. The amazing thing is that it doesn’t happen as a matter of course.

I felt prayers being answered, forcefully.

I find that there are different levels of faith. When I ask God where my car keys are, I don’t get down on my knees and spend an hour getting into the Spirit. I just ask, and there they are. That’s one level. Then there are times when I get close to God and ask for things, and I feel powerful faith shooting through me. Then there are times when I get such a blast of faith, I know the thing is settled, even if I never pray about it again. I think of this as God putting his seal on a prayer. When I refuse to entertain hindering thoughts, I spend much more of my time in the two higher levels of prayer.

On top of that, it’s useful when you’re going about your business. Problems pop up, and you think about the prayers you’ve prayed, and you say, “Don’t entertain it.” And the faith gushes up inside you again. At times like this, I feel as though God is lifting me by the shoulders and propelling me through life, as a tailwind would. And again, I feel that physically, not just in my mind.

The sensation I get is that there are two openings inside me, down in my stomach. Faith comes in through one, and the other things enter through the other. When I refuse to entertain hindering thoughts, the second opening is capped, and the flow from the other one goes crazy.

State of mind is important. Some Christians don’t think believing matters, but Jesus clearly stated that it does. If you believe, you will receive. Assuming you’re not doing something stupid, like praying for cocaine or some good lottery numbers.

God continues to confirm the things he told me back in the Eighties. Prayer in tongues is the foundation of real power. If you don’t pray in tongues, you should not expect to grow much in faith and virtue. I’m sure God has done miraculous things through non-charismatics, but they took the hard route. The kingdom of God is like a tree, and it needs water. Jesus and Paul made it clear that prayer in tongues is the living water.

The Bible tells us faith is accounted unto us as righteousness. It tells us our faith is not our own, but God’s. It tells us praying in tongues builds our faith. If we automatically received all the blessings of the Holy Spirit at the point of salvation, there would have been no reason for Paul to tell us to pray in tongues and build ourselves up. And Paul never said tongues had ceased. He said they would cease in the future, but that time has not come, because the need for tongues is still with us.

Again, Satan copies God. Satan sends spirits to influence, empower, and even control people. He got the idea from God, who sends his ministering spirits and the Holy Spirit to help and improve but not to control. God believes in free will; he won’t possess you the way a demon or a fallen angel would. But he wants to inhabit you and exert great influence.

The thief comes in through any entrance he can find, like a burglar. He offers you pleasures, like drugs or promiscuity, and then spirits enter you and control you to the point where you can lose your free will. Jesus comes in through the front door. He tells you that you’ll have to serve him and abandon self-interest, and that you may be martyred. Then the Holy Spirit comes in and governs us by consent, leaving free will intact.

God and Satan want flesh in the earth. Satan wants slaves whom he can use and discard. God wants a volunteer army of people he can promote into positions of great power and honor. Satan has principalities and powers. So does God. And we are supposed to be among them. The Psalms refer to us as the kings of the earth.

This brings me to one of the reasons my old church annoyed me. The leadership treated us the way Satan treats his people. They sought self-promotion. They did not share promotion with the people under them. Not to any appreciable extent. In my opinion, they did not want us to grow and have powerful ministries of our own. They saw us as potential competition. New Dawn is different. The pastor teaches that he needs to help us become greater than he is. Jesus taught the same thing. He said we would do greater works than he did.

If you want the Holy Spirit to rise up inside you and stengthen you every day, even when you’re not expecting it, take the path I’ve taken. Pray in tongues for at least half an hour in the morning. Try to go at least an hour a day. Try to pray in tongues whenever you have a minute of free time. You will change, and you will know God personally. Christianity won’t be all struggle and toil, the way the modern scribes and Sadducees would have it. It will be full of supernatural power and success.

God dealt with Adam face to face, and Adam rejected him and ruined his own life. God appeared to the Jews in a cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night, and he slew all their enemies and kept them prosperous, and they rejected him. Now God wants to live inside you and give you power and knowledge every day. If you reject this, there is nothing left, so you will have to be satisfied with enjoying your pride.

Power Belongs to the Kingdom

Lots to write about today.

God is teaching me lots of stuff. The more you pray in the Spirit, the more you learn. The Bible starts to make sense. You see the hidden meanings in things. When strange events occur around you, you discern the supernatural underpinnings. You can actually ask God things while praying, and the answers will come to you.

I’ve been thinking about the weird behaviors people are demonstrating. Remember the “Causeway Cannibal”? I’m referring to the young man who lost his mind and tried to eat another man’s face. New facts have emerged.

The assailant, Rudy Eugene, was not on drugs when he committed the crime. Blood tests showed that he had used pot in the past, but he was not on “bath salts” or any other detectable drug when he attacked.

His victim, Ronald Poppo, has recovered well enough to speak, and he has told us things we didn’t know. His credibility is damaged by his mental issues, but it’s still interesting. Poppo says Eugene was singing “Lover’s Concerto,” and he said, “You’re going to be my wife and this is going to be a lover’s concerto.”

If you’re not familiar with that song, you may want to look at the lyrics.

How gentle is the rain
That falls softly on the meadow
Birds high up in the trees
Serenade the flowers with their melodies

Oh, see there beyond the hill
The bright colours of the rainbow
Some magic from above
Made this day for us just to fall in love

Now I belong to you
From this day until forever
Just love me tenderly
And I’ll give to you every part of me

Oh, don’t ever make me cry
Through long lonely nights without love
Be always true to me
Keep this day in your heart eternally

Someday we shall return
To this place upon the meadow
We’ll walk out in the rain
Hear the birds above singing once again

You’ll hold me in your arms
And say once again you love me
And if your love is true
Everything will be just as wonderful

You’ll hold me in your arms
And say once again you love me
And if your love is true
Everything will be just as wonderful

Just hold me in your arms
And say once again you love me
And if your love is true
Everything will be just as wonderful

You’ll hold me in your arms
And say once again you love me
And if your love is true
Everything will be just as wonderful

I found that chilling. It’s not unlike the Song of Solomon.

Here is what many Spirit-filled Christians believe: the church is the “Bride of Christ,” and Jesus is preparing us for his wedding by cleansing and transforming us through the power of the Holy Spirit, who falls on us like rain.

The Bible can be interpreted in levels. First, there is the face-value level. Example: if God uses a word like “rain,” he may mean water that falls from the clouds. The Jews recognize two higher levels. One level involves hints, and the other involves mystic revelation. Speaking in symbols, God could use “rain” to describe his blessings or the baptism with the Holy Spirit.

Christians like me believe we are experiencing a “latter rain” of the Holy Spirit. When the church was born, the Holy Spirit fell on men en masse (the “former rain”), but Satan managed to stamp it out and inject anti-Holy-Spirit blasphemy into doctrine. Over the last hundred years or so, there has been a new rain, starting in places like Azusa Street. People are speaking in tongues again. We believe we are being transformed by the Spirit. Our carnal natures are changing. Our iniquities are dissolving. We are being imbued with supernatural power, in the form of the gifts of the Spirit. Eventually, the world will reject us (because we are foreign), and we will be taken away to join Christ’s wedding feast, while the world below is judged.

Rudy wasn’t on drugs, so what happened? People who knew him don’t describe him as violent or troubled. He was not a hardened criminal. He was a churchgoer, whether or not he knew the Lord. He was carrying a Bible when he attacked Poppo. He is alleged to have accused Poppo of stealing it. Pages of it were found scattered at the crime scene.

The Bible tells us we are surrounded by hostile spirits. There are angels who used to live in God’s presence, and they rebelled and were rejected. They hate us, presumably in the same way that older children hate spoiled younger siblings. We are receiving all the good things they lost, and because we receive by grace, we don’t have to work all that hard to get them. Meanwhile, our predecessors are headed for eternal punishment and humiliation.

There is also considerable evidence that a second type of evil spirit exists. We call them demons. Ancient accounts tell us that fallen angels had sex with women and gave rise to extraordinary human beings, some of whom were giants. Legends say they were extremely violent, they ate human beings, and they had very high body temperatures. Some accounts say one purpose of the flood was to rid the world of these beings, and that their spirits remain here to torment men.

Look at the cannibal case and the various bath salts cases. For that matter, look at people who overdose on cocaine. They strip naked because they’re hot. Often they attack people. They commit sexual perversions. Eugene Rudy and at least one other person who made the news attacked with their teeth, and Rudy chewed his victim’s flesh as though he were eating it.

If Poppo is right about what Rudy said, the parallels go further. Rudy allegedly spoke of rain and an everlasting marriage, just as the scriptures speak of the Holy Spirit rain and the marriage of the Lamb.

When the Bible calls us the Bride of Christ, it means we are Christ’s flesh in the earth. The Bible says a man and his wife are one flesh, and it says a man should treat his wife well, because no one will hate his own flesh. The Bible uses the term “Body of Christ” to describe us. We are supposed to be like Jesus’s members. Like the members of a human body, we should move at the head’s command and do what Jesus tells us to do.

The Holy Spirit is like the nervous system. He gives us wisdom and knowledge (1 Corinthians 12:9). He speaks through our mouths, through prophecy and tongues (1 Corinthians 12:10). He governs us through the fruit of the Spirit, as the brain governs the body (Galatians 5:22-23).

Satan has never had an original idea, but he knows a good idea when he sees one. He knows a lot about the Body of Christ, and he is doing whatever he can to stop it and to construct something similar. This is what “Antichrist” means. Jesus is building his flesh in the earth, and this is the thing that scares Satan most. He will let you run a milquetoast church that gets people saved, but if you start talking about the unification and empowerment of the Holy Spirit, he will come after you, because he knows the Body will wreck his kingdom.

This is why the Bible says we are to test the Spirits. Any Spirit which denies that Jesus is “come in the flesh” is the Spirit of Antichrist.

People misunderstand. They think “come in the flesh” refers to the original incarnation. That’s stupid. Even Satanists admit Jesus was born as a man. Foul spirits won’t deny that. What they deny is that Jesus is assembling his flesh through tongues and the power of the Holy Spirit. This is why backward churches teach that tongues are Satanic. They are under Satan’s influence.

Jesus is assembling a coordinated, cleansed, powerful body in the earth. Satan can’t think for himself, but he can copy. He knows he needs something similar. So, in my opinion, he is increasing demonic activity. And the demons know what’s going on. This is why the spirit that took over Eugene Rudy tried to be cute, making cryptic references to marriage and rain. This spirit of antichrist probably thought no one would understand. Sadly for him, he was wrong.

I think Satan is going to use demons to control people, more than he has in the past, and he will also use electronics. He can’t copy the Holy Spirit, who is omnipresent and all-powerful, but he can make a crude copy using Iphones and the Internet. We’re already seeing test runs, in the electronically coordinated flash mobs, which commit crimes just like those that took place in the days of Lot and helped bring about the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah.

When persecution increases, we will see electronics used against us. Drones will locate us and fire at us, like the locusts of Revelation 9 that torment unbelievers. The Internet will track us and spy on us. Cell phones will be used to denounce us to the authorities. And demons and fallen angels will work inside our enemies, giving them favor, supernatural powers, and corrupt motivations.

We have taken our eye off the ball. We talk about Jesus as though he were a social worker. That’s completely wrong. He was a military recruiter. We are fighting to finish the battle he started, and it’s very serious. If we get caught up in trying to receive blessings and healings, we’re missing the point. Those things are side effects of a life submitted to the Holy Spirit. Walk into a Navy base and ask for fifty dollars, and they’ll tell you to get lost. Rise through the ranks and become an admiral, and you can walk in and ask for a billion-dollar ship, and they’ll trample each other, trying to get it for you. The kingdom of God works the same way. The cooperation you get from God depends on the extent to which you belong to him and work to establish his rule.

Weak Christians say Jesus conquered the king of this world long ago, and that all we have to do is believe it. Can people really be that stupid? Does the world look like it’s fixed? Jesus wrote our Constitution. He gave us rights. It’s up to us to enforce those rights and destroy Satan’s kingdom. Sometimes an eviction notice is not enough. Sometimes you have to get the sheriff to go in and remove squatters by force. We are supposed to be fighting evil spirits every day, so the kingdom of God will grow in as many people as possible. We should be undoing the conquest Satan has been working on for thousands of years (Matthew 11:12).

Paul said our weapons were not carnal, but mighty THROUGH GOD to the pulling down of strongholds (2 Corinthians 10:4). “Through God” means “through God’s supernatural power inside us.” “Not carnal” means “not our own natural intelligence, character, and power.” It means, “through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Nonetheless, we listen to people like Rick Warren, who tell us to suck it up and build God’s kingdom through human effort. We do that because it feels good to earn things. It takes away our feelings of guilt. But we’re not supposed to be free from guilt. We’re supposed to remember the evil that we’ve done, so we can be humble and grateful.

We need to pray in tongues, seek the fruit and gifts of the Spirit, fast, study the word, and learn to bless and curse. We need to cast out spirits. We need to get on God’s team and receive real power. We need what my pastor calls a “kingdom mindset.” We were born to be warriors. We need to devote our lives to war. To do anything else is to chase our tails and surrender by default.

In other news, my faith is telling me I’m not going to be in Miami much longer. God has opened a door. I don’t know where.

My church is opening a branch in Winter Haven. I’m going up on Saturday with a team that will be celebrating the opening. For a long time, I’ve fantasized about living in Central Florida. I want to have some land around me, and I want to get out of Miami, which is a pretty slimy city. I’m going to drive by some real estate listings in Winter Haven. Maybe something will click. Property prices are great up there.

I think cities like Miami are oppressive for Christians. Satan is in charge here. The people are rude, violent, greedy, and coarse. We even have sick forms of idolatry, like voodoo and Santeria. I don’t expect that to change. God is probably going to start withdrawing from places like this and put his people where they can have a little peace and get something done. You may think God is all excited about sending his people into the filthiest places, but judging by what Jesus said, you would be wrong. He told us to go in, spend a certain amount of time working on people, and then leave, shaking the dust from our feet. Miamians know the score. I don’t think God is going to wrestle with them forever, when people elsewhere could be reached more easily. And I think God puts limits on the ostracism and abuse his people have to endure.

I may provoke people by saying this, but Cubans aren’t much interested in church. I’ve been a member of three charismatic churches, and I haven’t seen many Cubans around me. My present church is full of Puerto Ricans, but Cubans are sparse. Miami is a Cuban city, so it’s a place where churches don’t do well.

I’m praying for instruction on supernatural warfare. I believe it’s my purpose in this world. As I grow better informed and stronger, I expect to be moved and put places where I can accomplish things for God.

Take it for what it’s worth. I believe what I’ve written is correct.

Government Officials Now Persecute Christians Openly

The Chick-fil-A phenomenon is not quite as simple as people think it is.

Clearly, to a Christian, the fundamental issue is that a small but loud minority is pushing secular authorities to allow homosexual marriage. There is no point in claiming this doesn’t alarm us. It seems pretty obvious that, while secular government and the church are separate entities, God tends to punish societies that permit their governments to promote sin. We are against gay marriage, and we want our secular government to forbid it, even though the prohibition is based in religion.

Nonetheless, even if we felt that it were possible and desirable to keep religious policy out of legislation, it would still be important to respond to the bullying of the left. The reason is that the three leftists who started this fight are secular officials. They are in government. They went outside the scope of secular rule, in order to persecute and discriminate against a Christian family. In doing so, they took the fight out of the church and into the realm of Constitutional law. They made it a secular fight.

Our religious freedoms are not found in the Bible. They arise from the First Amendment, which is a law enacted by Congress and the States. The parties enjoined from infringing our religious freedom are not private citizens. The injunction applies to the government. I can criticize your religion all I want. I can refuse to do business with you because I don’t like your beliefs. I don’t work for the government. But if you make me a political official in a major city, and I threaten to harm your business because of your beliefs, it’s another story. When I do that, I’m violating the First Amendment, at least in spirit, and possibly in letter.

Rahm Emanuel and the other two anti-Christian officials involved in this debacle made it clear that they disapproved of Christian beliefs, and they suggested they might take action to damage a Christian business because of those beliefs. That’s unacceptable. Government officials can’t do that. It’s also hypocritical, because leftist politicians don’t seem to have any problems with businesses run by Muslims, whose positions on homosexuality are more extreme than those of Christians, and they haven’t complained about businesses owned by Orthodox Jews, either. But that’s a rabbit trail, so I’ll stay off of it.

In Nazi Germany (I wonder why we never call it “Nazi Germany and Nazi Austria”), government persecution of the Jews did not start with concentration camps, einsatzgruppen, and gas chambers. It started with smaller steps. One such step was the targeting of Jewish businesses. The Nazis passed laws excluding Jews from many types of businesses, and eventually, they called for a boycott of Jewish businesses, culminating in Kristallnacht, “The Night of Breaking Glass,” in which Gentiles roamed the streets breaking windows in Jewish shops and looting the contents. The Nuremberg Laws followed, and eventually, Jews were completely marginalized. Their businesses were confiscated and given to Germans and Austrians loyal to their moron dictator.

When someone like Michael Moore or Keith Olbermann calls for a boycott of conservative or Christian businesses, it’s unfortunate, but it’s not alarming. When elected officials do the same thing, they are following in the footsteps of the Nazis. When the government persecutes you, there is no one to whom you can turn. No one but God himself. You have no recourse. You have no refuge.

People should be more upset than they are. What the left is doing right now isn’t debate or dissent. It’s not merely a boycott. It’s government-sponsored persecution of a religious group, based purely on a religious belief which does not conflict with the state’s legitimate interests.

This is not supposed to happen in America. This is why the First Amendment was written. What has happened over the last week is no less outrageous than a sign in a park reading, “Gentiles Only,” or a state attorney general threatening to refuse to recognize Jewish marriages.

Because Christians are the victims, and Christians are in the majority, and we are used to seeing Christians maligned, we’re not reacting as strongly as we should. We should be aware of this. We should make our persecutors pay a heavy price. The best way to do that is to turn out to vote, but we should also make our anger known, on every public forum. We should not be offended; we should be OUTRAGED. We are not quite at the Beer Hall Putsch stage of liberal totalitarianism. Our enemies aren’t as bold or powerful as they could become, should we sit back and yawn. We need to get used to taking strong stands, while we still have the power.

Today I did my small part. I dropped by the Chick-fil-A in Davie, Florida, for lunch. Thank God, there were cars lining up to get in, and people waiting for service were stacked up past the front doors. I took a photo, which I put on Facebook, and it got picked up by Investors Business Daily. Here it is.

I was parked illegally at Costco, so I couldn’t wait. I went to Carol City, and here are the photos I shot. I got a very nice deluxe sandwich with pepper jack cheese, plus waffle fries and a peach shake. It was way too much food, but it was my second Chick-fil-A meal so far this lifetime, so I wanted to see what they had.

I plan to go back whenever I get the chance. There aren’t any Chick-fil-As close to me, but I will find myself near one from time to time. I have a new guitar teacher, and he lives close to one, so that will give me a weekly opportunity.

I only wish they had been selling hats.

Learning to Trust Happiness

I can’t get used to being in a church that works. The farther I get from the degrading experience I had at my old church, the more I understand the depth of the hole I was in.

It’s a little like a failed romance. While it’s going on, you know things aren’t right, but you try not to argue and complain, because you know relationships take work. One day you realize it’s over, and you move on. Weeks later, you start to feel angry at the other person. The resentment you buried comes to the surface, because you’re not trying to like that person any more. You see things more clearly without the rose-colored glasses.

My old church didn’t pass out glasses, but they ran a brainwashing campaign. They harped on positive thinking and submission to authority so that the people they abused would think it was wrong to mention or even think about the corruption in the church. It takes a while for the effects to fade. When my friends and I got out, and we talked about the old church, we soft-pedaled our criticism. Now the gloves are off. We’re not absorbed in bitterness and resentment, but we’re clearing the air and dispelling the illusions.

One reason this is happening is that the new church–New Dawn Ministries–is so healthy. It’s very hard to get used to. I guess if you’re pulled into a lifeboat after a long time in the ocean, if you doze off from fatigue, you will probably start trying to tread water any time you’re awakened. The mindset is taking a while to fade. It’s like being raised in a crawl space and then coming out into the open air. The natural thing is to crouch for a couple of months.

My old church has been teaching “the Abishai anointing,” which, summed up, says ordinary church members will never be acknowledged or rewarded, and that they should do everything they’re told to do, without complaining, in order to support the “Davids” in the leadership who get all the money and attention. Meanwhile, New Dawn is teaching the opposite. They’re teaching about the kingdom mindset. Each of us is royalty, appointed by God to rule the earth, and God’s help increases as we identify ourselves with his purposes, as his uncomplaining, faithful servants. We’re supposed to grow and then move on to our own ministries.

You can see the difference. My old church teaches unquestioning loyalty to human beings. New Dawn teaches unquestioning loyalty to God.

The Abishai anointing is a spiritual castration. It turns us into palace eunuchs. We serve the king and queen so they and their seed can increase, but there is no possibility that we will bear fruit of our own or have our own kingdoms. It’s exactly what Satan would teach if he managed to succeed God on the throne. God has absolute authority, yet he is humble and exists to serve and give. He receives worship for an unselfish purpose. If Satan were on the throne, he would accept the honor and worship and give nothing back, just like the leaders in an Abishai church. All the blessings would flow UPWARD.

Yesterday our pastor told us the gospel wasn’t about getting our needs met. He openly disagreed with the idiots on TBN, who live to tell us the more money we give God, the more money God will give us. I loved it. He said we are to put the kingdom first, as Jesus taught. God blesses his servants so they can do his work, just as the military provides care, training, and weapons to recruits.

He also pointed out that Jesus told us we were to go out into the world and make DISCIPLES, not “converts.” This was a major issue at my old church. They didn’t care much about teaching. They were seeker-friendly. They talked a lot about all the things they were willing to do in order to get people saved. The head pastor refused to criticize Barack Obama, who is an enemy of the church, Israel, and the unborn. His son went on the stage and said, “I love Obama. I think he’s great.” They didn’t teach much about prayer. They didn’t tell people much about repentance and holy living. So the church is full of people who think they can do absolutely anything, because they’re forgiven. They quote Matthew 7:1 all the time. Just don’t ask them if they know any other verses.

Here’s something funny. I know people at my old church have said some horrendous things about me and other people who left. Lies and accusations. Today the pastor’s son put this on Facebook: “There is nothing you can do about people who talk behind your back, so focus on the people who talk to your face.” I could not resist “liking” it. Maybe that was wrong. I think God will forgive me.

The brother of a friend of mine came to New Dawn yesterday. His name is Carlos. He had a couple of huge knife wounds that were healing. Some guy mugged him for four dollars and a bicycle. An usher put him next to me so I could talk to him. The pastor’s father came and sat down and got a conversation going. Carlos said he had been offended at another church, because they threw money on the stage and told people God would not bless them unless they gave a certain amount.

My old church has done this kind of thing. They squeeze unsciptural Passover, Pentecost, and Yom Kippur offerings out of people, and I’ve seen the pastor stand on the stage and say, “If you don’t want to give, that’s fine. But you’ll miss out on the blessing.”

It’s funny; Carlos, who doesn’t go to church regularly, knows more about Christianity than my old pastor. At least in some aspects.

The pastor at New Dawn started speaking after we talked to Carlos. He did not know what we had talked about. He spent a good long time telling us how wrong it was for a pastor to teach that God won’t bless people unless they give money. I loved it. This is what happens when a pastor listens to the Holy Spirit instead of trying to build a monument to himself. The Holy Spirit will tell him what to say. I’m sure Carlos will be back.

I had an interesting experience last week. A few months back, my dad hired a guy to fix his deck. He found him in a local publication called The Flyer. It has ads for services in it. I never use it. I prefer Angie’s List. My dad needed some drywall repairs, so he tried to find the same guy. He could not find the check he used to pay him, and he had no record of the man’s name. He searched and searched. Finally, he gave up and got out the latest edition of The Flyer. It had 18 ads for general handymen and dozens of ads for various specialties. He picked an ad and made an appointment.

On Monday, the person who posted the ad showed up. It was the man who had fixed the deck.

I oversaw his work during the week. On the last day, there was some conversation, and he asked me some things. I mentioned my religon, and that I was hoping to write Christian books. He started telling me his testimony. He knew God was there. He didn’t like Catholicism because the church protected sexual predators. He felt God’s presence outside of church. It had brought him to tears. One day when he was very discouraged, he was walking in the ocean, and he saw something shiny near his feet. He picked it up, an it was a medal with the word “manna” on it.

He said he didn’t want to live by rules. He thought we should become good on the inside, so good behavior was a consequence. I told him about the baptism with the Holy Spirit. I told him he was right. God wants to work inside us and change us. The rules aren’t enough.

My dad, the unbeliever, witnessed all this.

I told him about New Dawn and gave him the address and service times. He said he would come by himself. He didn’t want his family to go until he had checked it out. I thought that was smart.

I said something about hoping my dad would eventually go. My dad said what he always says. He said he agreed with Albert Einstein, who said something about a sense of the mystical making him religious in the truest sense. The handyman pointed out that Einstein spent most of his life on a wild goose chase. His work gave rise to quantum mechanics, and he tried in vain to discredit it. That amazed me. How does a handyman know a thing like that? It’s exactly what I tell my dad, but I have a degree in physics.

I’m hoping this guy will show up on Tuesday night for Bible study. I think God has a heavy-duty purpose for his life.

In other news, I’m going to be an armorbearer again. At my old church, the pastor had a habit of trying to make influential people armorbearers, and I believe this is how I got on the team. They were hoping to attract more affluent white people, and I think I looked like a prospect. I think it shocked the other ABs when I worked out. At the new church, I was accepted on the team because I had proven myself at the old church. I spoke briefly to the team leader yesterday–the guy in the trenches, not a pastor looking to network–and he said he was “one hundred percent” sure they wanted me. That was an honor. Not an Abishai moment.

I probably won’t serve as much as I did at the old church, because I’ll be doing other things, and it won’t be quite as much like police work, because the congregation is different. But I look forward to it. I don’t think they’ll take advantage of me.

I hope I get used to this soon. Sometimes I feel like I’m carrying an invisible prison cell around with me.

God has Moved me to a Wide Place

Over the last week or two I read the best Christian book I’ve ever seen. It’s called Fire on the Altar, and it was written by Fred Stone, the father of TV teacher and evangelist Perry Stone.

I love Perry Stone’s work, but if I have to be honest, I’ll say I think his father has helped me more. I think his father was somewhat more humble and closer to the Holy Spirit.

The book is full of remarkable testimonies that illustrate the kingdom principles he teaches. As a young man in West Virginia, he accepted God in a time when revival was washing over Appalachia. He learned about the gift of tongues, and the power it carries. He dedicated his life to God. He spent much of his life pastoring churches, and he exhibited many of the gifts of the Spirit, including tongues, the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, supernatural faith, and miraculous healing. He writes about these things as a witness and practititioner, not as a spectator or theorist. His accounts are helpful. A person who has never done a certain thing can’t teach as well as someone who has done it.

He spoke to foreigners in languages he did not understand. He saw God put an iris and pupil in a deformed eye. He had visions in which he left his body to learn from God. He saw angels. You really need to read the book to get a picture of it.

It confirms so many things God has taught me. It’s great when God corrects, but it’s even better when he tells you you’re right about something.

You can get the book at the VOE website, which I linked to, above.

My own adventure keeps unfolding and improving. The progress never stops.

For a long time, I’ve been telling people prayer in tongues would fill them with power and bring them closer to God. As time passes, God confirms that message over and over, more and more strongly. I was not wrong about it. It came from him.

God’s power and presence fall on me more and more often, and they do so with increasing intensity. Some people call this the “anointing,” but anointing means authority, so I just say “power and presence.” I feel that the veil between me and him gets very thin at times. Here’s a peculiar truth about God: the ability to perceive him and to believe him is not natural. It’s not something you can manufacture by trying really hard. It comes from the Holy Spirit. You may have a little faith before you are baptized with the Spirit, but it’s nothing compared to the faith that develops in you over time, as you maintain a regimen of prayer in tongues.

You can pray for increased faith, and for God to reduce your unbelief. It works. It’s a shame people don’t know this. Faith is the currency of the supernatural realm, and God wants you to have it, because he wants you to be able to do his work. He is ready to give it to you; you are not required to do it all on your own, like the Hebrews who had to gather their own straw to hold bricks together.

I am now spending a minimum of 1 1/2 hours a day in prayer, much of it in tongues, and most of the time I do much better than that. As a result, God is teaching me more and becoming more obvious. And good things are happening around me. The closer you get to God, the more you are identified with him. The more you are identified with him, the more you do his work and invite attacks from his enemies. That makes you part of him, and he will increase his interaction with you, and he will increase the provision and protection he gives you.

Sometimes I can’t pray in English. The Spirit won’t allow it. I’ll try to stop praying in tongues and go on in English, and he will not permit it. The Spirit knows the will of the Father. There are urgent needs I have to pray for, and only the Spirit knows what they are. Apparently, sometimes they are so important, they take precedence over anything I could ask for in my own language.

The Bible tells us the Spirit knows the will of God, and it tells us God will grant us what we ask for, if we pray according to his will. It’s obvious that letting the Spirit pray through us will bring results.

It’s important to get information from people who know God. The Bible says we perish for lack of knowledge. God will literally let you die, when you don’t know what to do about your situation. Our predecessors were supposed to gain and preserve knowledge of God and pass it down to us, but they didn’t do it, so now most Christians are ignorant. They don’t know their rights. Teaching us was not God’s responsibility. We’re supposed to make this world work; it’s not his job. You have to listen to people who have knowledge, and you have to store it up and apply it.

The new church is very satisfying. I’m probably going to do some armorbearer work there, but it won’t be quite as hairy as working at the other church. Less like police work. That would be nice.

It’s hard to get used to being in a church where people mean what they say. Jesus said we would be judged for every idle word. In most churches, they’ll let idiots go on stage and “prophesy” and “bless,” and everyone knows none of it means anything. It’s like incense that fails to rise toward God. But at New Dawn, they really expect things to happen, so you have to pay attention and take it seriously.

The other day, one week after my old church taught the ridiculous “Abishai anointing,” which is basically intended to neuter everyone but the pastor, my new church taught that we were supposed to think in kingdom terms. We are supposed to be kings. We have authority. I am always a little nervous about “speaking” things into existence, but the Bible does say we can prophesy, declare, and bless. The pastor decreed that we would come to think in kingdom terms, and he asked us to receive it, and I went for it.

Ever since then, I’ve felt the authority inside me. We really are supposed to be kings. As I said above, God put us here to run the earth. What is a person who runs a planet? A king, obviously. We were supposed to be on top, but we sold out and ended up on the bottom.

Paul said Satan had principalities and powers on his side. Satan has never had an original idea. He copies everything; he was even copying when he said he would be like God. Clearly, Satan stole the idea of supernatural powers and authorities. So who are God’s principalities? Angels? Presumably. But also human beings. The Bible tells us we are God’s children. What is the child of a king? A prince and future king.

I now feel more confidence in my prayers, which is saying a lot. I feel more serious about my purpose. I don’t just have a right to ask for things. I have an obligation. A soldier wouldn’t turn down a machine gun or body armor. God expects to supply and help me.

Here’s something interesting. Last night, a pastor taught us that Jezebel had castrated men in order to dishonor them. I had never thought about that. I had read that eunuchs had thrown Jezebel to her death, but I had never thought about the incongruity: castrated men in a Jewish castle.

The Jews did not castrate. The practice has been done in other places, like China and Babylon. The idea is to prevent gifted subordinates from impregnating the queen or raising up sons to challenge the incumbent dynasty. It must have been considered disgraceful for Jezebel to have castrated men in her service. Did they volunteer? Were they forced? Did ambitious parents send them to be castrated? Was Jezebel such a slut that Ahab had her servants castrated? I don’t know. But it was an anomaly.

At my old church, they taught people they were supposed to be lowly “Abishais.” They could not comment on church policy, or on corruption in the leadership. They were not to expect rewards or recognition. They were to dedicate their lives to promoting the pastors.

By this definition, what is an “Abishai”? It’s a eunuch. Greedy, abusive pastors do not want their subordinates to flourish, especially if they’re talented or capable. They pretend to offer their underlings promotion, but somehow, the pastor and his family end up getting all the glory. Eunuchs serve until they get fed up, and then new eunuchs who don’t know any better come along. Eunuchs get limited authority. They don’t get to succeed pastors. They don’t bear fruit, because the pastors undermine them. Pastors want to stay on top, and then they want their sons to take over.

Now think about David, who was a king. He started out as a shepherd, and then he became an armorbearer. An armorbearer is supposed to be promoted eventually. Some succeeded their masters. Others went on to their own domains. An armorbearer isn’t sterile. He is expected to go on and bear fruit. He eventually becomes a king, and the cycle repeats.

My old church gave me an Abishai award. I was gracious when I received it, but I never knew what to do with it. I eventually used the frame for a photo of Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein and me, at the National Day of Prayer.

Now I feel the award was an insult from a principality. The people at the church intended to honor me, I suppose, but that’s the natural understanding. In all likelihood, there was a supernatural reason for the award. I think it was the enemy’s way of saying, “You are stuck here, and you will not grow or expand God’s kingdom in your own right. Keep your head down, continue making those bricks, and then die.”

I have realized I can’t be stopped. I have God’s favor. The kingdom of heaven is like a tree, and while you can try to stunt a tree by putting it in a small pot, the roots of a tree can break stone in order to grow. As long as I water myself with prayer in the Spirit, I will grow, and God will always move me to a place where I can continue to expand. People have tried to stop me, but they lost, and they will always lose, because I’m not the one they’re actually fighting. They are fighting someone so great, in his presence, they don’t even amount to specks of dust.

I the end, I will have fruit, but their fruit will dry up and die. I want to say, “unless they repent,” but I don’t feel it’s correct. Maybe that just means I should pray for them.

Another interesting thing: Fred Stone died without much money. He was a wonderful servant of God, but by his own admission, he did not have faith for financial help. He believed this had hindered his ministry. His son built a multimillion-dollar ministry which is always solvent, and Fred Stone believed his son was able to do this because he had no problem believing God would supply him.

I am not a prosperity buff. I am disgusted by the way charismatic preachers talk about money all the time. But I do believe God wants us to do well. I’m not practicing law now, and I don’t want to starve in the future, so I do pray for new sources of income. Reading what Fred Stone said gave me great confidence. I prayed about it last night while driving home from church, and waves of faith hit me, just like the time faith told me my ex-girlfriend’s crazy lawsuits were going nowhere. Now I know something is going to break. It’s done. It’s absolutely done. I’m telling this because it may be useful to someone reading this. I received the gift of supernatural faith through regular prayer in tongues, and you can see how it’s paying off. If it worked for me, it will work for you. Just don’t put your carnal desires ahead of your desire to please God.

It’s Okay; You’re not Special

I don’t want to spend the rest of my life filled with annoyance at fat, spoiled, lying preachers who cheat and enslave their flocks. I would much rather focus on the great things God does for me. Things like love, joy, peace, and success are available to everyone, and we don’t have to do all that much in order to receive them. Those are the things I’d like to spend time talking about (as a witness, not a plagiarist or theoretician), but how can you help people find the truth when they’ve been brainwashed by greedy liars who claim they’ve already shown them the way? You have to say something.

Today’s dose of aggravation: the “Abishai anointing.”

Abishai was one of David’s followers. He joined David in the cave at Adullam, along with other men whose lives were not going well. He was not a remarkable person, but he was brave and extremely loyal. He would have done anything for David. Naturally, the preacher-worship cultists have latched onto him as a role model. This is what the Abishai anointing is all about. You can read all about it in a little booklet written by prosperity preacher Denny Duron. I just finished it this morning. It was given to me a long time ago at a gathering at my former church. I believe it was a men’s conference.

The Abishai anointing is very big at my old church. They’ve even named an award after it. They have (or used to have) monthly meetings at which they gave out prizes to volunteers, and the Abishai Award was one of them. They had a Servant Leader of the Month award, which was the top honor. With that, you got temporary custody of a huge trophy, and you got a parking space for one month. They also had the Lionheart Award. Smaller trophy. I forget what you had to do to qualify for this award. There was a fourth award which I no longer remember.

I actually received an Abishai once. I think it’s safe to say I destroyed my chances of further awards when I quit working in the church kitchen. After I made that scriptural and intelligent choice–actually, God made it for me–I felt that I was pretty much outside the circle of wagons. That’s good, because the award thing was a little creepy.

Basically, the Abishai theory goes like this. Anyone who complains or even looks at practical considerations is a whiner who is–I suppose–full of demons or something. You are supposed to serve “the king,” not “the palace,” so no matter how badly a ministry fares (after God curses it for stupidity, for example), you stick with it.

Here’s the beauty part. You don’t get to be a “David.” He was handsome and talented and smart. You’re more of a drone. The pastor is Hall, and you’re not even Oates. You’re like the guy who makes sure Oates has his favorite hair gel in the dressing room at the arena. You are God’s gofer. God’s chai walla. But God loves you for that, and you should be really happy that your function in life is to promote “David,” who is–no, not Jesus–the pastor! David is special and wonderful in ways you can’t really understand, so don’t analyze his motives, and be really proud you get to take his jackets to the cleaners and trim his hedges and lie about his girlfriends and so on.

I can’t even tell you how many things are wrong about this. First of all, David was “a man after God’s own heart,” and he was a great prophet. He made mistakes, but he was not a fool whose main goal in life was to build a megachurch with its own cruise ship dock. David was generally worthy to be followed. And he truly was anointed; he had God’s approval, and that’s all that really matters.

Many of our modern megachurch and wannamegachurch pastors are cut from cruder cloth. They are of a lower class. They tend to be insincere, unconcerned with the poor, oblivious to the problems of the people they are supposed to serve, vain, greedy, rude, and so on. They pay themselves, their unanointed relations, and their buddies big money, and they tell poor congregants God wants them to give huge, unscriptural offerings in order to keep the show going. It’s okay to be an Abishai when you’re following a David (or Jesus, whom David actually symbolized). It’s not okay when you’re following a Robert Tilton or a Kenneth Copeland.

Second thing: the idea about serving the king and not the palace is a little ridiculous. In fact, the office is more important than the man. That’s obvious even in the secular world, where incompetent CEOs get the boot all the time. Venal preachers need to be cast down so they can’t continue doing harm, and those who follow them need to find better leaders. You don’t dump a pastor the first time he does something dumb, but if he’s an utter fool, you don’t waste an inordinate amount of time getting him replaced or moving on. It’s probably okay to put up with a bad pastor for a year, if he is teachable and humble, but if he thinks he knows everything, eventually he has to go.

Look at the Bible. When Saul screwed up, did God get rid of the king’s office? Of course not. He got rid of Saul. When Eli’s sons screwed up, did God get rid of the priesthood? No, he destroyed Eli’s line. Over and over in the Bible, we see unworthy people kicked out of office. It’s as Biblical as salvation.

Third thing: the book has an accusatory tone worthy of Satan, who accuses us before the Father day and night. This is a classic and cheap debating tactic of which Satan has always made good use. When a righteous person stands up for God and opposes men who are in error, the smart thing is to accuse him of wicked intentions. Then he’s on the defensive. And if you’re a preacher, the congregation will presume he’s right.

Good preachers don’t spend their days making up doctrines they can use to silence their just critics. This tactic is something we’ve seen in Nazi Germany, Islamist regimes, and the former USSR, not to mention Scientology and other cults. If you disagree, you are wicked, and if you choose to defend yourself, the burden of proof is on you. And defending yourself is just more proof that you’re wicked, because a real ABISHAI would admit he was wrong!

The Abishai anointing is a brainwashing tool. It’s a typical cult doctrine. In a real church, leaders put people in contact with the Holy Spirit, and he grows in them and unites them. They don’t need mind-control tactics. In a church where the Holy Spirit takes a backseat to greed and pride, you have to have a cheat in order to keep people in line.

Last night I realized my old church was teaching this nonsense again. I can show you some tweets and Facebook statuses I saw.

Submission will take you to places that ambition will never take you

Sure, but you have to submit to people who are, themselves, submitted to God.

It’s either shut your mouth or leave, support the vision or leave! -Sermon Title: The Abishai Anointing

All I can say is, “Find THAT for me in the Bible.”

You do not owe your friends an explanation! -Sermon Title: The Abishai Anointing

Right. We all remember that verse in Proverbs. Do whatever you want! Accountability is for the little people!

But the Lord forbid that I should lay a hand on the Lord ‘s anointed. Now get the spear and water jug that a… http://bible.us/1Sam26.11.NIV

So now if I compare sermons to the Bible and point out the glaring disagreement, I’m laying a hand on the Lord’s anointed. That’s great news.

“The seeds you sow as a follower, you will reap as a leader.”

So if the leader abuses people, and you put up with it instead of calling him out, I guess you get to abuse people when you become a leader.

Actually, that seems to be true. When Mr. Burns dies, Smithers will probably be the boss from hell.

You can probably see why I was unhappy. This stuff is not about God. It’s prophylactic preaching. Its purpose is to shield the pastor from accountability.

People need to be taught about fasting, prayer, Bible reading, and the promises of God. Instead, the pastor is putting out landmines in case anyone tries to challenge him when he does wrong. Is this why people come to church? Do addicts in base houses sit up and say, “Man, I feel a burning need to be told not to criticize bad preachers! I have to get to church NOW so I can become a mindless butt-kisser! I know this will fill the gaping void in my soul!” Of course not. They want to know God and see his restoration and redemption.

I hate to spend so much time criticizing, but how do you fill a vessel with something good if you don’t empty out the pus and corruption that already fills it?

In my own life, things continue to improve. The more I pray in the Spirit, the more faith I have. The more God speaks to me and guides me. The more success I have. He fixes my faults. He helps me become like him. He defeats my enemies. Anyone can have these things, but they won’t get them from sitting in a blind church maxing out their credit cards.

Last night I asked God if he could limit the anger to what is necessary to get his work done. Righteous anger is a very good and necessary thing; anyone who says otherwise is a liar. But I don’t want it in me one second longer than it has to be, and I don’t want it to give rise to bitterness or self-righteousness. I don’t want it to make me forget my own sins and iniquities. I don’t want it to overcome love. I hate to see my friends taken advantage of by sleazy, unworthy people. I hate it. But I can’t let anger linger in me all the time.

I suggest we all pray for a change in leadership, not just at my old church, but at churches across America. Good leaders are everywhere, but unfortunately, many are not running churches. We need God to beat the dogs until they get out of the mangers.

Keep it Moving

I’ve had some interesting experiences lately.

The Bible tells us to covet the ability to prophesy: “Wherefore, brethren, covet to prophesy, and forbid not to speak with tongues (1 Cor. 14:39).” I’ve experienced a number of the gifts of the Spirit, but I am not really up to speed on prophecy. Once in a while I get a sentence or a phrase which, I’m pretty sure, comes from God, but I’m not one of these people who just flow like a river.

I don’t believe in saying this or that came from God, unless I’m on solid ground. The Old Testament said the Jews were to kill false prophets, so mistakes were not tolerated. Actually, they were tolerated, now that I think about it, because the Old Testament contains examples of a number of liars who were not executed, but still, the principle applies. It occurs to me that actual prophets were not tolerated. They were put in pits and sawn in half and so on, while the butt-kissers got parades. But that’s a rhetorical rabbit trail which I will avoid. What I’m getting to is this: I’m not going to run my mouth and claim God’s authority and HOPE I’m right.

A lot of “prophets” in the church are not so punctilious. They go around preaching and telling people wonderful things about the future…which are not true. You never hear them say, “Pastor, God says you need to stop dyeing your hair and skimming from the church’s charity wing.” They always say, “You’re going to do mighty things! You’re going to have a powerful TV ministry! Your stretch marks are going to go away without surgery! You will be so rich you’ll live on the tithe and give away ninety percent, and you’ll have an orange helicopter in your yard and a tennis court in your living room, just like your megachurch buddies!” They point to people in the congregation and say, “God is going to give you [insert profitable business here] and send you around the world!” Of course, none of this stuff actually happens, but no one keeps track, so there is no correction.

Nobody wants to end up like that. Nobody with any integrity.

Anyway, over the last couple of nights, I’ve felt words rising up inside me during prayer. It starts with praise which seems to exit under pressure, as though it did not come from me (anyone who prays in tongues a lot will understand this), and then out come the statements of fact.

Prophecy isn’t always about the future, and it’s not always highly specific. Sometimes it’s strong encouragement. It can be vague, as the ancient prophets demonstrate many times. The stuff I’m hearing isn’t extremely focused; God isn’t telling me to go to locker number 582 at the airport where I will find an orange kewpie doll filled with Bolivian money. And I’m not hearing that I’ll be on TV with a giant lacquered Christian hairdo and a purple suit, paying myself an eight-figure salary. But I hear good stuff. I’m hoping it’s true. Some of it is about an increase in God’s love flowing through me. That would be nice. I’m not totally unaware of my faults, so I do ask for more empathy, and I would like to receive it.

Perry Stone has a wonderful teaching out this month. Boiled down, it goes like this: spirits need bodies in the earth in order to get things done here. Satan used a serpent. Jesus came in the flesh, and he was killed, and now he is coming again, inside each of us, through the Holy Spirit. This is why he calls us his body.

I agree with this. The fruit of the Spirit are his character (or “righteousness”), put inside us through grace. The gifts are his power (or “kingdom”). In the past, Christians got by with accepting salvation and trying to be good. But we are expected to be little replicas of Jesus, complete with his supernatural characteristics, and that only comes through the Holy Spirit.

If we don’t prophesy, and if we don’t have his knowledge and wisdom, and if we don’t receive and interpret messages in tongues, where will we be? The ancient Jews used to communicate with God in the Holy of Holies, unless I am seriously misled. I am told they could inquire of God, and he would give them answers by miraculous means. This is one of the ways they found out whether they would succeed in battle. It seems a little silly to expect modern believers to try to get by with their own meager understanding. Satan’s servants haven’t lost their supernatural power, yet somehow, we are not expected to develop our own. Does that make sense? Of course not. Paul said we battle supernatural beings in high places. Are we supposed to do that by earthly means alone? It’s like the Polish cavalry, riding out to attack German bombers with swords.

I think supernatural power is what draws martyrdom. Satan doesn’t care all that much if you get people saved. It’s a defeat for him, but he still gets to rule the earth, as long as we’re weak. And it is widely believed that believers have to reach a certain level of power and righteousness before Jesus returns. It may be that keeping Christians weak prolongs Satan’s reign and postpones his destruction and humiliation. In any case, martyrdom is pretty rare in times when Christians deny the Holy Spirit, and it was very common back in the beginning, when tongues and miraculous manifestations were considered routine. The bigger the threat, the bigger the earth’s immune response.

I keep seeing the things God told me 25 years ago confirmed. Prayer in the Spirit is vital, and you have to do it a lot. The amount matters a great deal. You have to fast. You have to read the Bible. You have to pray with your understanding and analyze and admit your faults. You have to get the supernatural juice turned on. These things are easy to do, because God does most of the work. They will bring power into your life. They will end hopelessness and depression. They will put your life on track. And of course, heaven waits at the end, with rewards you have accumulated.

I think it’s this simple: you can grow, or you can rot. There is no such thing as sitting still. And like a plant, you will not grow without water. That water is the living water of the Holy Spirit. It has to flow every day, just as a plant has to be watered over and over.

Take it for what it’s worth. It has never stopped working for me.

Don’t Get Stuck in the Afterbirth

Last night I got somewhat depressed. Various things got me thinking about the predicament the earth is in.

This world is ruined. We manage to enjoy it a good part of the time, because human beings can get used to anything. I’m sure there were moments of happiness in the Nazi death camps, because there is almost no limit to what the human mind can learn to tune out. We aren’t always miserable, but that doesn’t change the truth. This place is so full of innocent blood, it might as well be a temple. The world is cursed.

Try and imagine the suffering which is going on right now. As I type this, children and old women are being raped. People are being murdered in front of their families. Billions and billions of animals are tearing each other apart. Crops are failing. Careers are ending. People are dying young. Babies are being born without arms. There is no way for a human mind to comprehend the pain that exists in the world.

None of this was supposed to happen.

We chose to rebel. God gave us free will, because he wanted real love and obedience, and we wasted no time in misusing it. As far as we know, Adam knew God personally and could speak to him face to face whenever he had a problem, and God was always with him, so whatever he did prospered. He did not lack knowledge or help. But he threw it away because he thought his way was better than God’s way, and as a result, succeeding generations knew less and less about God, and Satan’s ability to torment and control us increased, just like the population of the crop-killing weeds that followed the curse.

We used to have plenty. We used to have peace. Now we have cancer, the black plague, venereal disease, birth defects, war, poverty, perversion, natural disasters…we fail when we should succeed, and the evil succeed when they should fail. And the strange thing is that no matter what God does to help, we decline in knowledge, wisdom, and virtue.

God came to Moses and told him how people should live, if they wanted success. God didn’t owe this to us. Running the world is our job, not his. But he did it anyway. And God couldn’t even get half of the Hebrews to listen. Most of them died in Egypt. Then they rebelled on the way out, and God threatened to kill everyone except the family of Moses. God had to kill 3,000 Hebrews before their journey really got started. And when he appeared to them as a cloud and a pillar of fire, to lead them to the Promised Land, they refused to trust him, and a whole generation died in the desert.

God sent Jesus, who took the extraordinary measure of sacrificing his body so that we could receive the Holy Spirit and become like him. He allowed himself to be tortured to death in front of his jeering enemies. He died on Passover and sent the Holy Spirit to his followers on the same date on which God sent the Torah; could anything be more obvious? Is there anything more God could have done to convince people he was there for them? Nonetheless, within a few centuries, the church had abandoned the Holy Spirit, and they had adopted a doctrine of increasing God’s kingdom through human strength and effort. It was as if they preferred striving under the law to having things given to them under grace.

Around a hundred years ago, God practically forced the Holy Spirit on us again, descending in places like Azusa Street. We could have listened. We could have prayed in the Spirit, fasted, studied the word, and tried to serve God, using the incredible power he had given us. But Spirit-filled churches turned into televised whorehouses where oily men and women in gaudy clothes wheedled worthless cash offerings out of us. They’re still at it. We hear about “seed gifts” all the time, but only rarely is charity mentioned. We hear about positive thinking, which is utterly worthless, but we hear very little about sin, repentance, or the need to put God first.

Look where America stands now. Our young people are so enamored of the appearance of evil, they actually try to look like prison inmates. The shaved heads, bad tattoos, and chin beards we see today are the fashion statements of yesterday’s born losers. Thirty years ago, you had to go to a penitentiary to see that kind of thing. And of course, modern sex is coming to resemble prison sex.

We now celebrate homosexuality. Women are especially guilty. They adore homosexual men. They can’t believe God could disapprove of their cute, witty little friends. We promote abortion–murdering the unborn within their mothers’ bodies–as a necessary tool to assure the success of young women. We teach arrogance as though it were a virtue. Our entertainment is filthy. We love possessions and pleasures. We call people who stand up for God “haters.” We even teach that Jesus–an Orthodox rabbi–was a pervert. We project our goat-like values back on him, and we claim he was essentially the gay Jewish Buddha. One of many enlightened saviors. I don’t want to get sidetracked, but as the Dalai Lama says, Buddha was against homosexuality and sexual excess. Even Buddha has been watered down. No god is lenient enough for today’s spoiled Americans.

I thought about all this, and I realized how little I liked the world. Strangely, I enjoy life more than I ever did, but I really don’t like this place. I want to live in a world where good succeeds and evil is not rewarded and does not even exist. I don’t want to see sick people any more. I don’t want to see animals suffer. I don’t want to see deformities and diseases. I want to hear an end to the hate-filled lies ignorant people spew about God and his people. It would be so wonderful to be able to look at the TV listings and know I wouldn’t see Bill Maher’s name.

The Bible tells us Christians are not part of the world. We are really missionaries, or, as the Bible calls us, “ambassadors.” The ship is sinking; we are just here to pull willing people into the lifeboats and help them become like God. When I think about the problems this planet has, these truths become more real to me.

I am tempted to say we are not worth saving, but that’s not really right. Many must be worth it, or God would not be working so hard at it. But in the end, it will turn out that the people remaining unsaved are not worth trying to reach by humane means. There will be dregs that have to be filtered harshly. We know that, because God is going to remove the flesh from his people, shaking the dust from his feet, and then he is going to remove his remaining protection from the world, and the Tribulation will follow.

Weak Christians will be here to suffer; many of those who lack the Holy Spirit and deny the gift of tongues will be like Peter, who denied Jesus before the Romans. Those who have filled their lamps with the oil of the Holy Spirit (symbolized by the lamps in the Holy of Holies), and who have managed and cared for the flames, will be gone. Noah and his family were separated from the earth by the earth’s waters. We will be separated by the waters of heaven, which are mentioned in Genesis.

Because America has gotten so filthy, and because we are developing technology which is rapidly giving us power only God should have, I am wondering if the Rapture is closer than I had expected. How much power will God let us have? How much longer will he let his people cast their pearls before increasingly vile and abusive swine?

Our technological boom reminds me of the Tower of Babel. That tower was a religious edifice. It was an observatory dedicated to astrology, which was very powerful in the ancient world. When God saw that man had such power within his reach, he intervened. I think we have seen similar things in the modern era. The people who design computers and software have done things so stupid, they are best explained by supernatural interference. The Apple versus IBM mess. Apple versus Google. Our gadgets would be a lot more dangerous had we made a unified, coordinated effort. I truly suspect that God has slowed things down, and that he will not let us get too strong. He wants to preserve a certain amount of liberty, in order to allow us free will. Technology is reducing our liberty very quickly.

We’ve already lost privacy. The Founding Fathers gave us the Fourth Amendment, but now when you want to travel, you are presumed guilty of terrorism, so you get searched and even molested or photographed naked without probable cause. Unmanned machines can fly over your property without warrants and take photographs at will. Google cars can come to your driveway and photograph your house in the woods, and if you happen to be getting dressed by a window, too bad. The government and creepy private entities run by mischievous punks now have unprecedented power over us. In the near future, things will get even worse. It will be possible to wage conventional war by remote control. When we don’t fear casualties, what will happen to our humanity? People show their true colors when they have no fear.

Part of me wants to avoid looking like a kook holding a “The End is Near” sign, but now that I think about it, Jesus was such a person. He warned us to be ready, and so did Paul. If you don’t know when things are going to get sideways, the rational thing is to live as though it could happen today.

It’s very disconcerting. It makes me sad, knowing that so many of us will never live our earthly dreams. A happy marriage, kids, a nice house, good health, financial abundance, success…these things come unpredictably, to a certain percentage of people. The rest have to be content with the blessings of the afterlife. That makes sense. Each generation is a crop, and in a cursed world, we are subject to blights, droughts, and weeds. It’s natural that many of us should be stunted or barren.

The other day, I realized that chaff is the afterbirth of grain plants. A mammal’s afterbirth is useless flesh that accompanies a birth and then dies and rots. The Bible compares the ungodly to chaff. When the harvest comes, anyone who gets left behind will be like discarded afterbirth.

I am torn between wanting to see it over with and wanting to please God by helping with the harvest.

I was once told that God was displeased with Noah’s weak efforts to reform the wicked people around him. It was good that a few righteous people were saved, but it would have been better had they been able to persuade others to repent. I think Christians should be mindful of this. It’s great to know you’ve got a golden ticket, but we remain on this planet primarily to increase our numbers.

I guess this is a gloomy post, but when this is all behind us, surely the pain we’ve witnessed will no longer distress us.

The Incompetent Can Only Rise so Far, Even in the Church

I keep thinking about something someone said this weekend. Someone who has heard a lot of sermons at my old church was listening to my current pastor preach, and he was impressed. He said the message wasn’t about careers, because unlike my old church, the new one was not a business.

That interests me, because the leaders at the old church talk constantly about leadership principles and success strategies and so on. I suppose this is because the head pastor is a motivational speaker, not a prophet or prayer expert or healer. I didn’t know he was a motivational speaker until recently, or at least, I didn’t know he listed “motivational speaker” in his promotional verbiage.

I wonder how many people will agree with me when I say this: some of the worst leaders and managers on earth talk constantly about the secrets to success. They talk about leadership and management as if they know everything. And they are still incompetent.

If you were to check the Facebook and Twitter accounts of people at the old church, you would see them repeating garbage from Zig Ziglar, Napoleon Hill, and lots of other success “experts.” They recommend books with titles like The Energy Bus. They repeat crap they hear at conferences, with little comments like “so good!”. But the church is run like Boss Hogg’s bar on The Dukes of Hazzard. It’s full of nepotism, cronyism, laziness, and denial. And it’s a huge failure.

Maybe I shouldn’t knock motivational experts and success gurus. Their stuff does work, to a certain degree. I don’t think it’s evil. I’m sure Tony Robbins has helped millions of people make more money. For that matter, I think Scientology, a vile cult, makes people more successful. Positive thinking and corporate training will help you out in life, if you are the kind of person who acts instead of merely hearing.

The thing that bugs me is that these things are taught as substitutes for the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the only thing that will put you on exactly the right track and bring you exactly what you need in order to be fulfilled.

I’ll put it this way: I’m glad there are oncologists out there, and it’s good to have a cancerous leg amputated, but it’s better to have the Holy Ghost show up and destroy your tumors. I think that sums it up.

It’s funny; human beings use training and knowledge as tools to avoid using training and knowledge. We do this with scripture, and we do it with secular wisdom. The people who talk the biggest game often do the least.

I still remember my experiences at the church cafe. They preached responsibility, punctuality, cleanliness, professionalism…you name it. They said that as an Armorbearer, I was supposed to go in there and show them how Armorbearers rolled. We were considerably more responsible than most other volunteers, so we were supposed to teach them our ways.

I rounded up several really great kids to teach. I started making reasonable, intelligent rules about my workspace and the way the food was to be displayed and sold. And in the end, the drive-by pastor who ran the place gave me a very rude lecture in front of half of the staff, telling me I was possessive and overly demanding.

Here are the things I wanted: people were not to pile hundreds of pounds of boxes on my workspace before I came in. They were not to throw out items I brought to church and put in the freezers and fridges. I was to have at least two steam table pans to display the pizza and rolls I made, because I was required to sell two kinds of pizza plus rolls, and the other trays were full of gross deep-fried Sysco chicken offerings which were nearly identical. I expected every day’s work to start with prayer. I expected people to be clean.

Obviously, I was channeling Hitler. At Burger King, this list would have been considered unsatisfactory because it was so SHORT, but at my church–the church of success and positive thinking–it was way over the top.

The pastor violated every management rule you can think of. He refused to communicate with me so I could adapt to his vision (or even be aware of it). He was rarely present on the job. He “corrected” me in front of others before giving me any private input. He gave someone less senior authority over me and my workspace without informing me. He tried to get me to continue there, doing things way below my skill level (frying wings and so forth). He essentially eliminated profitable items in order to focus on embarrassing crap that lost money. He never listened; he knew nothing whatsoever about business, but he did know that everyone else was wrong.

Name a principle of good management; he violated it. There was no possible way for him to succeed in his ignorance and stubbornness, and the advice I gave him was ancient, accepted wisdom guaranteed to work. Of course, the cafe failed miserably, and it was taken away from him, which is what he wanted all along.

They turned the cafe over to a guy who is so ineffective, he stands out even at the church. People marvel at his ineffectiveness, but he’s very close to the head pastor’s family, so he can never be removed from the chain of command. Whenever a problem arises and his name comes up, because it appears necessary to go through him, people are likely to give up or look for a way to go around him. He is extremely effective at one thing: preventing progress.

Before he was put in charge, he was already taking care of the physical plant. When I needed a key to the kitchen, he said he had it in a drawer with a bunch of other keys, but it was too much trouble to dig it out. That went on for months. I never got the key from him.

When he got control, I was told he was going to go in and clean house. Oh, boy. I talked to him a little bit about problems with the junk that was piled up in the back room, and he made fun of the previous regime for failing to conduct an inventory. Like he was going to go in there and do everything the right way! After all, he had been to a bunch of Brian Klemmer EST-derived seminars. He was all about having the intention and finding the mechanism, like Klemmer used to say.

And the cafe failed again.

Like Aaron says, fish rots from the head. The head pastor was no different. He knew how to line up speaking gigs and get paid for telling people to be effective, but he seemed to work at avoiding managing the church. I believe he did that deliberately, to stay free to promote himself. And the people under him seem to do the same thing, which is not surprising, since that’s the example they’ve seen.

We had a vermin problem in the kitchen. I guarantee you, without even looking, it’s still there. I would be amazed if anything had changed. There was a low cabinet about twenty feet long, alone one wall of the back room. It had drawers in it. The drawers were packed with urine, feces, and the odd dead mouse. This stuff can kill you. Look it up. When a place is that full of mouse filth, you’re not supposed to clean it without special gear and sanitary protocols.

I went to the head pastor and other bigwigs and told them the filth needed to be removed. This would be about a four-hour job, given a crew of ten people. It was nothing we could not handle. I informed them that it was a severe health hazard, and I even showed them corroborating information on the Internet. The head pastor responded as though he was concerned. He’s good at that. And he did absolutely nothing.

When I talked to the pastor who ran the cafe, he acted like I was suggesting we build a full-scale replica of the Panama Canal. I guess he was comfortable with mouse urine and feces near the stored food and the equipment, and I know he didn’t want to spend any additional time in the cafe. We’re talking about a guy who usually said, “Walk with me,” whenever I tried to talk to him; I think that tells you what you need to know.

He bought a couple of mouse traps and put them on a shelf, still in the box. I never saw one deployed. There was no cleaning. No one lifted a finger, as far as I know. Out of exasperation, I got a couple of kids to help me clean out and bleach a couple of drawers, but I think it’s safe to say no one else has done anything like that, and those drawers are surely full of excrement again.

When I quit, there was flour and sugar stored in that room. I left it sitting there, figuring they would do something about disposing of it or sealing it up. Weeks later, it was still there. A big bag was open to any animal that wanted to go in and feed. How can you bless a manager who lets things like that happen?

There was a complete leadership vacuum. It was as though the people in charge were only there to loot the place. Now that I think about it, it was a lot like the scene in Goodfellas, where the restaurant owner became a partner with a mafioso. Once the gangster was in charge, the place became a vehicle for pillage. Food and liquor came in the front and went out the back so crooks could sell it and pocket the cash. When the restaurant went broke, they torched it for the insurance and moved on, and the owner was left with no business. That’s what the church reminds me of. You go in and use it as a way to meet influential Christians and business leaders, you get yourself on TV, you get your sons on the payroll, and you teach people to GIVE, GIVE, GIVE. Then the church fails, and you move on to your next demolition job.

One of the fundamental rules of success is that you put the interests of the enterprise above your own. At this church, they did the opposite. Or at least it seemed that way to me.

What I’m saying is that they failed at the nearest thing they have to a mission. They don’t teach much about the Holy Spirit or repentance or deliverance. They teach a great deal about motivation and success. And they end up demotivating and suppressing.

If they weren’t Christians, they’d be in public housing. They could never make it in the real world. Luckily, they have an easy job, which is to convince people to give them money. As long as they do okay at that, they will fail upward. They don’t have to make a product or sell a service. They don’t have to be good at anything, the way real entrepreneurs do. They just have to persuade people to write checks every week. They’re not doing very well at that, which is probably why the head pastor is leaving, but they’ve done well enough to stay in power and hold onto the building for a number of years.

It’s funny; a CEO who does badly has to say things like, “We had a bad year, but please let us stay and fix things.” A preacher who runs a church into the ground can say, “We are facing a special financial challenge, and God is telling me that if you will just GIVE, he will provide a return: thirty, sixty, or a hundredfold! A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over!” Instead of seeing him as a bum and an incompetent, the congregation will want to help him defeat this “attack of the enemy”!

What does this all boil down to? I guess it reminds me of what I already know: never judge a person by his words. Always look at the actions. A nincompoop who spouts Sun Tzu and Dale Carnegie quotes is still a nincompoop. People who actually have what it takes don’t read that junk, because success is already part of them.

I think the church is going to disappear, unless God spares it by sending new leaders. The head pastor is leaving, and there is no way he would do that if it was even close to succeeding. The mortgage is eight figures, and the congregation is not paying it off. They get some government grants, but I don’t think the Obama teat is generous enough to keep the place on its feet, especially if people are going to get nice salaries and jobs for their kids.

Supposedly, the pastor’s son is going to be in charge. He draws big crowds, but they’re young, and they don’t give much. Many of them go to church to hook up for sex. It’s a lot like a nightclub, and the kids don’t have money for clubs, so it makes a good substitute. Some people I know think he’s going to take his Tuesday youth service methods and move them to Sunday. It will be Disco Soul Train Church. That will mean older people (with jobs) moving out. So he’ll have 6,000 people a week and 15 tithers.

They get something like $50,000 per month in rent from business tenants, but the power bill is around $35,000, and the staff has to be paid.

I probably irked them more than I suspected when I publicly debunked the Steve Munsey fundraising tactics they were using. Every chance I got, I went on Facebook and told about 150 people there was no such thing as “Seven Blessings of Passover” or “Seven Blessings of the Atonement.” I even went after “Seven Blessings of Pentecost,” although it turned out they were actually teaching “Five Victories of Pentecost,” which is equally crazy and wrong. They were getting big offerings on these Jewish holidays, promising health, money, and other stuff in return. I don’t know if I had an impact, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I made them nervous. I know some people listened to me. I didn’t want to see my friends cheated, so I spoke up, and I’m glad some were spared.

The dynasty in charge of the church could turn it all around. They could start teaching about the Holy Spirit. They could attend to people’s needs instead of using offering money to fly around promoting themselves. If your church is floundering for lack of leadership, what business do you have flying to other states to spread your failed message? Shouldn’t you stay home and get things under control? They say a captain is supposed to be the last person who leaves a sinking ship, and now that I think about it, the rats leave first.

If people knew they would meet the Holy Spirit there, they would show up and tithe. There are rich churches that succeed that way. But I don’t think the leaders of the church have much faith in God. I’m not sure they believe in him at all, given that they are willing to teach made-up doctrine, but even if they do believe, I don’t think they expect God to come through and establish their church. If they did, they’d be doing things his way already.

They might succeed, if they sell their souls completely and teach nothing but prosperity. They could compete with Rod Parsley. But I don’t think they’re as smart or as talented as the people who make it in that game. Their work is generally third-tier. No, I think it has to be God’s way or selling cars. I don’t think they have any other options.

Get Off the Sand

I am beginning to think the people who run my old church are pure fakes. I have come to believe that the church’s primary function is to promote one family.

It’s very sad. The more I know about them, the less I respect them. In fact, I have no respect for them whatsoever. In my mind, a selfish preacher is worse than a sincere prostitute.

When you live by faith, it’s not easy to accept the notion that a Christian leader is depraved. We are taught to believe in God unconditionally, and that’s correct, because God is perfect. He never lets us down. He always makes the right decision, so we can trust him without reservation. The faith we have in God tends to mingle with our opinions of our leaders, so when they do stupid things, we do what we do when God seems disappointing. We tell ourselves they must have their reasons. In God’s case, this makes sense. But with people, it’s not always appropriate.

Because Christians are conditioned to believe and be patient, we are often too patient with scoundrels. We explain away the things our common sense tells us. And we don’t want to be guilty of self-righteousness, so we are slow to condemn. The result is that we end up putting up with charlatans way too long.

What’s the answer? How do you avoid this problem? Truthfully, I don’t think you can escape it entirely. A skilled weasel will pop up from time to time, and no matter what, they will occasionally fool you temporarily. But the Holy Spirit will wake you up and unmask them, if you stay in touch with him. The Bible says he provides wisdom and knowledge, so while your little tiny brain may lead you into the bushes for a time, the Holy Spirit will eventually lead you back out.

These people told me what they were. Sometimes they were arrogant, in spite of their limited educations and their fairly ordinary abilities. Sometimes they were rude. They were often ungrateful. One of them admitted he would not say certain things in front of the church, because it was “suicide.” They seemed greedy. They sucked up to prominent and powerful people, even seating Luther Campbell in a place of honor. They let utter fools preach in their church. They did things that seemed to demonstrate a startling ignorance of the principles laid out in scripture.

They told me what they were, but I didn’t listen at first. I think this is because I was too much like them. I wanted God to fix my problems. I thought about that more than I thought about love or sacrifice. I was not strong in the Spirit. I had not been praying in tongues as much as I should have, and I had neglected the Bible and good teaching. In short, I was carnal, even though I had good intentions. Carnal people are blind. Only Spirit-led people know the truth. The more I built myself up in the Spirit, the more I saw the problems, and the more I felt I had to be honest about them.

If there is one difference between them and me, which I am willing to state without feeling self-righteous, it is that I am not a hopeless egotist. I will listen. Eventually. I don’t think I know everything. I don’t dismiss other church members when they offer their ideas. I don’t think I’m more important than other people. I believe that’s why I’m doing so well, while they appear to be stuck in the mud, in declining ministries.

They probably don’t see their ministries as declining, but that’s how it is when you surround yourself with yes-men. You don’t know there’s a problem until the earth opens under your feet, because everyone is telling you God just can’t get enough of you. Attendance is good; things must be going well! But people who serve at the church are very unhappy, and at any moment, vital individuals could take off, leaving the central family with the difficult job of reestablishing relations with a huge congregation mostly comprised of poor blacks (who are staying poor in spite of the prosperity gospel).

They will never be on TBN regularly. They will never have a giant church like Keith Craft’s. They don’t have the natural talent, they alienate people who do, and they don’t have God’s help. That’s what I think. They are going to be lifelong also-rans from a third-tier megachurch that can’t pay its debts.

This is starting to sound depressing. I intended to write a message of hope, so let me turn it around. The point I wanted to make is that we are all in danger of being conned, unless we have guidance from the Holy Spirit. That guidance will come, if you pray in tongues for a good long time twice or more each day. You have to do other things, but those things will follow on their own, if you pray in tongues and maintain a submissive, teachable attitude.

Paul referred to tongues as “living water,” and one function of water is to cleanse. This is what the Bible refers to as “sanctification.” Carnal preachers will try to stuff you with filth and garbage. The living water will wash it out, over time. This is what is happening with me, and I know God didn’t create me to be the only one who got the benefit. If you reject the Spirit, expect to be fooled for the rest of your life. You have supernatural enemies who are smarter than you are, and they don’t play fairly. You will lose.

This works for me. It works for people I know. It will work for you. But it’s not going to happen if you’re praying in tongues once a month for twenty seconds. Get up to an hour a day and see what happens.

I hope someone will read this and give it a try. I would really like to see other people get what I’m getting, instead of chasing their tails and saying they don’t understand why God won’t help them.

If you’ve been asking for God to show you the way out, maybe he just did.