The Face of Earthly Evil

People I respect think the Antichrist is a Muslim, and some say he might somehow combine Islam and the Mary-worshiping part of Catholicism.

I have my doubts. I’m sure the spirit that drives the Antichrist movement uses religion, but for a while, now, I’ve suspected that this is the Antichrist’s real face.

It’s funny, if you think about it. The word “guy” comes from that man’s name. It means a random (“anonymous”) individual.

God has been showing me that mobs have a history of doing evil. Mobs committed Iphone-worthy mass crimes in Sodom and Gomorrah. A mob tried to rape the angels at Lot’s house. Mobs ridiculed Noah. A mob tried to throw Jesus from a cliff. A mob got Jesus crucified. A mob stoned Stephen.

What is a mob? It’s Satan’s imitation of the Body of Christ.

God and Satan want to rule flesh in the earth. God wants to rule by consent. Satan wants to rule by any means necessary, including things like force and addiction.

God has unlimited power, and he is omnipresent. He can choose individuals all over the globe, put his spirit in each one, and cause his kingdom to grow in each one. He can influence and maneuver all of these individuals simultaneously. Satan is weak, so he has to lump people together in crowds and rule them however he can. A mob is a mass of godless flesh Satan can rule efficiently.

This is why Jesus said his kingdom was not of this world. An earthly ruler can’t see people as individuals, because there are too many of us. He has to rule groups, clumsily, through laws and other means that don’t work all that well. Jesus does not round up big groups and force them to bend the knee. He grows inside each person he chooses, and he gives us individually tailored care, like a farmer with the supernatural ability to provide perfect care for every apple in his orchard.

The disciples didn’t get this at first. The Bible contains prophecies saying the Messiah will be a king who rules on earth, and the disciples thought Jesus would do that on his first visit, subduing the Romans and establishing a great earthly empire. They did not understand that he had to sacrifice himself in order to buy our freedom and send us the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit was intended to connect and empower Christians, like a nervous system that coordinates the parts of a body. Satan managed to evict the Holy Spirit from the early church, and now he works through people who mock the baptism with the Holy Spirit and call tongues “gibberish.” But the Holy Spirit is back for good. We were too stupid to hold onto him, and God allowed us to lose him, but God is bringing him back in spite of our failure, just as he is rebuilding Israel in spite of the failures of the Jews. God made promises in the distant past, and some were not conditioned on worthiness, so they will be honored no matter what we do.

A person who doesn’t have the Holy Spirit or who has him yet has not succeeded in breaking the flesh is ruled by the flesh. A mob is a group of people who let the flesh do their thinking. They are not much better than animals. They will do cruel, disgusting things they would never do on their own. Satan knows that, and he finds mobs useful in hindering God’s plan.

The Anonymous/Occupy crowd is a mob. These people hate God’s ways. They hate authority, except when it gives them trinkets in exchange for their dignity and freedom. They have no vision. They have no common sense.

Liberals are building up the mob. They buy votes by handing out money taken from people who work and invest. They don’t require personal growth or work or good behavior in exchange for things like EBT cards and welfare payments. All they want are votes. As a result, we have a growing class of people who will do absolutely anything for government money. They are losing their work ethic, their free will, and their decency. They are becoming creatures of nearly pure flesh. Threaten their government bribes, put them in the streets with cell phones and the Internet, and they will do just about anything they think will help them prevail.

The mobs will serve the Antichrist. They will serve him because just like a TBN prosperity preacher, he’ll tell them they don’t have to change. They’re victims. The people who earn and invest are oppressors. The world OWES the carnal. No vile crime against decent people will be unjustified in their eyes, and they will do whatever the Antichrist tells them.

We already see them stinking up public parks and squares with their idiotic Occupy rallies. We also see them thronging places of businesses, stealing whatever they like, and beating the employees. We are starting to see them mount computer attacks on innocent people. In the future, they’ll be stronger and more vicious. It was cute when they were singing and dancing in train stations, but it won’t be so cute when they’re launching raids on neighborhoods, in order to take what they want.

Mohammed was a servant of the Antichrist, and he used mob tools. When he first claimed he as a prophet, people thought he was a fool. Then he realized he could use the ancient Middle Eastern tradition of mob crime to boost his popularity. He made a rule. It was okay to ride into the cities of non-Muslims and commit rape, murder, and theft, but Muslim cities were out of bounds. It was a protection racket. Suddenly, people wanted to be Muslims.

The Antichrist will follow that pattern. We know he’ll establish persecution of people who don’t obey him. He’ll make it impossible for us to buy and sell. He will cause large numbers of ignorant people to portray us as evil. He’s already using “anti-bullying” rhetoric to convince the public that anyone who says homosexuality is a sin is full of hate.

The Bible seems to say that the Antichrist is a man; it speaks of him as though he were an individual. But it also seems to say he is “man.” It says he has a number, and some interpreters say it says number is the number of mankind. Maybe it’s more accurate to say it’s the number of the flesh.

I think there will be an individual who serves as a figurehead, but I think it’s also accurate to say the worldwide mob that serves this person is the Antichrist, just as we say we are “the body of Christ” or “in Christ.”

If this is correct, it shows why it’s crucial that we learn to use supernatural power to subdue the flesh. History shows that the flesh is hopeless. It’s incredibly stupid. It has no conscience and no empathy. It can put Jews in ovens. It can take money for murdering the unborn. It can derive intense sexual pleasure from serial torture and murder. There is no perversion too disgusting for it. If we don’t conquer it and develop authority, we will serve it and do as it says.

This must be why Christians are leaving cities. The farther a mob has to drive to get to you, the safer you are. The more food you can grow, the less you will suffer when you are excluded economically. And you’ll be among Christian people, so you will have more power.

I enjoy technology, but I know it will be used against us. God has infinite power, and Satan does not. In his last stand, Satan will need things like cell phones and drones. He’ll need a cashless society, so he can cancel people’s wealth instantly. He’ll need social media so we will surveill ourselves and report private facts publicly. We’re addicted to this junk, and it’s going to be used as a leash sooner or later. The process started with 9/11. That was the greatest victory for the Antichrist and his servant, Mohammed. It was a turning point.

We are giving so much power to the government and the enemy through technology, we may never be able to oppose them again, in our own strength. Supernatural power is the only answer. Satan loves building natural weapons and barriers and making them so big and so scary, we think we can never beat them. But God likes pushing them over, as he did in Babel.

The hurricane we’re facing now may have significance.

The name “Katrina” comes from a root meaning “to cleanse,” as in “catharsis.” Katrina hit a city known for sin, including witchcraft, and that city was quite literally washed. A person who lives there tells me that, although there was terrible suffering, the city was actually improved.

The name “Sandy” means “defender of men,” and it’s hitting an area known for political corruption and godlessness. It appears that the eye will pass just north of Washington, which would mean the winds would be blowing toward the sea, as if to drive things out. Obama’s people are afraid this will keep their lazy supporters home during the election. I certainly hope so.

I don’t ask God to destroy the storm. I am asking God to spare the godly people in the path of the storm. That’s about it. It looks like it’s going to be a disaster that rivals Katrina. It may make a horrible, historic mess. I’ve been through all sorts of hurricanes, and I don’t want to see anyone suffer, but I have to wonder if there is a purpose in it. It may be that the defender of men was sent to defend the godly voters and the relatively godly candidates, who have been slandered and abused during this campaign season. Or maybe it’s coming to defend Israel from a President who does not wish it well.

I sure hope Romney wins. We deserve Obama, but I am tired of seeing God’s people oppressed.

Truck Gun Progress

I don’t know what traditional Christians think of evangelicals and charismatics, with our backyard bunkers and gun collections. I assume they think we’re pathetic and insane. I guess when they come to this blog and see posts about prayer alternating with photos of rifles and reloading tools, they assume there is no possible way I could know anything about the real Jesus. The touchy-feely, Oprah-in-a-Jewish-man’s-body, probably-gay, warm, fuzzy, Jesus who never, ever criticized anyone and always wanted us to be nice.

Can’t do anything about that. Anyone who has ears to hear should already be aware that the Bible really says, “You shall not murder,” not, “You shall not kill.” Anyone who knows anything about God should be completely comfortable with Christians serving in the military and shooting our enemies. By now we should all realize that Jesus was not always nice, and that when he returns, he is going to kill a whole bunch of people (not for the first time).

I’m not saying a Christian should dedicate his life to becoming a killing machine, but increasingly, people who are close to God are getting close to guns. And criticism and rebuke have always been part of the Christian life.

With that, here is what’s happening with the truck gun. I found a foregrip on Amazon, with a 1″ hole for a laser or flashlight. It came with a light (no way to avoid that), but once the light was removed, I was ready to install the laser.

It’s all mounted and ready to shoot now. Photo below.

There is a tiny bit of flexibility in the laser mount, but that’s not a foregrip problem. It’s a Hogue handguard problem. Hogue makes its handguards out of the same flubber it uses to make pistol grips. That means the handguard can flex a little. Not a brilliant idea, when it’s used to mount stuff that needs to stay still. I may replace the handguard. I’ll be eating maybe thirty bucks, but you live and learn. Better to do it right than save a few pennies.

The flexibility isn’t bad enough to cause a problem. It just bugs me. I can’t really detect any dot motion related to the foregrip flexing.

I thought I’d have to use the laser’s pressure switch, which is on a wire with a springy, coily bit in the middle. I figured I’d cut a hole in the mount somewhere, run the wire through it, and mount a better switch on the end, attaching it to the handguard.

I found out this was not necessary. The laser came with a totally pointless (but solid) aluminum cap, and when you install it, the laser is always on. When you back it out a couple of turns, the laser operates when you press on the cap. I installed it this way. The laser is enclosed in the mount, so the cap can’t unscrew and cause a problem. The mount has a button on it, and when you push it, it presses a doodad against the back of the laser, turning it on. Perfect. Or nearly so. If I put the button part of the cap on the lathe and turn down the flange that goes against the ring part of the cap, I’ll be able to tighten the ring and still use the button.

I like this, because it will work better than the scary pressure switch, which sometimes fails to go on when I push it, and it will save battery life, because it will go off when I release the button.

The bad part is that I can’t change the battery without removing the laser. I’ll have to re-zero it a lot. But it only has to work for like twenty seconds in a gunfight, so I’m okay with that. The battery doesn’t have to have 90 minutes of charge in it every day.

Overall, this is a very cool and economical solution to the vehicle security issue. The rifle is $440. The laser is about $50. The other junk can probably be had for $100. It’s as cheap as a Glock, and it should be way more effective. I just need to put some earplugs in the truck.

The gun is a little heavier than the Vz2008 I considered, and I assume the shorter barrel will cost me some fps, but 2300 fps, 30 rounds, and good short-range accuracy should be a great combination.

I’ve been trying to come up with a good container for it, so it will pass the “securely encased” law. I’m thinking I might just find a cheap flat cardboard box. Believe it or not, that’s completely legal, and it will look really boring to gun thieves. Maybe I’ll find a box with lettering on it and repurpose it. “What kind of idiot keeps a Scrabble game under his back seat? And look at that crappy stereo. Forget this truck.”

I know the serious right-wing conspiracy nuts say you should never talk about your guns on the web. What can I tell you? If you have them, one way or another, Uncle Sam will be able to find out about most of them. I’ll cross the registration and confiscation bridge when I come to it.

Still thinking about Ocala. Yesterday I got stuck in traffic THREE TIMES, and I got so mad I nearly drove to Ocala last night. I wanted to look around. I may go in the near future. It’s funny, but suddenly I know several people who want to move up there. A friend from church says he owns 20 acres there, but his wife won’t let him move, because she hates the country. Meanwhile, he’s learning to can. Today another friend said his wife has family up there, and she wants to go, but he’s stuck here because of his job. And then there’s Mike, who used to live there.

I’m starting to feel like this is confirmation.

When Romney wins, the price of real estate may shoot up. Real estate is an investment, and under Obama, people are afraid to invest. It would be nice to avoid getting stung in a post-Obama bubble.

Anyway, life is neat. And to all the appalled gay-Jesus Christians, all I can say is “BOO!”

“Organized Religion,” at Last

Perry Stone just aired a couple of shows about supernatural warfare. I’ve gotten some useful information from him in the past. Sometimes he gets off on conspiracy stuff or similar legends that pretty much amount to folklore, but if you look at the things he says when he sticks to God’s revelation, he’s wonderful.

Tonight he repeated a story I once heard from his dad. His dad told it differently. His dad said he had a vision, in which he saw two demons. I believe he called them demons, but my guess is that they were actually angelic beings. Anyway, one was tall, and one was short. When his dad told the story, he said the big one was screaming at the little one because Perry Stone had released some information. Apparently, God revealed something, and Stone taught it, and the big spirit was irate, because the little spirit was supposed to put a stop to it. He told the little spirit that if Stone went much further, he would kill him personally.

In tonight’s version, Stone did not say he was the subject of the discussion. He said the big spirit said that if the little one couldn’t prevent information from getting out, he would do it himself. He said the big spirit reached into the belly of the little one, and the little one screamed, begging him not to take his authority.

It’s peculiar that authority could result from something being in a spirit’s belly. It may be that eating increases authority in the supernatural realm, just as it decreases authority here on earth. Some believe evil spirits grow in size and strength from feeding on sin, so maybe it makes sense that a spirit with a full belly would be stronger.

I don’t know if these stories come from two different visions or what, but in any case, I was praying as I watched, and I felt that God clarified a few things for me.

Over the course of the show, Stone was talking about the differences in authority between various spirits. Some can be driven off easily. With others, you have to fast and pray. He said that if you drive off a weak spirit, a big one may come to do its job. He said fasting increases one’s authority.

This got me thinking about Jesus and Satan, in the story of the temptation. Who is Satan? The most powerful evil spirit. He has the most authority of anyone on his team. When did he show up? After Jesus had fasted forty days…at the END of the fast. What did he offer Jesus? Everything he had, or at least the biggest gifts he had: the world, and authority over it. He fired his big guns. His desperation weapons. He offered the things he most wanted to hold onto.

I also thought about my experience with overeating. I beat it with two days of fasting. The compulsion went away. Then it started to return. I beat it again by fasting, increasing my authority, and using my authority to command my flesh.

Let’s synthesize all these things. I believe the Holy Spirit gave me this summation: life is structured like a tournament. When you beat the weak players on the other side, you advance to take on stronger players. If you don’t stop, you end up facing the very best opponent there is. This is what your life is going to be like, from now until the day you die, if you continue growing as a Christian. You will never reach a point where you can say you don’t have to fight any more. Every time you win, someone stronger is going to challenge you, and if you keep pushing, you could end up facing Satan himself. If you get complacent and settle after reaching a certain level, you will never reach your potential in the kingdom of heaven.

If you think about it, this is something common sense should have told us. We know we have to fight evil spirits. We know some are stronger than others. An intelligent person would realize that an enemy who suffers a defeat will always send better resources into battle, if he has them. And the more you win, the more important you will be as a target, so the enemy will never lose motivation to send more forces against you.

It bummed me out a little when I realized these things. George Patton supposedly said he hated paying for the same real estate twice. I feel the same way! I’m the real estate. The body is like the Promised Land. Our iniquities and the spirits that drive them are like the Canaanites. We’re supposed to run them out by faith. I don’t want to think Satan is going to keep sending me an unending succession of ever-larger gluttony spirits. But I suppose he might. Or, more likely, he’ll attack from another angle. I don’t think he wants to be completely predictable.

By the end of his fast, Jesus had probably crushed his flesh past the point where it would even consider rebelling. He had probably discouraged every spirit sent against him. His authority would have been nearly unlimited. This is why Satan showed up. There was no one bigger to send against him. And it looks like he returned from time to time. Jesus called Peter “Satan” when Peter tempted him to avoid crucifixion; maybe he spoke literally. Maybe Satan himself influenced Peter to speak.

You can take some very practical advice away from this.

1. If you’re not praying in the Spirit and fasting regularly, you’re probably not going to have much authority. You will continue to serve the flesh, you won’t be able to command your flesh or take authority over spirits, and many of your prayers will fall to the earth. You will be a private, basically, like the little spirit that couldn’t hurt Perry Stone. You will be a creampuff no one respects.

2. If you do pray and fast regularly, you will develop power and authority. You will be able to command spirits and your flesh (Jesus even commanded inanimate matter). You will be able to overcome iniquity. You will be able to serve God and hear his voice, instead of wasting all your prayers on requests for God to become a servant to your eyes and belly.

3. If you develop authority, you will get attention from Satan and God. Satan will focus more energy on destroying you, and presumably, God will devote resources to empowering, guiding, and protecting you.

4. When you succeed in overcoming an adversary or a problem, you should not be surprised if it returns. In fact, you should be surprised if it doesn’t. Prepare for it. Anticipate it. Keep working to grow in authority, self-control, faith, and revelation. Keep praying–specifically–for God to lead you to victory.

5. When you don’t know if you have authority, don’t go around rebuking and insulting powerful spirits. Ask God to rebuke them. Don’t make a fool of yourself quoting verses about the power and authority God has given you, when you’re not prepared and authorized (anointed). Satan’s power is real, and it has to be respected. Besides, he has rights, and God himself will back them up. Don’t let denial of your spiritual flabbiness put you and your loved ones in the path of a destructive force you can’t defend against.

6. Never take on a spirit unless you are confident that God told you to do it. When we were fighting the Nazis, soldiers didn’t stroll into Berlin by themselves and try to shoot Hitler. They would have had no backup and no guidance. They advanced as a group, as they were ordered. Don’t think you can jog behind enemy lines and do whatever you want, with God somehow obligated to follow you. Look what happened to the sons of Sceva. They were on God’s side, fighting wicked spirits God hated, and God allowed the spirits to strip them naked and beat them. You could be next.

I’ve taken things I learned from Perry Stone, as well as things God showed me directly, and I’ve tried to use them to create a simple list anyone can remember and apply.

This stuff seems obvious now that I’ve written it, but it wasn’t obvious to me before God revealed it. Over generations, we have thrown away knowledge of the supernatural, and I have been asking him to restore it. It’s pretty clear that he is granting that request. He’s not obligated to do it. Our predecessors were responsible for teaching us, and they blew it. Man is supposed to manage the earth, and there are supposed to be prices paid when we fail. God is returning things to us because he’s merciful. The former rain didn’t get us anywhere, so he’s bringing the latter rain. We’ve been trying to screw it up, too, but I don’t think he’ll permit it, with time so short.

I don’t look forward to fighting for the rest of my life, but my wishes don’t change the way things are, and I know God will make it easy for me, because he promised to do so in the gospels.

Hope this is helpful.

Plus Some Important Revelation

I guess I should tell my sad tale of AK-47 woe in order to help others.

I’ve been modifying my AMD-65 to hold a laser. I want the laser to be in the same plane as the magazine and grips, so the gun lies flatter. You wouldn’t believe how hard it is to rig it up this way. Most foregrips that hold a laser are way too long. When installed, they interfere with the magazine.

A Mako potato grip will work, but it has a big lip hanging off the front, and the lip would interfere with the laser adjustment screws, so it would have to be ground off.

I picked a foregrip from Amazon. It has a 1″-diameter flashlight holder. It comes with a flashlight, which I don’t want, but I can take the light out.

I also discovered that my new laser has no on/off switch. It came with a pressure switch, but it doesn’t have an optional pushbutton rear cap. It has a rear cap, but when you install it, the laser goes on and stays that way until the battery dies. I can’t figure out why anyone would design something that stupid.

I don’t trust the pressure switch. It seems cheap. I was going to send the laser back, but then I realized I could cut the switch off the wire leads and run them to a better switch mounted somewhere on the gun. I think this is an ideal solution. Pushbutton switches tend to fail. I can get an industrial toggle or something. It might not be as water resistant as the rubber-covered pressure switch, but I don’t plan to shoot people underwater.

I think it’s safe to assume that most criminals, being lazy and stupid, will not attack in bad weather.

I put a Hogue handguard and pistol grip on the gun. The pistol grip isn’t made to go around the stock-release button at the rear of the gun, but a rotary tool with a sanding drum corrects that easily and cleanly. The upper handguard can’t be installed on this gun, because it’s not rigged up for an upper handguard. I suppose there are parts you could buy to fix that. Maybe the standard thing is to steal parts from the wooden handguard you replace, but this gun did not come with an upper handguard.

The lower handguard is disappointing for two reasons. First, the lower rail that comes with it is short. It could be an inch longer, which would make life easier. Second, there are no instructions for installing the rail, and I guessed at it, and I guessed wrong.

The handguard has a sheetmetal support inside it. I thought this was a permanent part of the handguard. It’s not. You’re supposed to remove it to drill holes to insall the rail. I ended up drilling a totally unnecessary hole in the support.

I mounted the new laser on the rail. It’s not satisfactory. It sits so far back, it makes it impossible to get a good grip on the gun. Looks nice, though. I’ll post a photo.

I was going to go to the range today, but with no laser, it’s a waste of time. Shooting for next week.

I guess I should put up some news of interest, for Christians.

A friend of mine has been having all sorts of problems. I wrote about him the other day. He got up during the night and saw a white spirit sitting on his living room couch, tapping its foot. The spirit remained after he turned on the light and stared at it. He got a good clear look at it. This was not his imagination.

On Monday, we both fasted, and I prayed for an end to the strife in his family. I prayed for God to give him a good living, a house, and a wife who would help him work in God’s kingdom. I felt explosive faith, all through the day.

Yesterday, he called me and asked me to pray. His younger brother had been in an accident. I’ll link to story from the local news. Six people were sitting on a bus bench, and a bad driver ran off the road and hit them. One woman lost a leg. Another lost an arm and a leg. Another was killed. My friend’s brother was pinned under the car, and people at the scene had to lift it off of him.

I didn’t understand how serious it was until later, when I Googled the accident during church. When I saw what had happened, a couple of us started trying to contact my friend so we could go to the hospital, where his brother was in surgery. We were hearing all kinds of rumors. The news people said four people were in critical condition, one was in serious condition, and one had minor injuries. I had no idea which category applied to my friend’s brother.

I know my friend from my old church, and he’s still in that social circle. It’s extremely hard to communicate with these people. Their cell numbers change constantly because they can’t pay their bills. Their providers turn the phones off. Even when the phones work, these people do not return texts and calls the way they should. It was impossible to get a clear idea where this kid had been taken. I got in the car with one of my friends, and we drove around, and we eventually gave up. Later I learned that we had gone to the right hospital, but we were told he wasn’t there.

This morning my friend called and said his brother had pelvic injuries and a broken leg, but that he would recover completely.

I didn’t know what to make of this mess. It happened one day after I prayed for my friend and his family. I admit, I focused mainly on my friend, not his brother, but still, I was surprised.

When my friend called this morning and gave me the news, I asked him if the spirit on the couch reminded him of a person waiting for a bus. He said it did. He hadn’t thought of it until I said it. It had been sitting on the couch tapping its foot, just like a person at a bus stop.

Here is the important lesson I took away from this. When God gives you a supernatural experience, YOU HAVE TO ASK HIM WHAT IT MEANS. It looks like God warned us about the accident, but we didn’t ask him to explain. At least not very persistently. I think I mentioned it briefly in prayer.

What if we had asked for explanation? Maybe God would have clarified, or he would have moved us to pray in a way that would have prevented the accident or prevented my friend’s brother from being there when it happened.

My friend is in surprisingly good spirits. His family problems have cleared up, out of necessity. Solutions are appearing. His mother and her landlord were threatening to evict him. Now he has a place to stay. He also has jobs lined up, and they’re going to pay up front.

He says he’s having problems praying in tongues. I hope people who read this will pray for him to be restored. He’s not going to make it without the power and guidance of the Holy Spirit.

I’m really sorry this kid got hurt, but it looks like it’s going to leave us more powerful and blessed.

One other thing. I’ve read a lot of things about the windows of heaven and Jacob’s ladder. There are Judaizers out there who claim “windows of heaven” refers to special times during the year, like NASA launch windows, during which God is able to bless us more than usual. They claim we have to give big cash offerings on certain Jewish holidays in order to get God to shovel the money out. A teacher who is less of an idiot–I’m sorry–has said that Jacob’s Ladder was a special thing that existed only on the Temple Mount. It was a portal through which spirits between God and earth, doing his will and carrying prayers. I think the Judaizers and this teacher are wrong.

Often when I’ve prayed, I’ve noticed disturbances around me, like ripples in the fabric of the physical universe. I once saw a spirit on the wall of a room, and it flew out through the ceiling. It had a peculiar look. It was clear and colorless, and although it was three-dimensional, it somehow seemed to be under the physical world, like a mouse in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, moving under a carpet. The little disturbances I’ve seen during prayer are like that. They form little darting streaks in the air around me, as if small spirits are leaving with my prayers, taking them to God.

I think this is the same thing Jacob saw, although it may have appeared differently to him. I think the windows of heaven are really tunnels held open by faith, and supernatural beings travel through them like cylinders through a pneumatic tube. These tunnels are like streaks of lightning, carrying power between heaven and earth, and faith is charge.

Our relationship with God has many parallels to sex between a man and wife. Since my faith has been increased, I’ve noticed that when faith rushes through me and carries a prayer to God, it’s very much like what happens at the end of sex. And why shouldn’t it be? In both cases, a seed is being transferred and planted. The body has spasms that send seed into a woman, and it appears that the mind and spirit undergo similar events when seeds of prayer are sown in heaven.

I hope this doesn’t offend people, but remember, we’re talking about the God who uses circumcision to record his promises. God is not afraid of sex.

I don’t want to go too far in the direction of sexual discussion, but if you know anything about sex, you may know that it’s possible to prolong and enhance the final event through concentration. It appears that increased faith allows people to do the same thing in prayer. If you concentrate on the faith that leaves you and holds the tunnel open, you can maintain a burst of faith for a very long time. The same thing may happen when you thank or praise God continuously. I believe that during those times, you are keeping God’s highway open and increasing the travel on it. During those times, God will be able to do more to answer your prayers. It’s also a very peaceful time, full of reassurance and comfort.

I think Jacob’s ladder and the windows of heaven are wherever you are, and if you have supernatural faith given by the Holy Spirit, you can benefit from them. But I don’t think it’s likely to happen if you’re not praying in tongues. You probably won’t have the revelation and understanding of how to do it, and you won’t have the faith to keep the doors open. You probably won’t have enough authority over your flesh to prevent it from interfering.

The windows of heaven are open in my life. I believe they will open for you, too. I believe it has absolutely nothing to do with me or any special characteristics I might have. I think God gave me revelation, showing what anyone can do. There are probably other people out there teaching the same thing.

God says the more we sow, the more we reap. For a long time, I’ve believed this was mainly about prayer. I believe prayer in tongues is sowing, and holding the windows of heaven open is reaping. We’ll see if I’m right.

I hope people will put this stuff to the test and compare it to scripture.

You Can HAVE This Place

I guess I’m on fire these days. I’m blogging AGAIN, even though I blogged once today.

I have a testimony. I always have a testimony, though. Back at my old church, when the volunteers met in the morning, there were always two people who had testimonies. I was one, and the other was a young guy who sang with the worship team. I guess people got tired of us.

I hate living in Miami. I always have, except for a brief period after law school, when I made a determined effort to fit in. People are incredibly rude here. It’s too hot for a person who likes shooting and working with tools. You can’t grow anything, because the lots are small and the topsoil is six inches deep. The traffic is like something out of a Terry Gilliam movie, if he made movies about traffic. This city is a known hub of homosexual activity. We have nude beaches. We have a yearly celebration where thousands of people go out in the bay and have sex in public. We even have voodoo, including santeria. This is no place for a decent person to live.

My new church opened a place in Winter Haven, and I went up there with a team of people who were helping the place get off the ground. I loved it. My blood pressure plummeted. I felt relaxed. The people were nice. There was lots of open country. There was no traffic. There were Romney signs everywhere. It was like heaven. I started Googling real estate in that area.

Since then, I’ve gotten interested in Ocala. You can get a nice five-acre property near Winter Haven for a very low price, but in the Ocala area, you can get ten acres, and the selection is better. The people are just as nice. There are lots of good churches. The soil is fantastic. The climate is even better than it is in Winter Haven.

My buddy Mike used to live up there. His dad had a thoroughbred farm, and Mike ended up buying in the area. I’ve been picking his brains. He says it’s paradise. Anything you throw in the dirt grows. You can shoot guns in your backyard.

Here’s the problem. My dad is 80, and he’s at the stage where he shouldn’t be alone in Miami. My sister lives here, but she’s in far worse shape than he is. He likes the idea of leaving Miami, but he prefers the Cocoa area. He has a huge boat, and he wants to live on the water. If he sold his Miami house, he could have a palace in Brevard County, with no mortgage.

I don’t want to live in Brevard County. I don’t feel God pulling me that way. Aside from that, the lots are smaller, the soil isn’t as good, and I think it’s gradually becoming polluted with the worldly crowd that has infected Orlando. They say Orlando is not much better than Miami now.

I’ve been praying about this a lot. When a potential disciple told Jesus he wanted to wait until his father was dead, Jesus told him to let the dead bury the dead. Often, you have to move forward alone, as Lot and Noah learned. But you shouldn’t give up too early.

I refuse to have a mortgage. I can do all right with my own resources, but if my father goes with me, we can have a place that would be out of this world. There are lots of properties near Ocala that have more than one house, or what are known as mother-in-law apartments. Many of them have detached workshops. Talk about bliss. I’d be able to look after my dad, I’d be away from Miami’s nasty people, both of us would have privacy, and I’d have a real workshop where I wouldn’t have to trip over things and move things around all the time.

It looked like there was no hope of getting my father to consider moving inland, but I’ve been praying a great deal (mostly in the Spirit), and the other day, he started talking like the Ocala area might be a good choice. Now I’m looking at bigger homes. I won’t even consider less than 20 acres. With the low land prices up there, there is no point in settling for less.

It’s going to happen. I know it. God has set me free from this miserable city. I richly deserved my sentence, but it’s coming to an end.

Prayer in tongues made it happen. I’ve been cranking it up lately. Things are falling into place. In nerdspeak, I feel like I’ve been held captive in a potential well, and now I’m over the hump and being propelled out.

One of the best things about prayer in tongues is that God uses it to order your life. He uses it to plan and build your future. We don’t know which way to turn, because we see so little. God knows everything. He knows exactly what we need and what will make us happy. He fully intends to give us blessed lives. If you pray in tongues enough, you’ll see it start to happen.

I’ve seen some really wild properties. One is a former airport. It’s a long lot; about 20 acres. Most of it is a grass airstrip. It has a house, a caretaker’s cottage, and TWO beautiful hangars. One has a magnificent shop area. The floor is concrete. I salivate when I look at the pictures. Another is some kind of horse-training facility. As it happens, Mike knew the owner. He knows the place. He says it’s gorgeous. It has a bunch of outbuildings and a big detached garage. I have no idea what we’d do with the barns, but that’s not a dealbreaker. And it’s 48 acres. It’s the Sofia Vergara of homes.

If we don’t get one of these places, there are dozens of others. Most of them have horse-related crap on them, but we can deal with that. I can’t imagine what life would be like, living among good Christian people who vote Republican. It would be a foretaste of my home in the hereafter.

I’ll blog more when I know more.

Supernatural Encouragement is Available

Yesterday was a fast day. It was very unusual, so I thought I’d write about it.

Fasting is very important. In the tug of war between your flesh and spirit, your flesh has the flashy, explosive tools. It’s like the dark side of the force. Your flesh responds to base temptations that work quickly and powerfully. In order for you to win, you have to break your flesh as though it were a horse or a mule. You need to make your flesh understand that it’s defeated. Fasting helps you do that. It punishes and subdues your flesh. It discourages it. This makes your flesh less inclined to resist you in the future.

I believe I’m gaining new understanding of scriptural passages about the human spirit. The Bible asks, “but a crushed spirit, who can bear?” I think I know what that means.

Most of us try to do the right thing, especially when we’re young. We try to spend time on work instead of play. We try to diet and work out. Generally, by the time we’re middle-aged, we’ve given up on many goals that involve self-control. Almost invariably, we quit dieting and exercising. We stop trying to change ourselves, because we believe we will always fail. We’re like horses that have been ridden to a standstill. We quit fighting the bit, and we do what the flesh tells us. This, I believe, is what “crushed spirit” refers to, when the Bible uses the term in a negative way.

The Bible sometimes says a crushed spirit is a good thing. I believe that refers to people who are fundamentally in rebellion. If you’re trying to please God, a crushed spirit is bad, because your spirit is on God’s side. If you’re in rebellion, it’s a good thing, because it means you’ve lost confidence in your ability to continue as a backslider.

Some people think crushing of the spirit refers to depression. I don’t think that’s quite right. That’s a modern idea which isn’t premised on the notion of the spirit as a supernatural entity separate from the mind. In the Bible, “spirit” means “spirit,” not your emotional state. The spirit and emotions are connected, but the spirit is not emotions. I think the spirit manifests itself in things like confidence and enthusiasm. When the spirit is defeated, it doesn’t necessarily mean you feel bad, although you may. It means your spirit no longer believes it can succeed, so it doesn’t try. It means you have acquired what psychologists call “learned helplessness.”

I found out about learned helplessness while taking a psychology course in college. A professor who was clearly a closet Republican said welfare was a bad thing, because it taught people they couldn’t make a difference in their lives.

He cited an experiment involving rats. You stick rats in a tub of water. If you let them find their way to safety on their own, they become good at saving themselves. If you rescue them from the water over and over, they reach a point where they’ll let themselves drown if you don’t take them out. They get the idea that their efforts don’t make any difference, so they quit trying. If you give poor people welfare checks so big they do as well on welfare as they would in low-paying jobs, they realize working doesn’t change their lives, so they lose the will to try. They learn to be helpless. That’s how I remember it, anyway.

When your spirit becomes sufficiently defeated, you can become completely depraved. You don’t try, and you don’t think about trying. Drug addicts get this way. An addict will reach a point where stealing a parent’s jewelry and selling it for ten cents on the dollar doesn’t even register in his mind as sinful. The flesh is in complete control, and the spirit might as well be dead.

The flesh is really, really stupid. The flesh has no problem pushing you to do something that will land you on death row. The flesh doesn’t think at all about the future. It’s a little bit like a Democrat President. Borrow and spend now; let someone else clean up the mess.

What the flesh needs are regular beatings. It’s like a child on the verge of delinquency. You have to put it in its place, early and forcefully. Otherwise, it gains strength, and the job gets harder. Fasting is a Biblical way of punishing your flesh.

When your flesh becomes discouraged, it stops pushing you. Ignorant people and hostile spirits will still talk to it, trying to get it to rise up against you, but it won’t listen as much. The voices of evil will be quieter, and you’ll be better able to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. You will have swept and cleaned the house and bound the strong man, so the Holy Spirit will be able to take over more space and exert greater authority. You will have confidence (in God), enthusiasm, peace, and joy, so you will be better able to achieve and succeed in God’s kingdom.

I have always hated fasting. I don’t lie about it. It gave me terrible headaches. I got almost nothing done on fasting days. I just waited for them to pass. I didn’t even do a good job of prayer, because I was dying to find ways to kill time and make the days end.

I also felt isolated from God during fasts. I couldn’t feel his presence. My faith was reduced. I felt that God’s presence came sweeping back over me right after I ended my fasts.

Yesterday was different. I felt good all day. I wasn’t vexed constantly by hunger. I didn’t feel depressed. I didn’t get a headache. I didn’t long for the second the fast would end, so I could get some decent food. I got things done. My mood was great. When I prayed, I felt tremendous faith and power. I actually felt strange pains, as though the Holy Spirit was doing things inside me.

The Bible asks us who can bear a crushed spirit. The other side of that coin is that you can’t do well without crushed flesh. This is why Jesus went into the desert and refused food for forty days. He was silencing the hostile, hindering voice of the flesh. Once the flesh was essentially comatose, Satan knew he had very little hope of using it to control Jesus, so he came to him in desperation and offered him the world, which was his to give. After Jesus refused, unlimited power and authority came into him, and he was able to embark on his ministry of miracles and perfect teaching.

When the Apostles talk about crucifying the flesh and so on, they don’t mean we should wear hair shirts and beat ourselves with cudgels, as some ascetics have done. They don’t mean we should be ascetics at all. They mean that we should utterly destroy the confidence and assertiveness of the flesh, so that our minds, guided by our submitted spirits, get to make all our decisions. We don’t have to give up the pleasures of the flesh. We have to put them in their proper place. Once you get control of your flesh, life’s earthly pleasures actually become more satisfying, because they don’t carry guilt, and you don’t become too sated to enjoy things.

If you’re going to fast, I’d recommend going entire days without food, on most occasions. You can do yourself some good by fasting one or two meals, but sometimes you really need to take away the flesh’s hope of receiving food during a day. It’s like refusing to set a withdrawal date in a war. If you set a date that’s too early, your enemy will grit his teeth and hold on until you leave. If your enemy knows you’ll be around until he loses, he’s more likely to quit.

I’d also recommend spending a great deal of time in prayer. Without prayer, fasting doesn’t do a whole lot of good.

I think “Daniel fasts” are fairly useless. A Daniel fast means a partial fast. People will say things like, “For the next 21 days, I’m giving up Three Musketeers bars between 10:00 a.m. and 10:15.” Or they’ll go all-liquid, so they’ll have ten milkshakes instead of three normal meals. Can you really call that fasting? It’s your flesh, telling you it’s okay to pretend to fast, as long as you let your flesh run the show. If you want to do it right, take no calories in, and do not use any sweeteners.

In summary, God uses your spirit to influence you, and Satan uses your flesh. You need to strengthen one and knock the wind out of the other. Fasting will help, and it will greatly increase the power, freedom, and success you experience in life.

Don’t Forget What You Are

Sometimes we forget that the stuff we believe is real. In fact, I’d say that most of the time, we behave as though the supernatural realm did not exist. It’s hard to keep it in mind from minute to minute when you can’t see it.

Today I got a phone call from a young friend of mine. He’s having some family issues. Lots of strife. We spoke last night, and I reminded him that he needs to spend time praying in tongues, and that he needs to crank up the intensity of his walk. When he called me today, he gave me disturbing news. During the night, he got up and walked from his bedroom to his living room, and on the couch, he saw a white being that looked like a person, tapping its foot. He said it scared him pretty badly. It didn’t leave when he turned the light on. It just sat there. He went back in his room and closed the door. Now he says he’s having trouble praying in tongues.

What do you do when you hear something like that? I have no reason to think he’s lying. I’ve seen spirits, too, although my experiences were not as spectacular as my friend’s.

These things are real. They’re all around us.

It’s frustrating to live in a universe where you can only see the least powerful beings, and by that, I mean the ones with physical bodies. I alway say it’s like swimming in a shark tank at midnight. These ancient creatures see us and hear us, and they know things we don’t know. Many of them hate us and use their power to destroy us. We can’t put on special glasses or use special microphones to detect them. Our only hope of defeating them is to receive the baptism with the Spirit and do what God tells us to do.

I wish I knew more about opposing spirits. People probably knew much more about them in the past, but human beings didn’t do their job. They failed to pass their knowledge on. Now we have to search the Bible and look for clues in other places. We have to ask God for enlightenment, which he doesn’t owe us, since we were expected to preserve what we knew. It’s slow going, trying to rebuild a squandered inheritance. Much better to hold onto it in the first place.

I’m not sure what the spirit was doing in my friend’s house. Foot-tapping generally expresses impatience. People do it to show other people they need to get a move on. Was this a hostile spirit, tapping its foot because the prayers I had prayed for my friend had delayed it, or was it sent from God, to tell my friend he needed to get with the program?

The white color doesn’t mean much. When I was a kid, my dreams were generally nightmares, and one of creatures that tormented me was completely white. My mother saw a black-robed spirit beside her bed once, and she knew it was evil. I saw a white-robed angel at the foot of my bed, and I knew it was good, but the Bible tells us Satan himself can appear as an angel of light.

The spirits that try to harm us must have limited power. All over the world, Christians are praying every day, and that restrains evil, to some extent. I believe the Tribulation will occur because those prayers will be cut off. The people who pray will be in heaven at the marriage feast, after the Rapture. When they stop praying, all hell will break loose. I believe life goes fairly well for most people in Christian countries, in spite of the presence of evil spirits, because there is so much prayer. The down side of this is that people think the spirits don’t exist. They think their fates are determined by their own efforts, and by chance.

I think evil spirits fall into two categories. There are demons, which are generally the spirits of angel-human hybrids killed in the the Flood and at other times, and there are fallen angels, which have more authority. I believe we’re entitled to give orders to demons, but that we probably have to ask God to fight fallen angels. Jude tells us about the dangers of taking them on directly, noting that even Michael would not try to handle Satan on his own, saying instead, “The Lord rebuke thee.”

It seems pretty clear that life works like this: a human being has flesh, a mind, and a spirit. The flesh and spirit fight for control of the mind. The flesh has a consciousness of its own, and like an unruly wife, it looks to control the being it’s supposed to obey. It uses things like greed, lust, and fear. It is subject to persuasion and even control from demons and fallen angels, and they use it as a handle to get a grip on the mind. The spirit listens to God and passes his influence on to the mind.

The beings that try to control the flesh will take away your free will, if they can. For example, they’ll get you addicted to things, so you can’t stop sinning even if you try. The Holy Spirit and God’s servant spirits won’t force you to do anything. They’ll urge and persuade, but they let you make your own decisions.

We are all born with iniquities. These are tendencies to do the wrong thing. Sometimes they’re inherited. If your father was an alcoholic, you’re more likely to have the same problem. An iniquity will provide an opening for spirits that will magnify and exacerbate it. The presence of the Holy Spirit and the authority of Jesus, on the other hand, will weaken and remove iniquity, giving the spirit more control. Fasting is necessary to make this work.

This is why the Bible says the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The flesh is supposed to be like a submissive wife, but it seeks control, and it usually gets it. We see this pattern played out symbolically in the Bible in the stories of Adam and Lot. These were men whose wives were weak and rebellious, and the wives made decisions that were very costly.

That’s the way I see it. Life is a tug of war, and you’re the rope.

I told my friend that whether the things that were happening to him were good and bad depended on his response. An attack is a positive thing, if it leads to a powerful response that brings improvement. And seeing a spirit will definitely remind you that God is real. If evil spirits are real, so is the one who created them.

This serves to remind me that I need to ramp up my own fight. I need to be careful not to forget the true nature of the universe. It’s not enough to try hard. I have to remember that prayer and supernatural warfare are the most important things I do. The other things tend to be weak and misdirected, and their effects are temporary, unless they’re guided by God.

Prayer is 95% of a successful Christian life. The more you pray, the less you have to work. God told us we would reap as we sowed. The main thing you sow is prayer, and the best prayer is prayer in tongues. It’s always in line with God’s will, since God gives you the words, and the Bible tells us it increases faith, which is the source of all supernatural power.

I’d like to know more about dominating spirits. I know we can take authority over them and order them to get out of our lives.

I hope people will pray for my friend, and for that matter, for me. This is a big opportunity. I don’t want to see it turn into a loss.

Stupid Love is Bad Love

I keep hearing disappointing things about my old church. I often have moments when I wonder if I’ve misjudged the leaders or accepted malicious gossip as true, but over and over, I learn that things are actually worse than I thought.

As I’ve said before, it can be very hard to deal with depraved or jaded people, because it’s difficult to empathize with them. When I learn that someone has done something truly disgusting and brazen, it’s hard to believe, because I can’t identify with such people.

If I learn that someone has littered, I can accept the mental conviction that they don’t care about the littering laws, because I have littered, and I can understand that a person might do such a thing in a moment of irresponsibility. But I haven’t deliberately, systematically lied to people in order to get money. I haven’t hired people for low-wage jobs and then forced them to work off the clock as “volunteers” while refusing to pay for their unemployment coverage. I haven’t threatened employees with dismissal, for attending other churches. Things like that, I can’t relate to. I can’t imagine enduring the shame and guilt on an ongoing basis. I can’t see how a person who did such things could sleep at night. So my mind rejects the conclusion that such people are what they appear to be. Naturally, because I give people too much credit, I am proven wrong a lot.

It can be hard to think ill of people, but sometimes you have an obligation to do so. You shouldn’t pity people who are wicked in a premeditated, wilful, and heartless way. The Bible contains phrases like “thine eye shall not pity” with regard to such individuals. It does not come naturally to Christians, who have been taught to be merciful, loving, and forgiving. But you can’t let your perception be fogged. Mercy should triumph over judgment, as the Bible says, but it should not triumph over reason or duty.

I’ve been thinking about things like this a lot lately, and it may be that God is giving me some revelation.

Jesus prayed that his followers (I started to write “we,” but I changed it) would be united. We are also expected to love each other. For years or maybe centuries, preachers have told us this means we have to ignore denominational boundaries and overlook pastors who sin egregiously. I am starting to think that’s wrong. We’re expected to live in unity with our brothers and sisters, and we’re supposed to love them. But who are our brothers and sisters? Is every Christian my brother? Maybe not.

Look what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 5:11: “But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or an idolater, or a railer, or a drunkard, or an extortioner; with such an one no not to eat.”

Wow. I barely glanced at that before I copied and pasted it. I was thinking about the general message, not the precise wording. Then I saw that it expressly mentions brothers. Maybe the Holy Spirit is with me here.

Let’s talk about fornicators. I’ll toss out names for illustrative effect. I am not writing to condemn these people as fornicators, exactly, but they are useful as examples. Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, Eddie Long, Benny Hinn, Paula White and various others have been accused of habitual fornication. All except Hinn, Long and White admitted they were guilty; I don’t know whether Hinn, Long and White actually did anything. In any case, when the stories came out, people supported these preachers in a somewhat mindless way, without knowing the facts. They talked about forgiveness and taking logs out of eyes, well before they knew what was going on. They also defended the guilty after their guilt was proven, but before there was any rehabilitation. Even now, many people get extremely upset when you mention these ministers.

Is that right? Should we insist on categorically refusing to acknowledge sin committed by Christians? Should we insist on preserving ministries after the people who run them demonstrate that they may not be called? Should we call such ministers “brother” before we know what’s happening?

If a man is your brother, you have the same father. The Bible tells us those who are led by the Holy Spirit (not the flesh) are the sons of God. What about those who run big ministries yet have no self-control? In the Bible, “sinner” doesn’t mean a person who sins occasionally. It means a person who sins habitually and without serious intent to change. I suppose it can also mean a person who is so discouraged, he thinks it’s impossible to change. If a minister is a sinner, can he, then, be your brother? Is God really his father?

Sexual sin is obvious. Maybe that’s why I mentioned it first. But look at the other things on the list: “covetous,” “idolater,” “railer,” “drunkard,” and “extortioner.” Clearly, there are a lot of habitual sins that disqualify you from calling yourself “brother.” Maybe things like gluttony and laziness count.

Look what I came across while researching this. It’s mind-blowing. This is 1 Corinthians 6:9-11:

Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,

10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

11 And such were some of you: but ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our God.

12 All things are lawful unto me, but all things are not expedient: all things are lawful for me, but I will not be brought under the power of any.

13 Meats for the belly, and the belly for meats: but God shall destroy both it and them. Now the body is not for fornication, but for the Lord; and the Lord for the body.

14 And God hath both raised up the Lord, and will also raise up us by his own power.

If you’re in the kingdom, you must be a prince. That’s undeniable. You must be a son of God; the Bible mentions no other status for believers; God has no nephews. You must be submitted to the king, and you must be an instrument of his will. So these verses must be useful for determining who is or is not your brother. If you’re not in the kingdom, you’re not a prince, and you’re not my brother.

Look who solves the problem and makes you fit for adoption: “the Spirit of our God.” God does all the hard work, just as I’ve been learning and saying. “God hath both raised up the Lord [Jesus], and will also raise up us by his own power.”

I mentioned adoption. I didn’t see that as important, but think of this: the New Testament refers to the Holy Spirit as the “spirit of adoption.” See Romans 8:15: “For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.”

I’m not planning this. It’s just coming out as I type. The NIV omits “adoption” and says “sonship”! The Greek word means “the placing of a son.”

What does this suggest to me? It suggests that many people who consider themselves Christians are not in the kingdom yet, and I am not required to think of them as brothers. It suggests that the unity Jesus wanted is not unity among denominations, but unity among chosen people within denominations, who are led by the Spirit. So many people from that denomination, so many from the other…they add up to the Body of Christ. It’s not necessary to approve of the denominations and their bad doctrine. It’s necessary to be in agreement with others who are led by the Holy Spirit.

Churches generally belong to Satan. I think that’s clear. Most deny the Holy Spirit, and even Spirit-filled churches tend to ignore the Spirit and obey the flesh. Satan has done a great job of infiltrating. But virtually all denominations contain folks who are in the kingdom. We are a sort of hidden diaspora.

If this is right, then Christ’s prayers have been answered. The denominations may war, and ministries may destroy each other, but the body is there, fundamentally ordered and united. The bones are scattered, as Psalm 40 says, but they are still of one body.

Last night after church, I noticed that we stood around and talked for at least half an hour. We do this all the time. We find that there are people we have to talk to. We don’t talk about trivial stuff. We talk in agreement, about the kingdom. We discuss things we need to do for God. We’re like people on a first date, discovering how much they have in common. If you’ve ever been in love, you know how that works. Dates like that lead to love. In my church, the commonality provided by the Holy Spirit is leading to love, and if we love each other, another of Christ’s requests has been granted.

If all this is right, then we should not feel bad about rejecting carnal ministers and believers. We should not feel bad about judiciously calling them out, or about drawing people out of their sick churches. The fact that a man at a pulpit calls himself my brother doesn’t make it so. He could just as easily call himself a rhinoceros. What he is determines what he is. What he says is just sales hype and branding.

I think mistreating your employees and congregants in order to control them qualifies as extortion, in the sense the Bible intends it. I think preaching filthy prosperity doctrine that twists scripture qualifies as covetousness and theft. I think preachers who berate people for disagreeing with them qualify as railers. There was a televangelist named Gene something or other who specialized in that kind of thing; every sermon was like a prolonged Youtube Hitler video, but he was completely serious.

If these people are extortionists and railers and so on, what should we do? “Love on them” and bless them and kiss their precious little ears, as so many Christians demand? Paul said we should not even BE IN THEIR COMPANY. If you shouldn’t be in a person’s company, even to have lunch, how can it be right for you to exalt that person as a teacher?

I am beginning to believe that it’s wrong to get close to people who deny the charismatic message. It’s clear that God gave us the Holy Spirit and intended us to let him clean us and change us. He intended us to allow the Holy Spirit to give us faith and do most of our work. If that’s true, then a person who insists on doing everything the hard way is actually an enemy of God, intentions notwithstanding. Such a person declares the crucifixion worthless and deprives the Body of Christ of its only source of power. Such people can do more damage than people who fight Christianity openly. They cause people to think they serve God when they actually oppose his law within their minds and bodies. They are “lawless” and “workers of iniquity.” The Holy Spirit’s commands are law, and the change he works in us rids us of iniquity, or bad traits that control us.

This means Spirit-filled people are going to have to do what Jesus did. We will have to spread division, to some degree. We will set people against each other, within the church itself, just as Jesus did. Antichrist works in people who live by the flesh, even if they think they serve God, and the Holy Spirit works in those who accept him. We can’t continue telling people it’s okay to deny the Spirit. We can’t put unity with the flesh above unity under God’s dominion.

When you look at it this way, much of the New Testament makes more sense. Jesus asks a lot of us, and we can’t do it on our own, but with the Holy Spirit, all things are possible, and Jesus (who never lied) even dared call his burden “light.” People who hate Christianity love to point to our sins and bad attitudes. They ask us how we can be right, if we’re just like unbelievers. They have a point. We’re not right. Not unless we accept the whole message Jesus taught. Without the Spirit, you’re buying a car with no battery and no engine.

This stuff is working for me. I believe it will work for you. I don’t think God created the world so the wonderful Steve could be the only person who got blessed. I believe that if you give it a good, legitimate try, you will see great positive change. If you become part of God, you become part of something invincible. You may lose battles, but the war has already been won.

Rachel is Out There Waiting

Until I left my old church, I did not know what a nightmare it was. Now that I’m out, I realize how it traumatized me.

I feel silly saying that. I don’t want to come across as a victim. I’m happy that God has revealed this to me; it’s very positive. It will help me understand my situation better so I can make more progress. I should also add that I didn’t deserve anything better at the time. Had I gone to a stronger church, I might have been a negative influence because of my undeveloped state.

While I was attending and serving, I was grateful for the church. For the first year or so, I thought it was a great place. The presence of God was clearly there, and they had special Wednesday services that were centered around prayer, worship, and the Holy Spirit. Over time, the church declined, and God improved me, and these things added up to dissatisfaction.

It’s my understanding that at earlier times in its long history, the church was much more devoted to God. It was small and poor, but God manifested himself there. People prophesied and so on. When I got there, the Holy Spirit was still relatively welcome. During my tenure, the leaders replaced the Holy Spirit’s moves with backward human ideas. It seemed that they were hellbent on building a megachurch and getting themselves on national TV. They started pushing the head pastor and one of his sons very hard. Neither of them had the kind of natural ability that makes a T.D. Jakes or a Joel Osteen. They didn’t have the personal charisma or the cunning, and God wasn’t with them, either, so it was a pointless exercise.

The services became highly scripted, so if the Holy Spirit attempted to interrupt or interfere, he didn’t get much respect. They started printing out schedules allotting time in very small increments, so there was no space in the program. They brought in utterly useless motivational speakers like Brian Klemmer, who used his appearances to sell worthless EST-style seminars that had nothing to do with God. They started preaching prophylactic anti-dissent propaganda, labeling anyone who was disturbed by the church’s path as “negative” and “unwilling to submit to authority.” In legal circles, this is known as “poisoning the well.”

There were anointed people in the church. God provided individuals who could teach and lead. He provided talented musicians and sharp managers. These people were suppressed, and insiders were promoted. The pastor’s oldest son was put in charge of the worship team, replacing a man who had gone to college on a singing scholarship. Two of the best musicians in the church ended up entertaining small children, while people who had a more easily marketed appearance worked in the main sanctuary. One of the top managers in the church was so ineffective, merely mentioning his name caused people to roll their eyes, but he was an insider, so though he failed consistently, he could only fail upward.

The head pastor developed a habit of inviting prosperous people to become Armorbearers, regardless of whether they had any real interest in God. I believe I was one of those people. I was asked to join the team very early. I was a white lawyer from a wealthy suburb, so there was hope I could bring others like me, and they would tithe. I was a pretty ineffective Armorbearer at first, and I think the leaders of the team had very low expectations, because unlike me, they knew why I had been chosen. It’s remarkable that I succeeded in becoming useful. I think I was the only “political” appointee that did.

I failed at everything else I did at the church, because I received no support. I was called on to write books for the pastor, but a strange lady was put in charge of the projects, and she never followed through. I was allowed to cook in the kitchen, but I was undermined in everything I did, and they eventually demanded that I show up to cook even though I was not allowed sufficient display space to earn the church more than a few dollars.

At first, I was oblivious to what was going on. I wasn’t receiving the level of revelation that I receive now. I didn’t realize I had been used and wasted. I assumed the leaders of the church were on fire for the Holy Spirit, just as so many of the members were. But I grew more discerning, and I wised up. I realized that the church was a sort of plantation. A healthy church is dedicated to helping people grow in the work God has planned for them. This church seemed to be dedicated to promoting one family, at the expense of everyone else. Nobody outside of the family went on to a bigger ministry within the church, except for one pastor who was allowed to run services at the church’s old campus, which was remote and very small. Even then, the original plan was to send video from the main church, featuring the head pastor, and he often commuted back and forth so he could teach at both churches. Last I heard, he was still doing that, so I would be surprised if the other pastor has any real authority.

The church failed financially, even though the leaders decided to serve a second master by turning unused space into an office rental complex. They got desperate for money, and they started teaching ridiculous doctrine based on the asinine heresy of Steve Munsey, a prosperity preacher and fundraiser. They started claiming people were obligated to donate large amounts of money on Jewish holidays, and that God would not bless them unless they did. I probably put a stop to that. I debunked the whole business publicly, and they’ve moved to a different set of offerings with different pitches. I probably cost them six figures a year. That doesn’t bother me. I didn’t want to see poor people cheated.

I started praying for God to find me a new church, and I wasn’t alone. Leaders who were serious Christians started leaving, even though they wouldn’t admit anything was wrong. There was a remarkable exodus. I think the church is still reeling from it. The insiders pointed fingers and lied about the folks who left, trying to stop the bleeding, but the move came from God, so it couldn’t be resisted by carnal means.

The man who was in charge of all 700+ volunteers left. He was also an Armorbearer. The head Armorbearer left. His successor left. When I heard how much the successor loved his new church, I started interrogating him. It sounded promising. I thought it was up near Coral Springs, which would have been too far to drive, but he told me it was actually south of the old church. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told me sooner! Right away, I started visiting. Then I had a falling out with the head pastor of the old church, because I was discrediting the Munsey nonsense, and I decided to make the move permanent. I was at New Dawn Ministries to stay.

I tell that long, boring story to get to this: now that I’m at New Dawn, I can’t get used to it. I’m so accustomed to carnality, obstruction, abuse, corruption, and disappointment, it’s hard for me to get used to being in a healthy church.

When God gives me a revelation, and I mention it to the pastor, he doesn’t say, “That’s great, Steve,” and walk off while clearly hoping I won’t continue the conversation. He doesn’t say something weaselly, like, “That’s not the direction we’re headed in at the moment.” He usually agrees with me. Often, he has already had the same revelation. Sometimes he mentions these things in his sermons, naming me in the process. Last week, he had me preach for ten or fifteen minutes. He didn’t take a good idea and steal it, so he could present it and get the credit. He let me deliver it personally.

I’m not claiming I should be credited with discovering God’s secrets. I don’t come up with God’s ideas, but I suppose that if he chooses me to receive an idea, he expects me to present it. Generally, the prophets’ names are on the books they wrote, even though those books were filled with the word of God. There is no prophetic book labeled “The Book of Anonymous.”

When I talk to other church members, they don’t look at me like I’m from Mars, they way they sometimes did at the other church. They nod their heads and add their own revelations. We confirm each other’s God-given notions. We don’t struggle and bicker. We don’t always agree one hundred percent, but overall, we’re focused and united.

We act on God’s word. The other church didn’t do that. We evangelize and give things to the poor. At the old church, the charity wing did virtually nothing for people. Once in a while, they would receive a gift of turkeys or boots or something, and they’d pass stuff out in front of cameras, but it was all intended to generate publicity. The church had a paid PR director who was not a member, and she contacted news organizations to draw attention to things we did.

The Holy Spirit is all over New Dawn. Half the time, Pastor Albert can’t even preach. He’ll have a sermon worked up, but the Holy Spirit will put a stop to it, and we’ll end up hearing prophecy or praying or doing something else God has planned for us.

I don’t have to explain simple things to these people. They know prayer in tongues is key. Most of them understand that Obama is an enemy to Israel and the church. They understand that we have to support Israel. They know there’s a lot of poisonous crap on TBN. I don’t have to fight them all the time. At the old church, people are stuck in preschool. You can’t make progress there, because few people ever get past the fundamentals. They’ve been taught that all God wants to do is take their money and make them healthy and successful. They don’t understand that they have to let God change them. They think they’re doing everything right, because no one has the guts to tell them they need to grow.

Our church has a new affiliate in Winter Haven. We helped launch it. Yesterday, the pastor went on Facebook and put up a photo of himself standing with two people I don’t even know. He said they went to New Dawn to learn about the Holy Spirit, because they read my blog. I couldn’t believe it. I used to have a hard time recommending the old church. I got to the point where I recommended other churches. Now I have a church I can sell with confidence, and people are actually listening, and the pastors are with me.

I don’t know what to do. I feel like a dog that just climbed up on the couch. I literally feel as though someone should be scolding me, telling me it was all a mistake. I wait for the other shoe to drop, but there is no other shoe.

At my old church, I was treated with contempt. I had an inkling before today, but I’m just starting to understand how deep it ran and how much it damaged me. I feel like a refugee. That’s not an exaggeration. It’s always bad to find out you’ve been used, but it’s particularly painful when you learn you’ve been used while you were trying to serve God.

To explain this kind of sensation, I like to refer to a kibbutznik I knew. He sometimes worked in the dining hall on Kibbutz Geva. He had lived through the Holocaust, and he had known starvation. When he worked in the kitchen, people had to go behind him and search the cabinets. He used to hide food in them, compulsively. It was 1984, and poverty was forty years behind him, but in his heart, he could not believe it. That’s how I feel at New Dawn. I keep waiting for a slap that will never come.

Oppression is a hateful thing, and it can also be extremely insidious. If I had continued going to the old church, and I had not prayed in tongues and received revelation, I would still be there right now, blaming and condemning myself. I’d be a slave and a prisoner of my own mindset. Like a battered wife. Like the Hebrews who longed to abandon Moses and go back to the cruel mercies of the Egyptians.

The injury is bigger than I thought. And if I have it, so do many of my friends. It makes me want to consider other past injuries incurred in the same way. It makes me want to look for other ways in which I need to get free.

Like I’ve said before, no one is without sin, but not everyone is a jerk. There are plenty of people who don’t even know God, yet who will bless you and improve you instead of turning you into a slave. There is no reason to stay where you’re supposed to become part of the body of a selfish man instead of part of the body of Christ.

There is no shame in slavery, if the master is perfect. God is always right. He is always generous. He always leads you into the things that will bring you fulfillment and success. It’s right to be God’s slave. Submitting to a man is another story. It’s very dangerous. You will always have to put limits on your devotion, because no man is a perfect master.

I don’t write these things in anger or bitterness. I am writing out of amazement. I am amazed how strong my church is, and I am amazed at how much hidden harm the other church did. I have no interest in getting even. I’m contemplating and exploring the prospect of getting free.

If a pastor is handing you a line of BS, telling you you’re the problem, and you’re in touch with the Holy Spirit, and you know better, get out. You can do better. I never thought I’d say this, but sometimes staying home is better than going to church. If you have no other choice, stay home and pray. Don’t suffer under the hand of Laban.

If the yoke isn’t easy, someone other than God built it. I hope people will take that to heart and serve God instead of successors to Pharaoh.

Before You Help the Neighbors, Clean Your House

I’m learning more stuff about the concept of authority.

God and Satan are fighting for flesh in the earth. Jesus is assembling the Body of Christ, and Satan is assembling the body of the Antichrist. God is trying to exterminate the seed of the rebellious angels, and Satan is trying to exterminate God’s people.

If it sounds silly to say God is “trying” to do something, I would simply recommend taking a look at the Bible. Over and over, God started projects that didn’t pan out. He was relying on human beings to get the job done for him, and we failed him. Also, he is limited in what he can do, because he’s good. He can’t do anything that goes against his goodness.

Each of us is part of Christ’s body. Like the parts of a man’s body, we are supposed to obey the will of the head. Jesus told us that as many as were led by the Spirit were the sons of God. John said, “For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments.” He was not just talking about things God told us to do in the New Testament or the Torah. He was referring to the real-time commands Jesus issues through the Holy Spirit.

Every body has a nervous system. The Holy Spirit functions as the nervous system of the Body of Christ. He transmits information and power. We are expected to clear a pathway to him, so these things flow through us. We clear that pathway and allow the flow through prayer in tongues. It’s like physical therapy for a stroke victim. Over and over, you tell a body part to do things, and over time, it obeys more and more readily, and with more strength and certainty.

The body of Christ is God’s fetus. The earth is his uterus. We are growing stronger and more aware, as a fetus does. We are growing to resemble the father who conceived us, as a fetus does. Satan is working constantly to abort the fetus.

We see this described in a very literal way in the Revelation:

Now a great sign was seen in heaven — a woman clothed with the sun, under her feet the moon, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and about to give birth, and she screamed in the agony of labor.

Another sign was seen in heaven there was a great red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads were seven royal crowns. Its tail swept a third of the stars out of heaven and threw them down to the earth. It stood in front of the woman about to give birth, so that it might devour the child the moment it was born.

She gave birth to a son, a male child, the one who will rule all the nations with a staff of iron. But her child was snatched up to God and his throne; and she fled into the desert, where she has a place prepared by God so that she can be taken care of for 1,260 days.

We ARE Jesus, just as the Antichrist’s followers are the Antichrist. We are supposed to be his limbs and eyes and so on. We are supposed to be unified in purpose, so we do the things he commands.

How do we give him control? First we have to take control of ourselves.

A human being is like a demolition derby driver who is tied up in the back seat of a car. Before he can get into the fight, he has to get free of the ropes. Until he can get loose and take the controls, other cars can ram him whenever they like and push him in any direction. Our flesh is like the car. It controls us and keeps us bound. Sometimes demons are involved. But we have to fight our own flesh before we can accomplish anything.

Look at the problems most people face. They come from a lack of self-control. The biggest killers are heart disease and cancer. Why is that? It’s because we smoke and overeat. Bad behavior kills us. Poverty usually comes from bad behavior. A lot of people suffer and die because of things they can’t control, but there are a lot of problems we bring on ourselves. We can’t control our flesh.

Jesus said that in order to spoil a strong man’s house, you have to bind the strong man. You have to bind the flesh, or it will run your life. It’s like being on a horse with no bridle. Your flesh is stupid and immoral. Do you really want it to have executive power?

We become enslaved by the flesh at an early age, and many of us also unwittingly invited demons to live in us, so we are not in charge. We may hear from Jesus, but we also hear a lot of other voices. We are tossed around, like boats in a storm. We have no course. And to have no course is to be on course for destruction. There is only one way and one gate.

To get free, we have to develop authority. As far as I can tell, it begins with faith, because faith is like a snaking tool we use to pull things from God. If you have faith, you can be baptized with the Spirit, and then you can pray in tongues. From tongues, you get more faith, guidance, power, and cleansing. Eventually, you will reach a point where you can overcome your flesh. Once that happens, you will begin to be able to exercise real authority over external things. Spirits and matter.

Jesus didn’t need tongues, to the best of our knowledge. He was worthy and sinless from birth, so he was not like us. He was baptized with the Spirit, and then he went into the desert to fast. During the fast, he defeated his flesh. He showed it he was willing to die before letting it control him, and it yielded. When Satan came to tempt him, he couldn’t find a handle. He couldn’t find an internal ally to help him. The flesh was submitted to the authority of Jesus, so Satan could not bring internal division and rule over him.

It was not until after the fast that Jesus began exercising real power. His first miracles came after the fast. His ministry of perfect teaching began after the fast.

When we fast, the purpose is to defeat the flesh so the Spirit can have more control. When we show the flesh we mean business, it backs down before us. We can command it, in the name of Jesus. We can command spirits. We can free ourselves from iniquity, which is the inclination to do evil. We can do away with Satanic habits like drug addiction, alcoholism, pornography, whoring, habitual anger, overeating, laziness, and so on. We can become like Jesus, inside ourselves.

What happens without authority? We may be defeated. The sons of Sceva (a priest) told a demon to leave a man, by the authority of Jesus. The demon told them it didn’t know them, and it stripped the men naked and chased them so they ran down the street. They were exposed as lacking authority; the nudity symbolized that. The fact that they were sons of a priest was also significant. It shows that authority comes from the Holy Spirit, not earthly prestige. Authority comes from a supernatural anointing, as well as submission and obedience.

The unfortunate consequence is that sometimes we have to fast. That’s just how it is. We can ride the horse, or it can ride us.

This confirms something I already believed. If you know a preacher who has no self-control, you know someone whose words have to be put to the test. For example, if a preacher is obese, how can he say the flesh doesn’t run him? Would he choose obesity deliberately? Of course not. It has to be the result of submission to the flesh. What if he smokes? What if he fornicates or suffers from greed? What if he’s addicted to approval and admiration? What if he loses his temper habitually? You have to keep your eye on him, because from time to time, when he speaks, the flesh may be in charge, and we know who rules the flesh when we don’t.

Right now, the Body of Christ is like a person with MS or cerebral palsy. Jesus sends the commands, and the Holy Spirit transmits them and gives us the power to accomplish our tasks, but we don’t hear. We don’t obey. We are like taxis with the radios removed. We are “lawless,” as the Bible calls it. We are “workers of iniquity.” We do what our habits tell us to do. Sometimes we obey Jesus, but not nearly often enough. So the Body of Christ is like a disabled person who can’t coordinate his limbs and get out of bed.

This is why our experience is not like the experience of the Apostles. This is why we don’t see more people raised from the dead. The telephone lines are down.

The other day I fasted, and I asked for more authority. This was before I understood all these things the way I do now. A few days later, I got the idea that it was okay to give commands directly to my flesh. To address it as though it were a dog. I started doing it, and my flesh obeyed. I usually have trouble falling asleep, but when I ordered my flesh to become drowsy and sleep, it did. I had trouble with sexual thoughts. I ordered my flesh to knock it off, and it did. I had lost some of the victory God had given me over gluttony. I ordered my flesh to stop craving food and drink, and it did.

After I started seeing these results, I understood that God had granted my request. I had more authority.

It’s not perfect. Sometimes I get resistance. But the flesh is now in retreat. It is losing the war. Things are getting better and better.

The Bible says whom the son sets free is free indeed. People think this is about hell. It’s not just about hell. It’s about living in authority, right here. As Adam did before the fall. It doesn’t mean your life will be perfect, but overall, you will be victorious.

Look at the people Jesus freed in the Bible. Lepers. Crippled people. The blind. He didn’t just promise them eternal life, fifty years down the road. He set them free here on earth. Authority is for this world.

Churches resist this, because Satan has a lot of control over churches. It’s a message he fears. But it’s true. This is why the “gospel” really is “good news.” If you’re suffering on earth, it’s very nice to hear that you’re going to paradise some day. But if Jesus delivers you right now, wow! That’s GOOD NEWS. That’s the kind of news that will make you jump up and down. No matter how great the promise of eternal life is, it really can’t compare, in immediate emotional impact.

This stuff continues to work for me. If you have inner problems you can’t control, give it a try. I think you’ll be amazed.

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.