GunBroker Exceeds Admittedly Low Expectations

I’m out of control. Third blog post today.

I picked up my new old Colt Woodsman pistol, which I found on Gunbroker. If you know anything about buying guns, you know Gunbroker’s reputation is not that great. There are a lot of overpriced things there, listed by opportunists. Nonetheless, if you watch and wait, you can do very well. I bought a brand-new AR10 for something like $200 below typical retail, and I got a very nice price on the Woodsman.

People are listing fairly nice Woodsmans for between 900 and 1000 dollars. If you go check Cabela’s Gun Library, you won’t find anything really nice for less. I paid $750.

When I saw my gun at the pawn shop, I almost wondered if they had sent the wrong pistol. It was so nice, I had to look at the breech to see if it had been fired.

It’s not perfect. The handles aren’t in mint condition, and there are one or two tiny (I mean tiny) areas where the bluing has been nicked. There is a trace of holster wear on the end of the barrel. That’s about it. For the most part, it looks new.

I was looking forward to picking it up, but I didn’t expect it to be this exciting. It always bothered me that someone stole my grandfather’s Woodsman (and his High Standard .22 semiauto pistol) without giving me a fair chance at it. Now I have a much nicer gun, and I didn’t get cheated on price.

As Jesus said, life doesn’t consist on the amount of possessions you have. Physical items aren’t that important. Nonetheless, I feel as though God made a kind gesture in helping me find this pistol.

I’ll post a photo, but it won’t do the gun justice. It can’t capture the near-mint look of the thing, and it can’t make you understand how elegant the design is. I love my S&W Victory .22, but it seems to weigh twice what this one does. John Moses Browning, who also designed the 1911 pistol and a bunch of other renowned firearms, knew how to make a gun light and pleasant to hold.

The pistol is so nice, I am reluctant to shoot it. I don’t want to get powder residue on it! But that’s silly. Firearms were made to be used.

I had thoughts about getting a holster. Not so sure now. A holster will rub against the bluing on the muzzle!

Biggest Effect here: Empty Shelves at Harbor Freight

I decided to check the coronavirus situation before going out to cut trees. As you know if you read this blog regularly, I have expressed what could be called extreme skepticism regarding the impending extinction-level pandemic, as well as my amazement at the seeming ineptitude of the officials and medical people predicting a plague. Today, I see nothing that could change my mind.

To have an epidemic that compares numerically to a typical American flu season, China needs 1.5 million new COVID-19 cases PER DAY. When I checked yesterday, the global total–not just China–was increasing at a rate of about 5,000 per day. Today, there are about 5,000 more cases than yesterday. Nothing has changed.

I am still wondering how the medical establishment can be so wrong. Is it really possible for a guy who blogs from his couch, using fourth-grade math, to be right when doctors all over the world are wrong to the point of absurdity?

Sure looks like it. Maybe I will have to eat my words later, topped with Robitussin, but so far, my prediction looks solid, and theirs look insane.

Maybe I should not doubt myself. I’ve been right when I said the TV heads who predicted severe hurricane destruction at my locations were totally wrong. I was right when I told people home prices could not increase by 20% every year, forever. On the other hand, I was wrong when I said Obama’s economy would tank. I still can’t figure that out.

I was also wrong about Ebola, which looked pretty bad when it was starting to break out of Africa. Apparently, the African response, not the disease, was responsible for most of the transmission and lethality. I should have known. In Africa, people go blind needlessly because they don’t wash their hands and faces, so it’s not surprising that ebola patients would die in large numbers.

Every time I post things like this, I think about the bizarre mindset many people have toward misfortune. I can understand people who disagree when I say dire predictions are wrong. What I don’t understand is why so many people get angry with me. There is something seriously, deeply wrong with you if optimism makes you angry and worry makes you feel righteous.

Women are much more prone to this syndrome than men. My mother had three sisters, and they and their mother all savored talk of misfortune and suffering. They were not unusual at all. I think this is one reason why men are so much happier and less given to mental illness than women. It makes me wonder if the feminization of men is going to make men less happy. I dread the thought of large numbers of old queens sitting around, speaking almost longingly about things like cancer and infidelity.

It’s not fashionable to say women are more likely to be mentally ill than men, but it’s a fact borne out by statistics. I suppose it has something to do with the modern male’s failure to get God’s protection for his wife and daughters.

Worry and unbelief are sin. People forget that, and somehow, like pride, worry has been turned into a virtue.

Worry is a type of faith. It’s faith in Satan. Faith brings results. Something to think about.

FYI, T.B. Joshua, the African preacher I’ve been watching lately, says God has washed the epidemic away. He says God showed him this. If it ramps back up and billions die, we will know we shouldn’t pay any attention to Joshua!

I’m tripling down on my rosy forecast. I’ll keep following up on it, unless I turn out to be wrong, in which case I’ll delete all these posts and claim I expected a pandemic all along.

In other news, my new welding helmet and some gun stuff should be arriving today, so I should be able to repair my Desert Eagle and finish off my dry saw stand. I decided to turn my dining room into a mini-workshop/gun room, so I’m selling my mother’s gigantic china credenza to make room. A heterosexual male with no wife has no earthly use for a china cabinet.

Do I feel bad about selling an heirloom? A little, but this thing is 7 feet long and probably weighs 200 pounds, and I keep my mom’s china, which I will never use, in boxes in a storage room. Also, if I move to Tennessee, I will have to go through the misery of dealing with a giant piece of furniture I don’t like.

The other day I was talking with my friend Mike about all the things I’m putting on wheels in my workshop. He confirmed something I suspected. He said God was making it easier for me to move things to Tennessee.

The credenza is not a great heirloom. My mother knew an old lady in Miami who sold estate goods, and she bought the credenza from her. To me, the credenza shouts, “MIAMI! MIAMI! MIAMI!,” which is as comforting as, “FECES! VOMIT! INFECTED PAPER CUTS!”, and it also shouts, “YOUR DAD NEVER BOUGHT NICE FURNITURE FOR YOUR MOM! SHE NEVER GOT WHAT SHE WANTED IN LIFE!” She paid for the used credenza herself, but my dad bought expensive Scandinavian furniture for the girlfriend he lived with while he and my mother were divorced.

I have never used the dining room for anything but storage. My kitchen is so big I can have two dining tables in it, so the formal dining room is superfluous.

A consignment shop will pick the credenza up in a couple of weeks, unless I can sell it myself before they show up. Can’t wait to see it go.

I’ve learned something about selling junk. If you want a good price, you will probably have to hold onto it for a year. If you want it gone in a reasonable amount of time, you can expect to get about half of what it’s worth. I am okay with that. I have accepted it.

I think I’ll shove the credenza out of the way and move my indoor tool benches downstairs. I already raised the dining room chandelier so it won’t hit people in the head.

A single man is like a superhero. We can do stuff other men simply can’t do.

Time to saw some trees. I hope ethanol doesn’t thwart me.

New Colt Headed for the Barn

The news here is pretty bright.

First, I found myself a good deal on a beautiful Colt Woodsman.

Leftists like to say people who like guns like them because they’re racist or because they have problems with their genitals. These are amazing claims, given that guns have no race and that a gun makes a pretty poor substitute for sexual organs. Gun control, on the other hand, has racist roots. In America, gun control got much of its impetus in the post-Civil-War south, where authorities tried to prevent blacks from owning guns. We also saw race-based gun laws in the 20th century; the famous “Saturday Night Special” laws were aimed at blacks, who were less likely to be able to afford good firearms. In Nazi Germany, Hitler used gun control to subdue the citizenry and prevent them from defending themselves against tyranny. One of his gun laws has been used as a pattern for American gun control laws.

Anyway, I like guns mainly because they remind me of the best parts of my miserable childhood. My family was dysfunctional. My dad drank. He was verbally and physically abusive. He used to hit my mother. My sister and I were always unhappy. My mother’s parents lived in Kentucky, and I spent a lot of time with them. They had a beautiful house with 4 bedrooms. My grandfather had lots of guns, and we used to shoot together. I had access to his guns, and I could use them when I wanted.

I was his favorite grandchild. Some of my relatives would explode if they read that, but it’s true. I was the third oldest. My older sister was popular when she was very young, but after that, her star waned due to her unpleasant personality and her cruelty. I had a male cousin who was born on the same day as my sister, and he was a perfectly nice kid, but somehow, he and Gramps didn’t connect. I had a male cousin who was a year younger, and he was a terror. He was the only grandchild my grandfather ever spanked.

There were four younger grandchildren, and my grandfather loved them, but I was different. I was the one he threw in the truck when he wanted to go putter around on his farms. He bought two ponies for his grandkids, and he told my mother it was worth it as long as he got to see me ride once. I wish I had known how he felt, because I didn’t particularly like horses.

For the most part, I shot two guns with him. One was a cheesy 9-shot .22 revolver with an aluminum frame, and the other was a 3rd generation Colt Woodsman. I shot very well, which is strange, considering my age at the time. Maybe this is one of the reasons he favored me.

When you shoot a lot, you want someone to shoot with. Helping kids (or adults) shoot can be fun, but it can also be a pain in the butt. If their attitudes are bad, if they’re frivolous, if they’re whiny, if they refuse to listen, if they seem to be incurably helpless, it’s a real drag. I was not helpless. You could put a gun in my hand and watch me hit stuff with it.

When he died, I made a list of his guns and handed it over to the family. He had a Marlin lever action, a Remington 12 gauge, a Sweet Sixteen, two Smith & Wesson .357 Magnums, a commemorative Colt 1911, a .22 rifle, two small Smith & Wesson pocket revolvers, an M1 carbine pistol, and some other things, including the Woodsman. The guns stayed in his house until my grandmother died years later. When it came time to ask the lawyers for the guns we wanted, the Woodsman was gone, along with a lot of other things. No one ever offered an explanation. Someone stole the guns.

Was it a relative? Was it the lawyers? Was it the lady who cleaned my grandparents’ house? No idea. In the end, I got the aluminum .22, my grandfather’s father’s flintlock shotgun, and I Sweet Sixteen, which already belonged to my dad. My grandmother gave it to him before she died, so it was never part of either estate. Nobody else wanted the aluminum revolver or the shotgun.

In practical terms, I got just about nothing. The revolver and the flintlock were junk, and my dad owned the Sweet Sixteen. I didn’t get it until he died, 16 years after my grandmother.

Whoever took the Woodsman forgot the owner’s manual, which I now have. It would be a nice thing for that person to have, but they will never get it, because in order to get it, they have to confess.

It’s kind of sad that I didn’t get some guns. I’m the best shot in the family, and while I have one cousin who hunts, I know a lot more about firearms. My grandfather would have wanted me to have at least one decent pistol or rifle.

Some person got a whole bunch of guns. Two big revolvers, two small ones, the carbine, the 12 gauge, the .22 rifle…lots of things. I know what happened to the 1911. It went to my cousin, because his dad bought it for my grandfather. That was the right outcome, although I didn’t get the big Frederick Remington sculpture my mother went out and got for my grandfather.

Two people have told me that my grandmother’s father had a gold watch, and that my grandmother said it was to go to me. They say my aunt gave it to my cousin. I don’t know if that’s true. Some day I’ll ask. I don’t expect to get the watch, but it would be informative to see what she says.

For a long time, I wanted another Woodsman. It would not be the same as having the one I used to shoot in Kentucky, but it would still be a nice reminder. Yesterday, I found a very good deal online. I found a gun in better shape than my grandfather’s, and I jumped on it. It should be here in a few days.

Online gun sites get a lot of criticism, because a lot of the sellers are profiteers. Nonetheless, if you search and wait, sometimes you’ll get surprising deals. It has happened to me. People were trying to get a thousand dollars or more for a good Woodsman, and I paid a lot less.

They say living well is the best revenge, and that is particularly true for God’s children. People rob us all the time, and we’re not able to scrap with them the way other people are, so we lose things. God compensates us, and when he does, he gives us more than we lost. I may never see my grandfather’s pistol again, but God has been very generous and merciful with me, so if I feel like it, I can buy a bunch of pistols and rifles. Maybe I’ll start collecting Woodsmans. I could buy some that are much nicer than the one that was stolen.

You know what they say: God bless the child who’s got his own. I don’t have my grandfather’s gun, but when I look at the one I got, I will still think of him, and I’ll know I didn’t have to extend myself to get it. No one else will ever have a claim on it or any of the other guns I got myself.

In celebration, I decided to get some steel gongs. These are handy for people who like to shoot quickly and are not interested in precision. I’m going to hang them in the pasture by the berm. I got two round gongs, a hog-shaped gong, and another gong shaped like a squirrel.

I don’t know how my grandfather would feel about gongs. He was an exceptional shot. My father saw him shoot a grouse out of a tree with a rifled slug at 50 yards, without shouldering the gun. He also said my grandfather was the best wing shot he ever saw.

I don’t know what you’re supposed to do with a grouse that has been rearranged by a 12 gauge slug.

I like gongs, though. Sometimes you just want to relax. Besides, they’re good for rapid-fire practice, which is important for self-defense.

Second thing…new welding helmet.

I started welding with a helmet from Harbor Freight, which a reader recommended. I have no major problems with these helmets. I paid $40, and I didn’t even have to buy a battery. The helmet was powered by the light from the welding arc. It worked fine.

As time passed, I found I wanted a helmet with a bigger viewing area, so I bought a Hobart Hood when they were on sale at Northern Tool. This helmet has batteries. It’s not a cheap helmet, and it works pretty well.

As I got older, I found I wanted to weld better, and I got frustrated with the difficulty of seeing the weld puddle using the Hobart helmet. I Googled around, and I learned that I was using second-tier equipment. Expensive helmets give a better view. In particular, I learned that Lincoln Electric’s 3350 series helmets with 4C technology were much, much better than what I was using. My Hobart turns everything green, and it’s hard to see what I’m doing. Lincoln helmets don’t distort color as much, they’re much clearer, and you can turn the shade down as low as 5.

Last week, I ordered a Lincoln. I look forward to it. I have some welding jobs I’m keeping on hold until it arrives.

It should be a big blessing. I’ve improved my ability to see my work using bright lights and vitamin A, but based on what I’ve seen on the web, the Lincoln should take me to another level. It also has an external button to shut off the shade so I can wear the helmet while grinding metal. With the Hobart, I have to remove the helmet and use a face shield.

Now I’ll have three helmets. I can lend the Hobart to guests. Maybe I can do the same thing with the Harbor Freight helmet, if I can get it to work. The batteries eventually give out, and you can’t replace them without cutting the helmet up.

I have to hit Lowe’s and get some stuff to hang gongs. I’m planning to use garden crooks. I have a scheme for hanging the gongs so they tilt forward and direct bullet fragments toward the ground. It should work. I may use 1″ by 1/8″ steel bar to make straps for hanging the gongs. It won’t move around like chain or rope.

Flat bar is phenomenally useful.

I’m considering getting a couple of small semiauto pistols, just for fun. I found a pretty good deal on a Colt Model 1903 in .32 ACP with a nickel finish. I’m thinking I should put pimptastic pearl grips on it. Neat little gun. The one I’m looking at was made in 1911. I’m also thinking about buying a stainless Colt Mustang Plus II in .380 and using my buffer to give it a mirror finish.

I’m not in love with the calibers, but they would be fun projects and shooters.

A long time ago, I wrote about my desire to fix up a stainless gun I had, and someone who knew absolutely nothing informed me that polishing guns was highly skilled labor performed by people with years of training. It didn’t occur to me to check out this patently ridiculous claim. Since then, I’ve learned that putting a mirror finish on a brushed or satin stainless gun is so easy, you can do it with paper towels while sitting on your couch. I have a magnificent Baldor buffer, so for me, it will be even easier.

I don’t know why people say crazy, seemingly authoritative things about subjects they know nothing about.

One of the big problems with seeking advice on the Internet is that you will generally hear from ignoramuses who will assure you that you can’t do what you plan to do. It has happened to me over and over. The fact that someone else lacks ability doesn’t mean you or I do. The fact that someone else fails at simple tasks doesn’t mean you will.

I had a professional restaurant manager tell me I couldn’t make French fries in beef fat. What if I had listened? He could not have been more wrong. McDonald’s used to use pure beef fat, back when their fries were actually good. I was told I couldn’t use a TV as a computer monitor. I did it anyway, starting in about 2007, and it has been fantastic. People said putting a pistol in a pocket holster was stupid. Wrong. It’s way better than a belt holster or one of those ridiculous things people jam in their pants. Someone told me it was impossible to shoot a 12 gauge shotgun well from the hip. Wrong. Never let someone discourage you without looking into the facts.

I remember deciding I wanted to put a green laser on an assault rifle with a folding stock. My plan was to shoot from the hip. This provides huge advantages at indoor distances. People said I was nuts. I did it anyway. It works great, and I didn’t have to get an SBR stamp.

Point-shooting gives you an enormous advantage over people who use sights. Former SEAL Team 6 leader Richard Marcinko agrees with me. He obtained tremendous amounts of ammunition for his men, and he had them train without sights. When you shoot with sights, you’re lucky if you can get three shots off in two seconds. Without sights, you can shoot 10 rounds during that time. Believe me; unless you’re hopeless, you’re going to hit something.

I remember going on a church shooting outing. I showed a young man how to shoot a Glock. I talked to him about the sight picture. He didn’t listen. He held the gun out in front of him like a TV cop and blasted away from 7 yards. His shots went into an area about 6″ in diameter. Break into that kid’s house, and you are going to DIE. No two ways about it. He was right, and I was wrong.

We tend to train by squeezing shots off slowly, while trying our best to maintain 1″ groups. Try that with a burglar in your house. Seriously. Good luck.

An untrained burglar will empty 18 rounds from his stolen sideways gun while you’re playing around with your sight picture. Even an idiot can hit you 1/18 of the time without aiming.

Maybe we need to give up ideas we came up with when pistols only held 5 rounds.

Why do people say “revolvers and pistols”? A revolver IS a pistol. Dictionaries don’t lie. Much.

I’m on a tangent.

I have to go buy a gunsmith’s bench block so I can fix my Desert Eagle. Maybe while I’m at the store, I’ll check out a Glock 20.

I will definitely put up photos when I shoot the Woodsman.

The Floor is not for Storage

Today is a big day. I’ve been organizing my gun stuff.

When you have one gun, organization is pretty simple. You put the gun in your pocket or your nightstand, and you put the ammunition in a drawer along with a simple cleaning kit. When you have a fair number of guns, it’s different. I suppose I have 6 different types of .22 ammunition. I have at least two types of .17 HMR ammunition. I have multiple versions of ammunition for a bunch of calibers. I have brass, bullets, primers, and powder for a bunch of calibers. My cleaning kit is pretty big, and I have a separate box of chemicals and Boresnakes. Then there are my targets, gadgets, parts, and papers.

It’s a mess.

Speaking of targets, I made a practice of buying Caldwell Orange Peel second-quality targets whenever they turned up for sale, so I have a pretty decent supply on hand. In retrospect, this wasn’t the best move I could have made.

I bought 8″ circular targets with white circular grids on them. I don’t need an 8″ target most of the time. For me, a 4″ target will usually do the job. For a pistol at 60 feet, a 6″ target would be fine. By buying 8″ targets, I risked wasting a lot of paper.

I learned I could economize by shooting at several different places on each target. By doing this, you can turn each target into at least 5 targets.

My system works, but I have started buying targets with 4 4-inch bullseyes on them. It’s somewhat more elegant, and it still saves money.

Today I located all the boxes I could find which had gun-related things in them. I still have a bunch of boxes I haven’t unpacked since leaving Miami. There are things I just don’t need to have unpacked, so for the most part, leaving the boxes as they are makes sense. Today I dug into the boxes that actually needed to be emptied and organized. I found Russian sniper ammo, loose pistol shells, owner’s manuals, bits of a chronograph, a green laser, and plenty of other things.

I rooted around online, trying to come up with a way to store these things. I can use little cardboard boxes, but cardboard falls apart eventually, and certain bugs like to live in it. I finalled decided to try transparent plastic boxes from Home Depot. They cost a little over a dollar each, and each box will hold a good deal of ammunition.

This left me with papers to deal with. My solution is a see-through file box from Office Depot. It will give me a place to put all my manuals. The ones I still have, I mean.

Gun cleaning items…I still have no solution. I have a wheeled toolbox I used to use for range trips when I was a land-deprived surburbanite who could not shoot in his own yard. Maybe I can throw everything in that.

A lot of people use steel ammo boxes for ammo storage. They cost a lot, they’re heavy, and they’re too big for most of my calibers. I would rather spend $20 than $200.

I got my Desert Eagle out and shot it this weekend. It was a Chinese fire drill. About half of the shells refused to extract, and the rest hit me in the face, leaving cuts and bruises.

I think this demonstrates a fundamental difference between men and women. With the possible exception of ballet, there is no hobby women will take up which causes them to be injured repeatedly. Only a man will continue firing a gun that flings hot shells into his forehead. Women can’t enjoy that kind of thing.

I did what I usually do when I have a problem. My first response should be prayer, but I tend to go to Google first. I learned some things about the Desert Eagle.

First, it has a terrible extractor spring. It’s not even a real spring. It’s a tiny red piece of “polymer” (plastic to you and me) that sits under the extractor. It looks like a miniature Jujube. Magnum Research sold thousands of these guns and didn’t tell buyers the Jujubes fell apart upon being exposed to oil and solvents.

Good thing no one ever puts oils or solvents on firearms!

My extractor Jujube is apparently dead. I have not opened the bolt up completely, but there is no tension at all on the extractor, which is the reason I still have some skin on my forehead. I ordered two new extractor springs, and I also ordered an AR15 spring. I read that AR15 springs, which are steel, fit the Desert Eagle just fine.

Second thing I learned: the Desert Eagle has an adjustable trigger.

Did this thing come with a manual? If so, I should punch myself for not reading it.

Or I could just hold the Desert Eagle in front of me and fire a shot.

I have always criticized the Desert Eagle’s trigger. It felt like I was trying to close rusty scissors on a piece of sandpaper. When I found out there was a simple screw for trigger adjustment, I adjusted the trigger, and now it seems almost pleasant. Wish I had known about this sooner.

I can’t shoot the gun until my springs get here. I hope it functions.

Magnum Research always blamed the end user for being battered with shells. They said it was caused by “limp-wristing,” which means holding the gun like Barack Obama. Not so. I held it very firmly yesterday and still got pummeled. I’m wondering if the extractor problem could have had anything to do with it.

I plan to keep researching the problem. There may be some way to fix the gun so I don’t have to wear a face shield.

I’m not impressed with the gun’s engineering. I have some pretty old guns, and they work just fine. I don’t have to open them up and insert new plastic Jujubes every hundred rounds. Running properly for many years without repairs is normal. You can make excuses for Magnum Research, but the truth is, they blew it.

Why haven’t I been shooting the gun over the years? Simple. The rounds cost me a dollar each. The other day, I started to feel bad about owning a beautiful firearm I did not use, so I looked around online for ammo. While the mainstream stuff has increased to maybe $1.35 per round, a reputable company called Precision One makes it considerably cheaper, so that’s what I ordered. It’s probably great ammunition when you shoot it in a firearm that works.

I have dies for .50 AE, so I am looking into reloading. It appears that there are two types of bullets: the 80¢ kind and the 32¢ kind. There is no point in reloading using 80¢ bullets. It would cost as much as factory ammo. A company called Berry’s makes the cheaper bullets. I may pick some up when the box I ordered runs dry.

If I can get my shooting stuff organized, maybe there is hope for the rest of my possessions. I am still working on the workshop. I’m about to put my dry saw on wheels. That will help. Things are already much better than they were a month ago.

Right now, there are a bunch of piles of ammunition, parts, and so on littering my floor. I’m happy about it, though, because it’s the beginning of the end of a tiresome problem.

I’m going to try to shoot more. I’m thinking of buying a couple of steel gongs.

When I finish fabricating the saw stand, I’ll post photos. I think it will be amazing, especially to people familiar with the dubious quality of most of my metal work.

The Best Tools Come From God

I watch a lot of Youtube stuff, as readers of this blog know. The two most important types of videos for me are religious and educational. Sometimes I wonder if it’s a good idea to watch a lot of the educational material, simply because the people who post it generally have a worldly mindset. God hasn’t told me to stop, however. You have to have a certain amount of exposure to the worldly if you’re going to live on this planet.

This week I started watching videos from a guy named Jocko Willink. I don’t know if Jocko is his real first name. He’s a former Navy SEAL. He’s a very impressive guy. Anyone who makes it through SEAL training and then does 20 years is impressive, even though the British SAS is supposedly the world’s best special operations organization. He is very muscular. He speaks with great confidence. He knows a lot about working with people. He has done a lot with his life. SEAL’s don’t make much money in exchange for giving us so much, but he has turned having been a SEAL into what looks like a good business. He sells Jocko shirts and even Jocko tea.

That being said, sometimes his videos get on my nerves.

Today I heard him talk about cursing. He said the SEAL’s use language so filthy it goes way beyond even normal Navy standards. He’s pushing 50, but he said that when he finds himself in that kind of crowd, he reverts to cursing. As far as I can tell, he doesn’t see much wrong with it, and he believes that sometimes it’s a valid means of enhancing communication.

That’s a bothersome thing to hear from a man that age. I used to be proud of my ability to use defiling speech, and over time, I’ve come to understand that there is no good excuse for it. Also, it meant I was proud of injuring and hindering myself.

We curse for a lot of bad reasons.

Many of us take up cursing because we want to sound grown up. The irony is obvious. It’s like smoking in order to look grown up. Refinement and sophistication are essential parts of maturity. When old people curse, it shows they haven’t developed properly. Somewhere in the process, they failed to receive an important message which is right up there with, “Don’t use your pants for a toilet.” Bad language is the province of the trashy, the unintelligent, the ignorant, the cruel, the insecure, and the undisciplined. When you give in to it, it’s as though you’re asking God to help you not to grow up.

We often curse to curry favor with others. We want to show we’re part of the club. We want them to know that no matter how old we are or how serious we are about God, we haven’t forgotten our ape-like roots. It’s a way of keeping one foot in the world and the other in heaven. It’s counterproductive. It holds you back.

Cursing defiles us and encourages spirits to come in and rule us. It reveals that our hearts haven’t been cleaned thoroughly and that we are still vulnerable to supernatural corruption. Jesus said that which comes out of a man defiles him. The filthy things you say can bring curses to you, including psychological problems, diseases, and failure in the things you do.

SEAL’s are interesting people. We tend to ascribe godlike status to them. We think every SEAL is, basically, a Steven Seagal character or a Jason Bourne clone. Movie characters are not real. There has never been a human being who compared, even remotely, to Steven Seagal’s imaginary alter egos or Jason Bourne. There has never been a real James Bond. With all their resources, governments can’t produce people like that. There has never been a Jack Reacher, and there never will be.

Every SEAL isn’t a sniper. Every SEAL can’t compete successfully in the UFC. SEAL’s don’t speak every language. They can’t fly. They can’t bend spoons with their minds. They’re just very good soldiers. They probably don’t like being called soldiers, but it sounds funny saying they’re very good sailors.

SEAL’s can be beaten up. They can be murdered. They can lose in combat. They can become drug addicts and alcoholics. They’re just people, like the rest of us. Chris Kyle, a celebrated SEAL, told ridiculous, shameful lies about Jesse Ventura and was successfully sued over it. We owe these people a great deal, and they should be honored, but they are not superheroes. The fact that a SEAL says something in a podcast doesn’t mean we should believe it.

I saw Willink talking about verbal abuse today. He was speaking to a conservative psychologist named Jordan Peterson. Willink said SEAL’s live in an atmosphere of constant abuse. He seemed to have no problem with that.

Peterson told the story of a person he worked with. This person’s coworkers called him “Lunch Bucket” because he had a funny-looking lunchbox. Lunch Bucket was subjected to unceasing abuse, and eventually, he quit. Peterson and Willink faulted him for this. They said he should have taken other tacks, such as joining in the insults that were directed at him.

It was disappointing to see two older men talking like this.

I am not a good person, nor am I accomplished, but I have managed to absorb a few lessons in life, and here is one of them: everyone sets a price for his company, and it’s all people will pay. If you set the price too low, you will always be a doormat and punching bag, and it will be largely your own choice. You’re not supposed to do this.

Here is a word for people who do it: “lickspittle.”

A long time ago, God told me this: it’s more important to exclude the wrong people from your life than to include the right people.

Scripture backs me up. Christians tend to think we should swallow filth from abusive people forever, in the hope that they will change. The Bible doesn’t say that. It says we should shun Christians who behave badly. We’re not even supposed to sit down to meals with them. The word says it’s better to live in the corner of a rooftop than with a contentious woman. Boy, is that true.

Look it up.

When I was in college, I had 5 friends I was very close to. All but one are gone. Two were abusive and racist, and they took advantage of me. One was insecure, dishonest, pompous, conceited, and treacherous. Two had a lot of good qualities, but we are on different paths now, and I can’t be the same person I used to be in their company. The last one I really keep in touch with is an Orthodox Jew. I hear from him from time to time. His outlook on life has a lot of similarities to mine, and perhaps this is why we still communicate.

One of my friends called me maybe 10 years ago and said he wanted to come to Miami and fish with my father and me. I sent him a polite email that said I had changed. I made it clear that while we had been good friends in the past (by admittedly poor standards), things were different now. This is someone who used to call me a brother. I just could not subject myself to that relationship any more, for more than one reason.

This guy had terrible problems with the truth. He would tell stories and embellish them beyond credulity. If a friend of his was insulted in a bar, and the friend said something nasty in return, a few years later, you might hear that the friend broke a bottle over the other person’s head, and then he beat up four cops. He also had a bad temper. Often, a few beers made him want to fight, and he would use racist language. He called black people “boofers,” which must be something he picked up in his hometown. On one occasion, he put his hand through a 1/4″-thick window.

I remember having to grab him, immobilize him, and drag him down the street because he was determined to break someone’s car window with a beer bottle.

He was with me and some other friends when we stole some expensive banners from Barnard College. These things were huge. Two of us took the banners down from inside the building and dropped them outside, and two took them and ran to our dormitories. We were supposed to share them, but my friend took one and nailed it to his wall and then defended what he had done. No honor among thieves, I guess. Anyway, it shows that he was a hard person to trust.

He also had a way of belittling the people around him, as though they were supporting cast members.

Of course, he had good qualities. He was smart. He was willing to take risks to get ahead in life. He was very generous. He could be extremely loyal. He loved kids.

The feeling of being belittled got to me eventually, and I also started thinking about the anger, racism, lying, and so on, and I just couldn’t face the prospect of putting up with it in the future. That’s how it works when I reduce my social circle. I don’t think about it for a long time, make plans, and then cut the cord. It happens very suddenly, over the course of one day. I realize the relationship is over, and I act accordingly, without hesitation.

Another friend loved cruel humor. He was worse about it than I was. He truly contemned his friends, and he said things he knew would cut. He didn’t seem to be equipped with compassion. To be around him was to feel that you were in the shade. He left school after some debilitating problems with drugs and alcohol, and after that, I never heard from him again.

Yet another friend tended to fawn over me at first, but later, after he fell into a job that made him a lot of money, he promoted himself to a position of moral arbiter. A member of our circle had come out as a homosexual, and I had sent that person a very polite letter saying I still loved him even if I could never agree with what he was doing. The friend who was making a good living called me one day to see what I was up to, and during the conversation, he told me the letter, which was not for him, was “evil and unnecessary.”

You can probably guess how many times I said similar things about his religious convictions. I also didn’t correct him when he bragged that a car he was selling actually had 142,000 miles on it, not the 42,000 the odometer indicated.

He changed a lot during the time when I knew him. A Jew, he was initially very hostile to Arabs. He didn’t like Jewish Israelis, whom he called “Dumb Israeli Bastards,” but he supported them against their enemies. Fast-forward a few years. He became an extreme leftist. He and his wife became ardent supporters of “Palestinian” rights. It was as if a spirit had taken him over, and it may well be that this is what happened.

He had some wonderful virtues. He was courageous, and sometimes he took the heat for bad things he had done, when I would have run. Nonetheless, I’m not his son, and I’m not going to be lectured by him. I’m glad he has done well financially, but he didn’t earn it. He was unemployed after college, having graduated with a liberal arts degree after proving unable to handle engineering courses, and he found a job as a bookkeeper for an oil firm. They let him start trading, which is a simple job anyone can do, and he earned tremendous commissions. That’s not the kind of thing that should make you proud. On the contrary; you should be thrilled things worked out so well for you in view of your very fungible capabilities. A high school kid could do what he was doing.

He got our homosexual friend a job doing the same thing, and he became rich, too, but he never got full of himself.

A high school friend of mine had to go. One day many years ago, he invited me to have pizza with him, and he started telling me black people were a cancer. This was a big surprise. He said they should be taken out into the ocean and drowned. He said his wife was an idiot savant and that he had only married her because he had gotten her pregnant in a one-night stand. He talked about his plans for leaving his family. I feel bad for him, because he is in very bad shape, but I let him go. What do I have in common with someone like that?

Of course, as longtime readers know, I let my own sister go. Being around her is like being sprayed with excrement or worse. I’m all done with it. It’s not just unpleasant; it’s intolerable.

I had a friend in Miami who came to me from the blogging world. We were close for a long time. I eventually got tired of the way he treated everyone. He told everyone in his circle what to do. He put us down, which didn’t make much sense, in view of his own very ordinary talents and accomplishments. He was extremely disrespectful. He was very selfish. He was drunk or stoned all the time. He wasn’t good to his friends. For example, he borrowed a new saw from his neighbor (who mowed his yard for him), left it in the rain, and then got mad when the neighbor complained. He would ask me to take him fishing, arrive late, drink all of my dad’s beer, sleep in the saloon because he had a hangover, and refuse to help with the cleaning up. It got to the point where I never heard from him unless he wanted something.

He wrote about American politics, as though he had great authority, and then one day he admitted to me that he wasn’t a citizen.

What?

Gone.

Do I miss the corrosive people I dismissed? In all honesty, not at all. I’m glad I don’t have to deal with them any more. The thought of taking up with them again is disturbing. It would be like being pardoned and then volunteering to go back to prison.

Christians are supposed to love and forgive. That being said, we’re not supposed to be other people’s diapers. A blessed person is the head and not the tail in his relationships. You can’t be the head when you live in an atmosphere of abuse. Everyone is mistreated from time to time, but if it’s your daily fare, something is wrong with your walk.

Why do we hold onto corrosive people? Love? Not really. It’s fear. We fear change. A woman will say, “My husband beats me, but if I leave him, I’ll be alone, and I won’t have any income.” You may say, “My friends humiliate me all the time, but if I drop them, I won’t have friends at all.”

We tell ourselves a lot of crazy things that aren’t true. There are seven billion people on the planet. You will make new friends. God can bring you a new spouse. I’ll tell you something awful I used to say about controlling women. Here is the cleaned-up version: some women act like they invented female genitals. That’s a bad way to put it, but it proves a point. There is always another woman out there, and there will always be new friends.

In short, no, I do not agree with Jocko Willink and Jordan Peterson. It’s not okay to torment others, and cutting off abusive people is not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign that you know a curse when you see one.

Willink is a motivational speaker. He is doing something worldly people need, because they don’t have God’s help. If God isn’t beside you giving you favor and making you succeed, then yes, you need to be motivated by people like Willink and Anthony Robbins. It won’t help you in the long term, because God isn’t in it and it leads to pride, which makes God fight you. In the short term, however, it can get you through a tough year.

Christians should avoid motivational speakers. God doesn’t want you to tough it out or lift yourself by your own bootstraps. He does not want you to have self-confidence. He wants you to have confidence in him. The Bible says he helps the humble and fights the proud.

It’s always disturbing when a preacher is also a motivational speaker. It means he couldn’t find God’s help, so he stole from worldly sources. If the world knows more than we do, then God is worthless, and we should renounce him. If God is supreme, and he is willing to help us, then we shouldn’t insult him by pumping up our belief in ourselves.

If you can’t find God’s help, by all means, motivate yourself as well as you can until you succeed in obtaining favor. When you don’t have a rifle, fight with dirt clods or sticks or whatever you have. You need the rifle, though. Dirt and sticks won’t get you through the long haul.

Willink carries a pistol, and he is a black belt in jiu jitsu. That’s great. What good will these things do him when he’s 75, or he has a disability, and the Democrats have disarmed him? What good will they do him if he is simply attacked by an adversary who is better and stronger? No good at all. God, on the other hand, will always be as strong and invincible as he is right now. You need to get real protection instead of relying on imitations.

It’s interesting to hear Willink’s great insights into carnal success, and I wish I had some of his virtues, but I’m too old and experienced to think I should do things his way. I’m glad I’m not falling for the self-help lie, the way I did when I was young and spiritually fatherless.

New Ideas About Sleep?

I woke up today long before it was light. I felt some anxiety. Rather than roll over and try to forget about it, I decided to go ahead and have a prayer session. I prayed in tongues. I spoke God’s word for a while, affirming it. I played a few Youtube videos in which preachers prayed for viewers. I played some Christian music and sang along. The anxiety left.

I feel that I’ve learned a few things other Christians will find useful.

1. It’s a good idea to have at least two sessions of Christian music every day, and you should sing or play an instrument. The day should begin and end with it. Music has supernatural power, and we’re supposed to have it in our lives. It’s helpful with entering into God’s presence.

2. Men–in fact, the leaders of all households (some households lack men)–should get used to getting up and praying in the middle of the night. I’m not positive this is a revelation, but it seems to be.

What happens when you have a baby? You don’t get to sleep any more. You have to get up in the middle of the night and do things for the baby’s sake. Why? Because you’re in a position of authority, looking after someone who is less able. If you’re the man of your house, you’re in a similar position relative to your wife and kids. Feminists will not like to read that, but then their hobby is being angry and rebellious, so it’s unproductive to accommodate their irrational and corrosive attitudes.

A man is a home’s watchman, king, and priest. He is the first line of defense and offense. He keeps the walls up. Men are more suited to this role than women, because men are more stable. It would outrage some women to read that, but it’s true. A woman is a different person every week. A man is exactly the same person, every single day. Our ups and downs are much more subdued. Men aren’t tossed around as much, so a man has a more stable vantage point from which to view and evaluate things. It makes for better decisions. A person whose personality is constantly changing will make decisions that vary based on her moods, and that’s not good. If your emotions rule you, you will have lots of self-inflicted setbacks.

There is a certain amount of honor in being the head of a house, but that’s not a good thing to focus on. You’re not getting an award for being male, along with a license to be a tyrant, with no strings attached. You also carry a lot of obligations other people in the house don’t have to carry. People know this in their hearts, even if they refuse to admit it. If your family doesn’t do well, people–feminists included–will generally blame you above everyone else. You won’t get the credit if your family does well, but unless your wife is a real prize, you will be the first one to be blamed if there are problems.

A man has more authority than a woman, so a man has to do things a woman does not have to do. It makes sense that a man would have to get up earlier and get things on a good supernatural footing while everyone else sleeps.

The Bible says he who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord. Presumably, then, the prayers of a man who is over a house have special power because of this favor.

We think of a day as a 24-hour period, but I would suggest that every 24-hour period actually consists of two days: a dark one and a bright one. Satan tends to get a lot done during the dark time. It’s when we have nightmares. It’s when we perceive evil spirits in our bedrooms. Diseases generally get worse at night, and the sick usually feel better as the day progresses. People often die early in the morning. Our fears seem closer at night. Far and away, most murders take place at night. By 4 or 5 in the morning, Satan has gotten a lot done, so it makes sense that someone would need to get up and re-sanctify the home. It should make things much better for everyone who is still asleep. They’ll wake up to a home that doesn’t have to be warmed up or hosed out supernaturally, because someone else has already done the job.

It’s very common for people to start the day with supernatural warfare, but we are not as likely to end the day with it or to interrupt sleep to deliver another assault. You may think that kneeling beside the bed for 30 seconds before you go to sleep is warfare, but it’s pretty weak compared to the real thing.

While I was awake early this morning, I watched Mark Hemans and T.B. Joshua. They prayed for people and cast out spirits. It may seem silly to think a man in a Youtube video could have any effect on you, but God does work through video. I’ve had it happen to me, and so have other people. I’d rather receive help face to face, but I won’t throw free help away just because it’s on video.

Listening to the preachers talk about deliverance and freedom, I could not help thinking about my sister and my father. In spite of my age, I still have walls inside me I can’t break on my own, because of mistreatment I received from my family when I was young! My sister was completely demonized. She was hateful to everyone, and she had a special hatred for me which has never abated. The mere fact that I existed and received some of the attention and generosity she used to consume by herself was a provocation to her. She tormented me and ridiculed me all the time, and she got other people to join in. She wasn’t as smart as I was. She was not as talented or as well-liked. She was unaccomplished. She didn’t have my parents’ permission to rule over me. Nonetheless, she strove to dominate me all the time, as though she were entitled. My mother even caught her torturing me physically when I was a baby.

My sister has an emasculating spirit. She hates males. She hates male authority. She loves ridiculing males and destroying the respect other people have for them. She really loves tormenting gay men; they are easy targets because they’re already emasculated. When I was born, I was dropped into her sphere of influence, and to the spirits she served, I was fresh meat.

Satan is effeminate. He loves attention. He loves looking beautiful and decorating himself; he is the Liberace of the supernatural realm. He feels as though he were God’s jilted girlfriend. He thinks he was the bride of Christ before human beings showed up, and he wants his position back.

What do jilted, unforgiving women do to the men who dropped them? They do their best to emasculate them.

Some people say God is largely feminine, but that’s not true. Women who can’t accept every part of their female status say it. God is the most masculine being there is. He is a seed sower, not a childbearer. Satan hates God’s masculinity and his authority. Satan loves feminizing men because men look like God, and a feminized man is like a cartoon of a feminized God. Satan can’t feminize God, but he can feminize men, get them to allow themselves to be used like women, and say, “This is how you would look if I could feminize you. This is what I want you to be.”

Sometimes I think about the way my relationship with my sister ended, and I have doubts. I believe God told me to stay away from her and that I was not even to pray for her. I don’t do anything for her financially, in spite of her poverty. Sometimes I ask God if this is really how I should behave. After all, the Bible is hard on people who won’t help their own blood.

Here’s something we all need to remember: the Bible speaks generally, but the Holy Spirit is specific. Sometimes the general advice the Bible gives is wrong for you.

That will make people mad.

The Bible actually shows that it’s not always a clear source of guidance in a given situation. Look at this:

Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.

Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.

What is God saying here? He’s saying there is no adequate set of rules for every situation. Even the Bible falls short.

God told the Hebrews only the priests could eat the showbread in the temple, but David went in, took it, and gave it to his men, and it was not a sin. How can that be? It was not a sin, because the Holy Spirit–the author of the Bible–gave David permission. The Holy Spirit may give you permission, or an order, to do things a set of rules based on the Bible will not permit you to do.

The Bible says you shouldn’t abandon your own blood, but that’s a general principle. The Holy Spirit told me to avoid all involvement with my sister, regardless of her problems. That’s a specific commandment.

God really hates emasculation, which is why homosexuality is called an abomination. He permitted Jesus to be beaten, spat on, flogged, stripped, pierced with nails, and crucified, but he never allowed him to be feminized or emasculated. There are some things we are not required to endure on earth. Some things are just too ugly and humiliating. They are too close to Satan’s heart.

It’s probably true that Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego were castrated, as the prophet predicted, but they lived under the old covenant, and in all likelihood, their misfortunes occurred before they were old enough to be close to God.

God doesn’t expect me to continue to endure the presence of a demonized woman whose very presence is emasculating and demoralizing. The influence of my sister is so ugly, it literally renders it impossible for me to lead the powerful, blessed life I was created to lead. God will not tolerate it any longer, so he told me to let her go.

God wants me to be delivered from demons, but how can I do that if I persist in involvement with the one person who is controlled by the very demons who have done the most to harm me?

Paul told us to put wicked Christians away from us, but we ignore him because we think it’s more holy to remain under their feet. We think abandoning incorrigible people is selfish and judgmental. That’s just not true. It’s a way of choosing God over demons.

While I was watching the videos last night, I gained a much better understanding of why God separated me from my sister, or, as I call her, “my former sister” or “my biological sister.” He was so right. I should never have doubted it.

Sometimes we try to be holier than God, and we imprison ourselves needlessly.

It’s wonderful to be free of her. Sorry to say it. I will never have another person like her in my life if I can avoid it.

As for her unfortunate situation, she chose it and chose it and chose it. She also chose to be so corrupted I can’t even risk sending her checks because the slightest attachment can easily become a red-hot chain.

That’s an interesting way to put it. Yesterday, I was thinking about people who say they’ve seen hell. They say there are rivers of fire there, and in the rivers, there are large numbers of male and female homosexuals chained to each other like convicts. It made me think of generational curses. We always say these are chains that have to be broken. We think of them as chains that bind us to habits and so on, but if these curses come from iniquities that pass down from our ancestors, aren’t they also chains that bind us to other people?

If I involve myself with hateful people, I put myself in a position where their drama becomes my drama. That subjects me to provocation and other types of temptation. I have to be separate from that. No wonder God says he sets the godly apart for himself.

Some people are like the creatures in the Alien movies. You just have to rid yourself of them. There is no coexisting with them.

And that explains hell.

Christianity isn’t Always Tidy

People may wonder where I’ve been. I just haven’t felt like blogging. It’s not because I’ve been ill, although I have. I just haven’t had anything to say.

I developed pink eye three weeks ago, and it has moved all around my body, clearing up in one area while attacking another. For most of this week, I had a stuffy nose accompanied by other gross symptoms in that region. That tapered off, but I woke up with a cough. Now that’s gone. Let’s hope it doesn’t morph into leprosy.

Someone I do business with has the flu and has been ill for two weeks. Says the vaccine is only 9% effective this year and the flu is all over Miami. When I heard this, I got on the web and checked, and sure enough, the flu can start as conjunctivitis. Is that fair? I don’t think so. Anyhow, it may be that I have plain old viral conjunctivitis which is roaming around my body, or it may be that I really have the flu. Whatever it is, it’s not severe. It’s just annoying, and like any bad experience that overstays its welcome, it wore me down for a while.

Malaise is a recognized pink eye symptom. Great, huh? Tell me diseases don’t come from spirits. Try. When a minor illness has a strong effect on your mood, it ought to be a hint that the attack is not purely physical.

I remember going to a doctor many years ago for a flu-like problem. I said it was making me feel tense and depressed. I thought that had to be important. Surely there had to be at least one well-known upper respiratory infection that caused irrational anxiety and depresson. That’s what I thought. If I was right, the doctor knew nothing whatsoever about it. The psychological symptoms meant nothing at all to him. It’s remarkable how little doctors know about some things. They’ve been accumulating knowledge for thousands of years, and this guy didn’t know anything about what surely had to be very common symptoms.

I have learned not to pay a lot of attention to my moods when I’m ill. They are deceptive and fleeting. Listening to your moods when you’re sick is like getting a tattoo when you’re drunk. You will regret it later.

I would be happy to find out that this is the flu, because you’re not very likely to get the flu twice in one season. The flu is usually awful. If I have to have the flu at all, I want a kind that doesn’t have much success.

What if it’s pink eye, it goes away, and then I get the flu? Best to think happier thoughts.

As always, I have drawn closer to God during my illness. I’ve had all sorts of miraculous healings, so when I’m sick, I always try to get God’s help and find out what I’m doing wrong. In reality, I do a lot of things wrong, so the question is really which ones are causing the problem.

I’ve worn Youtube out, watching videos from Mark Hemans, the Australian healer and evangelist. When the barrel started to run dry, I decided to look at Bill Subritzky. Hemans refers people to his website for information. Subritzky is from New Zealand, and I supposed he’s around 75. His ministry is very similar to Hemans’, but it seems somewhat less powerful. He’s all about casting demons out and cleaning up lives.

Bill Subritzky led me to T.B. Joshua, the most popular healer on Youtube. He has more subscribers than any other. He’s as popular as some of the big ‘tubers who produce vital sophomoric publicity stunts and clickbait, even though all he does is heal the sick and cast out demons with God’s power.

I already knew about T.B. Joshua, but I did not take him seriously. He’s a Nigerian who works in Lagos, and he has a big flashy church with a strange name: the Synagogue Church of All Nations (“SCOAN”). SCOAN’s videos are very sensational. The preachers have long discussions with people who are supposedly infested with demons (not a good idea), and the people have lots of spectacular manifestations. They throw up amazing things. They roll on the floor. They give long testimonies.

When I used to watch this stuff, I thought it was probably a con job. God is ending the age of the big church, and Joshua was running one, so that didn’t make a good impression on me. I figured he was probably a money preacher. I thought the deliverances were staged. Some of the people in the videos didn’t sound sincere. I thought they might be plants.

Bill Subritzky seemed pretty sound to me, so when I saw him at SCOAN, telling people visiting T.B. Joshua was what moved his ministry into real power, I had to give Joshua another look.

I’ve noticed a couple of things. First, Joshua does not ask for money or teach the prosperity gospel. Africa is full of obvious pulpit pimps, and Africans have a long history of gullibility, so it’s surprising to see a popular charismatic preacher in Africa fail to push the money gospel. Second, people really do get healed in his church. There are some things you can’t fake. For example, a young lady whose skin was falling off appeared in a video. She was topless with blurred areas because she could not wear clothes on her upper body. There is no doubt that her skin was falling off. Her lips were bloody, too. Joshua delivered her, and in a video shot later, she looked completely normal, except that she had some lingering marks and irregularities. While he was delivering her, she got down on her knees and threw up long strings of mucus so thick it was like rubber, and there was blood in it. You can claim they found bloody, abnormally thick mucus somewhere and made her hold it in her mouth and throw it up on cue, but how can you explain the new skin? And why pick a woman who was obviously seriously afflicted? If you’re going to fake healings, you don’t pick people who have real diseases.

I’ll post the video here. It’s absolutely disgusting, so you have been warned.

I still don’t understand Joshua’s ministry. People call him “man of God” and exalt him, and he does not stop them. That’s not healthy. When he teaches, I have a hard time understanding what he’s saying. He’s very inarticulate, and he says a lot of things that don’t seem to mean anything. Sometimes people who are manifesting say they’re controlled by spirits with names that seem very improbable, such as the Queen of the Sea. One guy said he was a wizard, and he called himself a “Grand Lama of Science Beyond Material.” He said he could astrally project and that he used his powers to make certain people rich. Meanwhile, he lived in a tiny shack with a dirt yard. This man said he talked to Lucifer face to face. If so, why didn’t he get Lucifer to do a little better for him?

People from first-world countries travel to SCOAN all the time. SCOAN has a dormitory. They put you up, and you can stay a week. When you look at the wild videos and see the strange people who appear in them, it seems like they’re just a bunch of nuts playing church with a preacher who doesn’t really have much on the ball, but if that’s true, what’s with all the visitors from Europe and Asia? What’s with Bill Subritzky? He was an attorney in New Zealand. He’s not an ignorant laborer who used a ministry to draw attention to himself and make himself seem important.

I Googled Joshua. I can’t find any serious red flags. A woman accused him of rape, but she turned out to be a professional fraud, and she eventually went to SCOAN and recanted publicly. One of SCOAN’s buildings collapsed, and people suggested Joshua, as a SCOAN trustee, was guilty of criminal negligence. That’s pretty weak.

He issued a couple of prophecies that are problematic. The Muslim sect Boko Haram captured over 200 Nigerian girls from the Chibok tribe, and people claim Joshua predicted they would be returned immediately. As of now, many are still missing. The thing is, he didn’t actually say they would returned immediately. If he did, I can’t find it. He said God had said they must be released immediately. He also talked about the 2016 American presidential election and said he saw a woman winning. He didn’t say, “Hillary Clinton will win.” Just that he saw a woman winning. We all know what happened. Joshua says he actually saw her winning the popular vote.

Usually, it’s not that hard to spot pulpit pimps. You don’t have to dig for dirt. They pressure you to give them money. They cheat on their wives, often with men. Credible people show up to accuse them of fornicating with them and/or paying them hush money. They get in trouble for refusing to pay their bills. They turn out to have drug and alcohol problems. Joshua does not seem to have any serious marks against him. He is said to be somewhat wealthy, which he denies, but that’s not very meaningful without more information. Having wealth isn’t a sin.

Watching SCOAN videos actually made me want to visit Nigeria. I would love to see the church up close so I could evaluate it personally.

Africa is a very strange place. The African mind is not like the European mind. They think differently. Maybe things that happen in Africa have to be judged by different criteria.

Joshua says 2020 will be a year of humbling. I’m generally not too keen on prophecies that apply to the whole world, but sometimes they’re true. Coincidentally, or not, I have been getting revelation regarding humility during my illness.

For years, I’ve been asking God to help me with humility. I wouldn’t say I’m generally a proud person, but there are areas that concern me. One of the problems I’ve had is that I haven’t been able to make myself feel as though I were just like people I knew of who had obvious sins in their lives. For example, I felt as though I were not like drug users, even though I had used drugs in college. I told myself I used them “a few times,” and I thought that separated me from people who use drugs for years without reservations. Of course, that was a lie. If you’ve used drugs, you’re a drug user.

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been trying to find ways to describe myself to God that don’t come off like excuses, and I’ve been doing better. As an example of the way I phrase things now, I say, “I am a rescued liar.” I don’t say, “I was like the liars I know,” or, “I have told some lies.” I say, “I am a rescued drug user,” not, “I experimented with drugs a few times.”

I saw a funny story in a book about the White House. A Secret Service agent was investigating Clinton hires so they could get security clearance, and, of course, it turned out to be a hard job. He said one man told him he had experimented with marijuana. The agent, who was apparently tired of hearing this kind of thing, asked him about the results of his experiments. When you conduct experiments, you collect and analyze results. I thought the question was a clever way to deflate a very commonly used excuse.

I used marijuana several times in high school and college. I didn’t like it. I didn’t persist. Should I say I was experimenting? I didn’t create tables or graphs. I didn’t do a statistical analysis. I smoked or ate a drug, and then I giggled a lot. Not the kind of thing you write up for a journal.

When I was in college, I counted the times I used cocaine. It came out to about 20. Somewhere inside me, I felt that if I could count the number of times I used it, I wasn’t a cokehead. Guess what? I’m a rescued drug user.

The Bible forbids drug abuse, and so does the Holy Spirit. There is no mention of frequency. You don’t get 19 free tries.

I came up with a long list of new, honest titles for myself. It wasn’t very pleasant, but it’s important to confess correctly. God fights proud people, and he helps the humble. The Bible says these things expressly. Proud people hide behind excuses. I don’t want God to fight me.

My problem wasn’t so much that I wouldn’t admit what I had done. I confessed things like crazy. My problem was an inability to confess my identity. It’s not enough to say you stole something once. You have to say you’re a forgiven thief. Identity is important.

On a related note, I’ve been listening to Proverbs a lot. Very unpleasant. It’s as though someone sat down and wrote up a long list of very accurate insults directed at me, personally. The person reading the book in my audio Bible will say something awful about people like me, and I’ll cringe, and then I’ll think, “Surely the next thing he says won’t apply to me.” Then he’ll say something even more cutting.

I don’t enjoy it, but I listen to it anyway. Correction from God is like free gold. You don’t just tolerate it. You should grab it and hoard it.

If you want to be humble, Proverbs is for you, as are the gospels. If not, there’s always Joel Osteen.

God gave me a word the other day: “Your word is meant to be spoken.” That was news to me. I had always thought of the Bible as a book to be read, but in truth, hearing it is better. The Bible says, “Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” The main purpose of the written Bible is to preserve and distribute God’s word. Once you have it in your hand, you should recite it. It’s better than reading it. It will help you memorize it so you can repeat it later when your Bible is not around.

Listening to the Bible will build you up more strongly than reading it. Don’t ask me why.

I don’t know when I’ll be back. Hopefully I will be completely free of disease when I return.

Plus New Old Tool

I may as well post an update on my illness.

As I wrote a while back, I managed to come down with pink eye. The symptoms appeared on the same day I finished major welding on my arbor press stand, so I thought I had burned my eye with the welder’s arc. In retrospect, that would have been a more favorable diagnosis. A welding flash burn goes away in a day or two. It has been two weeks, and I am still having symptoms.

This particular type of virus likes to take a tour of the body. It may start in an eye, but during its junket, it may make the rounds of other parts of the body, like a tourist trying to see every landmark in Europe in 5 days. The list of things it does to people is long and annoying. It can give you cold symptoms. It can make your bones hurt. It can give you pretty amazing diarrhea. It gives some people meningitis. It’s a very versatile microbe.

The first time I looked it up, I saw the phrase “3 to 5 days,” and I was pretty happy. I could stand awful things such as living in Chicago without a pistol for 5 days. Then later I read stuff that completely blew this rosy prediction out of the water. One said the incubation period alone can last 9 days, and another said the illness itself could last two weeks, which has proven true in my case.

Initially, the bug was in my eye. Then it got bored and moved to the general region behind my face. Then it moved into my nose, which is where it is today. Yesterday and the day before, I also had fatigue, and my mood was not great. These are typical pink eye (adenovirus) symptoms, believe it or not. It dabbles in everything.

Of course, I have been praying and so on. I’ve been asking God which doors I left open, to let this thing in.

Today I tried something that had worked well in the past. I simply told it to leave. I didn’t get total healing, but within an hour, I was much better, and that’s how things stand now.

Because I felt better, I decided to take some actions which were pretty aggressive. I decided to torture the invader with spicy food. I ate the better part of a theater-size box of Ferrara Red Hots, and I followed it up with some homemade kung pao chicken so hot it nearly glowed. I have a lot more energy now. Let’s just hope I don’t have to expend it on multiple trips to the bathroom later on tonight.

This virus is extremely contagious. I read a lot about it because I didn’t feel like doing anything else. It usually hits kids, and it spreads like crazy in schools because a) kids are filthy, and b) it makes infectious fluids pour out of practically every orifice in the body. I read that a person’s poo remains full of viruses days after the infection is over. What lucky researcher was assigned the job of looking into that?

In Japan, pink eye is known as “swimming pool fever” because–get this–you can get it from chlorinated pool water! Nice, right? I had no idea pool water could spread disease. Makes me wonder what chlorine is actually good for. Something inside me shrivels when I think of all the pools I’ve been in. Nobody showers before getting into a pool these days, and let’s face it, most kids don’t get out to pee. Think of all the used Band-Aids you’ve seen lying on the bottoms of pools. Imagine the things you didn’t see, yet which were there all the same.

If you can get pink eye, what else can you get? Something like a third of Americans have venereal disease, and I’ve been swimming with them.

It just proves I’m right when I say public pools are disgusting and foul. And hot tubs…who thought that was a good idea? A guy I knew led an all-male prayer group at his church, and one week, they met in his hot tub. So basically they sat in hot man soup and exchanged every possible type of bodily filth. Which they then took home to their families.

I must wash my hands 30 times a day, I use disinfectant wipes all the time, I leave the house about as often as Boo Radley and Howard Hughes, and somehow I got the filth disease! Where is the justice?

Anyway, I feel much better. I still have some chicken. Tomorrow I’m going to add even more heat to it and eat the rest of it.

In other news, my compressed air system should be working by Saturday night. All the parts have arrived. A couple hundred more trips up and down the ladder should get it done. It’s amazing how many complications set in to slow me down.

Here’s something I did not expect: I destroyed the swivel on one of my air hose reels. I didn’t know it had a swivel. Maybe this is why it got destroyed.

My reel has a little brass fitting attached to the hub. A horizontal thread goes out of it, to the compressor. There is a thread perpendicular to the horizontal thread, and it goes to the air hose. When the reel turns, a swivel between the threaded parts lets the reel rotate without twisting anything.

It looks like I failed to use Teflon tape or pipe dope when I installed the hose back in Miami. I used to do a lot of work on my dad’s boat, and it was full of brass and bronze. Someone taught me that it wasn’t necessary to use Teflon or dope, and I guess that’s why I didn’t put any in the hose reel. It was not great advice. When I installed the hose reel here the other day, I had to remove the hose, and when I did, I had to apply so much torque I screwed up the swivel.

It looks like other people do the same thing, because you can find these swivels online. Of course, the best one I found for a good price was backordered just when I needed it. Luckily Amazon had one somebody had returned, so I bought it and saved some money.

I had also bent the stud that held the swivel on. I measured it, and it was an M10-1.5 thread. I figured I was going to have to drive to a store, buy a bolt, cut the head off, and make this weird stud. I decided to look around the shop first, thinking there was no hope. Unbelievably, in an old box of fasteners a tenant had left in one of my dad’s warehouses, I found an M10-1.5 bolt just big enough for the job. I cut the head off with a hack saw and cut two screw slots in the ends. Now I don’t have to search online for a metric air hose reel stud.

Now that I have everything I need, I just have to install the swivel and hose, finish the air lines, fire up the compressor, and look for leaks. I really hope I don’t find any, because nearly all of the connections are 12 feet off the ground.

Once the air line job is done, I’ll be able to move on to other jobs that will improve order in the shop.

I really sabotaged the whole shop organization plan last week. I bought an old Gorton tool grinder on Ebay. Of course, it has turned out to have undisclosed problems, so now I’m buying tools to fix it. I had hoped to be working on a mobile base for it by now. I haven’t taken it off the pallet. I was afraid to take it off because I was thinking I should send it back. The spindle that holds the grinding wheel needs new bearings, and the motor blows my GFCI. The whole thing made me feel discouraged. Then I asked myself why I had so many tools if I was going to give up on a grinder rather than use them. Ouch.

Right now, I need a gear puller to get the arbor off the spindle. Once the arbor is off, I should be able to use an adjustable pin spanner, which arrived today, to get the spindle open. Once that’s done, I should be able to replace the bearings. I hope.

I might as well go ahead and make the mobile base. Now that I have my mill running, I can make pretty fancy cuts on steel tubing. I may cut a couple of pieces of rectangular tubing so I can weld them together in an efficient X configuration. That would make for a very simple base. I would have to have casters with swivels, because they wouldn’t be parallel. It’s not easy to mount parallel casters on a base shaped like an X. If you put 4 casters on a base, and they aren’t parallel (at least on two sides), it won’t move.

Why make an X-shaped base? Because it’s the simplest way to make a base wider than the machine. It will be more stable than a small base.

The grinder is sitting in the floor taking up a tremendous amount of space. It has to be dealt with.

This is my sitrep. I hope you enjoyed it. My advice, as it already was prior to my illness, is to avoid public pools and, when possible, human beings. I hope to cease shedding microbes soon, and then life will return to normal. Or what passes for normal around here.

You have to do Better Than This

I got an interesting email about The Last Reformation and Torben Sondergaard. I’ll post some of the text.

I’ll make this short.

The problem with being deceived is that you don’t know it.

I’ll urge you to look behind the curtains. Don’t look at the person where he stands. Look at the trails and the footprints and what’s in his wake.

It’s not the happy followers right now, you need to talk with or look at. People in destructive cults or at the mercy of narcissists and sociopaths are initially happy.

If you plan on engaging anymore with these people, look long and hard for former members. It’s those who were there three, four or fifty years ago. Most, if not all, are gone.

You’ll find many broken and disappointed lives – to the point of leaving faith – in the wake of Torben Sondergaard’s ministry.

There’s a reason you do not have peace about joining them.
That is the truth and it’s there for you to find if you want.

Call it a cult or not.

Here is my response:

What is your background with TLR? What examples do you have?

Here is some of the second email I received:

If you want, you won’t lack examples in a number where there’s no denying something isn’t quite right. Simply find three or four former followers. It’s that simple. And your responsibility.

My response:

Respectfully, if you expect me to pay serious attention to unsubstantiated claims made by a person I know nothing about, you’re asking way too much. If you can’t do better than this, you shouldn’t bother people about TLR. For all I know, you’re an angry woman Torben dumped in high school.

I’m not responding to this one:

I won’t – as I said before – address mr. Sondergaard or the group itself any further. You seemed like a thoughtful and nice guy, when I read your blog.

Respectfully (followed by an actual respectful comment), I would personally give pause if a stranger took the time to write me, encouraging me to look a litte harder, but I both understand we are not all the same, and I’ve encountered this particular sort of hostility before. It’s fine.

Safe journey down this path.

If this email is correct, I am “hostile.” That’s an accusation. It’s intended to make me feel bad. The “safe journey” part is tacked on as an enhancement: “I am a better Christian than you, because you were mean, and I still said something nice.” It’s sanctimony.

Invalid accusations are often made to put people on the defensive. It’s a good way to move the discussion off-topic when you can’t or won’t back up your claims.

I guess this is why Satan became “the devil.” The word “devil” means “accuser.” He knew how powerful accusation was. He uses accusation to get us to take our eyes off the ball. The person who emailed me can’t or won’t tell me anything useful. Having seen a number of unbalanced people go after TLR already, I pointed out that without evidence, an accuser lacks credibility and looks dodgy. That’s exactly what a reasonable person would say. It’s not evidence of significant hostility. Instead of responding with corroboration, as you or I would, my correspondent has merely accused me.

It’s a little annoying to get strange emails like this, but characterizing what I said as “hostility” is way over the top. It’s a deliberate overreaction intended to make me feel bad and focus on defending myself or apologizing for a nonexistent transgression. It’s a diversion. When you’re trying to convince someone of something, it’s not good to adopt tactics known to be used by enemies of truth. It makes me wonder what force is motivating this person.

Jesus was extremely rude. Read the gospels and see. Using a jilted girlfriend as a tool to express what I meant in no way compares to calling people dogs or sons of Satan, as Jesus did. It doesn’t compare to beating strangers with a whip, as Jesus did. What I said was perfectly fine. It was just blunt.

There was a time when I participated, to my lasting disgrace, in petty Internet flaming, and what I’m seeing in these emails reminds me of a tactic I often saw in those days: drop a research project on a person instead of providing your own facts and analysis. Someone might pop up and say something like, “Donald Trump is a Martian who eats human flesh, and he ran a major heroin ring out of a trailer in Cambodia!” Then you’re expected to spend your weekend Googling in order to prove it’s not true. It’s a powerful tactic of asymmetrical debate. Say something wild, and then put the burden of proving or refuting it on the other party. You don’t have to do any work at all, but the other person does, so in the end, you are likely to lose simply because you keep chasing the ball while the other person merely spins yarns.

This is why lying is so powerful. My sister is one of the world’s great liars, and one of the reasons she has done so much of it is that it takes very little effort and inconveniences other people tremendously. It takes work to find out the truth and articulate it. Telling a lie is quick and effortless. I don’t know if the person who emailed me is lying, but like a liar, he or she is trying to make me do a lot of work to prove something, while refusing to shoulder the same burden. I’m not doing that. I’m not going to dig up former TRL members to talk to. I’m not Dog the Bounty Hunter! No one would do that. I wouldn’t even know where to look.

I have seen videos from people who broke away from other preachers I like, and they’re not exactly convincing. I have not seen any good ones yet. They say things like, “Pete Cabrera healed a guy, but the healing wasn’t permanent.” Really weak. My guess is that if I talked to disgruntled TLR people, they would be equally unconvincing.

In case someone shows up and sees this blog post and has no idea what’s happening, TLR is a Christian movement. They baptize people, and they do street healing. They are full-blown charismatics. Their leader, Torben Sondergaard, is a former baker from Denmark. He says he was driven out of Denmark after TLR received very unfavorable coverage in a TV documentary. I have been to three TLR events. I let them re-baptize me, and I went out and did street healing with them on one occasion. I am not going to join TLR, but fundamentally, I like what they do, and I agree with them for the most part. Healing and miracles are very real.

I know a couple of people who express misgivings about TLR or believe it’s a cult run by a criminal. These are people who don’t actually know anything about TLR, so I discard their opinions. That doesn’t mean I’m not wary. I have checked TLR out on the web, and I’ve found a number of people criticizing them. I looked for real, substantiated criticism, but I could not find it. What I did find was bizarre innuendo from people who seemed to be mentally unstable. If people were full-blown demoniacs suffering from delusions and Satanic hatred, this would be the type of thing you would expect them to publish.

Here’s a good example:

The worst thing I’ve heard about TLR (from a known source which does not seem uninformed or delusional) came from Tom Loud’s office. Loud is a preacher and pastor who also does street healing. According to someone on his staff, he believes TLR teaches that people have to be water-baptized and speak in tongues in order to be saved, and he disagrees. This is the only credible criticism I’ve heard about them, and you can see how mild it is. Even if it’s true, it just shows that two preachers disagree about two points of doctrine. Welcome to Christianity. This is not big news.

Here’s something I always say: the feebleness of your enemies’ criticism is the best proof you’re on the right track. Consider our two relatively recent presidential impeachments. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath on video, which is a disbarment offense and, under the right circumstances, a felony. It’s a very big deal. Donald Trump, on the other hand, was impeached for saying something in an official phone call which could, sort of, be characterized as an effort to help his upcoming campaign OR could be a totally innocent effort to get an important matter investigated, which would be a completely normal and ethical request for a president. Then there was George Bush. The press characterized him as a liar, and many leftists called for his impeachment, because he said something about uranium ore in Iraq, which later turned out to be completely true.

When people shoot spitballs at you, it’s usually because they don’t have bullets. Leftists didn’t hide their smoking guns when it came to Bush and Trump. They hit them with everything they had, and it wasn’t much. Generally, the same thing is true of Torben Sondergaard and TLR. I have been looking into them for over a year, and I still can’t find any disturbing information. But I have seen some strange claims from very odd individuals.

Thinking atheists might be less deranged than typical anti-charismatic Christian fanatics, I looked at a site called Rationalwiki. It appears to be some kind of atheist reference site, so one would think that if there were any real dirt on TLR, they would have it. Sure enough, it has a long list of “proofs” that TLR is a cult. For example, TLR teaches that people should pray in tongues. TLR members went to a hospital a number of times and prayed for the sick to be healed, and this annoyed the administrators, who made them leave. TLR teaches that demons cause disease and mental illness. TLR teaches that adults should be baptized. In summary, TLR is a charismatic Christian movement! If you think every charismatic is a cult nut, then Rationalwiki has succeeded in proving its case against TLR.

I have some idea what a cult looks like. I belonged to a couple of churches that truly were cult-like. Trinity Church in Miami teaches the poor that if they give financial offerings to the church instead of paying their electric bills, God will give them prosperity. The church deducts tithes from its employees’ paychecks and requires them to work for nothing as volunteers. They held secret meetings about me when I left. That’s a cult. New Dawn Ministries in Miami told people not to talk to anyone who had left. The pastor had a screaming fit in the parking lot and demanded that a friend of mine tell him things about me. He waved his hands in my friend’s face, as though trying to pick a fight. My friend got so mad he told the pastor to back off or get a beating. That’s a cult. Telling people to get baptized, or that they should speak in tongues, is not cult behavior. It’s normal Christian doctrine, taught in many, many churches.

For all I know, the person who emailed me has a blockbuster revelation about TLR, but I don’t know what it is, so that’s the end of that. Maybe this is a fine, loving person who has very important news that needs to be shared. How can we know if we can’t see it?

I Googled the name the person used, and I found something on the web from 2018. A person with the same name was defending a positive prophecy a truly disturbed preacher made about TLR. If my correspondent is the same person, something must have happened during 2019 to cause a change of heart.

But I don’t know what that was.

As for me “not having peace” about joining TLR, that’s completely inaccurate. I never wanted to join any movement after leaving New Dawn. I never felt disturbed about joining TLR. I just felt God didn’t want me to do it, and I also thought TLR was about to become a denomination, which is not something I want to be involved with very deeply. I never felt that God was telling me TLR was evil or seriously misguided. It’s just that I don’t join churches, denominations, or groups. I don’t have to have a bad feeling about a particular organization in order to want to avoid joining. I won’t join even if I feel good about them.

I have recommended TLR’s events, but I don’t advise anyone to join (or not join) TLR. I think TLR is imperfect. On the other hand, I can say some very good things about TLR.

1. They never pressure you.

2. They never squeeze you for money.

3. They do not teach the money gospel or use their power to get wealth.

4. They are very good at baptizing people with the Holy Spirit.

5. They promote true inner change via the Holy Spirit.

6. They truly do cast out demons, which are very real, just as Jesus, who is God, did.

7. They are very nice people, unlike the people who ran Trinity Church and New Dawn Ministries.

8. They are doing something important which no one else seems to be willing to do.

How perfect do people have to be, before you consider them worthy of knowing you? You’re supposed to rely on the Holy Spirit, not men, for instruction. You should try to find other people who are sound, but if you’re hoping for a perfect teacher, you are looking in the wrong world.

If you want to, check TLR out. Watch some videos. If it interests you, pray about it, and then do what God tells you. If you don’t think God wants you to fool with TLR, don’t. I’m not a recruiter. I can’t recruit for a group I won’t join.

When people come to you with serious complaints about ministries, and by “serious,” I mean complaints that have some basis in fact, you should look into them, but it’s also important to be seasoned so you can identify the strange tactics characteristically employed by people who are not worthy of your attention. If their accusations are vague, ask them to firm them up. If they don’t provide facts, ask for them. If they claim to be in a position to know things, ask for the relevant facts about their backgrounds.

I can back up every single thing I’ve said about Trinity Church and New Dawn Ministries. I spell things out. I name names. If I can do it, I can also require other people to do it.

A really good ministry will attract all sorts of nutty rumors and accusations. Look at Jesus. Two days ago, I saw a rabbi on Youtube telling the world Mary was a prostitute and calling Jesus a bastard. He said some really nasty things. Respected teachers say Jesus was a magician, and some say he’s in hell, boiling in feces. It’s to be expected. If no one is mad at you, you are definitely on the wrong track. An attack brings a response, and our lives are supposed to be attacks on Satan. It shouldn’t bother you when really weak accusations come out concerning a ministry. It’s a very good sign. A bad ministry will face strong accusations, not just slanders and innuendoes. Jim Bakker was convicted of fraud. Torben Sondergaard is accused of speaking in tongues and casting out demons. There is a difference.

Maybe some day I’ll find out that TLR has a bunch of dirty secrets. It hasn’t happened yet. If it does, I’ll come here and let you know.

Audio Bible Rip Completed

I’m finally free! I just finished ripping the Zondervan audio King James to MP3’s, and I’m loading them onto a flash drive to see if it works.

It has been two weeks since my CD’s arrived. I’ve been working on this almost every day, ripping one chapter at a time, renaming the chapters, saving them in folders…what a chore. I just read that there are 1189 chapters in the Bible. I had to go through this procedure with every single one.

I’m looking forward to having a portable audio Bible. The other day I heard Mark Hemans say Jesus was present in his word, and it made sense to me, so I decided I wanted to be able to hear the Bible wherever I was. Hemans says the word itself has power. I suppose that depends somewhat on the person who is listening to it, but I know it’s true in my case.

This will be great. I memorize things and forget them. These MP3’s will help me hang on.

Now I know what I have to look forward to: weeks of waiting to see if I messed up any of the files. If I have, they’re going to jump out at me eventually. Then I’ll have to go back and redo them.

I have the Psalms playing on my bedroom TV already. They’re over 4 hours long, and I have them repeating. We’ll see how it goes.

It’s always wonderful when computers turn out to be good for something other than cat pictures and porn.

Old Man with Kids’ Ailment

I guess I should blog about the physical issues I complained about last week.

On Thursday, I finished up the welding on my arbor press stand. It was my second effort. I had had a lot of problems with it. I’m still learning how to control welding warpage, and the first time I put the stand together, I found a significant bow in the top. It would not have affected the stand’s usefulness, but part of the purpose of welding is to learn how to weld better. It’s not just about function. I cut the top off the stand, added some crossmembers under the top, and put the stand back together. Now it’s much better. I’ve written about this already.

In the days prior to this welding session, I had noticed I wasn’t feeling quite right. One night last week, I felt as though a cold were trying to get ahold of me. I prayed and so on, and it went away. After that, I didn’t think much about it.

The night after I put the stand together for the last time, I started feeling a sensation in my left eye. It was as though there were a grain of sand under my eyelid. I assumed I had somehow managed to flash my eye with the welding arc. Welding arcs give off a great deal of UV radiation. You can actually get a severe sunburn from welding in short sleeves. If you let the radiation reach your eyes, you can get what’s known as a flash burn.

When you get a flash burn, you feel as though there is sand in your eyes. It goes away in a day or two and doesn’t do any lasting harm.

When I went to bed on Thursday, I knew I was not going to sleep well with my eye bothering me, so I took some painkillers. I always keep a few on hand. Doctors treat everyone like an addict these days, and it can be very hard to get painkillers when you need them, so if you don’t finish a prescription, it’s smart to keep the leftover pills.

Oddly, doctors don’t treat addicts like addicts. Every city has a bunch of down-and-out or foreign-born doctors who will gladly write painkiller prescriptions for people who are obviously addicts, but it can be very hard for the rest of us to get help when we need it.

People who abuse drugs can get them whenever they want. People who need them can’t get them. It’s a lot like gun control.

The first time I had a kidney stone, they sent me home from the hospital on a Saturday morning with 4 Percocets. A Percoset lasts 4 to 6 hours, and I had over 48 hours to go before I could get to my regular doctor. I had been on intravenous Dilaudid all night, so little Percocets, even in amounts corresponding to the time period in question, were not going to get the job done anyway. That’s never going to happen again if I can help it.

On Thursday, I took more than one pill, but they didn’t seem to help. I didn’t feel much of anything, except that I was drowsy. I took several doses, figuring I would know if I were taking too much. When you overdo painkillers, you don’t just drop dead instantly. You can tell when you’ve had enough.

The next day, I had some nausea early in the afternoon. I wondered if I had poisoned myself with the pain pills. I threw up several times. That wasn’t a big deal. Throwing up doesn’t bother me at all. After all, I went to college, where I learned all about throwing up.

The pain in my eye did not go away the next day, so I wondered if I had a really severe burn. I asked God if I should go to a doctor, and I felt the answer was “no.”

Yesterday, I finally figured out what was going on. It was pink eye, or an adenovirus infection. This is a condition like a cold which can affect your eyes, your respiratory tract, and your intestines. It can cause vomiting, diarrhea, eye pain, and lots of tear flow. My symptoms fit the description perfectly. I even had some weird, otherwise-inexplicable lower-GI stuff that was consistent with an adenovirus infection.

You can’t treat an adenovirus infection, so there was nothing to do but pray and wait. I would like to say I prayed and the symptoms disappeared instantly, but that has not happened yet. That’s not a problem. Apart from a slight annoying sensation in one eye, I feel fantastic.

I thought I had discovered a new way to get a flash burn while wearing a welding helmet and doing things right, but it appears that I was wrong. That’s a relief. A flash burn lasting for days would be a rare and serious thing.

I’m still waiting for my tool grinder to arrive. It’s exciting. If you have a lathe, a mill, a drill press, a tool grinder, and a surface grinder, you have everything you really need in order to claim you have a machine shop. After the tool grinder arrives, all I’ll lack will be the surface grinder. One day I’d like to have a horizontal mill, but that can wait.

While I wait, I’m fixing the shop up. Today I’ll be working on a new 50-amp socket next to the air compressor, and I’m planning to get an air line kit so I can run air lines all over the shop. Right now, all I have is one spool of air hose with a 3/8″ ID. It’s connected to my little compressor, which is only good for filling tires, running the impact wrench, and running a blowgun. I have a big 1/2″ reel I want to put on the wall, and I also want to have “drops” (local connections) in three areas of the shop.

Traditionally, people have used black iron pipe for air lines. I’m not doing it. It sounds like a pain. I don’t even know if Home Depot–my main resource–sells black pipe. I’ve never used it. I’m not sure what it looks like.

Some people use PVC pipe, which is cheap and easy to install. It’s great. Unless it explodes. When that happens, it sends sharp pieces of PVC shrapnel into the air at high speed. Most people agree this is a bad thing. It’s okay to run PVC underground, but if it’s exposed, it’s dangerous.

These days, a lot of people use hose. There is a company called Rapidair that sells kits for compressed air. You get 100 feet of expensive hose, plus some fittings. It will allow up to 175 psi, and you can get 3/4″ ID hose, which ought to be good for air flow. There is no point in buying a big compressor and using skinny hoses.

I’m thinking of getting a Rapidair kit. I considered buying PEX hose from the hardware store. It’s cheaper, and it works. The problem is that the connections are restrictive. That’s what I’ve read, anyway. I may want to upgrade my compressor eventually, and the last thing I want is to have to redo my air lines because the air can’t get through.

Adding electrical sockets will get cords off the floor, and adding air lines will get hoses off the floor. It all adds up to a more mobile shop. Moving wheeled tools is not easy when you’re constantly lifting cords and hoses.

In conclusion, things are going well, and my record of not burning myself with the welder remains unblemished.

Stop Comparing and Start Confessing

It looks like God doesn’t require the same things from everyone.

Jesus said he would require more from those to whom much had been given than from those who had received little. I don’t think I understood that until recently.

People always wonder what God wants from them. Is it enough to ask for salvation and then go on living the same way? Are there things you have to give up in order to make it into heaven? Can’t you just go on sinning and asking for forgiveness? That’s what most of us do. A lot of us have a clever plan: live it up, and then do a deathbed conversion. It probably doesn’t work. God is not mocked.

I think our natural tendency is to try to find out how much we can get away with instead of asking how God can help us give more. “Can I still watch this?” “Can I still drink that?” “Can I still have sex with my boyfriend so he won’t leave me?”

I watch Mark Hemans a lot, and it always amazes me how many people who are shacking up come to him and ask him for things, including special anointings. He exposes them and tells them to get married. How can any Christian think fornication is okay? When did God make this change? Where are the fornicating apostles in the Bible?

Jesus told a young ruler that if he wanted the kingdom of heaven, he should sell everything he had and give it to the poor. That’s scary. Do we all have to do that? The Bible says that after the Spirit of Holiness fell on Pentecost, early Christians pooled their wealth and helped each other out so no one needed anything. Are we required to do that? Do I have to sell my house and go live in an apartment so my Christian neighbor who blows all his money on liquor, strippers, drugs, and lottery tickets can pay his mortgage?

Are there different levels of Christianity? Is it okay for some people to just sit in church and try to behave, while others have to turn their lives upside-down and go out and preach and heal on the streets?

Are there different levels of favor? We like to think God loves each of us just as much, and the Bible says he loves us as he loved Jesus. What’s the real story, though? Are there people he just enjoys working with more than others? Every father has one or two kids who are more pleasant to be with than the others.

The other day I saw Mark Hemans tell a lady other people were hard on her because God gave her special favor. Spirits turned people against her and made them jealous. Ordinarily, you would not expect a preacher to say something like that. People don’t want to think other people are more favored than they are. I think he was right, though. I have experienced hatred because of the favor I’ve received. I can’t count the number of times it has happened. It’s normal for me.

If you’re an heir, you know parents treat their children differently, and very often, it’s justified. Jerky kids usually receive less, as they should. They are harder to raise, and they tend to suck up a disproportionate amount of resources and attention while their parents are alive, so when their parents die, they want to reward the kids who tormented them less. Also, a smart parent will give more wealth to his successful children, because the wasteful ones will lose it all. There is no point in building up an estate just so you can hand wealth over to someone who will destroy it in a year.

You’re not really entitled to an equal share of what your parents have. You’re not entitled to anything. An inheritance is a gift.

It’s understandable that a parent might want to give more money to a poorer child, to even things out, but is it really fair? If you’ve worked and saved, and your brother is a 50-year-old wannabe rock star who plays in local bars and has to have his parents cosign car loans, why should you be penalized? Your brother isn’t going to be financially secure just because your parents give him money. He’ll blow it on cocaine, age-inappropriate clothes, liquor, and women. He may already have debts, into which his inheritance will vanish as soon as he receives it.

Think of the prodigal son. His father divided his wealth and gave the prodigal half of it, and the prodigal lost it. When he returned home in disgrace, his father took him back. But look what he told his other son: “All I have is yours.” He didn’t write the prodigal into his will. All the prodigal got was food, shelter, a ring, and some clothes.

The concept of sibling rivalry is very prominent in the Bible. The first example is the envy Satan feels for the human race. We’re not his siblings, because he is not a son of God, but he was a son of God at one time, and he was rejected. Satan sinned and was cast out of heaven, and there is nothing he can do about it. He will burn no matter how much he pleads. We, on the other hand, can be saved even though we’re filthy. We can be saved, sin again, repent, and still be saved. He hates us for that.

Cain hated Abel. Esau hated Jacob, whom God helped. Ham’s children stole Shem’s land, which is why it was called “Canaan.” Isaac had much more favor than Ishmael. Joseph was favored above all his brothers, as was David.

The Bible says it’s not our place to question God if he blesses one person more than another.

It must be, then, that God feels more closeness to certain believers, and that he does more for them. If that’s correct, then he also asks more of them. Joseph was sold into slavery. Isaac was nearly sacrificed. Jacob had to suffer under Laban for many years. Samson could not drink wine, which was allowed under the Jewish law, and he couldn’t let a razor touch his head.

I keep trying to get closer to God, and it seems like he keeps asking me to give things up. I had to give up caffeine, which everyone else drinks all day. I had to quit reading the news. I had to give up certain types of movies. I had to stay out of bars. Now I think God is telling me to give up all movies, including TV shows, except for nonfiction.

The other day, on a whim, I rented an old Gary Cooper movie I thought was harmless: Sergeant York. It’s the story of Alvin York, a soldier from Tennessee. He captured 132 Germans single-handed, in one day, and he killed at least 25. The movie is mostly fiction, but it’s based on York’s experiences.

Afterward, I felt God telling me I was opening doors by watching movies that seemed completely innocent, and he explained why.

Imagine you have a problem with worry. This can be demonic, and it’s a serious problem. Worry is a sin, and we are commanded not to do it. Worry doesn’t make you a righteous person; it makes you a faithless person, and God equates faith with righteousness.

Now suppose you watch a movie about someone who has a problem. Maybe it’s Iron Man, and he has to save the earth (again). What happens when you watch the movie? You get worried. In fact, you watch the movie just so you can worry yourself temporarily.

What happens when you assume an attitude a demon likes? Every Christian knows the answer. If you stimulate your own lust, you can get demons of lust. If you stimulate your own anger, you can get demons of anger. The same applies to fear and worry. If you watch movies that put you under stress, you’re inviting spirits who will do the same thing, all the time. It’s like dumping garbage in your own yard. If you do it long enough, your neighbors will start doing it.

It’s obvious to us that we need to avoid pornography, but nobody seems to be aware that there are demons in areas other than sex. If you’re watching a movie hero beat people up and cut their limbs off, and you’re enjoying hating the villains and seeing them suffer, how can you not be opening doors to demons of anger, cruelty, and revenge?

In Sergeant York, the Germans killed Gary Cooper’s friends, and he killed Germans with a great deal of anger. Is that a healthy thing to watch?

Sports are unhealthy, too. Think about it. When you watch sports, you’re hoping one team will win and the other will lose. You’re hoping half of the people on the field will have a rotten day they may relive every day until they die. For many people, one defeat makes the difference between a life of ease and glory and a life of pity and financial hardship. That’s what you’re rooting for. Every game is a zero-sum event. You can’t have two winning teams. There have to be some losers.

When I was a kid, I made it to the national spelling bee, and I went down in the second round. I didn’t prepare at all. The pronouncer mispronounced a word I wasn’t familiar with, and I spelled it the way he pronounced it. Ever since then, it has bothered me to read about the national spelling bee. I could have won, if I had made an effort. I can’t imagine what it must be like to play for the Miami Dolphins or some other third-rate sports team that loses many times a year. I can’t imagine what it feels like to be Ronda Rousey.

In God’s system, everyone is supposed to win. We don’t get together to compete with each other. We help each other, and God helps all of us. It’s not a zero-sum game. It’s an extra-mile game.

It appears that I have a lot of favor. I seem to have a lot fewer problems than many people I know. I want to have even more favor, and I want to be closer to God. Should I feel bad because I can’t watch movies? Isn’t God just asking me to stop poisoning myself? Isn’t an improved relationship with God a colossal reward? How many people have wanted that and had no way to get it?

Most people I know cause their own problems, and they won’t do much to help themselves. They won’t pray in tongues. They won’t try to rid themselves of demons. They won’t try to shake their bad habits or to be filled with the fruit and gifts of the Spirit. They insist on hanging onto worldly entertainment and worldly culture. When you tell them about good teaching, they find fault with it even though they haven’t looked at it. Their pride makes them hang onto old doctrine that never helped anyone, simply because it seems more compatible with the culture of the world.

Jesus said, “For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also,” and I see people proving it. They aren’t that hungry for God’s help or his company, so they settle for lives full of problems that never get solved. Then they complain as though circumstances were the cause. “I don’t have this or that blessing you have, which made it easy for you.”

When things are easy for me, it’s because I made a few little sacrifices for God. I’m not close to God because I’m blessed. I’m blessed because I’m close to God, and the same thing can happen to you. But it’s easier to criticize and envy. People like to be comforted, not exhorted. They love being told their problems aren’t their fault.

Like I always say, I must be the only Christian on earth who actually deserves his problems.

God told me this a long time ago: “Excuses are lies.” The Bible says liars will go to the lake of fire, and it probably applies mostly to people who make excuses for sin.

I suppose favor is like anything else. The favor you get from God depends on the favor you give him.

I don’t think you have to sell everything you have and give it to the poor. When Jesus told the young ruler he should do that, he was showing him how hard it was to enter the kingdom of heaven under the old covenant. He said that with God, it was possible for a rich man to enter. I don’t think we have to pool our belongings and pass them around. The people who were present at Pentecost were given the grace to do that by the Spirit of Holiness, and we have not received that grace. But you do have to give yourself to God, withholding nothing. If he wants you to get rid of cable TV and stop going to Hooters, you should obey. If there is anything good he offers, you should try to get it instead of deciding it’s not worth the price. If someone you know is giving more up, and that person is doing better than you are, you shouldn’t spit bitterness and envy at that person and hold yourself out as a super saint God is mistreating. You should look at yourself and ask God what you’re doing wrong.

I am going to keep pushing forward. I know God wants to give me more inner improvement, and I am determined to go after it. If he blesses me outwardly in the process, better still.

Thoughts on an Ineffective Life

Yesterday, I learned that Terry Jones had died.

Jones was a member of the Monty Python comedy team. He also wrote a large number of children’s books and scholarly publications. He was an authority on Geoffrey Chaucer, the medieval British author who is famous for writing poems and a collection of coarse stories which appears to have been derived from The Decameron. Jones directed The Life of Brian, which was the story of a man who was misidentified as the Messiah by a confused public.

If you don’t know which member of the team was Jones, I can help. Here are some of his well-known roles: the prince who refused to marry Princess Lucky, the naked organist, Brian’s mother, Mr. Creosote, and Sir Bedevere. If that doesn’t help, maybe it’s best to say he was the second-least prominent of the six actors, after Terry Gilliam, who focused mainly on animation during the group’s early years.

When asked what he would like to have inscribed on his tombstone, Jones said, “Maybe a description of me as a writer of children’s books or some of my academic stuff — maybe as the man who restored Richard II’s reputation. He was a terrible victim of 14th-century political spin, you know. I think those are my best bits.”

Monty Python’s Flying Circus was a big deal to me when I was a teenager. It figured prominently in my list of toxic influences, along with Henry Miller, Fritz Perls, the cast of Saturday Night Live, and the staff of the National Lampoon.

I remember the day the first VCR was advertised in the Miami Herald. My best friend at the time–another very toxic influence–called me on the phone. He had seen the ad, too. Sony had created a TV with a built-in Betamax. We were ecstatic to think we would be able to record every episode of Monty Python. We had already memorized every line we could.

I was such a fan, I even bought Monty Python books. I bought the script of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, a film in which our loving God was depicted with the face of Karl Marx. I bought something called The Brand New Monty Python Papperbok, which was a print rehash of a lot of the TV jokes. I even bought Dr. Fegg’s Nasty Book of Knowledge, which was written by Jones and Michael Palin. Finally, I had my own copy of A Liar’s Autobiography, which was written by Graham Chapman.

This week people are praising Terry Jones for his life’s work. All I can think is, “Thank God I didn’t end up like him.” He has a lot to answer for.

When I was young, I thought my gift for humor was a big deal. I didn’t get over this misconception until I was middle-aged. I thought I was put on earth to make easy money making people laugh. I thought irreverence and verbal cruelty were wonderful things. I thought humorists did a lot of good by attacking people who behaved badly. I didn’t understand how sanctimonious many humorists, including the Python crew, truly were. Humor is a great cover for self-righteousness and ruthlessness.

People like Terry Jones, John Belushi, Chevy Chase, George Carlin, Bill Murray, John Hughes, Doug Kenney, and P.J. O’Rourke poisoned my life, and the lives of many others, with their immature views. I’m sure they meant well, or as well as a person can, in that state of ignorance and corruption, but they did a great deal of damage. Young people like me identified with them and emulated them. This may work out well when you have a Hollywood support system behind you, but it’s not so smart when you’re a typical young person who needs the goodwill of others in order to succeed in life. It didn’t work out well for me. I didn’t do much to build a decent life for myself. I fell behind other people.

I thought it was possible for a person who wrote shock humor to be a good human being. If I was nice to people I liked, and I didn’t steal or kill people, I was a good person. I barely knew God. I knew almost nothing about him. I didn’t realize I was supposed to be full of the Holy Spirit or that my purpose was to help people to be like God. I didn’t know verbal cruelty was the same thing as murder in God’s eyes.

Satan is like a three-card monte dealer. Three-card monte is a game played by criminals. They set cardboard boxes up on city sidewalks and use them for tables until the cops come along. In three-card monte, there are two black cards and a red card. The dealer holds the cards face-down and moves them around the box, and then he invites people to pick the red card. It looks easy, and to make it easier, the dealer will always have a shill who appears out of nowhere, plays, and wins. The game is rigged, however, so there is no way to beat the dealer.

Satan tries to get us to do unprofitable things with our lives, and he allows a few people to appear to succeed so we will be encouraged to keep trying. Example: there are very few successful rock musicians compared to the number of people who never make it. Most people who try to make it in rock end up playing in local bars until they die or get real jobs. We admire people like Steven Tyler, who behave badly all their lives and still become rich and famous. We don’t feel quite the same way about our 50-year-old siblings who dress like teenagers, sleep on our couches, and pawn our silver because they’re still on the verge of making it.

Jones, whether he knew it or not, was a shill, just like the rest of his team. For every humorist who makes it, there are millions who screw up their lives and their relationships with God. Many of the shills, for that matter, have lives that go bad toward the end, and many go to hell. John Belushi overdosed. Doug Kenney fell off a cliff and died. Douglas Adams, a fierce atheist, died young. Sam Kinison, a shock comedian who abandoned a career as a Pentecostal minister, died in a car wreck on his way to a casino town. For Satan, a few shills are a very profitable investment.

Jones wrote children’s books which were full of occult material. One of his book features a friendly goblin who offers to take a little girl to the goblin city. A goblin, like a genie or fairy, is just a demon, and demons are real. Reading stories about supernatural creatures like goblins can open doors to demons. Through such stories, your children can become ill or have severe psychological problems. When you write such stories for children, you’re literally evangelizing for Satan. You’re doing tremendous harm to people God created you to help.

If you watch Mark Hemans on Youtube, you will see him tell a woman to throw out the fairy books she got for her daughter. He says they opened the girl up to demonic attack.

Some people defend the Tolkien books because Tolkien wrote them with the aim of promoting Christianity. That’s wrong. You can’t use stories of sorcery and demons to help people serve God. Consider the hundreds of millions of people who love Tolkien. What percentage are even aware of Tolkien’s intentions? Surely less than one percent. It’s the same bunch of nerds who sit in basements playing Dungeons and Dragons. They’re not attacted to Tolkien because they love Jesus. They’re attracted because they love sorcery and demons.

I read the Tolkien books, and I was a Christian at the time, and it never occurred to me that they had anything to do with Christianity. Tolkien fooled himself. His friend C.S. Lewis made the same mistake, writing about witches and a magical wardrobe. No one should have a Narnia book in his house.

Jones was proud that he had written dangerous books for kids, and he was also proud that he had written about Chaucer. That seems very strange to me. How can you think Chaucer matters? Whose life have you improved by writing about a long-dead storyteller? What problems have you solved? It’s like being proud of graffiti. It’s meaningless.

Jones never grew up. He was spiritually stunted, and so are his friends. Take a look at what John Cleese said at Graham Chapman’s funeral:

Graham Chapman, co-author of the parrot sketch, is no more. He has ceased to be. Bereft of life, he rests in peace. He’s kicked the bucket, hopped the twig, bit the dust, snuffed it, breathed his last, and gone to meet the great head of light entertainment in the sky. And I guess we’re all thinking how sad it is that a man of such talent, of such capability for kindness, of such unusual intelligence, should now so suddenly be spirited away at the age of only 48, before he had achieved many of the things of which he was capable and before he’d had enough fun. Well, I feel that I should say, “Nonsense. Good riddance to him, the freeloading bastard, I hope he fries.” And the reason I feel I should say this is he would never forgive me if I didn’t; if I threw away this glorious opportunity to shock you all on his behalf.

Cleese, a grown man with a law degree, then went on to toss out the F-word, to the general approval of those assembled.

It reminds me of the way Dan Aykroyd behaved at John Belushi’s funeral. He showed up in a ridiculous biker costume (picture Dan Aykroyd trying to fit in with real bikers), and when the mourners entered the church, Aykroyd made a show of stepping off the sidewalk and climbing over the church’s picket fence, as if to honor his dead friend’s contempt for authority. Meanwhile, somewhere else, Belushi had already learned the fate he had earned through his own contempt.

People like this led me away from God and his peace and into a life of humiliation, failure, guilt, and depression. Their kind is still at it today. When one generation dies and goes to hell, Satan raises up a new one, and we continue to lionize them while they feed us poisoned sweets.

I wish I had had someone to tell me the truth when I was young. I had a cornucopia of voices telling me all the wrong things, but there wasn’t one person who knew the Holy Spirit and wanted to introduce me to him. I had Henry Miller, John Cleese, Joseph Heller, and the rest, but there was no Derek Prince. There was no Mark Hemans. When I tried to find God, I ran into goaltenders like Kenneth Copeland and Benny Hinn, who were actually put in my way to make sure I never found the path. I didn’t stand a chance.

Think of the contrast between Terry Jones and Mark Hemans. Jones made naughty, sophomoric jokes, like a mischievous schoolboy, and he led other people into iniquity. He wrote books about a dead man no one cares about. He made himself rich, he bathed himself in glory, and then he died. Mark Hemans shows up in churches, and he frees people from things like paralysis and autism. He delivers desperate believers from cancer. He helps people to know the Holy Spirit. He helps them and their families to live in peace, good health, victory, and the knowledge of eternal salvation.

Who is the real success?

When someone like Jones dies, Satan makes sure lots of people honor him. He wants the rest of us to want to go out the same way. I’m not fooled. In all likelihood, right now, Terry Jones would give absolutely anything–even his limbs–to be where I am at this moment, with one more chance to repent. If Graham Chapman could have spoken at his own funeral, he would have begged people not to follow him.

I’m just glad God helped me come around before I died, and I’m glad I didn’t have great success when I was pursuing the wrong things. Had I succeeded, I would be just as smug and confident as the many damned humorists who preceded me. Thank God Jones and his colleagues failed to ensnare me. I forgive them all.

Cleese, Eric Idle, Michael Palin, and Terry Gilliam are still here. Maybe some of them will wake up while there is still time.

My Car is my Church

Obviously, I have not been blogging much over the last week. I think the reason is that I have been spending a lot of time ripping CD’s.

A while back, I found myself listening to audio Bible files on Youtube, and I realized how useful they were. I decided I should get myself an audio version of the King James Bible, turn it into MP3 files, and put the files in all my devices.

Finding a good Bible was not easy. There is no perfect translation, but there are definitely some bad ones. I don’t want a feminist/socialist/environmentalist/anti-male/hipster translation. I want the paternalistic/cisgender/heterosexual/privileged Bible. I want God to “mansplain” to me. I’m pretty happy with the King James and the New King James, and the King James is the only translation which is a great work of English literature as well as a solid reference book, so the King James is what I picked.

Once I had chosen a version, I had to look through different editions. I finally opted for the Zondervan dramatized audio Bible. It doesn’t add to the text, but it does use different actors for different voices. It uses a woman’s voice for the book of Esther, which is moderately annoying, but overall, it was the best audio Bible I found for a decent price. The Royal Shakespeare Company did one that is supposedly phenomenal, but it’s only available on used cassettes.

Ripping the disks (Why do so many people insist on “disc”?) is taking quite a while. The Bible is a very big book. I’m doing one chapter at a time and then combining the files into single-book files. I wouldn’t be surprised if it takes me 10 more days.

Meanwhile, I have been watching a lot of Mark Hemans videos. It seems like the stuff I watch keeps increasing in quality. I watched a guy named Tom Fischer heal a lot of people, and it was great, but he got married and wandered off into talking about the health benefits of essential oils. I watched Tom Loud, Doug Collins, and The Last Reformation, and they were better. Mark Hemans is on the next step up.

Here’s what you usually see when charismatic preachers talk about healing. Some money-lover like Jerry Savelle will say someone he knows in Africa touched some person who was full of tumors, and that person was healed instantly and started running circles around the church. You won’t hear the preacher’s name or the name of the person who was healed. There won’t be any follow-up. Then the person you’re listening to will ask you for money.

Mark Hemans is not like that. He’ll say he healed someone of, for example, autism, and then he’ll say, “And you can find the video on Youtube.” Then you’ll find the video, and sure enough, there will be footage of some kid who used to be completely messed up, talking and behaving normally. You’ll see footage shot before the healing, proving the child had problems. You’ll hear the parents talk before and after the healing. You’ll see the kid doing things he couldn’t do before.

It seems like everyone is autistic these days. I have a small social circle, but I have four friends who have autistic kids! Four! And one of them has a parent who may well qualify. Autism is such a hot topic, I’ve had people try to tell me I have Asperger’s. People are blaming vaccines, pesticides, power lines, global warming…everything except demons. Why is that? We’re embarrassed to talk about demons. We think people will think we’re ignorant savages.

Here’s something interesting. Not only are demons involved in many, many conditions; they are involved in problems that seem to result from injury. You may think symptoms that follow injuries are purely physical. Mark Hemans healed a paralyzed boy whose are was injured during an emergency delivery, and he said a demon was the real reason for the paralysis. Go to Youtube and watch the video. You will see the boy raise his arm normally for the first time in his life. I know someone whose child has this problem. What if it could have been healed 25 years ago, simply by casting out a spirit?

Here’s something obvious which God showed me: even if you don’t believe diseases are caused by demons, it is definitely true that infectious diseases have spirits and that they live inside you. How do I know this? Every creature has a spirit. You can read Ecclesiastes if you don’t believe me; I know some Christians teach that animals have no spirit. Think about this: God puts life into inanimate matter by breathing his Spirit into them. There is no other way? How, then, can a living thing not have a spirit?

The Bible says there are horses in the supernatural realm. Remember the horsemen of the Apocalypse? If there are horse spirits in heaven, why would you think a horse here on earth can’t have a spirit?

If you have bacteria, fungi, viruses, mycoplasms, prions, parasites, or other types of living matter in you causing disease, you have spirits in you. All these creatures have spirits. I don’t know why this wasn’t obvious to me years ago. If the things that are in you causing disease have spirits, how can you not believe getting rid of spirits will improve your health? If you can make the spirit of a bacterium leave you, how can you not be healed of the disease it causes? It’s funny that no one ever teaches this.

Hemans healed a lady of bowel cancer, and then he forgot all about her. A year later, he returned to her area, and she showed up and surprised him. She brought a file of medical documents, including color photos. Whoever does the production work for Hemans dug up the footage of her initial meeting with him, and it’s part of the video in which she produces the documents.

This is not how healing preachers traditionally work. Generally, no one checks up on them. There is no documentation. There is no film, except for the film of the initial prayer and alleged healing.

These films are like those awful holiday newsletter cards some families send out. They always say Bobby got straight A’s again and George’s business opened three new locations. They never say Bobby turned gay and George got convicted of driving while intoxicated, even if everyone in town knows.

Many people have gone to meetings featuring Benny Hinn and Oral Roberts, to name two, claimed they were healed, and then either lost their healings or turned out not to be healed at all. This is what Christians are used to. We make no effort to check up on the healed. We don’t want to hear about those who didn’t get healed after all. They make us uncomfortable, so we ignore them.

It’s a new experience for the church when God confirms a healer’s work. We’re not used to that.

It’s important to note that Hemans doesn’t run around begging for money and threatening people with poverty if they don’t pay up. He’s very unlike the healing preachers Americans are used to.

Hemans is coming to America this year. He’ll be in the Eastern United States part of the time. I plan to go see him in action. I don’t worship men, and I don’t chase signs, but I need to see people doing things right, in person. Cessationists, who think God inexplicably turned selfish in about 200 A.D., criticize anyone who likes to see miracles, but how can you have Christianity without them? God is love, among other things. He loves healing his children. Miracles aren’t the foundation of Christianity, but Christianity without miracles is anomalous and crippled. It’s sick. God promised us signs and wonders would follow us. He promised we would heal the sick and cast out demons. If we’re not doing those things, something is amiss.

Cessationists amaze me. Miracles clearly take place today, and there is proof. How, then, can cessationism be correct?

I know some cessationists say all miracles and other manifestations of the Holy Spirit come from demons. That’s amazing. What lower form of blasphemy is there than calling God a demon?

God says people who call evil good and good evil will have serious problems, and he says he will not forgive those who speak against the Holy Spirit. Look it up for yourself. Even if you thought all miracles performed in the name of Jesus might be demonic, why would you say so if you weren’t sure? Like Gamaliel said to the Jewish leaders of his time, you might be fighting God himself.

A long time ago, God showed me that one of the curses on man is that we have to work very, very hard to get things he wants to give us simply for being his children. We struggle and suffer for millennia, trying to solve problems he can, and will, solve instantly.

What is technology? Like hard work, it’s a substitute for God’s help.

Consider cancer. We still can’t cure it. We have been building our medical knowledge ever since we were created, and there are many forms of cancer we can’t cure. Even if your cancer is curable, you may have to go through terrible things in order to be rid of it. Doctors may simply amputate things until you’re cancer-free. They cut off limbs. They cut of breasts. They cut out eyes. They cut off penises. Doctors castrated Bobby Riggs, and he died anyway. Now think about God’s way. Either he prevents you from getting cancer in the first place, or he drives it away and cuts the root instantly. No surgery. No drugs that make you vomit and lose your hair. No disfigurement. No loss of function.

I have known more than one man who had to wear diapers because of prostate surgery, and some also became impotent. All became sterile. After thousands of years of medical progress, that was the best human effort could do for them. I know a lady whose leg was removed at the hip. I would hate to guess how many women I know who are missing ovaries or their uteruses because of cancer or other problems man can’t fix.

God created us to be heirs, and heirs don’t earn. They simply receive. When man fell, he cut himself off from his inheritance. When Jesus came and made people well, he wasn’t giving them special favors. He was simply showing them what every human being was originally supposed to have, all the time.

We can’t cure a cold, the flu, arthritis, allergies, migraines, high blood pressure, diabetes…all sorts of common diseases. We can treat viral diseases, but we can’t really cure them. This is where we are after thousands of years. It’s pathetic, really. But God heals every type of problem, and he does it free of charge. Why aren’t we pursuing his help?

I’m going to pay about $8000 this year for medical insurance, even though I probably won’t see a doctor or receive any treatment. I don’t smoke. I barely drink. I’m not obese. I don’t have diabetes. I don’t have circulatory problems. I don’t take prescriptions. I still pay a fortune, because the government says I have to. That’s what man’s curse has done to me, and I’m much better off than most Americans my age. It’s remarkable that we pretend God won’t help us, considering what we spend and endure as a result.

Mark Hemans is the real deal. I’ll stick my neck out and say it. How much proof do you need? If he’s the real deal, I can be, too, and so can you. And we’re supposed to be.

One of the powerful things Hemans teaches is that you need to confess your faith. Very often, before he heals someone, he says, “Do you believe Jesus will heal you?” If the person won’t say yes, he won’t pray for them. He makes people sit down until they get their faith working, and he has people help them. They can’t weasel around, either. They can’t say, “I think he might.” They have to say they believe he will.

These days, when I pray, I say, “I believe you will do this,” and it makes my faith roar through me. Very good thing to know.

Here’s another useful practice: pray for people throughout the day. You may be busy, and you may be frustrated because you feel you can’t do anything for God. You don’t have to feel useless. Just pray for people. If you’re in a grocery store, pray that everyone on the property, and their families, will be saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. If you’re driving to work, pray for all the people in all the cars you can see. Make a point of praying for people who offend and mistreat you. Pray for obnoxious people. You may think it’s a sorry excuse for a ministry, but that’s an insult to God. Your prayers do more for people than your human effort could ever do. It’s better to pray all day, all by yourself, than it is to go to Africa on a mission and build a latrine or dig a well with your own strength. Elijah shut off the rain for several years by praying alone. Try and top that with your mission trip.

God’s power is like electricity. It needs a path. It has to have a destination. When you pray for people–especially people no one else wants to pray for–you open a channel for God’s power. When all you do is sit and beg God to help you with your problems, you’re like a wire that isn’t connected to anything. The current doesn’t want to flow.

I’ve found that praying for other people–anyone I can think of–during the day increases God’s faith and peace in me. It makes sense. Why would he make his power and virtue flow through someone who only wants to help one person?

Right now I’m working on ripping Isaiah. I look forward to having this job done. I want to be able to hear the Bible when I’m driving and here at the house. Once I’m done, I should be more communicative.

Crooked Pastors Dog my Dreams

I have a lot of dreams that seem to have no significance at all, but last night I had one which seems to have come from God.

I was living in my childhood home. My mother was there. She had an unconscious animal she thought was a rabbit. She had drugged it for some reason. She gave it to me. I put it on a little table, face-down with its limbs hanging off. It lay there oblivious, like a fat kid sleeping off Thanksgiving dinner.

I felt that I was supposed to shoot it, because that’s what you do with wild rabbits in your yard.

As I looked at it, I wondered how a rabbit could be so big. It looked more like a fat, neutered dog. I thought my mother ought to know what a rabbit looked like, but it certainly seemed like she was wrong.

I realized the animal was really a young coyote. Now I knew what to do with it. I went to get a gun. I walked toward my bedroom.

The coyote woke up and started menacing me and standing in front of me. I found myself wearing one of those protective outfits attack dog trainers wear. I held my arm out in front of me. I wasn’t really afraid of such a small animal, but I didn’t want to be bitten. The coyote showed its teeth and barked at me. It had very long jaws. When it barked, it actually said, “WOLF!”

To get to my bedroom, I had to go down a hall full of tool stations and big, stationary tools. I had to twist and turn to get past them. In the bedroom, my gun safe was full of disassembled pistols. I found a slide here and a body there, but I couldn’t put a gun together. I picked up the assault rifle I keep by my bed and tried to shoot the coyote. The trigger didn’t click, and nothing came out of the barrel. The gun was coming apart in the middle. I tried to pull the forestock toward me to put it back together, but I didn’t get anywhere.

A bunch of coyotes ran into the house from across the street. Some came in the bedroom window. I realized they weren’t pure coyotes. They were part dog. Such animals are called “coy-dogs.” I was surprised to see how many there were. I had thought there were only a couple in the area.

They really didn’t like me. They were united against me because I was a threat to their predation.

A big one that was really just an old sheepdog came in through the window and stood on the sill. It was not aggressive. It seemed tired of the coyote life. It wanted help. It had a collar and tags. I tried to read the tags so I could call the owner. I also saw a pure German shepherd walk through the room.

I never managed to shoot any of the coy-dogs. It was frustrating. I knew my neighbors hated them, and here I was with a chance to get rid of a whole pack.

I don’t know everything about the dream, but God told me a few things.

My mother, as usual, represented the church. The coy-dogs were pastors. The word “pastor” literally means “shepherd,” so it makes sense that the coy-dogs were pure herding breeds and crosses. The pastors were wolves, in the Biblical sense. They were hypocrites who only cared about eating the sheep and taking their money. They were like Kenneth Copeland, Benny Hinn, Steve Munsey, Joyce Meyer, Joel Osteen, T.D. Jakes, John Gray, and the rest of the usual suspects.

The old sheepdog was a pastor who wanted to go back to serving God. He was very unhappy with what he had done with his life, and he wanted to change. He was haunted by the knowledge of the waste.

The coy-dogs were not real wolves. They were smaller, except for the shepherd and sheepdog. They were not scary. They might have seen themselves as big, frightening, powerful predators, but you could injure and drive one off pretty easily with a good kick to the teeth.

The one that was mistaken for a rabbit reminds me of Richie Wilkerson, Kanye West’s young hipster pastor. He was frisky and bursting with confidence that he was a big, bad wolf, but he couldn’t back it up with any real strength.

I believe God was showing me that there are crooked pastors out there who are not to have their ministries completely destroyed. God will not help his children destroy them. They’re part wolf, but they’re also part shepherd, and God will not annihilate their ministries. They will come around eventually. My mother represented churches that enable such people. They fawn on them and give them money, and that puts them to sleep.

There are corrupt preachers who are completely irredeemable, but some preachers can be saved.

The pastors ganged up on me because I threatened their income and reputations. This has actually happened to me in real life, so no surprise there. Business as usual. It means nothing to me, because like the animals in the dream, these guys bark but aren’t man enough to bite. Preachers have lied about me and conspired against me, but they never had the guts to confront me. When you want everyone to think you’re a sheep, you can’t go on the attack in public. You have to sneak around at night, behind closed doors, like a cockroach or a termite.

I’m not sure why my mother thought the first coy-dog was a rabbit and not a sheep or sheepdog. It may be because rabbits are unclean by kosher standards yet very edible. A rabbit could symbolize a gentile.

It’s an interesting dream. The only real revelation in it–the only thing I didn’t already know–was that so many hypocrite pastors could be saved. That’s very good news, but I am tired of these people and their lies and slanders, so it also means I have to more patient than I want to.