Wild Week

I always ask God to do impressive things so I will have a compelling testimony, and then he does it, and I end up with too much to write about.

I guess there are worse types of frustration I could be dealing with.

Week or two back, I heard from the wife of a blogging friend. Her son was sort of becalmed in life, and he wanted to get in touch with God. It “happened” to be the week my church was putting on a big play and having a 5 a.m. men’s meeting. I took him to the play, he met people who reached out to him, and he decided he wanted to go to the meeting. He also wanted to go to church on Sunday. When I texted his stepdad on Sunday to get him moving, the stepdad “happened” to misunderstand, and he ended up sending the young man AND his mother. Now they’re both going to church, and the young man is part of my prayer group, and he’s a church volunteer.

On that Sunday, I was working security, and someone radioed to tell me a guy was asking to see the pastor and claiming to be a friend of his. I had them send him to me. He turned out to be a Messianic Jew from Israel. His name is Eliron. Just “happened” to be. I lived in Israel for four months. I’ve been around Jewish people all my life. I have connections with other Messianics. And this guy “happened” to get sent to me.

There’s more to it. He knows the pastor’s sister and brother-in-law. He met them in Israel, at a Sukkot celebration. This happened while I was celebrating Sukkot with the Messianics in Boca Raton. Coincidence! He moved to Miami, and for financial reasons, he had to live with his Orthodox dad. One day he was talking to the pastor’s sister, and he told her where he lived. She told him he just “happened” to be five minutes from my church. Yeah, okay. Nothing strange about THAT.

He came to me at a time when I “happened” to be trying to set up a gun range trip with the Messianics. We had been hoping to do it for months. It came together the same week he showed up.

At church, I told him to get my contact info from the pastor so we could hook up. Naturally, it turned out that the pastor didn’t really know him, and he didn’t give him my number. But we “happened” to have a volunteer meeting last week, and at that meeting, a guy who knows a guy who knows Eliron showed up and “happened” to hear me say I was trying to locate Eliron. Fifteen minutes later, I had a text containing Eliron’s number.

We needed to work out a plan for lunch in Boca. I “happened” to invite two friends who are professional chefs. They took care of everything, free of charge. I didn’t have to lift a finger.

We got to Boca and went to the shabbat service, and the speaker “happened” to be Dan Juster, who is practically the Messianic Pope. He mentioned one of his friends by name. “Happens” to be a personal acquaintance of Eliron’s.

We went to lunch after the service, and we had so much fun, we never made it to the gun range. Now we have an excuse to go back.

When we were leaving the service, a lady waved at Eliron in the parking lot, and they started talking. She was an Israeli Messianic. Just “happened” to be there. They talked and exchanged info, so now he has another good contact. I thought this was important, so I shut the truck down and waited. A lady I “happened” to sit in front of in the service came up, asked me my name, and started telling me things she believed God had shown her about me and his plans for me. We invited her to my church, which is about 80% Haitian. “Coincidentally,” it turned out she was from Haiti. So she’s going to come and visit.

Now a former Alvin Ailey dancer at my church is talking about taking a team up to the synagogue, and people from the synagogue want to visit. I don’t know if our church’s leadership will get involved, but it will happen.

I’m hoping to go back to Boca this weekend or next weekend, with more people.

Today I’m enjoying my personal “shabbat.” Life is always nuts on the weekend, so on Monday I decelerate.

I’d like to say I’ll keep posting about all the stuff God does in my life, but the truth is, I’ll be lucky to get 10% of it written.

Flash Mobs: the Labor Unions of Crime

I keep thinking about the flash mob crime phenomenon.

As I’ve noted, ancient texts tell us mob crime was a characteristic of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it was one reason for their destruction. Jesus said he would return in times like the days of Lot. Well, here we are.

Flash mobs are the labor unions of crime. One criminal can’t do all that much. A thousand criminals can do anything they want. They can plunder a neighborhood. They can take a department store or a sporting event hostage and then demand ransom and immunity. We’ll do anything they want, once they start flexing their muscle.

Think about the potential for sex crime. Imagine a flash mob descending on a group of women. Who will stop them? Certainly not the cops. A mob can strip women in broad daylight and do whatever comes to mind. We’ve already seen it in Egypt.

If you had told Henry Ford he’d have to pay people a hundred thousand dollars a year to do unskilled labor for four hours a day, he would have laughed in your face. Now the Big Three do it as a matter of course. Mobs made them bend the knee. If a mob could do that in the days of vacuum tubes, what will be beyond reach to a mob with Ipads and Iphones?

Technology has given worthless people power they never had in the past. Now you can turn on your phone and direct thousands of people instantaneously. This will help criminals overcome the inertia and confusion that used to hinder them. And the left’s obsession with protecting freedom of expression (except for political expression by conservatives) will make it very tough to get the phones and pads shut down. Twitter refused to cooperate with the authorities during the London riots.

We’ve all heard the Craigslist stories. A man in Oregon came home to find people driving away with his belongings, because someone posted an ad saying he had left the state, and giving people permission to take everything in his home. It shows how quickly and effectively modern communications methods can unite and guide criminals. It can even put honest people to work for criminals.

Sooner or later, bright people will start making intelligent plans that will result in flash crimes the authorities will be unable to anticipate or thwart. They’ll pick a certain house or a certain neighborhood. They’ll send part of their troops to create diversions to draw police away from the real targets. Then the mobs will show up. Who will be able to repel them? Simple. Gun nuts. Get on your roof with an AK, several magazines, a case of ammunition, and a helper, and you’ll be all right. The savages will go to your neighbor’s houses. The Obama bumper stickers will look like welcome banners.

If I had no conscience, I’d be all over this. I’d be working right now to get a crew together and pick targets. Somewhere out there, people with the same idea are already at work. It won’t always be morons stealing candy from convenience stores. They’re going to realize they can rob homes, jewelry stores, banks…you name it.

It may be six months from now. It may be a year from now. But it will happen. It has to. Wait until the first smart criminal sends out a tweet, letting two thousand young men know they can have all the women they want. “Beach party tomorrow!” Once they’ve had a little success with jeans and electronics, they’ll want something more exciting.

Thank God conservatives have guns, because otherwise, we would surely be high on the to-do list. Generations of American kids have been told that their poverty was caused not by irresponsibility, but by the selfishness of people who didn’t want to share the wealth. Now many of them believe it, with a jihadist intensity. They would glory in our persecution. It would seem heroic to them. They would shoot video and put it on Youtube. “Here I am punching @ Hannity wife LULZ.” I wouldn’t be surprised if we see mob attacks on conservative celebrities who don’t have government protection. It would be very easy for a mob to get to a Rush Limbaugh or a Sarah Palin before anyone could respond.

Buy guns. Buy ammunition. Consider security cameras and motion detectors. Do it now, while the sleeping giant is still yawning and rubbing his eyes. If you’re conservative, there is a good chance you’re already set, but some will procrastinate.

Maybe our governments will find a way to cope. Maybe the National Guard will suffice, or maybe there will be increased surveillance and further corruption of our civil liberties. But I would not count on it. They do so many things badly.

I don’t think I’m overreacting. I may be a couple of years early, but unless criminals are even dumber than they think they are, they’ll figure this out eventually. And because our economy is tanking, their motivation–frustration, envy, and bigotry–will increase with time.

Man, am I ready. It’s crazy how I prepared so well, for something I never expected.

Finally on the Scoreboard

It has been a strange few days.

My church put on a production of “Aladdin” this week, and they needed Armorbearers to show up for security. Of course, I said I would serve on one of the days of the show, but since I live much farther away than most of the guys, I said I would like to be a backup. And–again, of course–we couldn’t get enough people to volunteer, so I ended up on the hook for Thursday night. And I was annoyed about it, and I said so.

On Wednesday or Thursday (I forget) I got a call from someone I hadn’t heard from in quite some time. The wife of a fellow blogger. She said her adult son was in the dumps, and they were interested in hooking him up with a church. Was I interested? YES, I was interested. It’s all about rescuing people who don’t know where to turn. Besides, if I got the son, God would have a way to get to the family.

I prayed for these people for like two years. Then I let it go. God did not.

“Coincidentally,” the Armorbearers were scheduled to have one of their “Mighty Men’s Meetings” today. We get together early in the morning and build each other up as Christian men, and we try to get new people to come. I mentioned it to him, and he was interested. I also mentioned the play, and he was up for that, too.

We went to the play, and he met a lot of my friends. He hung around while I scrambled to run security. I was the only one who showed up, so it was kind of a circus until I drafted people to help.

We had a camel in the church. It seems like we always have to have a camel. Man, they stink. And they can’t be housetrained.

Today I got up at 3:20 and drove to pick him up, and we went to the meeting. It was amazing, as usual. The Holy Spirit spoke through various people. We heard impressive testimonies. We shared some things that affected us deeply. And after a while, I realized he wasn’t in the room. It turned out he was in another room talking to a couple of friends of mine. I walked through on the way to clean up the coffee area, and I saw what was going on, and I casually mentioned the sinner’s prayer as I passed.

When I got back in there, I led us in the prayer, and then we hit him with the anointing oil and some intense prayer about other things. A friend of mine led, and he knew exactly what to pray for. He asked God to reach for the rest of the family. It was quite a spectacle. I’m the world’s most useless evangelist, so this is as close as I’ve ever come to a collar. I had help, but I was right in there.

He may be coming tomorrow, to check out the Gatekeepers, our outdoor security force. It’s the pathway to the Armorbearers.

It’s very exciting. There are some people the enemy will never stop oppressing until they get on God’s side, and once they do, they’re free to grow and succeed. That’s what’s going to happen here. We’ve helped other people. I know we can help my friend’s son. It’s just a matter of putting him in touch with the Holy Spirit, and that’s not hard at all.

Once again, I feel stupid because I resented being pressed into service. Time and time again, when I find myself inconvenienced by sudden demands I think are unreasonable, it turns out God has blessings on the other side. Had I not been scheduled to serve on Thursday, I might not have gotten him to go today.

This is not hard. Winning people without God’s direction…that’s hard. If you’ve ever seen Mormon missionaries harassing and jawing people, you know what I mean. That’s like selling cars. With the Holy Spirit guiding you, it’s like being carried around in a sedan chair, from one assignment to another. You do a little work, but not too much, because the glory has to be God’s, and if you worked hard for it, you would think too much of yourself.

There’s much more to the story than I can say here, as always. God never provides “enough.” He always gives until you don’t know what to do with the excess. Even if I were at liberty to tell everything, I would not have time to type it all.

This is what life was intended to be like. I wish every person on earth was ready to hear it, but people are like fruit. They fall when they get ripe, not before. Yelling at them is like yelling at green peaches. This is why I avoid debating about religion. When people are ready to hear, there is no debate. There is just explanation.

Some people are fed up with life without God. They have had enough. They’re willing to try anything. They’re looking for a way in. But not many Christians know where it is, so they can’t show it to other people. It’s extremely satisfying to be able to help.

I hope things work out tomorrow. This should be great.

Antisocial Media

The seeds of violent anti-Semitism have been sown. The economy is heading down the toilet. Jewish names like Madoff, Stearns, Salomon, and Geithner have been associated with financial misconduct and incompetence. Entitlements are going to dry up, simply because the money won’t be there. Flash mob riots have given the leeches and worthless people a new tool they can use to overcome the police and impose their will. And most Jews live in urban areas and refuse to own guns. How long have people like Louis Farrakhan been telling the poor that Jews run the world? I promise you, there are millions of people in the US who see Jewish houses as big pinatas full of stolen loot.

The mobs are hitting Europe right now, but I’m sure they’ll be here before long. Why wouldn’t they be? We have a sea of spoiled individuals who live off the government and who believe their low economic status was caused by conspiracies and cliques. Even our President tells them this; he wants them to think corporate jets caused their poverty. They think they’re entitled to commit crimes, including personal violence, because they’ve been systematically cheated. They have computers. They have cell phones. They have Twitter and Facebook. Add it up, and it spells “time bomb.”

I realized this last night. I don’t see any journalists or government officials taking the phenomenon seriously; as usual, they’re behind the curve. I felt I should put up a blog post so at least a few people would be aware of the threat.

Obviously, Jews are not the only ones at risk. Anyone who lives near a big city and owns a home will be a target. If you don’t own weapons, this would be a good day to start buying them.

As I’ve noted before, one reason Sodom and Gomorrah were burned in a rain of flaming sulphur was that they had a practice of committing mob crimes. A mob would fall on a business, and each criminal would take something small, and the business would be ruined. This is what happened in Lot’s time. Jesus said it would be “as the days of Lot” when he returned, and suddenly, we’re seeing the same type of crime. He said it would be “as the days of Noah,” when God was infuriated by sexual immorality and marriage between humans and animals, and suddenly we have a President who supports gay marriage.

Look out.

I think the Holy Spirit is warning me, so I’m trying to warn others. I have a long pattern of being right about things like this, and God’s record is considerably better than mine, so think before you dismiss me.

The Pharaoh Who Knew Not Joseph

Our President just chose Tisha B’Av, the most dangerous day in the Jewish calendar, to criticize God’s nation for building apartments in East Jerusalem, its God-given capital.

Unbelievable.

Disasters tend to hit nations whose rulers do stupid things like this. The Japan earthquake and the Joplin tornadoes are recent examples.

I am praying God’s judgment passes over Americans who serve him and support Israel.

Nerd Resurrection

I’m practically giddy.

First of all, I got my Garnet Herzog clone working. The Herzog people released a couple of schematics which are widely available as a PDF. If I had to guess, I would say the originals were drawn on cocktail napkins, and they were intended to be practical jokes. The one I used was just plain nuts. But I worked hard on it, and I got help from experts, and I prayed over it, and now the amp runs. That’s astoundingly cool.

Second: I just received my Schaum’s Outline of Basic Circuit Analysis. Ohhhhh…this is too much.

You can’t imagine what it’s like to decide, at the age of 31, that you want a degree in physics. This is especially true if you don’t know algebra very well and failed math in high school. Not that I know anyone like that. I feel like I climbed Mount Everest in a greased sleeping bag tied to a junk car. There is no way to describe what I went through, sitting at home with an algebra outline and a calculus outline in front of me while I tried to do my calculus homework. And getting into grad school…that was like parting the Red Sea. Granted, I got brain-fried and quit. But the fact that I was there to begin with…inexplicable. It’s as if the Jamaican bobsled team took a bronze.

Really, if you haven’t been there, you can’t imagine. If you think you know something because you got an A in calculus, you’re like a mule that thinks it can run in the Kentucky Derby. To a physicist, first-year calculus is only a little more impressive than addition and subtraction. It’s the kindergarten of real math.

I made it to a top grad school and then crashed. I have never felt so cursed, before or since. Nothing I did went right. Almost no one helped. People at the University of Texas worked against me, if anything. They were as unrelenting as stones. I believe they were eager to see me quit. And when I tried to pray, I felt as though my prayers bounced off a brass ceiling.

Of course, I was not much of a Christian at that point. I had the baptism with the Holy Spirit, but I rarely prayed in tongues, and I had no real relationship with God or Christians. I believe God blighted what I was doing; too many things went wrong.

I went to law school and graduated cum laude without doing much of anything. I had a great time. I drank a lot. I hung out in the law school courtyard, shooting the breeze with friends. When I got out, I enjoyed practicing, although it wasn’t my dream. It was definitely better than digging ditches, and had I gone on to become a full-blown patent attorney (possible because of my physics background), I could be charging $400 an hour right now. In fact, I could still do that if I had to.

I felt that physics was behind me, and that my opportunities in that direction had been crushed. The time and study had been wasted. The shocking amount of information and skill I had crammed into my brain would dissipate and lose its value.

Now I’m building guitar amps. People are asking me to do it for money. I have all sorts of electronics tools. And it all happened because I went to a church where the guitarists were interested in amp-building.

I have to get up to speed on electronics. I only took one electronics course in college, and it prepared me to build things like integrators. Small, useless circuits. I built current controllers and temperature controllers for diode lasers used in gas cooling research, but I didn’t really know that much about the circuits. I have to take the small, crumbling foundation that remains and build on it. Hence the Schaum outline and the REA Problem Solver that will be here later this week.

Ezekiel tells us of the valley of dry bones. The symbolism applies to just about anything God touches. Living water means prayer in tongues and living in the Spirit. Dry bones are Jews and Christians who lack the Holy Spirit. The nation of Israel was dry bones before the Jews returned. I was a pile of dry bones before I turned back to God. Now the flesh is returning. The lost opportunities are being dusted off. Salvage is underway.

I almost feel smart again. Maybe God will help me to recover to the point where I understand math and physics again. That would be amazing.

I have to go get batteries for my HP 32S calculator, for the first time in 16 years. I hope the drugstore has them. I saved the manual. It’s in the garage. I used to play that thing like a fiddle. I may be able to use Mathcad again.

Continue in your own way, which leads nowhere, or follow the cloud by day and the pillar of fire by night and cross into your own Promised Land. Whether you act or not, you will choose, and you will live with the consequences.

I am Controlling Transmission

Tonight I got my Herzog clone running. It still has a few bugs in it, but it functions. This is really neat. I never dreamed I’d be doing this. Look at all the stuff God is allowing me to do.

Today I wrote about going through dusty items from my past. One such item is my $50 Hitachi oscilloscope. This is one of the coolest things I own. It amazes me that I know how to run an oscilloscope. I felt I needed it to diagnose the amp.

Here’s my tidy workbench.

You know you’re in full-blown mad scientist mode when you fire up an oscilloscope in your garage.

From the Tomb I Arise

People sue me all the time. I haven’t written about it, but I’ve been sued 5 times over the last few years. Most of it has to do with real estate. All of the lawsuits were ridiculous. None went anywhere. I believe two are still active, but they’re hopeless. I have relied on God to deliver me, and he came through every time.

I have refrained from countersuing and from reporting anyone to the authorities; I believe that if you want God to deliver you, it’s important to avoid getting in there in your own strength and mud-wrestling like a moron. You can’t glorify God by delivering yourself.

I was praying about one of the cases in my truck, maybe in 2009, and I felt a wave of faith rush through me. It was so powerful, I grabbed the center console and held on. I felt as if I were being washed away in a flood. From then on, I knew that suit was over, regardless of how it looked. I mention it now so God can receive his glory. I think it’s extremely important to credit God in front of other people when he helps you out.

I had a dream which I believe was about one of my enemies. In real life, my involvement with this person really got into gear in an event that took place next to the kitchen sink. Seriously. One night years later, I dreamed a big female roach was on a canister by that sink. It was about six inches long. It had two arrays of eggs under its forelegs, like the missiles on a helicopter. It also had a big brown belly which reminded me a great deal of my enemy: a plaintiff with a round pot belly and skin the same color as the roach’s.

I hate roaches, especially when they come toward me the way this one did. I live in Miami, where you will see roaches occasionally no matter what, so I keep a spray bottle full of alcohol handy to blast them. It usually knocks them out so they can be dealt with at leisure. The alcohol didn’t work. The roach was enraged, so it took off (Florida roaches fly) and flew over my head, across the kitchen. I kept blasting it, trying to get it to go away. It refused to let up. It turned and started descending, facing me, and as it did, it dropped slowly toward the back of a fan.

You can imagine what happened. That big belly got sucked into the fan, and the guts went all over me. The roach destroyed itself because it could not leave me alone. I was covered with disgusting roach guts, but I was unharmed.

After that, I found myself wandering through an old apartment belonging to my parents. They’ve never had an apartment during my lifetime; the apartment in the dream doesn’t exist. It was full of dust, and I was salvaging old things that had been set aside and forgotten. Dust poured off of them as I picked them up.

The reason I mention this is that I feel like I have new insight on the dream’s meaning.

I recently ended all involvement with this enemy, at considerable expense. I didn’t have to. I was in no danger. I felt that the Holy Spirit wanted me to. I needed to close the door on a malignant relationship and get rid of any handles that could be used to get me involved again. Part of the reason, I felt, was that God wanted to clear the playing field for a new relationship. And today I found myself rummaging through dusty items from my past, because of new opportunities God is bringing my way.

I started building guitar amps a while back. A friend wants me to build one he can use professionally. I just repaired one of my church’s Vox AC30CC2s. The other day a guy in Texas asked me to build him a Bassman clone. I don’t know where this is going, but it’s starting to look like it means something.

I keep many of my old math and physics books in the garage, on a suspended platform. I got a degree in physics and then went to grad school, but I got burned out and quit, and for a long time, I felt it had all been wasted. Lately I’ve been looking for ways to get up to speed on electronicis, and I’ve been ordering books. Today I had to go out in the garage and make sure I wasn’t duplicating anything I already had. While I was dealing with the dust on the boxes, I remembered my dream.

I used to think the last part of the dream suggested I was never going to recover the potential that was taken from me earlier in life. I was never going to get another shot at the missed opportunities. Now I think I may have been wrong. What’s a little dust? There was dust on King Tut’s tomb, and look at the riches they pulled out of it.

I just ordered an REA Problems Solvers book on electrical circuits, plus a Schaum outline. I got expedited shipping. I can’t wait to dig in.

I know there are very few people who will find this blog post interesting, but I felt I should put it up and let God have his glory. If you don’t document these things, no one will listen to you later on when they turn out to be from God. Never predict the past. God gets no honor from that.

The symbolism of the roach eggs is not lost on me. I could have been in real, lasting trouble, but for God’s protection.

If you have ears to hear, take something away from this. If not, sorry I wasted your time.

God Does Not Need Your Mud Pies

I haven’t blogged in forever. I guess the bug left me.

Life continues to improve. All sorts of stuff is happening.

As regular readers know, I belong to a prayer group at church. Most of us are not too pleased with the lack of Holy Spirit moves in the main services, and our church has hosted some preachers who left us disappointed and annoyed. Our answer has been to increase prayer in tongues and listen to the Holy Spirit.

Things keep ramping up. More people are joining the fight. More people are coming to the group and telling us how prayer in tongues has changed them. They’re getting revelation from God. They understand the Bible better. Good things are happening to them. Their lives seem guided. It’s exactly what I knew would happen, if they would listen.

We’re even seeing it in services. Our pastor has been allowing the congregation to spend times praying in tongues, as a body. That’s phenomenal. It proves God is listening, and that the things he has us doing in private are not a waste of time.

A week or so back, someone came in and tried to convince us tongues were not for everyone. He cited 1 Corinthians 12:

4 There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit. 5 There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. 6 And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all. 7 But the manifestation of the Spirit is given to each one for the profit of all: 8 for to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the same[b] Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another discerning of spirits, to another different kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as He wills.

That’s the Bible, all right. But he went beyond the plain meaning of the words. It says God manifests himself through each one as he wills, but it does not say prayer in tongues is not for everyone. The Bible says the gifts belong to the Spirit, not to us, so the Spirit decides when to use which gift, and through whom. That doesn’t mean you can’t exercise all of the gifts, at various points in your life. In all likelihood, Paul was simply reminding us not to be disappointed or impatient because we don’t display all of the gifts equally all the time.

In the New Testament, there is a pattern. Over and over, people receive the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Robert Morris has pointed out that every time–no exceptions–they began to speak in tongues that were unknown to them. And the scriptures (both testaments) are loaded with references to tongues. Many of the references are symbolic. Example: instead of saying, “You will pray in an unknown language,” Jesus said he would give us “living water.” Concerning singing in tongues, the Psalms say the kings of the earth (his sons and daughters) will sing in the way God shows (Psalm 138), and that God will put a new song in our mouths, “even praise unto the Lord” (Psalm 138).

The name “Beersheba” is a prophetic reference to tongues. The “sheba” part comes from the Hebrew word for “oath” or “seven.” We know from the Revelation and from the shape of the lamp in the Holy of Holies that seven is the number of the Holy Spirit. The “beer” part means “well.” At Beersheba, Abraham found water provided by God, in the middle of the desert, because he trusted God. The earth is a desert, and tongues are the living water, provided freely by our creator. Beersheba was a place where God spoke to people repeatedly, in revelations, as the Holy Spirit reveals himself through his gifts.

That’s just one example.

In the New Testament, we are repeatedly encouraged to pray “in the Spirit,” which means “in tongues.” If you read the passage in Ephesians about the “armor of God,” you should not ignore the last part, which makes it clear that prayer in tongues is the way to go about putting on the armor: “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints (Eph. 6:18). And what about the passage in Romans which says things work out for our good? Look at the whole thing. It’s about people who have been baptized with the Spirit, and who pray in tongues.

Rom 8:22-30
22 We know that until now, the whole creation has been groaning as with the pains of childbirth; 23 and not only it, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we continue waiting eagerly to be made sons — that is, to have our whole bodies redeemed and set free. 24 It was in this hope that we were saved. But if we see what we hope for, it isn’t hope — after all, who hopes for what he already sees? 25 But if we continue hoping for something we don’t see, then we still wait eagerly for it, with perseverance.

26 Similarly, the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we don’t know how to pray the way we should. But the Spirit himself pleads on our behalf with groanings too deep for words; 27 and the one who searches hearts knows exactly what the Spirit is thinking, because his pleadings for God’s people accord with God’s will. 28 Furthermore, we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called in accordance with his purpose; 29 because those whom he knew in advance, he also determined in advance would be conformed to the pattern of his Son, so that he might be the firstborn among many brothers; 30 and those whom he thus determined in advance, he also called; and those whom he called, he also caused to be considered righteous; and those whom he caused to be considered righteous he also glorified! “(CJB).

I can testify about this, personally, and I can tell you my friends will agree with me, because they’ve been there, too: when you pray in tongues a lot, God guides you like GPS. He may not take you where you think you should go, but he will put you where you should be, and things will work out in ways that amaze you, over and over. One tongues proponent–Glenn Arekion–puts it this way: when you pray in tongues, the Spirit prophesies about your life. He tells what will happen. He arranges your future. Call it prophecy or intercession or what you will; it happens.

I believe that when John spoke of Spirits denying or admitting that Jesus came “in the flesh,” he was referring not to the initial incarnation of Jesus, but to his reincarnation in us, through the baptism with the Holy Spirit. Nearly everyone, atheists and Satanists included, admits Jesus lived as a man, so surely this can’t be the admission Job was talking about. If a Satanist says Jesus lived as a man, does that mean the Spirit of God is in him? Come on.

The indwelling of Jesus through the Holy Spirit (Jesus coming in our flesh) is what the Spirit of Antichrist fears, and it’s what he fights the hardest. It makes us powerful, as Jesus himself said it would. It replicates Jesus here on the earth, producing little copies of him to afflict Satan’s kingdom. It’s like Agent Smith in Matrix Revolutions.

Satan doesn’t like it when we receive salvation but remain powerless. But he really hates it when we get salvation in the next life AND power in this life. So the Spirit of Antichrist rises up in people who are not baptized with the Spirit, and it leads them to criticize prayer in tongues. This is probably what Jesus was referring to when he said you could not be pardoned for “speaking against” the Holy Spirit (Matthew 12).

The guy who tried to tell us tongues were not for everyone made it clear he thought we were exalting ourselves because we had the gift. He said it didn’t make us “better Christians” than him. I think that reveals the motivation that led him. He projected pride onto us. This is probably what Cain did to Abel.

He could not have been more wrong. When you pray in tongues and listen to the Holy Spirit, you’re not exalting yourself. You’re humbling yourself. You’re telling God you’re a welfare case. You’re saying you can’t do what he wants without his help at every step. You’re admitting you have virtually no power and no righteousness of your own.

We never knew he didn’t pray in tongues until he told us. He had given us the impression that he had the gift. I don’t know how we could be accused of thinking we were better than he was, when we thought he was just like us.

I do not believe God gives tongues to special righteous people. I believe he gives them to people who have faith and who will submit. After all, from God’s point of view, we are all on the same level. Jeffrey Dahmer and Billy Graham…both so far from God’s righteousness, they might as well be the same person. It’s like the Tower of Babel. It looked like a big deal from earth, but from heaven, it looked like a pimple. No more impressive than an outhouse or a bordello. So the idea that God only gives tongues to super-good people is crazy. One of the purposes of tongues is to help us become good, through God’s charity. Why give it to people who are already good? If you’re so great you can keep the law on your own, go for it, but you have to do it perfectly. The rest of us need to have the law written on our hearts.

I think some people who take a long time to receive tongues may be suffering from an insidious type of pride. They feel bad about what they are (as we all do), they feel they have to work and suffer to make it up to God, and they don’t feel entitled to his help. So they can’t let go and let him speak through them. “Never mind, God. I don’t deserve you. Let me do this for you.” The problem is that no one ever climbed up to heaven. You have to be carried. If you think you can do things for yourself, you may think you’re penitent or unselfish, but in reality, you’re proud. You believe you can do things only God can do, and you think you can do it your own way. That’s my best guess. You have to be willing to let go, take a chance on making a fool of yourself, and let your lips start moving.

I ask God for things constantly. “Help me open the refrigerator door. Help me turn on the TV. Help me shave. Help me breathe.” God WANTS us to be dependent, because a dependent person can’t have pride. God is not busy. He is not offended when you ask him for things. The thing that offends him is the illusion of self-sufficiency. Read the Bible; see how Saul got cursed. Look what happened to the Levites who brought strange fire to the altar. What was the Tower of Babel about? Man doing it for himself.

God doesn’t want your help, believe me. He will not owe you. You are to owe him.

I knew this kind of attack would come; it always does. It succeeded in removing the power of the Holy Spirit from the church about 1800 years ago. It will fail this time, but it’s still going to be with us. Satan is going to use sincere Christians who think they are doing God’s will, to stop the spread of the power of the Holy Spirit. But when he cuts off one of Jesus’s fingers, three more will grow in its place. It doesn’t depend on us; it depends on the God who empowers us. We are disposable. We are like seeds. Plant us, and more of us grow.

Here’s something really weird. Surely you know religious Jews don’t buy ANY of this. They are extremely hostile to Jesus, at least in private, so it would be crazy to expect them to believe in the gifts of the Spirit. But Perry Stone met one who had a surprising attitude. His name was Yehuda Getz, and he was an Orthodox rabbi who lived in Jerusalem. Did he have a good reputation among religious Jews? I have no idea. For all I know, he was a nut case. But one day Perry Stone mentioned tongues to him, and he said, “Ah, yes. The language of God.”

Stone asked him to explain, and he said that on Yom Kippur, when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies, the priest would speak directly to God in an unknown language. I had never heard of this before. I still don’t know what to make of it. I have never seen anything in the Old Testament which refers to tongues literally. Metaphorically, sure. But not literally.

My cup runs over. I don’t have time to talk of all the things I’ve seen lately. If you want to live this life, you can’t experience it through me. Get ahold of it for yourself. You don’t need me.

Nothing of Interest Lies Behind Me

If I had to name the strangest thing the Holy Spirit has done for me, I think it might be this: he has made me into a morning person.

I have never liked mornings. For most of my life, I didn’t really wake up until noon, and I felt most energetic late in the evening. I hated getting out of bed.

These days I don’t leave the bedroom until I’ve spent a long time in prayer, much of it in tongues, and I feel God’s presence come into me, and I sense that he has prepared a victorious day for me. I feel invigorated and eager to get up and see what’s ahead. That is just crazy.

The Holy Spirit is doing great things at my church. This is a welcome change. We’re supposed to be charismatics, but I don’t recall seeing the gifts of the Spirit in action in our services. It’s my understanding that some things have been prohibited, because of the danger of scaring off new people. First limitations were placed on exhibitions of the Spirit’s power. Then they disappeared entirely.

I guess I’m overstating what has happened. Sometimes someone who is teaching says something that clearly came from God. And I have seen some “prophecies” which I think came from adrenaline, not God. But the general rule is that the services are scripted down to the minute, and we try to make each weekend service exactly like the others.

The problem with this is that God has to be unpredictable. It’s great to try to have order in your life, but God has to have room to do things we don’t expect. One of his great strengths is his knowledge of the future. His enemies don’t have that. So it’s a tool he uses to frustrate them, and the only way he can do that is to do things that can’t be predicted.

The crucifixion is an example. The disciples were crushed when they learned it was going to happen. But look how it turned out. It restored us to our positions as governors of the earth, and it saved us from hell. Some of us, anyway. God did the unexpected, and he even tricked Satan into helping.

It seems like the sermons are getting less powerful over time. We hear the same kind of stuff apostate churches teach. “Try hard.” “Be good.” “Pray a lot.” But behind the scenes, among a few people here and there, the Holy Spirit is working a counter-revolution.

I’ve persuaded a bunch of people to start praying in tongues more, especially in my prayer group. Wild things are happening. I used to come in and try to tell people what I had learned about the Holy Spirit. Now they’re telling ME. I learn wonderful things from them. I feel built up when they testify about what God is doing for them and their families. And our numbers are growing.

We have a guy who has only shown up twice. Once a long time ago, and again this past Saturday. His wife is Jewish. To her, a cross and a swastika are pretty much interchangeable. I believe she’s an atheist, so her objections are not based in Judaism.

He says he has been hiding his Bible from her. He put it in a box covered with foil, so she won’t know what it is. He reads it when she’s not around. He’s an outcast in his own house.

She made him go into psychotherapy. She chose the doctor. He’s a Jewish atheist. He tells my friend the Bible is full of lies. Surely that’s unethical. He ought to be turned in to the Department of Business and Professional Regulation.

His wife believes Christianity is a mental illness, and it sounds like his doctor is in the same camp. Mind you, my friend is not bothering her. He’s not telling her what to believe. He’s not trying to force her to go to church or become a Christian. He’s just praying and reading his Bible, and she is treating him like a lunatic. She even told him to choose between her and the Lord. Fortunately, he said he would choose the Lord.

Here’s the great thing about his story. God baptized him with the Holy Spirit, even though he wasn’t free to go to church or associate with Christians. He started praying in tongues one day. No one laid hands on him or prayed for him. It’s like what happened to me a long time ago. God has a purpose for this man, and he is not going to let the man’s wife get in the way.

We started reminding him that he is the priest of his home. The man is the head of the woman. He is supposed to lead, not follow. We told him he had to quit hiding. If he reads the Bible in the living room, his wife’s head isn’t going to explode. It’s not going to hurt her. Let her be unhappy, if she so chooses; it’s not her place to tell him what to do.

I don’t know what my friends in the group would have told him a year ago. Probably useless things. “Tough it out.” “Christians are supposed to suffer.” “Stop complaining.” Instead, because they’ve been building themselves up in the Spirit, they told him the right things. Take charge, obey God, pray in tongues, associate with other believers, and let God work it out. Don’t let the tail wag the dog. And I told him he needed to go see my Messianic friends. He’s not Jewish, but he knows what it’s like to be shunned by a Jewish wife. They would have unique insights to help him succeed.

Maybe she’ll leave. She has free will. But if that happens, her husband should be able to say he provided a clear example for her.

I wish I had time to talk about the way God is unifying my friends and me. I’ll give an example. Yesterday an illegal alien showed up with a newborn baby and started begging in front of the church, holding a sign. I had to deal with her, in my capacity as a security volunteer. I needed someone who spoke Spanish. There are few Cubans in my church. Nearly all Cubans speak Spanish. We have some Puerto Ricans, but they generally speak Spanish poorly. We have a pastor who speaks Spanish, but he didn’t want to do it. Guess who God found for me? A young man who sees me as a source of Biblical knowledge. Someone who takes my Facebook stuff, without telling me, and reposts it on Twitter.

We went and talked to her and took her to the church’s cafe. I felt like God wanted me to do something for her, so I ordered her some food, and I agreed to do other things the Spirit seemed to suggest. While I was at the cash register, my friend Alonzo came out behind me with his credit card out and told the cashier he was paying for whatever I was having. I said, “It’s for someone else.” He said, “It doesn’t matter. I got it.” Later he told me the Holy Spirit told him to go up and pay for what I was ordering.

We heard a sermon about the power of words. The pastor mentioned two things. He said the Bible says we conquer through the blood and the word of our testimony. He also discussed the story of Moses at Meribah, where he struck a rock with a stick to open up a spring, instead of speaking to it, as God had commaned.

While I was working in the sanctuary, Alonzo came up, and I started telling him what I believed the true significance of these things was.

I said I thought the Meribah story was about the baptism with the Holy Spirit and prayer in tongues. Water, wells, and springs usually symbolize the Holy Spirit inside us. “Beersheba,” for example, means “well of seven,” and seven is the number of the Holy Spirit, as symbolized by the seven lamps in the Holy of Holies.

We are supposed to get the living water flowing, pray in tongues, and take on God’s nature and his power. We do this instead of struggling to please him with our own puny tools. Apostate churches, however, claim tongues are from the devil, and they tell us we have to earn our righteousness and our favor from God. Jesus bought it all with his blood, but we have to earn it!

When Moses struck the rock, he was using human effort. He tried to “help” God. Instead, he deprived God of his glory. His punishment was that he was kept out of the Promised Land, which symbolizes the kingdom of God. Spirit-filled believers have God’s kingdom inside them; a believer who rejects tongues and will not listen to the Holy Spirit will not enter the kingdom.

I told Alonzo this was my take, and he started telling me he had told his wife the same thing. And we had a remarkable conversation about it, in which we confirmed each other’s conclusions.

I said I believed the passage about the blood and the word of our testimony referred to salvation (the blood) and tongues, in which the Holy Spirit testifies using our mouths. This is the word of God. It’s the sword of the Spirit. Scripture is the word of God, but so is anything God says today. And of course, Alonzo was right there with me. He said he believed the same thing.

The unfortunate thing is that the sermon didn’t connect the Holy Spirit and tongues to the power of words. What we received was a shallower interpretation. “Be careful what you say, and make sure you speak positive things in God’s name.” That’s great, but it’s the tip of the iceberg. We should have received the whole thing. People came for a meal, and all they got was a roll and some parsley.

I have had concerns that I haven’t been listening to the Holy Spirit lately; not as much as I should have. So I’m trying to do a better job.

A week or two back, in our prayer group, I felt that the Holy Spirit was telling me to make a big sacrifice in order to put a complete end to a terrible relationship. I was involved with the wrong woman, and the relationship failed, but I got stuck with a worldly connection to her. I feel that the Holy Spirit has told me to get rid of it. Why would God provide me with someone new, while there are still strings tying me to someone else? If I were a woman, and I married a man, I wouldn’t want to see him writing alimony checks or doing anything else to indicate he had a relationship–even a dead one he regretted and thoroughly repudiated–with someone else. So I plan to listen to the Holy Spirit. He will wash this person out of my life for good and clear the way for someone else.

When I do what I’m planning to do, I will be wronged to a certain extent, but it’s better to be wronged than to wrong. God repays. He repays you, and if they don’t change, he repays the people who wrong you. We are not supposed to jump in the mire with the pigs and mud wrestle. We fight principalities and powers, not people.

“Meribah” means “bitterness” or “quarreling.” I don’t want to get bitter because I got stuck fighting someone with earthly tools. Bitterness may rest in those who wrong me, but it will be rinsed out of me by God’s cleansing waters. When I think about the things that have been done to me, I have my crabby moments, and sometimes I give in a little, but I know that the future is sweet, and this garbage will soon be too far behind me to see.

Monster Wattage is the Answer

Life just gets better and better.

I received the parts for my new 5-watt Herzog/Fender Champ clone, and today I started working on it. I had such great results with the heavy aluminum channel on the 5f6a clone, I decided to use 4″ aluminum square tubing for the new project. And I’m using a tube rectifier, just in case it makes a sonic difference when I use the rig as an amp. I’m told it won’t, but it will still look cool, and that’s important.

The next photo shows the chassis after I trimmed it with a table saw. I just made a rectangular hole for the power transformer, using the milling machine, but I’m too lazy to take a photo. Now I’m waiting for my giant unibit to arrive so I can drill the tube holes instead of using a hole saw.

My buddy from church settled on an amp: the Trainwreck Express. This is one of those legendary small-shop amps, like the Dumble Overdrive Special. A little outfit in the Northeast made them, and then the maker died. Now people go over them with microscopes and try to copy them.

It’s supposed to be a high-gain amp with a temperamental circuit. They say the overdrive goes nuts with a small twist of a guitar pot. It’s said to be better for rock than blues, but my friend says it’s what he wants.

Next week we’ll order parts.

I’ve learned a ton since I made the 5f6a, so this new amp will have new intelligent features in it, like heater wires that are arranged correctly to minimize hum. I’m referring to the Champzog. The Express is another story. People are telling me to do exactly what everyone else has done, if I don’t want trouble.

Here’s something amusing and possibly useful. The Express is a head (like all Trainwrecks), and it’s traditionally made of lacquered hardwood. Someone found that you can go to Woodcraft.com and order a nice dovetailed cherry drawer for $56, in the exact dimensions of an Express cabinet. Good info to have.

I love it when new amp parts arrive. I want to pour them out on my bed and roll in them. But I’m not that mental yet.

I’ll bet anything I end up making more amps for the guys at church.

Time to unwind with a Coke. This has been a phenomenal day.

Homebrew Amp Sends Sino-British Combos Packing

I took my new amp to church yesterday? The verdict? Amazing.

One of the guitarists asked if he could use it during services. Mind you, he was going to be putting it up against the lead guitarist’s $1200 Vox AC30. At the end of the day, the guitarists were telling me how great my amp was.

The sound is warmer than the Vox. It breaks up nicely. It sounds way better at low volumes. It has plenty of juice. They didn’t have to turn it past 12 o’clock, even with a single 10″ speaker battling against the Vox’s 2×12.

I put a new part in it: a humdinger circuit suggested in Merlin Blencowe’s book on power supply design. This is a trimmer pot between the heater feeds with the wiper connected to ground. It allows you to balance the voltages in the feeds so they’re identical. This gives excellent hum cancellation. Now the amp is really quiet.

I’m planning to build an amp for one of the guys, and he was leaning toward a Super Reverb, but now he’s thinking two amps, because he likes this one so much. It looks like I can do it for around $400, unless he goes for a Gucci tone-snob transformer set. That will add $300 to the job.

It amazes me that I can use this amp to practice in a small room. And look how God has given new value to the physics education I thought had been wasted.

Two of these would completely solve my church’s guitar amp problems, but I guess they’re stuck with the Voxes. They’ll never sell them and use homemade amps. People don’t like to rub their mistakes in their own faces. When you blow that kind of money on amps, the natural thing is to struggle to make use of them.

Life is sweet. The next project will begin as soon as I can get parts.

Amp Virtually Finished

This is too cool not to blog

Last night I got my Fender Bassman clone running! Here’s a photo. It’s gorgeous. I call it “Thick Al.” I asked for advice on a forum, and I referred to it as a “thick Al chassis,” referring to the aluminum, and someone thought I was giving the amp a nickname. Sounds good to me.

This is a 40-watt amp powered by 6L6 Sovtek Svetlana tubes. It has a 12ay7 preamp tube (V1), and then the signal goes through two 12ax7s (second stage and phase inverter). The rectifier tube is a Chinese GZ34, and it’s backed up by 4 4n1007 diodes.

It’s the exact circuit Leo Fender used, except that I didn’t follow his practice of always using the cheapest components, and I omitted the ground switch, added variable outputs, and used a 125V pilot light. If I had it to do over again, I would omit the standby switch, as a noted authority has convinced me that they are worthless.

The chassis is a 20″ length of 6″ Aluminum Association channel. I machined hollows in the back to make it easier to mount things. I made the circuit boards using a table saw and drill press. I polished the chassis with an orbital sander and 220-grit sandpaper.

It still needs something to cover the bottom.

A day or two, I did the “smoke test,” firing it up to see if it worked. I kept blowing fuses, and that’s when I learned that the cases of electrolytic capacitors are electrically connected to the innards. I had the filter caps mounted so the leads touched the cases, and that caused shorting. Hey, I don’t make capacitors. How would I know?

I got that fixed, and I built a current limiter to conserve my remaining fuses, and I found that the amp was very quiet and distorted. It took two days to find out that I had put 470K resistors where I needed 470 ohms. Two were on the screen grids, and one was on the phase inverter. I also had a 250pF capacitor where I should have had a 250uF, and I had the volume pots wired so they turned backwards.

Last night I got it running, but it was too late to try it out. Today I turned it on, and I had lots of noise.

I learned a lot about grounds. I had to move a whole bunch of them. In the process, I rewired the volume pots and also the presence and EQ pots (which, I now know, were wired correctly at the time). I replaced various bits of cheap stuff with good stuff, I put a tube shield on V1, and I turned the amp on again.

Still noise.

Then I turned on my Fender Blues Jr. Guess what? It was considerably noisier. That told me I had made it. I got some great suggestions for reducing the noise further, but it’s great right now.

I played the amp using my Epiphone Riviera P93 with Lollar pickups, using a Holy Grail reverb and the following distortion pedals: Plimsoul, Blues Driver, and Fat Sandwich.

The amp is amazing. The sound is very sweet, hot, and detailed. It has lots of punch, so you get a big reward for picking louder or softer. It’s less muddy than the Blues Jrs. Apart from the residual noise, it’s the perfect amp. And the volume actually works! A lot of amps go from 0 to 10 in ten degrees of rotation. On this amp, 3 means 3! It sounds good at practice levels! I don’t need my Firefly now!

I play it through a homemade cabinet with a 12″ Weber Signature speaker (super cheap). I can’t turn it up because the speaker is rated at 25 watts, but so far, it sounds beautiful. I just received a 10″ Eminence Ragin’ Cajun, and I plan to make a cabinet for it tomorrow. That will give me 75-watt capability, so I’ll be able to fire the amp up for real (probably with ear plugs).

I never expected to be able to use this amp. I built it in order to learn. But it’s extremely useful. A keeper. The ideal blues amp.

I just wish the selector switch on the Epiphone wasn’t going out. I have to get that fixed.

I love the way the amp looks. I was going to put some kind of roll cage on it, but I don’t really need one at home, unless I plan to get drunk and sit on the amp.

Now I need a new project. The guys at my church complain that their Vox AC30 amps are too loud; they can’t crank them and get good tube sound without blowing up the church. Maybe I should make an 18-watt EL844 based amp and see if they like it.

It’s amazing how God is taking the old threads I dropped and weaving them into something meaningful. This is a blast.

God is the Same Size Everywhere

I get flak for criticizing denominations to which I don’t belong, but these days I think it’s fairly obvious that I spend a lot more time criticizing my own branch of Christianity. In that respect, I’m a lot like Jesus and John the Baptist. Jesus was probably a Pharisee, and John was the son of a priest, but they said horrendous things about the religious establishment. Does that mean we should look for opportunities to insult religious authorities? Clearly not, but it has long been understood that the right to criticize increases with the target’s proximity to the critic. Messianics tell us that as religious Jews, Jesus and John could get away with criticizing their own kind. I think that principle still applies, as long as you don’t venture into pointless or malicious gossip.

An organization with no critic is like a circuit with no negative feedback. If you feed an amplifier a signal, and there is no way to limit the amplification, you can get positive feedback which causes the amp to go way overboard, ruining its performance. Similarly, when a church has no one to stand up and say no, it will tend to wander into theological minefields and commence to dance.

The prophets were critics. I can’t think of a single Old Testament prophet whom God raised up to tell the Jews they were doing a good job. Yet our modern charismatic churches preach that anyone who says anything “negative” (they don’t use the term “constructive criticism” much) is sowing discord and gossiping and so on. It’s true, some people do gossip in a malicious way. I know someone who calls my pastor “Judas”, and I’ve been told that another local pastor with a radio show calls him a “white plantation owner” because he runs a church which is mostly black. That’s all gossip and slander. But what if you go to John Hagee’s church, and you notice that he teaches that we shouldn’t evangelize the Jews? I know that makes Jews happy, but we’re not Jews! We should be up in arms. And we’re not. Mainly because John Hagee collects tons of money and has a TV show (we believe all rich televangelists are blessed and super-holy), but also because we don’t want “discord.”

Don’t even get me started on the pastors who claim we can command or “release” angels. Even Jesus did not presume to do that. He said he could call out to Jehovah and have a huge number of angels sent to help him; he didn’t say he would command the angels personally. The Bible tells us very clearly that dealing with angels is dangerous. Scripture vilifies those who worship “the host of heaven.” It says some angels fornicated with women and raised up a race of giants. Jesus told us to ask the Father for things; he never told us to ask angels. In fact, an angel offered to serve Jesus and allow him to fix the world’s problems as its ruler. That angel was Satan, and Jesus told him to get lost. The Bible contains no examples of godly people who told angels what to do, yet suddenly some pastors think it’s a good idea.

Essentially, they are telling us to practice voodoo. In voodoo, you try to command the souls of dead people, and you pray to strange “saints.” In reality, these beings are either imaginary or just evil spirits. A spirit who serves God–we call them “angels,” but not all are angels–is not going to listen to an order that comes from outside the chain of command. So if any spirit listens, it has to be a rebel spirit. If you’re a Christian, and you try to tell angels what to do, you are no different from a santero or voodoo priest. This is obvious to anyone who has read the Bible and who has a basic familiarity with spirit worship, yet now this garbage is pouring out of our pulpits.

Charismatic churches have endemic faults, and one such fault is a tendency to create personality cults. We claim to worship God, but in reality, we exalt teachers and pastors and musicians, as though they were somehow more holy than the rest of us. We even pamper them at the expense of our families and the poor. When they do revolting things, we say, “Judge not!”, as though Jesus had issued a blanket prohibition on speaking about other people’s sins. Paul told us to correct people, and he said that if they refused to change, we should denounce them before our entire churches. Was he wrong? If so, who has the authority to take a blue pencil and delete his errors from the New Testament? If such a person exists, I haven’t met him yet.

Every pastor has sins and iniquities, and it’s wrong to shun a man of God merely because he does something wrong. But what if his iniquities endanger his flock, and he has no remorse and no intention to change? If I found out my pastor spent some nights looking at porn or drinking himself silly, I would be concerned about him, but if I knew he didn’t defend his behavior, and that he was working to overcome it, I would still be on his side. But what if he said what he did was okay? What if he fired another pastor who was in exactly the same boat? What if he invested in a strip club? What if he twisted doctrine and claimed he had proof that the things he was doing were not sinful? A guy like that needs to be exposed and removed. End of discussion.

Self-righteous criticism is a sin. Malicious or vengeful criticism is a sin. But exposing a bullheaded person who is leading others into a pit is not sin. It is something we are obligated to do, according to scripture. When a religious leader’s errors get sufficiently grave, and I have to balance loyalty to man against loyalty to God, God is going to have to come first.

I don’t look to cause trouble, but I am never going to let a friend walk into a trap without saying something. If that means I get asked to leave a church, it means absolutely nothing to me. I pay to go to church; they don’t pay me. I serve the church. It doesn’t serve me. I’ll take my power to bless somewhere else, and I’ll still be blessed. Like Jesus said: “Shake off the dust under your feet for a testimony against them.” He never said, “Hang around and be abused and mocked and taught false doctrine until you die.”

I know a few famous preachers I truly admire and listen to without hesitation. On the other hand, preachers disappoint me all the time. The main things that offend me are ingratitude and arrogance. I don’t like a preacher who feels entitled; as though he’s a rock star. People like this are “stiff necked” in Biblical terms. They are like clay bottles which are already fired and can’t be altered by the potter’s hands.

I know about a preacher who was invited to preach at a major event. Somehow, he got separated from a piece of clothing he wanted to wear on stage. It turned out he always wore this type of clothing. What would you do? I’d wear something else. Seriously, are we superheroes now? Do we have to have costumes?

Volunteers at the event had to find and buy a replacement garment. That shocked me when I heard about it. It’s like something that would happen at a Jennifer Lopez concert. “Make sure all the bottles of Evian in the green room are turned so the caps face southwest.” It reminds me of Hillary Clinton’s famous rule that no one in the White House was allowed to make eye contact with her.

How can this happen? It’s not like this guy was wrong about a minor point of doctrine. He was very obviously way out of line. And he was allowed to preach and receive money! Man, that’s creepy. I don’t want my offerings going to a person like that. I don’t want to hear what he has to say, because “of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”

I’ve seen arrogant preachers. I’ve seen greedy preachers. I’ve seen preachers who were obsessed with naming the utterly ungodly celebrities they knew. I’ve seen many preachers whose messages were defensive propaganda intended to keep people from leaving bad churches and cutting off their tithes. The fact is, many of the people who make it to the stage are not great servants of God. They’re just ambitious and desperate for attention and admiration. We don’t know who the real servants are. At judgment, we’ll find out, and I guarantee you, there will be a lot of big-name clergymen and megachurch pastors who get humiliated, while obscure people who sat in the backs of their churches receive praise. Now that I think about it, maybe we do these clergymen a disservice by failing to speak up when they blow it.

When a church cuts off the right to question and exalts a mere man, it becomes a cult. God is utterly humble; you can say absolutely anything to him if your heart is right. Somehow, we’re supposed to give men more honor and deference than that. Does that make sense to you? The Bible says, “Though the Lord be high, yet hath he respect unto the lowly, but the proud he knoweth afar off.” It says, “Him that hath an high look and a proud heart will I not I suffer.” It says, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace unto the humble.” God actually fights the proud. And remember, “grace” means power, not mercy. If you’re humble, God will give you power. Real power. Not just a sweet gig running a megachurch.

Some people teach that Satan broke the church into denominations. The more I think about it, the more I think Jesus did it. He wanted us to be in unity, but he also wanted us to listen to the Holy Spirit. When a church hardens its heart against the Spirit, it becomes part of the natural world, and Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world.” Maybe he reluctantly inspires people to leave and form new, healthy churches.

Maybe the story of the Tower of Babel symbolizes the church. In that story, man used his own limited brainpower to create an astrological observatory intended to give us control over our fate. Man didn’t listen to the Holy Spirit or choose to walk by faith; he chose to bypass God’s plan and do it on his own. In response, God divided man with different languages. Churches that cast out the Holy Spirit work the same way. They think they can improve the universe by doing what seems good to them, and they ignore the Holy Spirit. So maybe God responds by dividing them into new denominations where reform can persist for a while.

We are now being reunified by a common language: the language of tongues. The Tower of Babel story is proceeding in reverse in some charismatic churches. The Holy Spirit, not some central church body run by homosexuals and bureaucrats, is knitting the dry bones back together.

I utterly reject the policy of speaking mindless positivity at all times. I think serious, concentrated prayer is always the first step when a man of God screws up, but after a while, you may have to open your mouth, and you may have to leave. That’s not you being a bad Christian. That’s you getting free of a sick environment and absolving yourself of your share of the collective guilt.

If I ever get in trouble for speaking the truth, so be it. Any church I go to will get more from me than it will give me, so I don’t think I will ever leave a church in bad odor with God, and it’s not like I’ll lose any earthly blessings. I’m not like a person who depends on the church to provide me with a job that far exceeds what my competence merits. Worst case scenario: I get to spend more time doing things for myself and my family. I can serve God and bask in his presence in a cave in the desert. It’s good to go to church, and you should try to put yourself among believers, but my real church is any space I occupy. If ever end up without a church, it will be temporary, and God will go right on taking care of me.

I hope the charismatic churches get it together. Otherwise, we will be the obsolete churches of the 21st century, making rude gestures from the platform while the train pulls out without us.

Man’s Castles are God’s Anthills

Today I got a great Retweet from John Bevere. His son Addison is entering the ministry. Addison said this: “Sophistry is born when the wisdom of man attempts to define the wonder of God. True religion is marked by faith!”

Amen. If brains were what mattered, we would all be taking our cues from Jews. Christian religious scholarship is not very good, although it’s certainly better than the childish stuff we hear from Muslims. Jewish scholarship is on a much higher level. Nonetheless, we believe our way is correct. The reason is that our faith, power, and virtue are imparted to us supernaturally, not through effort or study. A Christian who isn’t bright at all can be a powerful teacher as long as he allows the Holy Spirit to speak through him, but many of our ancient, revered authorities, though learned, were completely wrong about major issues. That’s a nice way of saying they made things up.

Sometimes people tell me I need to read this or that moldy old book, in order to understand God. Meanwhile, God manifests himself to me every day and does wonders in my life. It’s like being in Paris and getting a phone call from a travel agent in Des Moines, offering to send me a pamphlet.

It reminds me of a line in the movie Patton. The general had just captured Palermo, and a Lieutenant Colonel named Codman told him General Alexander had ordered him not to take the city. Patton said, “Send him a message, Cod. Ask him if he wants me to give it back.”

Before tomes and treatises existed, what did people do? They dealt directly with God. I doubt he shut them out because they didn’t have degrees. Where did Adam go to college? What about Moses? Actually, I suppose Moses would have learned a lot of useless garbage from Egyptian tutors. But we know God spoke directly to him, as did the angels. Many modern Christians would have told him he was doing it wrong. “Tell those angels to get lost; we have to go study God.”

One of the great things about Christianity is that you don’t have to be smart to do it well. Jesus used fishermen to spread his word. You don’t have to be a scholar. Isaiah predicted this in what would later be known as his 35th chapter:

1The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.

2 It shall blossom abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and singing: the glory of Lebanon shall be given unto it, the excellency of Carmel and Sharon, they shall see the glory of the Lord, and the excellency of our God.

3 Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees.

4 Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, even God with a recompence; he will come and save you.

5 Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.

6 Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing: for in the wilderness shall waters break out, and streams in the desert.

7 And the parched ground shall become a pool, and the thirsty land springs of water: in the habitation of dragons, where each lay, shall be grass with reeds and rushes.

8 And an highway shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those: the wayfaring men, though fools, shall not err therein.

9 No lion shall be there, nor any ravenous beast shall go up thereon, it shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there:

10 And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.

Whatever the literal meaning of this passage may be (people obsessed with reason will get lost there), it also refers to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who guides and strengthens and changes us. This world is a desert, and the Holy Spirit is like GPS (or a pillar of fire), leading us through it. It’s as though there is a highway before us, and he keeps us on it, even if we are fools. That’s what the Hebrew says, even if some translations change it to say fools will not walk on it.

The Bible is a strong authority. Things that came after it? Not so much. Jesus himself condemned them. In the book of Mark, he said, “Howbeit in vain do they worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men. For laying aside the commandment of God, ye hold the tradition of men, as the washing of pots and cups: and many other such like things ye do.”

We have a lot of nutty ideas working their way into the charismatic churches now. A famous TV preacher has people convinced they can command the angels. Which is true. If they practice voodoo. Otherwise, no. Jesus himself said he would ask the Father to send angels, showing he recognized heaven’s command structure. The Bible calls Jehovah “the God of armies,” referring to the spirit beings he commands. When men start talking to mere spirits, they get in trouble, as Adam could tell you.

If you’re a Christian, you have to compare everything to the highest authority you have, and scripture outranks the rantings of publicity-hungry preachers who are eager to come up with the next big supernatural craze. It also outranks the Talmud and the early church scholars.

The book of 1 John says. “But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.” Either John was right, or he was a liar, and his whole book should be banned. I think he was right. I think the Holy Spirit teaches me, better than any man could, and I think it’s a good idea to discard crusty doctrines that don’t jibe with scripture. If that’s controversial, so is the Bible.

But then the veracity of the Bible is always controversial, especially in the church. “Oh, it doesn’t really MEAN that…”

I’ve also noticed that people from the older churches have a real problem tolerating other denominations. You can go into a room full of Baptists and criticize Billy Graham and escape with no damage beyond a few dirty looks, but if you even hint that Catholic doctrine is wrong, you can encounter some serious hostility, and if you do it in a bar, you may get a beating. I’ve had close Catholic friends who instantly turned hostile at the mention of the possibility that other denominations might be right. It’s like the Mormons; there are some things you can’t discuss with them.

I agree with what Addison Bevere says. Wonderful bit of wisdom.