Miami Umbilical Cord Finally Snapping?

I made what I hope will be my last trip (in this lifetime) to Miami over the weekend. It has been a tough month so far. I visited twice, and I had to put an enormous amount of junk out for the garbage people, in addition to making trips to the dump. It’s surprising how a house that seems empty can yield tons (literally) of junk. On the up side, I have moved my machine tools north, so now I can feel technologically complete again.

I threw out hundreds of dollars’ worth of things. I could not sell them, and I had a hard time giving them away. I put my mother’s patio furniture, which was expensive and in very good shape, in the trash pile. I had advertised it, and people responded, but they didn’t have the gumption to come get it. At least one lady asked my house sitter to deliver it. Thank God, a couple of Cuban trash-pickers came by in a pickup and grabbed it.

It may surprise people to see that I’m not writing about the Trump impeachment vote. I’m not that interested. I will say that, fundamentally, it’s not politically motivated. It’s motivated by spirits that hate God and every friend of God. The Democratic Party could almost be called “the body of Satan” these days. Don’t be surprised that what they do doesn’t make sense. When things don’t make sense, a supernatural force is usually at the root. Bill Clinton was impeached for lying under oath–which would have been a felony, had the Paula Jones case not been dismissed–on camera. He was also forced to give up his law license, after being turned in to the Arkansas Bar by a federal judge. That’s the kind of thing that grounds a real impeachment. Trump’s enemies had to make up a new charge (“abuse of power”) because there was no good evidence that Trump broke any existing law. What we are seeing is a continued effort to make conservatives afraid to run for office, and it goes back to Newt Gingrich, who was shown to be innocent. If you want to read more about it, Alan Dershowitz is probably a good source.

To get back to what I really want to write about, I’m dying to machine something. I don’t even care what it is. Even I just put a steel rod in the lathe and turn the radius down a quarter of a inch, I’ll be happy.

I watch tool videos all the time. For over two years, I’ve been watching people put metal in their machine tools and do things to it, and I couldn’t do it, myself. I’ve had a lot of jobs I could not do or which I had to do with inferior tools. Life without machine tools is primitive and restrictive. I’m glad it’s over.

It’s very disturbing, watching a forklift raise a 2-ton lathe so high the underside is 6 feet off the ground. My baby was sitting on two steel forks; nothing more. She wasn’t even very close to the forklift. She was way out at the bouncy ends. Every time she swayed back and forth, I braced for the devastating sight of $16,000 worth of very heavy machinery plummeting face-first onto the asphalt.

Machine-moving accidents are pretty nasty. There is a guy in Kentucky you has a huge machine shop, and he posted a video of an accident he had. He has a huge bridge crane in his shop. This is an overhead transverse beam mounted on two beams running the length of the building. The transverse beam has a trolley with a winch on it. He bought a drill press which must weigh at least three tons, and he tried to use the crane to lower it onto a freshly created concrete slab he had poured.

He backed a semi holding the drill press into his shop, and then he used the crane to lift the drill press a few inches off the trailer. He moved the drill press so it was suspended over the pad, which was about 3 feet beneath it. He was standing on the trailer next to the drill press when the cable holding it up snapped.

The drill press dropped instantly, breaking his new slab as well as part of the main casting of the drill press. If he had been under any part of the drill press, he might have been squashed like a grape. And he was alone! What was left of him could have been pinned to the ground or the truck, or parts of him could have been pinned to both, and nobody would have found him until suppertime.

He must have spent a lot of money on the crane, because he decided not to buy new cable before he used it. That’s why the drill press fell.

I’ll post the video here. If you’re in a hurry, skip to about 6:05. Expect profanity.

I read a story on a forum about a man who sold machine tools He had a lathe on a truck, and it rolled off onto his son-in-law. That was the end of him. Terrible story. Probably not a clean death. Imagine what it did to the family.

The riggers did an excellent job with my machines, and the experience taught me a great lesson: I need a trailer. Moving machinery with a semi is insanely expensive. One of the rigger told me to look into air-bagged trailers. These have platforms held up by air bags, as you might guess. Let the air out, and the platform drops to the ground. They lie flat, like sheets of plywood. There are no ramps. To put a lathe on one of these things, you just put it on skates (not difficult) and roll it onto the one-inch high platform. Then you pump up the air bags, and you’re ready to go.

The giant bonus is that you don’t need a forklift or a forklift operator. Simply putting three machines on a trailer costs about $1800, as does taking them down, if you use riggers. Even if you risk death by renting forklifts and doing the job yourself, you will spend $1000 or so for the two days you will need them.

If I get an air-bagged trailer, I’ll be able to move my tractors, my golf cart, and all of my machinery. The next time I move, I may have to make a few trips, but it will definitely be better than paying whatever it costs to move all my stuff across several states.

I haven’t machined anything since arriving home because I haven’t had time. I had to work on unloading my own truck today; it was (still is) full of Miami junk. I also had to bring my birds home from the boarding place, where they are a huge hit. Marv now has a girlfriend named Jessie. She’s a big silvery Congo African grey who occupied a neighboring cage. Sadly, they will not be seeing each other again any time soon. I don’t think Marv cares. He seems immune to negative emotions.

I couldn’t use my tools last night because they were wet. The weather was dry for most of their journey, and then there was a blinding rain near the end of the trip. I had to wipe the machines down, blot up water, and blast them with a solution of lanolin and mineral spirits. I took a big can of WD-40 and poured it onto my mill table. I soaked a rag with Mobil Vactra 2 way oil and oiled things heavily. I was determined not to let the machines rust.

Rust is a big problem north of Miami. It’s surprising, but machines don’t rust at all in humid Miami if they’re indoors. Humidity doesn’t rust machines. Condensation does. When a machine is in an area where the air cools and warms up a lot–meaning all of North America north of South Florida and maybe parts of Texas–it ends up being cooler than the surrounding air many times a month. In humid areas, this causes water to condense on it. Then you get rust. In Miami, machines don’t get very cold very often, so condensation is not a big problem.

My table saw rusted over during my first Ocala winter, and that taught me I had to look out for condensation. Fortunately, a little rust doesn’t really harm a table saw. Even light rust will ruin a lathe, and it’s not great for mills, either.

If you watch machining videos, you will see a lot of people proudly “restoring” rusty lathes. They’ll pay good money for metal lathes that have been sitting outside in the rain, and they’ll scrape the rust off the bed ways, use Evaporust on the moving parts, paint everything, and claim they’re done. They have no idea what they’re doing. Once you have thick rust on a lathe’s ways, the precision is gone, permanently. If you want to bring it back, you have to pay someone to put it on a giant grinder, or you have to be a genius who can use scraping tools to restore flat, true, parallel surfaces. Basically, it means you’re done, unless you just happen to know someone who is willing to load your junkyard beauty on a grinding machine for nothing. The cost of grinding a lathe bed pretty much destroys the purpose of buying a cheap, rusted lathe.

Wood tools can be restored. Take off the rust, paint everything, make sure the motor turns, and you’re off. That’s because wood tools are not precise. If your table saw has a dip 10 thousandths deep in the middle of the top, no one cares. If rust takes 10 thousandths off your lathe’s ways in random places, it’s time to forget about metal and start turning wooden table legs with it.

The funny thing is that most machining hobbyists would probably disagree with me. They’re wrong, though. They’re just caught up in a bit of stubborn mythology born of the natural reluctance to accept bad news.

Another problem with “restored” lathes is that rust and grinding can remove the hardened part of the ways. Many lathes made during the last hundred years have flame-hardened ways, which means they were exposed to high heat after they were made. The hardening doesn’t go all that deep, so even if you scrape or grind your old lathe, you may end up with soft ways which will wear out and lose precision again quickly.

Bottom line: a rusty machine tool is generally going to perform badly, even if you try to restore it. It will be okay for certain purposes after you sand the formerly precision surfaces, but it will not perform like a machine that hasn’t rusted. Preventing rust is important, and rusty machines are not bargains. They are scrap.

Our government puts nice machines out in the rain all the time. It’s horrifying. If you go to government websites that list used machines for sale, you’ll see machines that are largely red. You may see a photo of a machine that cost $40,000 new, stored outdoors without a $5 tarp or even a layer of oil. I don’t know who buys these things. I wouldn’t go near one even if it were free.

Before the machine is put outdoors, it’s worth $8000. A month later, it’s worth the scrap price.

It shows how much government employees care about spending our money wisely. Shocking.

I’ll post a photo of a lathe our government is trying to sell. The bidding is up to $1550.00. I think I can tell you who is bidding on it. Retirees who want a new hobby and don’t know anything about lathes. Either that or people who know it’s ruined and don’t care about precision.

I’ve spent a lot of time on machining forums. Many of the people who participate are middle-aged guys who want a new hobby, and they get very bad advice from everyone else. People encourage them to buy old machines that are in very bad condition, and they make them think “a little rust” is no big deal. I guess a terrible lathe is better than no lathe, but I can’t imagine using a machine that has been stored in the rain. I don’t know what it would be useful for, apart from woodworking.

To get back to my story, my machines are as dry and greasy as I could get them. Maybe tomorrow I can connect the power and start doing something. I have to put my vise back on the mill and tram it, and I may actually level the lathe. A lathe that isn’t “leveled” (actually straightened) may produce tapered parts instead of straight ones. It doesn’t matter all that much if you’re making short parts, which I usually am, but longer parts will be affected more.

I don’t want to spend the whole evening blogging, so I won’t go into the way God has changed my life during my two trips to Miami. He made big changes in my heart. The changes are so great–dare I say it–the unpleasantness of visiting Miami seems well worth the pain. I’ll try to write about them tomorrow.

I’ll say this. I believe the difficulty I’ve had in separating myself from Miami, and in separating myself from financial interests in Kentucky, is related to things inside me that needed to be changed. Our problems here on earth tend to be reflections of the problems God has with us.

Pray the house closing goes well and that I don’t have to look for a new buyer. I am ready to cut that place loose.

Gay Firebrand Sounds the Alarm for Carnal Conservatives

It’s funny how little things indicating the end of the age pop up on your instruments.

Today I was looking at Youtube, and it recommended a ChuckE2009 video. I used to subscribe to his channel. He’s a young man who has worked very hard to build a career and a Youtube following. He came from a broken home. He managed to put himself through welding school, and he started working. He ended up with a farm in Texas. He posted a lot of great videos about welding, tools, farming, and traditional values. Then he started going to a crazy racist church, and now he’s a hard core white separatist. He talks about “precious European blood,” and he posts videos on Bitchute, which is a service I learned about today.

I learned about it by watching the video Youtube recommended. ChuckE2009 linked to Bitchute. When I went to Bitchute, I saw that he had made a bunch of bizarre videos about his odd beliefs. He thinks America is being overrun by non-white people, which is arguably true, and he seems to think that Brenton Tarrant, the guy who murdered Muslims in a New Zealand mosque, is a martyr.

The problem isn’t that the people who move here are not white. It’s that they don’t belong to Jesus. Give me non-white Christians over white leftists any day. I would much prefer life in an all-black country that served God to live in a place where white people serve Satan. I would rather see America become very dark-skinned if the alternative were to see it stay white and move farther from God. The white separatists don’t seem to understand that race is not the problem.

There are only two races, which are also nations and families. One is the children of God, and the other is the children of Satan.

I watched a little bit of one of ChuckE’s videos. It was not healthy stuff, but the comments were worse. They were packed with blatant, unapologetic, lugubrious racism. You really have to see it to understand what I mean. The people over there really hate blacks and Jews. I don’t mean they disagree with them on some issues and are therefore called “haters.” I mean they actually hate them, in the pre-snowflake sense of the word “hate.”

I went back to Youtube, looked for ChuckE2009 videos in my feed, and clicked “Do not recommend this channel.” Maybe they’ll get the message. Unsubscribing alone didn’t get me free.

While I was doing this, I came across a Steven Crowder video. Crowder is a gay conservative, which automatically makes him a treasure to the secular conservative establishment. He seems like a great guy (I don’t really know much about him), but he’s clearly not a child of God. He is not one of us at the moment. He may agree with us about a lot of political issues, but religion is not politics. They’re connected. You can’t be Holy-Spirit-led and be a leftist. But conservatism itself is not godliness, as ChuckE proves.

Crowder is huge as Youtubers go. He has millions of subscribers. People with that kind of traffic make millions of dollars per year from Youtube. Except for Crowder, who got demonetized. He said some mean things to a gay man, and the man complained. Youtube obeyed.

Oddly (not really), Youtube doesn’t mind making money from Crowder’s continued presence, even if they won’t give him any of it. They continue recommended his videos. Don’t argue that they’re not making money because they don’t put ads on his videos. They make money from him because he draws people to Youtube, where they see other videos that do have ads. Youtube is completely hypocritical, which is normal for a leftist…anything.

I don’t know what he said. My guess is that it was overblown, because had it been anything serious, even people like me, who avoid politics, would probably know.

Gays are always snippy to each other. This is not new. They love edgy, biting humor; remember Mr. Blackwell? They call each other fags and homos. Maybe Crowder did something like that. I don’t care; it’s a digression.

Crowder just posted a video warning of a “Youtube purge.” He says Youtube is about to change its social engineering/censorship guidelines again, “moving the goalposts,” in his words. He says that videos that were considered acceptable in the past may get people banned in the present. Bad news if you’ve posted a thousand videos, as some people have.

I looked at other sources, and here is what Youtube says. It’s going to go after anyone caught producing content that “maliciously insults someone based on protected attributes such as their race, gender expression, or sexual orientation.” That language comes from Youtube’s blog.

Youtube told the BBC, proudly, that they will not just consider individual acts of free speech. They will look at “patterns” of behavior when they ban people. In other words, if they can’t really prove you did anything wrong, they have a catch-all policy that will still get you banned.

Who decides what is offensive? Of course, the easily offended. Google is staffed by leftists. Who decides what a “malicious insult” is? The same demographic that thinks seeing a Republican win an election is a genuine trauma that warrants the creating of special rooms where victims can play with therapy puppies.

Not good.

This is a combination of things I’ve seen coming for years. The odd sensation I feel now is the surprise of not being surprised. I expected all this, but still…what a spectacle, when it actually comes to pass.

The Internet encouraged us to speak our minds in ways we never could in the past, and much of what we spoke was not nice. We thought Internet anonymity, which may or may not have ever existed, would keep us safe. We also published a lot of thought which was not popular enough make it into mainstream outlets. Conservatives got a lot of exposure.

Now all that stuff is out there, and it is subject to evaluation and punishment by people who keep changing the rules.

Saw it coming. Didn’t do much to protect myself. Still. Saw it coming. Wrote about it.

In the law, there is a doctrine called “ex post facto.” It means…something in Latin. “From after the fact,” I guess. The idea is that you can’t pass a law making past behavior illegal. It’s a very respected doctrine, and the reason is obvious. If we were all punished for things we did in the past which are now illegal, nearly everyone over the age of 10 would be in prison.

Youtube does not have to observe this doctrine. Neither do any of the other tech giants.

For a long time, I’ve been writing about the privatization of our outlets of expression. We used to rely on the First Amendment to protect us when we expressed ourselves. That protection had some power, but the First Amendment only applied to the government. Your local constable could not tell you not to curse, on pain of having your mouth washed out with soap, because he was a government agent. Your boss in the private sector, on the other hand, could control your speech. If you wrote screenplays, movie studios could control you. Businesses can forbid their employees to tell obnoxious customers how they actually feel about them. They can make them wear 37 pieces of flair. The Bill of Rights has very limited power over private entities.

Satan knew he would one day have to shut Christians up. The Bible says Jesus will not return until the gospel of the kingdom is taught to every people, and here we are with a medium that allows us to preach online, globally, for nothing or very little. He had to find a way to shut us down, so what did he do? He privatized the media and nullified the First Amendment. Why is it that no one but me talks about this?

Google, Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Instagram, and the others do not have to let you speak. They can ban you for any reason that pleases them. They can make a rule that no one who owns red socks can publish, and it will be completely legal.

It’s a wonderful thing for Satan. The Internet is used to spread all sorts of filth and idolatry, and these are powerful tools. If he can work it out so spreading truth is not so easy, he will have a monopoly on public thought, at least in many areas. The Internet will be able to infect but not cure.

Is there an answer? I suppose so. We could demand that the government buy Youtube. I don’t think that will happen, though. Of course, if it happened, Youtube would stop working, it would lose a great deal of money, and it would immediately stop hiring white males. It would turn into the Postal Service.

The disturbing thing is that people think they can fight this politically. It’s a bad idea. It seems like a political squabble, but it’s not. On the surface, it’s political. Underneath, it’s supernatural. Satan, the god of this world, is behind the censorship. The same spirit that got Popes to burn dissidents alive is still at work, and it still wants to keep the gospel quiet.

It’s fine to vote for conservatives, but you need to get to know God, right now. You need to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. You need to give your life to God and start hearing from him. He is helping his children move away from leftist-controlled areas. He is setting up little ark-like areas for us. We won’t live in complete bliss, and they will still come after us eventually, but we will be much better off than stubborn Christians who insist on living in places like Los Angeles and Miami.

We need to be transformed and become more effective in changing the hearts of people who are on the wrong side. They’re in much more trouble than we are. They will overcome us in the short term, but God is not mocked. They will pay terrible prices in the end.

People say they’re going to shoot FBI agents when things get bad. That’s not going to make God happy, and it won’t defeat the enemy’s troops, either. God commanded the Hebrews to kill their enemies in the Old Testament. That’s not how he works now. The human beings the Hebrews slaughtered back then represent the spirits we are supposed to defeat under the new covenant. Jesus said those who live by the sword will die by the sword, and he meant that people who rely on carnal solutions will not get as much help from God as his children. When you rely on carnal tools, you’re telling God, “Don’t help me. I can handle this.” You can’t do that all your life and then call on him to take over suddenly when your mess overwhelms you.

We have to get God’s love and forgiveness flowing through us so we will be prepared to forgive and refrain from violence when the temptation is at its worst.

All the things I foresaw are coming true! God really did show me these things, just as he showed them to others. We really are going to be treated like Jews in Nazi Germany. We really are going to be excluded from commerce. Our homes will be confiscated. We will be slaughtered. It’s really going to happen, here in America. We’re already getting the Nuremberg Law treatment. The parallels are obvious and undeniable.

I know a guy who insists he’s fixing Miami. God didn’t tell him to do that. He’s just stubborn. If he doesn’t watch it, he will still be there when the mobs rise up. Noah didn’t stay to fix his compatriots. Abraham didn’t stay to fix Haran. Lot didn’t stay to fix Sodom. Sometimes God tells you to leave, and you better do it.

Steven Crowder sounds like he’s advising people to get guns and fight. Startling advice from a modern homosexual. It’s not helpful. We’re going to lose, and we need to get God’s help on handling it the best way possible. Vote as you wish. Say what God tells you to say. Just don’t waste your time with political or violent solutions. They will just put you in the other camp, whether you know it or not.

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Commenters are pointing out an important fact: Steven Crowder is not gay.

I was positive he was gay. I had thought of him as a gay conservative for so long, it didn’t occur to me to check. I wish I could remember where I got this idea.

Anyway, correction posted.

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I think I have the answer.

I must have seen this and drawn the wrong conclusion.

Stay Connected

Here is one of my favorite Bible verses: “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusteth in you.” It’s Isaiah 26.

The phrase translated “perfect peace” is “shalom shalom.” I am told that in Hebrew, words are repeated to emphasize them. In English, you might say “the highest degree of shalom,” but supposedly, Hebrew doesn’t work the way English does, so Hebrew speakers repeat things.

Many people say “shalom” means “peace,” but that’s not right. It means a state of being that includes peace and other things, such as wellbeing and prosperity. It comes from a root meaning “completeness.” It is also said to describe a state that is permanent.

You know what that sounds like? It sounds like what I felt the two times Jesus visited me. I felt his love radiating through me, and I also felt a kind of peace that could not even be challenged, let alone destroyed. I was totally assured that everything would be all right. No evil could touch me.

Permanence is a big deal in the Bible. Evildoers are not able to receive permanent blessings. Jesus said they were like men who built their homes on sand. When rain and winds come, such houses are washed away. Righteous people are like those who build their homes on rock. They can withstand anything.

The word translated “stayed” means “supported.” The English word “stay” doesn’t necessarily mean “remain in place.” We use it that way today, but it can also mean “support.” This is why collar and corset stays are so named. If your mind is stayed on God, it means God is supporting your mind, like a tentpole.

Isaiah 26 has to do with standing, like a house built on rock. This world is full of evil forces and voices, and they act like storms. They puff and threaten constantly, and much of the time, we believe their puffing, and we give in and lose. Children of God who know their rights can overcome the wicked by focusing on God.

I’m writing about this because, as I predicted, Miami is not letting me go easily. I knew I would get a Satanic backlash. I’m moving possessions out, and I’m getting rid of the last really troublesome property I have, and Satan is trying to make it painful.

I got a $4000 quote to move my machinery up here. I moved two machines myself, and then I asked for a new quote. They nearly doubled the price. I found a new rigger, but I’ll still have to pay more than I wanted. A meddlesome neighbor turned me in to the city for having a dirty roof and walls, so now, right before closing, I have to pay a handyman to clean and perhaps do touch-up painting, to the tune of at least $750. My house sitter hired two guys to help him move old furniture out to be picked up by the city, and they didn’t show up, so either he will have to do it alone, I will have to help him, or I’ll have to hire a junk hauler. Now the buyer’s attorney is demanding my LLC’s operating agreement, which is none of her business. You don’t need a document like that to sell a house. I sold a house earlier this year without it. It’s confidential. I told her paralegal they weren’t getting it, and I said I would send other things to prove my ownership and authority.

None of these attacks will stop me.

The other day, I thought of Isaiah 26:3, and God filled my heart with a new understanding of it. He showed me I should direct my attention to him and remember all the strongholds he had broken for me. People don’t decide what happens to me; he does. He breaks their will and makes them fail when they trouble me. He does the same things to the spirits behind them.

I threw out a ton of things when I visited Miami, and many of them were valuable. I didn’t care. I’m putting valuable things on Internet selling sites for nearly nothing, just to make them move. I don’t care. It’s worth it to be free.

I think I understand why God told us to turn the other cheek and agree with our enemies. Sometimes, when Satan demands something of you, the thing he tries to take is extremely trivial compared to what God has set in front of you. It’s like having your pocket picked while you’re waiting to get on a lifeboat. Do you really want to chase a thief and drown?

Early Christians had to give up their very bodies, but they knew it was a bargain for them and a bad trade for Satan and his children.

The things I’m losing are junk. There will be new things for me later.

I look forward to having ALL ties to Miami cut.

I can’t tell you how many times someone has stood in my way and told me something I wanted to do was impossible, only to see them knocked out of the way by God. It’s not a rare thing. It’s a way of life for a Christian.

I needed to get a tax document for my dad’s last return. I called the local IRS office. A man answered and said I needed a birth certificate. My birth certificate, not my dad’s. Who keeps a birth certificate lying around in 2019? I have had passports. I have a Homeland-Security-approved driver’s license, which is the best ID you can have. No one with any intelligence respects a birth certificate. You can falsify one in 5 minutes. No one is going to dip your feet in ink and see if they match the prints on your birth certificate.

I prayed and drove to the office anyway. They called my name to go to a window. I was ready to argue with them. I sat down, told the IRS employee what I needed, and showed him my driver’s license. He printed out the necessary document and handed it to me. Could not have been nicer. This is what it’s like when God breaks a stronghold.

The government is particularly bad about strongholds. “You can’t start this business.” “You can’t build this house.” “You can’t have prayer meetings here.” They throw up ridiculous obstacles all the time. It’s the nature of bureaucracy. If you’re not a Christian, you will probably be blocked. If you know God, however, you have a friend who is better than a man on the inside, and he will break walls for you.

Brother Andrew is a famous preacher who smuggled Bibles into countries (such as leftist-dominated nations) where they were banned. He risked imprisonment over and over. When he started out, he hid his Bibles. Eventually, he got bold and left them on the front seat of his car, in plain view. Guards at checkpoints looked right past them, and Andrew drove on. God does things like this for his children, but you need to focus on him and remember all the times he has delivered you in the past.

When I think about God and his deliverance, I feel peace and invincibility. They seem to radiate down to me from his throne. I want to get better at it, and I want to spend more time in that state.

I’m going to be free of the house I’m selling. I am free from the power of the spirits that rule South Florida. They can’t stop me. They are like ants before my God.

I look forward to blogging from the other side, when my machines are here, the house is out of my hands, and I no longer have to think about lawn people, pool people, hurricanes, insurance, and taxes. It’s a done deal, and it will happen shortly. I just have to wait.

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My realtor texted me. The lawyer who wanted my private documents caved in, after arguing with me and then her. Of course. She was completely, obviously wrong.

Glory to God.

I always hope for a day when I can go 20 continuous minutes without anyone insulting my intelligence. Maybe I’m crazy, but I keep dreaming.

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When you have a testimony which seems solid, and then you find out it’s not so solid, you’re supposed to say something. God doesn’t need people to make excuses for him. One of the church’s big problems is that we clap when someone testifies or prophesies, and then when it turns out something is wrong, we ignore it.

I said I was being pestered for unnecessary documents for my upcoming closing, and I said the other side had caved in. This was true, as far as I knew. I later found out they were not going to be reasonable after all, so I sent them things they had no right to. The closing is still moving along.

Take it how you will.

It has Many Shiny Buttons

Christmas has arrived early in northern Florida.

Last month I started brushing up on complex analysis, which is an esoteric form of calculus based on complex numbers. For those who don’t know, a complex number is a combination of a real number and an imaginary number. An imaginary number is a multiple of i, which is the square root of -1. The word “imaginary” got attached to the class by Rene Descartes, who is said to have thought imaginary numbers were useless. Imaginary numbers are used in physics to calculate results that can be observed in the real world, so “imaginary” is, maybe, not the best word to use to describe them.

I also started browsing through a new mechanics book: Introduction to Classical Mechanics: With Problems and Solutions by David Morin. People on the web wrote very highly of the book, and I could not resist taking a look at it. I’m always trying to find time to recapture the knowledge I lost after college, and most physics books are useful only as instruments of torture, so it’s good to find anything that can actually be understood.

While I was poking through problems in complex analysis and mechanics, I found to my horror that I had to deal with…I hate to write the filthy word…numerals. I mean what most people call “numbers.” Things like 5, 354, and 42. Nasty little things. To a physicist, being forced to deal with numerals is insulting. I can only imagine how offended a mathematician would be. It would be like asking him to do a calculation that isn’t totally useless.

I could not restrict myself to clean, shiny, odorless variables. I had to find arcsines, resultant forces, and so on, so I needed a calculator.

I already had a TI calculator of recent vintage, plus a Hewlett-Packard 35S I got a couple of years back, plus my ancient HP 32S. The 32S used to be an extension of my arm. I could more or less think calculations into it. My mind worked in reverse Polish notation. Unfortunately, the screen on the 32S pooped out and could not be made to work well enough to bear. This is why I got the 35S and the TI.

Hewlett-Packard used to make great calculators. They cost hundreds of dollars, and HP liked to tell people you could run over them with cars without hurting them. The 35S was not like that. It had a cheap case and floppy buttons that rolled when I pushed them. On top of that, there was no manual. The booklet that came with the calculator said HP would mail me a manual for nothing if I called, but when I called, HP told me to drop dead. They simply decided not to honor their promise. I didn’t feel like using their PDF manual, which required printing out something like 500 pages, so I was disenchanted with the whole thing.

Also, and to be more honest, I can’t find the 35S. I’m sure it’s here somewhere. Or maybe I got mad at it and threw it out.

Hewlett-Packard was once a neat company that made all sorts of electronic equipment. They made power sources, frequency generators, bench meters, and lots of other things. Something happened to them. Now they make cheap junk that belongs in Wal-Mart.

I went to Ebay to look for a 32S in good condition. I discovered the 32S II. People seemed to like it better. Also, it had a “II” in the name, so obviously, it was superior. I found a good deal on one somebody had used very little, and I ordered it. It arrived yesterday. I just took it out of the envelope and disinfected it. It looks new.

Now I can relax again, until the screen on this one goes bad. I’m actually considering buying two more, taking the batteries out, storing them, and waiting for the days when I need them.

I learned complex analysis from a book by two men named Ruel Churchill and James “the Godfather of Complex Variables” Brown. It’s a standard, but it could be better. I still have it. I also have a differential equations book by a man named Raymond Redheffer. It’s fantastic. It reads almost as though a human being wrote it. I decided to see if Redheffer had written anything else, and that’s how I found out he had written a complex analysis text.

I looked at the book on Open Library, and sure enough, it was very good. I found myself a copy in “like-new” condition and ordered it. That was weeks ago. It still hasn’t arrived.

I ordered it from Abe Books, which is a good resource. I pestered the seller, and they told me they could not find a record of the shipment. They gave up and refunded my money. That was annoying, because similar copies were selling for $30 more. After a few days of wishful thinking, hoping the book would still make it, I ordered another one, and the replacement is supposedly brand new. We will see. Book sellers have a tendency to send scuffed-up review copies and call them new.

The main thing is that it has to be in good repair and free of notes and so forth. That’s what I’m hoping for.

Redheffer also wrote a book on math for physicists. I found a copy selling really cheap, so I ordered it. Haven’t seen it yet.

I tried to replace one of my reference books a few weeks back. It’s called Mathematical Methods for Physicists, or, as physicists call it, “Mathews and Walker.” It’s a very popular book, so, of course, the publisher refuses to print it any more, and they have not licensed it to Dover Books, which prints paperback copies of old technical books major publishers are tired of. My copy is basically in excellent condition, but ants ate part of the spine, and it bothers me.

Do I use the book? Of course not. I just hate seeing my old STEM stuff destroyed, and I do plan to use it in the future.

I found a “new” “hardback” copy online for an unbelievable price, so I ordered it. I received a horrible, mashed-up paperback which was probably printed for the Indian market. I had to send it back, and then the seller didn’t refund my money. I had to sic Amazon on him. He had the gall to charge nearly $90 for that piece of junk.

I’m now considering buying book-repair tape and doing a fancy repair job. I’m sure Youtube University can help me.

It occurred to me that I was running into what appeared to be supernatural resistance in my STEM pursuits, so I asked God about it, and I believe he said the problem was coming from Satan, not him. I started using my supernatural tools to overcome it.

At first, I was thinking maybe God wanted me to leave STEM things alone. Scientists tend to take a dim view of Christianity. The folks at CERN made a comedy video (I assume it was comedy) showing robed figures sacrificing a woman at their headquarters, which shows that scientists are aware of the tension between Christians and scientists.

I thought maybe God wanted me to forget all about that part of my life. It appears that this is not the case, however.

The CERN video was filmed before a statue of Shiva, a form of the Hindu “god” Vishnu. In the Bhagavad Gita, Vishnu becomes Shiva in order to impress someone. Robert Oppenheimer quoted this book while reminiscing about the first atom bomb blast. In the book, Shiva says, “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

CERN’s people say the video was a prank, and they also say CERN is full of artwork. They say the Shiva statue is just one of many works. Naturally, one has to ask: how many statues of Jesus and Moses are there at CERN? How many crosses are there?

Here is the video. Lots of profanity in the soundtrack.

The best evidence that this is a fake video is the presence of the woman who is offered as a sacrifice. How would a group of physicists manage to find a woman? They’re usually at home studying, watching science fiction and anime, or reading books like The Modern Physicist’s Guide to Avoiding Eye Contact.

Today I read that Paul Dirac hated religion. He was a towering figure in quantum mechanics. My alma mater, the University of Miami, almost snagged him for their theoretical physics group. I remember a story one of my profs told. Dirac was on campus, and my professor took him a copy of Dirac’s book. He wanted an autograph. Dirac apparently collected stamps, and he had some fresh acquisitions with him. He stuck a couple in the front of the book along with his signature.

Funny; I can’t recall which professor told me that.

Here is what Dirac said:

I cannot understand why we idle discussing religion. If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble of false assertions, with no basis in reality. The very idea of God is a product of the human imagination. It is quite understandable why primitive people, who were so much more exposed to the overpowering forces of nature than we are today, should have personified these forces in fear and trembling. But nowadays, when we understand so many natural processes, we have no need for such solutions. I can’t for the life of me see how the postulate of an Almighty God helps us in any way. What I do see is that this assumption leads to such unproductive questions as why God allows so much misery and injustice, the exploitation of the poor by the rich and all the other horrors He might have prevented. If religion is still being taught, it is by no means because its ideas still convince us, but simply because some of us want to keep the lower classes quiet. Quiet people are much easier to govern than clamorous and dissatisfied ones. They are also much easier to exploit. Religion is a kind of opium that allows a nation to lull itself into wishful dreams and so forget the injustices that are being perpetrated against the people. Hence the close alliance between those two great political forces, the State and the Church. Both need the illusion that a kindly God rewards—in heaven if not on earth—all those who have not risen up against injustice, who have done their duty quietly and uncomplainingly. That is precisely why the honest assertion that God is a mere product of the human imagination is branded as the worst of all mortal sins.

My suggestion: learn to use paragraphs.

It’s remarkable that Dirac thought rich and powerful people were the force behind the perpetuation of Christianity. Powerful people who agreed with Dirac politically did their best to destroy Christianity during the last century, and they are still at it. The communists have done everything they could to get rid of Christianity, and they certainly wanted “quiet people.” They liked quiet people so much they shot loud ones and pushed their bodies into mass graves. The gulags and Castro’s prisons were built for people who were not quiet.

Before slavery was abolished, many slave owners refused to let their slaves own Bibles or go to church. Dirac would have found that confusing.

Dirac’s positions are another illustration of a simple fact: top STEM people tend to know very little about the way human beings work. In their understanding of human nature, they are often like slow children, no matter how well they can do math. It’s a shame ordinary people think physicists have anything intelligent to say about politics and religion. You might as well ask a chicken.

Dirac was famous for his social ineptitude. He married the wife of physicist Eugene Wigner, and he was once heard to introduce her as follows: “Allow me to present Wigner’s sister, who is now my wife.” When Werner Heisenberg told him dancing was fun as long as the girls were nice, Dirac said, “But, Heisenberg, how do you know beforehand that the girls are nice?”

This was not the guy to talk to about anything involving spirituality.

Niels Bohr supposedly thought Dirac was onto something, so, clearly, he was not a great source of spiritual wisdom, either.

Wolfgang Pauli, who was very funny, supposedly said this: “Well, our friend Dirac has got a religion and its guiding principle is ‘There is no God, and Paul Dirac is His prophet.'”

It makes sense that the best STEM thinkers would be inept about people, because top performance in their fields doesn’t just come from intelligence; it comes from a willingness to sacrifice everything but math and science. They don’t get where they are by working 40 hours per week and having normal lives, regardless of how bright they are. People in other fields work hard, too, but most fields involve a lot more human interaction and require more application of social intelligence. A mathematician can be successful while living in a dog kennel, naked, and refusing to speak except to the people who throw him his food.

Anyway, I have my calculator, and I assume my complex analysis book will get here soon, so I am happy.

MORE

I said something was resisting my efforts to work on STEM pursuits. That was on December 11. It is now December 13. Yesterday, I received a package from a seller who was supposed to send me a manual for the used calculator I bought. I opened the package, and it actually contained a spelling and handwriting pamphlet for elementary school students!

Maybe someone is trying to tell me something. Of course, no one on the Internet has seen my handwriting, so I don’t see what the problem is.

Still waiting for some other books I ordered. Will they make it, or will the forces of darkness send me more books for first-grade students? I almost hope so, because I could KILL first-grade math problems.

I received my copy of the solutions manual for Ruel Churchill’s complex analysis book, but this is a pretty unimportant part of my collection.

Miami’s Grinch Successfully Dumps his Load

I never go online and talk about trips, because I want it to be harder than that for burglars to find out I’m not home. Last Friday, I drove to Miami to work on the last home I’m selling (hooray). I have to get it cleared out reasonably well for the buyers.

I ended up paying a king’s ransom to move my machine tools up here. They were put where they are by Miami Transfer, a big crane and rigging company my dad and I used to represent. They very kindly received my lathe and delivered it in Miami for nothing, so I wanted to use them again so they would finally make some money from me. Months ago, they said they could move everything here for $4000. I called again a month or so ago, and they quoted me nearly $8000. They said the job was harder than they originally thought.

I have no doubt that they’re telling the truth, but naturally, when the price jumped, I felt motivated to look around for better deals. I’m grateful for what they did for me, but…$8000.

Several companies looked at the job, and they always said the same thing: $8000 was WAY out of line. Then they came back with estimates that were not a whole lot better. In the end, I picked a major outfit that has an office in town. I call them at least twice a week to make sure they haven’t forgotten.

I should have bought a trailer and moved the machines myself, but it’s too late to be learning a new skill. I don’t have time. If I had done that last year, I would be a lot better off now. Caring for my dad had absorbed my life, however, so I kept putting the machine move off.

If the machines were here, I would have been willing to play around with a trailer and rented forklift. I can’t do that when they’re 300 miles away. Every day of experimentation would be a day away from my responsibilities here. It seemed better to bite the bullet and get it over with.

“First world problems.” That’s what they call challenges like this one. Some people are in Bangladesh, wondering if there will be anything fit to eat in the local dumpsters tonight, and I’m in America, concerned about the trials of moving expensive hobby machines to my expensive home.

In order to get this sale over with, I threw out and gave away a lot of stuff. I had a fighting chair for a fishing boat. They probably cost $10,000 new. Mine was in pieces and needed some work. I took $75. I could not get anyone to take it for more than that. I threw out all sorts of electronics and cables. I put a good Sony receiver and remote in the trash. I’m selling 5-gallon beer kegs for $10 each. I’m giving away all the patio furniture.

I must have put half a ton of stuff out for the waste people, and I took half a ton to the landfill, known as Mount Trashmore. The view from up there is wonderful. It was also a little disturbing. I saw so many places I had been. I saw areas in the bay and ocean I was familiar with, from years of fishing. It was like having my life unfolded before me, so I could view it from atop a mountain of garbage.

There were some family photos in the house. I haven’t retrieved them yet. I decided to break my visit into two trips, so I’ll be going again when the machine movers are ready, and I’ll grab more things then. I found a framed photo my sister loved. It was a picture of her, of course. She would have been about three years old. I thought she already had it. She came for it a long time ago. She looked at it and said, “I was so beautiful.” Not normal.

In the photo, her eyes are ice-cold, in spite of her age. When you look at it, you can tell something is very wrong. She looks like a future serial killer. I kept asking God if I should keep the picture. I am inclined to throw it out. It will disturb me every time I see it.

My friend Travis wanted to help me with everything, but it seems like there are some things God wants me to do by myself. I had to clean up the house and load everything (but for one item) myself, and I will be unloading alone today. Travis was busy with important things. There was nothing he could do.

I feel much better about throwing out my dad’s golf clubs now. I threw them out with a lot of stuff several years ago, and I was a little uneasy about it. I almost wish I had left the house unlocked and let strangers steal everything.

In situations like this, you can keep everything you think is valuable, move it at great expense and with great effort, and then sell it for pennies on the dollar, or you can dump it early and be free. You can also pay a fortune to move it, only to end up dumping it afterward. That’s the hard truth.

Miami is an interesting town. If you list something for ten dollars on Craigslist, it will take days to get a response, but if you list it for nothing, people will trample each other to come get it. I listed a $170 wheelbarrow that has barely been used for $50, and people are trying to get it for less.

While I was there, I got a great revelation: I needed to forgive Miami.

I always think of forgiveness as something that applies to individuals, but it appears that it can apply to cities, organizations, countries, and so on. That was news to me.

I do not like Miami. The traffic is bad. The people are unpleasant. It’s full of voodoo and sexual defilement. Non-Hispanics are not treated well. People refuse to learn English. There is little to recommend the place. It’s okay to say these things, because they’re true, but I should not harbor hostility toward the people. That harms me and makes me a less effective Christian.

I realized this the morning after I arrived. I was lying on an air mattress in a dusty, nearly empty house, and I could not sleep. God made me understand that I had to forgive, so I did, and I asked him for help in getting his love to flow. I also thought of other big groups to forgive. Churches, cities, and so on. I worked on those. I cast out spirits of anger and vengefulness.

I felt much, much better afterward. I knew this was major progress.

Something strange happened later. Ordinarily, I feel terrible in Miami. It’s as though slimy, stinking worms are crawling on me. I feel unclean. I want out. This is actually normal for people who move away and then have to return. Come to think of it, I used to feel the same way even when I was in college. I felt it when I flew home for breaks. After I forgave, I felt much more comfortable. I still want nothing to do with Miami, but now I can visit and not be as miserable.

I know there is a connection between physical problems and sin. Sin brings iniquity and demons, and then you get things like cancer and arthritis. Yesterday, on the trip home, I heard something which I believe to be revelation: sin doesn’t CAUSE disease; it IS disease. What we see as disease is really just the symptoms. If you smoke cigarettes, which is a sin, you already have COPD, strokes, heart attacks, and cancer. The diseases are in you. They just have not been able to manifest yet. If you have chronic anger, you already have high blood pressure and strokes, even if you haven’t seen proof. The doors are open, and the entities that cause disease can come in when they choose.

Unforgiveness is obviously related to disease. Anger and stress harm your circulatory system.

Here’s something interesting: the Bible says envy rots the bones. That’s pretty clear.

I want to keep moving into deliverance. I don’t care about the cost, which is an illusion. Anything inquity allows me to keep is actually a liability.

In other news, I saw a really wacky video today. Youtube recommended a Zev Porat video about a rabbi who is incredibly angry. I don’t know the man’s name. I’ve seen him before, and I wrote about him. Porat pronounces his name “Vinestein,” but the Internet says his name is Eitan Bagdadi. I assume he’s a fringe nut no one takes seriously, because he is WAY out there.

Porat showed a clip of this man’s teaching. His eyes were wide. He was waving his hands. He was yelling in a high-pitched voice. He said something about God coming in the future to make churches explode. He was looking forward to it.

If he had been wearing a different hat, I would have thought he was a Muslim cleric teaching about jihad. He was completely enraged. Look at the video and see.

The thing I find interesting is that he said the Talmud says Jesus is boiling in excrement. He calls him “the cursed one,” and he says he’s in hell right now. For some reason, he decided to tell us about the composition of the feces. He said it was from people, cats, dogs, lions, and tigers. I don’t know where that information came from. Why these particular animals?

This quotation has been the subject of a lot of argument. If you Google, you will see rabbis denying that it applies to Jesus, but here Bagdadi is, asserting that it does. It would make sense for anti-Semitic Christians to say this, but it’s remarkable to see it coming from a rabbi. Is he hoping speaking in Hebrew will prevent people from finding out? Jews who speak Hebrew put English subtitles on his video. I wonder if that surprised him.

Notice I am not angry about the quotation. I am not saying synagogues will explode. I never get mad when people attack God. It just does not bother me much. I sometimes get annoyed when people lie about Christians or what we believe. Even then, I don’t go off like this guy. He has full-blown conniptions.

He’s extremely angry at Jewish believers who talk to other Jews. He thinks they destroy Jewish souls.

I’m not sure I understand the whole thing. I can understand why rabbis would want the number of Jews to increase instead of decreasing, and I know they see conversion as a threat, but this man’s consuming rage doesn’t seem to make sense. If you cease to be a Jew (as rabbis claim) when you accept Yeshua, is it a catastrophe or just a misfortune? They believe Jews have to be much better in order to make it to paradise, while gentiles only have to obey a few laws. In reality, you would think Porat would be helping people who can’t make it as Jews.

Maybe he thinks converts are damned for some reason.

Porat got his video clip from a messianic ministry called One for Israel. They used it first.

Some pretty weird quotations are attributed to this man. Here’s one: “Do you have an animal? Don’t leave it with a Gentile, he will come and rape your animal, according to the Talmud.”

Is that really in there? Actually, animal rape is considered acceptable in some Latin American countries, and several countries in Europe permit it. There are now animal bordellos in Europe. Maybe Bagdadi is onto something! He’s overgeneralizing, however. It’s actually very unlikely that a gentile will rape an animal entrusted to his care. We don’t see news stories about perverted things taking place when people board their pets.

It turns out Bagdadi isn’t making his rape claim up. Here it is, from a Talmud site:

Said Mar ‘Ukba b. Hama: Because heathens frequent their neighbours’ wives, and should one by chance not find her in, and find the cattle there, he might use it immorally. You may also say that even if he should find her in he might use the animal, as a Master has said: Heathens prefer the cattle of Israelites to their own wives. . .

I would hope that most modern Orthodox rabbis are aware that this is not really true. For all I know, it was true of the gentiles Jews knew when it was written. After all, you can imagine the things a rabbi might write today if he lived in San Francisco. Ancient Babylon was a weird place, too. But gentiles generally are not interested in sex with animals.

There is a lot of rough stuff in literature like the Talmud. Things a smart person would never say publicly, even if he believed them. One for Israel exposes it, on the theory that such secondary sources are inferior to scripture and distance people from God. They have quoted things like this, from 14th-century rabbi and kabbalist Isaac “Ha’ari” Luria: “The Gentiles have neither spirit nor soul and are not even equal to animals considered clean, but rather lower than them.”

Lower than animals? Where did that come from? Did he get mugged by gentiles or what? That’s some pretty impressive bigotry.

Maimonides, who is revered more than anyone except Moses, said this:

“As for Gentiles with whom we are not at war…their death must not be caused, but it is forbidden to save them if they are at the point of death; if, for example, one of them is seen falling into the sea, he should not be rescued, for it is written: ‘neither shalt thou stand against the blood of thy fellow’–but [a Gentile] is not thy fellow”

How many Orthodox Jews would live by that? Very few, I would imagine. There are Orthodox paramedics and doctors, and they help Gentiles all the time.

I can’t imagine a world in which Jews tell their kids not to become doctors.

Sometimes you have to look at things you have accepted and ask yourself if you made the right choice. You can invest your life in a religion and then find out the people who teach you are looking in the wrong direction; it has happened to me.

Scripture itself holds up very well; there is nothing in it anyone should be embarrassed to believe, regardless of when it was written. Dubious secondary sources, not so much.

The Mormon “prophets” have taught that dark-skinned people were cursed with dark skin because they were immoral, and they have said that such people will turn white when they become righteous. The Mormons banned blacks from the priesthood until the Nixon era. The Jehovah’s Witnesses taught that Jesus, whose divinity they deny, was coming back on a certain day. Then he failed to appear, so they said he had appeared invisibly. Catholics…don’t get me started. As I always say, the Catholic church was once the most powerful terrorist organization on earth; they burned people or threatened to burn people for crimes like saying the earth orbited the sun. They still teach people to pray to other people, and they say only Catholics go to heaven. Prosperity preachers–right now–make up garbage about God giving people a hundred-to-one returns on monetary donations. There are Christian kooks teaching that Jews run the world and that they aren’t really Jews.

When you get away from the source, you hear a lot of nonsense, and you lose all connection to authority, so you, yourself, lose authority.

I suppose the likely fallout, as information becomes more widely dispersed, is that Jewish nuts like Bagdadi will provoke Muslim and Christian nuts, and then all the nuts will go at it, and everyone else will conclude that all religious people are violent, hate-filled nuts.

You should not have to hide what your religion teaches. God told prophets to speak boldly. Jesus said not to try to prepare when we were called in front of authorities to answer them; he said God would tell us what to say. He said that if we denied him before men, he would deny us before the Father. You shouldn’t provoke people pointlessly, but if you have to conceal your doctrine and claim it doesn’t exist, you must be doing something wrong.

Wild Things Happening in Israel

Over the last day or so, I have seen some interesting videos from a man named Zev Porat. He’s a messianic rabbi who lives in Israel. I have probably written about him before.

His story is remarkable. He comes from a family of rabbis, and he was set to become one himself. He was guaranteed a huge inheritance. Somewhere along the way, he realized Yeshua was the Messiah. He adored his grandfather, but when he told him about his belief, the old man immediately began grabbing plates and throwing them at his head, cutting him so badly he had to get stitches. His grandfather yelled, “Goy! Traitor! Get out of here!”

That was the end of his cushy life and multi-million-dollar inheritance.

When his grandfather died, his family hired guards for the funeral, and they physically removed Porat from the premises. His grandfather left him an inheritance worth over $40 million, but to get it, he had to sign a paper saying he didn’t believe in Yeshua. He refused to sign, so he was disinherited.

He was fired from his job simply because he believed in Yeshua; he was not discussing his beliefs at work. He and his wife ended up living on a beach in a tent. One night, a group of rabbis entered the tent and offered Porat money in exchange for recanting. Porat refused, and the rabbis spat on him and his wife and left. It’s an amazing story. Intelligent clergymen, spitting on people!

Now he does exactly what the rabbis and his boss were afraid he would do. He tells religious Jews about Yeshua. He even does it at the Western Wall, which is Judaism’s most holy site. The place is always packed with Orthodox Jews who are not exactly open to the gospel.

There are a couple of things that surprise me about his story.

First, he successfully reaches religious Jews, including rabbis, who study in yeshivas. The conventional wisdom is that they are hard to get through to. The Christian explanation is that they have been filled with false ideas that make them resistant, and that God has put a veil in front of their eyes. The Jewish explanation is that they are too knowledgeable to be fooled by “missionaries.”

He has had wild success with a number of knowledgeable Jews, and he does it by showing them the Bible. Apparently, they spend a tremendous amount of time looking at secondary sources like the Talmud and the Gemara, but they know very little about the scriptures. That’s incredible. You would think they would know them better than anyone.

He shows them verses like Micah 5:2 and Isaiah 7:14, and they are surprised to learn the verses exist. He shows them Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53, too. If they knew the scriptures well, they could not possibly be surprised like this.

One of the funny things that happens is that he will quote a verse, and the person he’s talking to will say, “That’s from the Christian Bible. Don’t read to me from that.” Then he shows them he’s reading from the Tanakh; the Old Testament. That blows their minds.

There is actually an Old Testament scripture that says the Lord will walk on water. That surprised even me. We all know Jesus walked on water.

I digress, but I’m surprised he gets anywhere with Isaiah 7:14. This is a messianic prophecy that says an alma will give birth to the Messiah. It says it will be “a sign.” The traditional anti-missionary argument is that “alma” means “young woman,” not virgin. I haven’t seen anyone throw that back at him, so maybe the anti-missionaries aren’t as thorough as they could be.

Question: how is it “a sign” if an ordinary young woman conceives? It’s obviously not. In the Bible, signs are miraculous things only God can do. If “alma” doesn’t mean “virgin,” then Isaiah 7:14 is wrong, because it calls ordinary conception a sign. It’s like saying, “There will be a sign. A man will walk on dry ground.”

He accosted a prominent rabbi in Ashkelon and showed him some verses, and the man was so shaken, he accepted Yeshua on the spot. That almost defies belief.

It shows that the rabbi was very humble in spite of his exalted status. When you think you know everything, you cease to learn. Learning is impossible without humility.

The second thing that startles me about Porat’s videos is that he shows that one of Israel’s most revered rabbis, who was venerated even by the Lubavitcher Rebbe, believed that Yeshua was the Messiah. He taught his students to accept Yeshua. I did not know this.

The rabbi in question was named Kaduri. He died a few years back. He was over a hundred years old. Before he died, he wrote a note suggesting the Messiah’s name was “Yehoshua,” which is the same name as “Yeshua.” If “Yehoshua” is like “Thomas,” “Yeshua” (which means “salvation”) is like “Tom.”

Kaduri’s son claims the note was forged and that Kaduri was not well enough to write it, but his students say the handwriting is Kaduri’s. I don’t know if it’s possible to determine the truth and prove it conclusively.

Porat has a video in which he interviews one of Kaduri’s students, and the man confirms that Kaduri accepted Yeshua and told his students Yeshua was the Messiah. He says Kaduri was afraid to go public, and this is why he kept it private. That was news to me. It looks like not all Jews with religious educations are immune to Yeshua.

I knew that Kaduri had written the note, but I didn’t know he had accepted THE Yeshua, or that he had taught others they should do the same thing. “Yehoshua” is a common name, so saying the Messiah is named Yehoshua is not the same thing as identifying him with Jesus Christ.

I’m not all that enthusiastic about Kaduri, because he said some things that don’t make sense. For example, he said the spirit of the Messiah had attached itself to a person living in Israel, who would eventually be revealed. Yeshua said he would return in the clouds, and that the whole world would see it. There is no mention of reincarnation. Still, Kaduri’s change of heart is extraordinary.

Something similar happened a long time ago in Bulgaria. Daniel Zion, a man who served for a time as the nation’s chief rabbi, had a vision in which Yeshua appeared to him. He never became a Christian, preferring to hold onto his Orthodox beliefs and practices while accepting Yeshua as savior and Messiah. His colleagues declared him insane based on his new faith and experiences. One wonders what they would have thought of Moses, wandering around in a veil, claiming he had seen God’s back.

He emigrated to Israel. In the 1950’s, he was offered a seat on the Beit Din (rabbinical court), but he was told he would have to keep his beliefs silent. He refused, so that was the end of that.

People try to discredit Zion. They claim, for example, that he was never the chief rabbi of Bulgaria. If you search for lists of Bulgaria’s chief rabbis, you will see they don’t include him, perhaps because of his “illness.” Some lists have gaps during the time when he served. A Jewish reference book written in America in the Fifties says he was, in fact, the chief rabbi. It’s available online. Strange, how his name is so hard to find now. Maybe someone needs to remove that book from the Internet!

Why is it that a seemingly innocuous fact is so hard to prove? Why is so much evidence gone? Surely no one who cares about the truth would try to hide it.

It really doesn’t matter whether that he was the chief rabbi. It’s a big deal when any Orthodox rabbi sees Yeshua and believes in him.

Zion helped save a Bulgaria’s Jews from the Nazis, so it is not possible to erase his name completely. Anyone who might want his name “blotted out,” as the curse goes, will have a hard time.

Here is the uncomfortable part of the story: Zion saved the Jews by mentioning a vision of Yeshua. Bulgaria had a king named Boris. Zion got a letter to him, saying that Yeshua had told him that if he gave in to the Nazis and started sending Jews to death camps in Germany and Poland, God would punish Bulgaria. Boris, though willing to support anti-Semitic laws and internal exile to labor camps, chose not to deport the Jews.

So Bulgaria’s Jews were spared through the efforts of a person their leaders determined to be insane, and the basis of his efforts was the supposed insanity itself!

The Nazis were not fond of Zion. He was flogged repeatedly in front of the community.

It’s not a shock to see that Zion was considered insane. This is not unusual. A friend of mine has a Jewish wife, and she forced him to see a psychiatrist because she believed Christianity was a mental illness. The psychiatrist agrees! Also, Zev Porat’s family tried to make him see a shrink. If you check One for Israel’s Youtube channel, you can find the testimony of a man who says his family had him locked up in an asylum.

He’s a Messianic rabbi now.

It’s strange that modern, educated people act like his family, but it happens.

I suppose we underestimate the power of God and his willingness to move people. We see individuals who seem impervious to persuasion, but when God touches their hearts, our feeble words do amazing things. We just have to know whom to talk to. People are like fruit. You can’t pick them until they’re ripe. We can’t tell which ones are ripe unless we ask God, and often he sends us people we thought were hopeless.

If elderly rabbis who have been soaking in anti-Yeshua teaching since birth can believe, then what group of people is beyond reach? We should even be able to reach many of the Muslims who torture and murder Christians every day. We just need God to put the ripe fruit in front of us so we can avoid casting pearls before swine who will turn and rend us.

Fascinating stuff. I hope Porat’s efforts spread throughout Israel.

MORE

This is remarkable. I watched another one of Porat’s videos, and I saw that the Holy Spirit has told him the same thing he told me.

Isaiah 7:14 says this:

Therefore the Lord himself shall give you a sign; Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel.

Christians who preach to Jews have used this verse a lot. It says a virgin shall give birth, and that points to Jesus. Jews have resisted, saying the Hebrew word “alma,” which is translated “virgin,” really just means “young woman.” Today I was writing about this. I saw that Zev Porat was using Isaiah 7:14 in his conversations with Jews, and I wondered why they were not reciting the anti-missionary claim that “alma” does not mean “virgin.”

I got the answer today.

I saw another of his videos. He was talking to a rabbi. He mentioned Isaiah 7:14, and the rabbi said “alma” meant “young woman.” Porat, an Israeli from an Orthodox family, who had trained to become a rabbi, asked if “alma” meant “virgin” in the Tanakh (Old Testament).

The rabbi told him it did.

Now I see why Porat is able to use this verse successfully.

Apparently, “alma” is like “maiden.” The word “maiden” actually means “virgin,” but because modern women are what they are, we now use it to mean “young woman.” “Alma” seems to work the same way. In Old Testament times, it was assumed that a young, unmarried woman was a virgin, because it was almost always true. Now, women are more debased, so it makes sense that modern Israelis would use the world “alma” differently.

Earlier today, I wondered why anyone would think a young woman giving birth would be a sign from God, because many, many young women give birth, and no one considers it miraculous. In the same video in which Porat got the rabbi to admit that “alma” means “virgin,” he asked the same question I did! He knew the verse made no sense unless “alma” meant “virgin.”

God tells everyone the same things, all the time.

Rich Preachers Low on Supernatural Horsepower

I’ve been thinking about Kenneth Copeland, the toxic preacher who joined a bizarre effort to undo the Protestant Reformation a few years back.

Copeland is an unpleasant guy. I’ll say that at the start. His ministry consists mostly of teaching, and I’ve seen a lot of it. He sneers at his followers, sometimes imitating them in silly voices. He speaks in anger. The Bible says God is love, so Copeland’s hostile demeanor is not a good thing to see in a Christian.

Christianity isn’t about being nice, but a Spirit-filled Christian who is mature will generally be nice anyway because God fills his children with love and patience. God is generally a nice person, and we are supposed to be like him. God has killed a lot of people, and the flames of hell are his anger, but you can’t judge his prevailing personality by the unpleasant things justice requires him to do. If Jesus appeared and taught in a human body, and he was not coming to exact justice, people would be overwhelmed by the love that radiates from him. No danger of that with Copeland.

Copeland’s broadcasts helped me to find God. Copeland is not wrong about everything; that isn’t possible. Back in the early Eighties, I used to watch him, and he taught, correctly, that God helps people. He taught that God heals us and helps us. I got my first miracle healing by applying something Copeland taught. Unfortunately, that gave me the idea that his teachings were generally sound, which is not correct. I was under the spell of the prosperity preachers for a number of years. It seemed that I had a choice: I could listen to preachers from churches which rejected the Holy Spirit, or I could attach myself to preachers who accepted all the fruit and gifts of the Spirit yet who taught evil, ineffective promises about money.

Churches that reject the Holy Spirit are awful. Their teachings aren’t even close to right. People who belong to such churches rarely get help from God. They don’t prophesy. They don’t cast demons out. Their services are worse than jury duty. Unbearable.

The prosperity churches were much livelier, but they pushed the miraculous and the holy aside and talked about money all the time. They assured people that giving them money would motivate God to make them rich. They still do it. They even charge for prophecies. A thousand-dollar prophecy is touted as much better than a hundred-dollar prophecy.

I knew I was supposed to be praying in tongues for long periods every day, but I didn’t do it, so I was easily fooled. When you pray in tongues a lot, God guides you and tells you things. I shut off the flow of information, so I listened to some very sick people, many of whom are probably in hell or headed there.

This shows the danger of charismatic churches that push the money gospel and don’t teach people to pray in tongues daily. People become convinced the money gospel is correct, and once they think they’ve got the real thing, they stop looking for the truth. Because they don’t pray in tongues, they don’t hear God telling them the prosperity pastors are wrong.

It’s bad to lack knowledge of God and know it, but it’s worse to be full of false knowledge you’re sure is correct. If you know you lack knowledge, you’ll look for it. If you think you already have it, you’ll keep digging yourself deeper into the hole of heresy. When people tell you the truth, you’ll drive them off. Or martyr them.

If Copeland does anything for people, I have not heard about it, but he certainly takes. My sister used to give money to Copeland’s ministry. When her life fell apart, she stopped giving. Then they started calling, asking if she was all right. No preacher ever offered to give money back or to give out of his own pockets.

The thing that struck me about Copeland today is that he does so little for people. I’m sure he has some charity operations, but I’ve seen him work many times, and I’ve only seen him lay hands on one person. He told her she was healed of a back problem, but she continued to walk like a person with cerebral palsy. I’ve never seen him cast out a demon or give a true prophesy. I’ve seen him make wrong prophesies, however. I remember him telling a crowd the world was about to hear about people being raised from the dead in Mexico. That never happened.

If all you do is stand far away from people and lecture them, why should anyone take you seriously as a minister?

The Bible clearly says we are supposed to help people one on one. We are supposed to heal the sick, prophesy, raise the dead, work various miracles, and cast demons out. We’re supposed to raise up disciples who do the same things. This does not happen in the money ministries. Not generally. If you watch a money preacher, you’ll see that he stands on the stage and tells other people what they should do. Benny Hinn has been known to bring people up for healing, but does he then have them heal others? I’ve never seen it.

I’ve been watching interesting preachers for the last year or so. They go to malls, accost strangers, and heal them on the spot. Some of them have the people they healed heal others. They try to create disciples. They cast out demons. They use the word of knowledge to tell people things about themselves. They don’t accept money; in fact, they are more likely to give it away. Many of the people they claim to heal really are healed. Some come back with medical reports.

The people who love preachers like Copeland and Joyce Meyer and T.D. Jakes worship them. They think they’re special apostles the rest of us can never match. You can’t tell such people they’re being flim-flammed. They get angry. They’ll say your advice is an attack of the devil. This shows how dangerous these preachers are. They delude people who have good intentions and stunt their growth. They turn them into attack dogs for Satan.

It’s very sad, because if the celebrity-preacher model were correct, it would mean the rest of us had very little hope of being healed or hearing from God except in the presence of a few oily TV stars. It would mean TV preachers were like angels. It would mean they were better than we are.

An angel is an extremely powerful being without human failings, and when they appear to people, they don’t try to teach them to be like angels. They do their amazing feats, and then they leave. That’s not how human beings are supposed to do things. We’re supposed to help others become like God.

If you have to get to a certain human being in order to be healed or helped, you are an undeveloped Christian. You should be able to get God’s help when you’re alone, and you should certainly be able to get it at your local church. You shouldn’t have to hang a calendar and circle the date on which Kathryn Kuhlman will be in your town.

Think of all the famous preachers who don’t do what disciples do. How many times has the pope healed someone or cast out a demon? How many times has John MacArthur done these things? Does Rick Warren ever prophesy? Do any of these men have proteges who do these things? Jesus certainly did, and so did his disciples. How can you represent Jesus if you can’t do anything he did?

Imagine a paramedic who couldn’t put a bandage on you. Imagine him standing there, saying, “If Dr. Chakrabarty was here, he could stop your bleeding! Dr. Chakrabarty is amazing! He can do anything! Give me an offering, and Dr. Chakrabarty will make you rich!” This is Kenneth Copeland, in a nutshell, except that he might also make fun of you.

Even the Old Testament prophets worked miracles. Are we supposed to believe the New Testament is a step backward?

It’s particularly telling when a charismatic preacher like Copeland or Jakes can’t do anything. These are the people who teach that miracles are for today, yet they appear to be powerless. ll they can do is talk, but obscure individuals all over the world are doing what Jesus did, every day.

Jesus said this: “And these signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” If the TV stars are so special, why aren’t these things happening? If they know more than the obscure people who are doing these things, how can they be doing less?

It’s a very interesting question.

Copeland and another prosperity preacher named James Robison joined an Episcopal priest named Tony Palmer in an effort to convince charismatics they were really Catholics. It was highly disturbing. The Catholic church teaches some very dangerous things. The Protestant Reformation happened for very good reasons, and those reasons still exist. The church had become the most powerful terrorist organization on earth, burning and torturing people on a colossal scale as matters of ordinary business. It teaches the worship of Mary, who was just a woman and who did not die a virgin. It teaches the worship of saints, which is necromancy. It teaches infant baptism, which does not work. The list of corruptions is very long, as Martin Luther proved. It’s not okay to join the Catholic Church. The problems are too great. Copeland should know that, but he wouldn’t know the truth if he saw it. He is blinded by pride and money.

Palmer, a genuinely disturbing individual who was killed in a motorcycle accident at the height of his efforts, was really a Catholic. He was married to a Catholic, and he believed their doctrine. He wanted to convert, but the pope convinced him not to because he served as a bridge between Protestants and Catholics. Palmer stood in front of a room full of charismatics and said, “You’re all Catholic.” That was not pleasant to hear. I felt like a runaway slave who just got caught by the patrollers. I’ve never been a Catholic, but I’m very glad I never had to be.

Jesus prayed his people would be united, and the ecumenicals–the people who want to drop the Catholic net on all of us–cite this as justification. The thing is, Jesus wanted us to be unified under the Holy Spirit, not a pope. The Spirit-led are already unified, which means the followers of Jesus are unified. The people who listen to the traditions of men are AWOL. To join the Catholics would be to join lost sheep instead of rounding them up.

Jesus was a divider. No one likes to talk about that. He said he was a divider. He predicted that Christians would be driven out of synagogues and persecuted by their families. It’s true. Right now, there are Jews who have been disinherited, spat on, beaten, and put in mental wards because their families and rabbis were against Jesus. You can go online and see them talk about what happened to them. Muslims kill converts. People who hear Jesus’ voice are driven out of churches, and the things they say can’t be reconciled with dead-church doctrine.

Division is not the optimal state, but it’s necessary at the moment because hundreds of millions of self-described Christians reject very important truths.

The unification movement is just a way to take the salt out of the church. If they can put us under authorities that discourage obedience to the Spirit of Holiness, while convincing us we’re still good Christians, they can pretty much kill the body of Christ on earth.

Unification was one of the big problems in Rome. The problem Christians had wasn’t so much that they worshiped Jesus; it was that they taught that worshiping other Gods was sin. Instead of accepting unification with pantheists, which would have destroyed the church and nullified the crucifixion, they chose to die in separation, and they were right, just like many of the people the pope’s servants burned over the centuries.

I wish I had never listened to Copeland or any of the Mammon preachers, and I wish I had prayed in tongues more when I was young. I hope the things I write will help others avoid these pitfalls.

Rats are not Pets

My Uncle John had a car dealership.

In 1957, my aunt Mary (not her real name) married John. He lived near Detroit. He owned property used for parking cars. Detroit was booming, so it was not hard to make money selling parking spaces to car-company employees.

John was a very hard worker, and he did well. His business was very simple, so he didn’t have to be a great businessman to make it work.

He saved his money and bought the dealership, which was located in Kentucky, not far from my aunt’s parents. The dealership remained open for several years, and then it closed down. John was not capable of running it.

The dealership was located in Breathitt County, Kentucky, which is a very backward area. John’s employees stole from him. He actually lost money on parts and service. In those days, car dealers made most of their money from parts and service. Parts were disappearing via the back door, and John did not keep an eye on things, so the employees had no reason to stop stealing.

John also had a severe drinking problem. When he was in his seventies, his son said that if he needed to talk to him, he had to call him by 9 a.m., or else he would be too drunk.

John was an extremely carnal person. I doubt he ever had a spiritual thought in his life. Whenever I think of him, the phrase “black-hearted” comes to mind. He was an extreme racist; he even hated Catholics. He stole, and he taught his kids to steal. He threw scary tantrums when he didn’t get his way. I don’t know if he ever hit my aunt, but he always seemed to be on the verge of hitting someone. As far as I know, all he cared about were money, golf, and alcohol.

I can tell you one of the more amazing John stories I heard. His youngest son admired him greatly and tried to be like him. One day John was in the car with his son, and while they were on the road, John saw a ladder beside a house. John said something like, “I see a ladder. No one using the ladder. Must not want it!” He got out and took it. I don’t know how he got a ladder in the car. Maybe it was a pickup. My cousin thought what he did was hilarious. He also did things like stealing sauce bottles from Arby’s instead of asking for packets.

He really disliked me. I was my grandfather’s second-oldest grandson, and the oldest was his son. My mother always thought he hated me because I was the favorite. My grandfather had money, so it would make sense that his sons-in-law would vie for his approval.

As the business failed, my grandfather loaned money to John to keep it alive. He did this more than once. Eventually, he contacted his other children and asked them what he should do. He pointed out that the money was coming from their inheritance.

John used to sweep the dealership and keep it clean, but he didn’t know how to run it, and because of his drinking, he probably couldn’t have done it anyway. GM’s accounting division, GMAC, had a system for dealers to use, but John didn’t use it. He started selling cars cheap to raise cash. He would take a new car to an auction, sell it for a few dollars over cost, and think he had made money.

Eventually, my grandfather came to own the dealership. John and Mary divorced, and John went on to distinguish himself as a divorced dad by teaching his son to curse his mother and ridicule the trailer she and the boys lived in. He was really something.

Last night I dreamed I owned his dealership.

I was in the dealership with a bunch of friends from college. They were young. I felt young. I don’t know how I looked. They were my college friends, but they weren’t real people I actually knew when I was in college. For some reason, they had come to help me clean the dealership up.

There were no cars there. The place was empty. It was going to be repurposed, but I don’t know what the plan was.

There were rats everywhere, or at least there had been. There was rat excrement everywhere.

I saw a steel cabinet on the wall, like an electrical panel cabinet. There were shelves inside it. There were shelves on the floor under it. On top of the shelves, there were a bunch of tight springs maybe 30 inches long. They had been disconnected from something. I kicked at the shelves to see if any rats were still there, and I saw a dark shape scurry away down by the baseboard.

I found a push broom and opened one of the garage-style doors to sweep poop out. One of the girls took the broom, so I had to go find another one.

There was an apple tree growing into the garage through a door. The leaves were shiny and dark. They were very full of life. There was a pile of old brown leaves on the floor. There were no apples because it was too late in the year, but the smell of dried apples was everywhere, as though there were old apples under the leaves.

There was a piece of agricultural equipment out front. It was a long piece of steel with some sort of disks on it. The disks were some kind of reinforced plastic, and they were just about gone. A guy picked it up and asked me if he should throw it out, and I told him to leave it until I figured out what it was. Maybe it was valuable.

I went to John’s office, which was now my office. An older man with a southern accent was going through things, trying to put them in order. He reminded me of many southerners I’ve known. Back in the Sixties, it seemed like the world was full of southern men in their forties and fifties who were building America. They were pilots and engineers. They were military people. They got things done. They were people you could rely on.

Seems like they were always tall, thin white guys with angular features. They spoke with exactly the kind of accent you would expect to hear when a pilot speaks reassuring words over a jet’s intercom.

The office was just a tiny room on the side of the garage. It should have been a closet. The closet-sized office had its own closet, with a little sink where people could wash their hands. I went in and used it. The whole building was filthy. I was worried about getting a disease from the rat dung.

I felt indebted to the young people who were helping me. I had an urge to pull a fifty out of my pocket, put it down on the desk, and say, “BEER,” but I didn’t.

Does the dream mean anything?

In dreams, buildings are people or their offices. I dreamed about Donald Trump and a vacant building, and the building was his new presidency. Maybe the building represented my functions in this life.

Car dealerships are extremely filthy places. They run on fraud and theft. Maybe this is how God sees the person I was.

What are springs? An iniquity is an inner spring. A word the Bible translates as “iniquity” really means “crookedness.” When you take a crooked stick and straighten it, it becomes crooked again when you stop exerting effort. It’s a type of spring. The discarded springs in the dreams may have been the inner springs that used to push me to be a sinful person.

Rats are demons. Rats don’t show up on their own. We leave doors open. We leave garbage in cans. We drop food and don’t pick it up. We choose not to put traps out. We get angry at our demons, and we think we’re their victims, but we’re really just angry at our partners. The Bible says we’re supposed to be partners with God.

Rat dung is what demons spread inside us. They make us unclean. They make us ill. They make us disgusting for righteous beings, like the Holy Spirit, to inhabit.

I’m not sure who the older man was. Maybe he was the Holy Spirit, come with authority to rearrange and cleanse things. I believe the younger people were Christian friends I’m going to make.

Psalm 23 says, “You make me to lie down in green pastures.” In the Bible, green grass symbolizes the wicked. They grow for a season and then wither or are cut down. They are temporary. Most of the people you know now will disappear from your life forever when they die. Often, wicked people are allowed to waste their lives building up wealth so God’s children can have it when they lose it.

The verse says we lie down in green pastures. It doesn’t say we plant them or even that we have to stand and cut the grass for ourselves. This is a picture of inheritance. The Bible calls us heirs too many times to count. We’re not supposed to work hard at carnal tasks. That’s for the damned. We’re supposed to receive good things they’ve worked to build. Eventually, we will receive the whole earth.

I received a big building in the dream, ready to be cleaned up and made useful. Maybe it shows how Spirit-led Christians are taking ministries over from prosperity preachers and feel-good preachers who filled their churches with rats and dung. I don’t mean we’ll get the churches. We don’t need those. God is operating outside of churches now, through people without titles.

I used to be a member of Trinity Church in Miami, and their building was full of rodent dung. They had a big room beside the kitchen, and it had a cabinet along a wall. The cabinet was waist-high, and the drawers were full of thousands of pieces of unused flatware. Trinity always took anything anyone offered, so I guess someone gave them flatware.

They never cleaned the room. The drawers were packed with mouse dung.

For a while, I made pizza for Trinity, to be sold in their cafe. I had to set a table up in the storage room. Before I got to work, I insisted on getting rid of the dung. I got some kids, and we emptied all the drawers and cleaned everything with bleach. The pastors knew about the filth, and they should have been aware that it was very dangerous, but they didn’t care. As long as no one could see it, they were fine with it. If I hadn’t taken a stand, people would have made pizzas on a counter just above drawers full of moldering excrement.

Trinity had a kitchen volunteer named Kervin. He had a young son who kept getting sick. He kept getting high fevers. No one knew why. He used to play in the storage room. I told people the mouse excrement might be his problem. No one cared.

We were expected to pray for this kid, but anyone who talked about cleaning up the excrement was being “negative.”

I hope he’s okay.

I would be astounded to learn that the drawers were not full of dung right now. The Wilkersons and their cronies never learn. Their pride makes them stupid.

When my sister succumbed fully to addiction and hate, her house filled up with dung. She had a dog she never housetrained, and she didn’t mop after him. Her floors were coated with a varnish of urine and feces which accumulated, undisturbed, over a period of years. Rats came in, and she left things like big bags of beans in her pantry. Eventually, rat exrement was everywhere, and when you walked into the house in the daytime, I could hear panicked rats running around in the pantry, looking for places to hide. When I opened the door, I saw opened packages gnawed by rats. Meanwhile, my sister lived in the master bedroom, on a tiny bare place on a filthy mattress with no sheets. The rest of the house belonged to bugs and rodents.

Pests were given to us for a reason. They teach us what we become when we let demons live in us. They show us why repentance and casting out demons are necessary. But many of our big churches teach us to feed the demons instead. They say demons don’t exist. They give people the idea they can sin all they want, because they have Eternal Security. They say fornication is not a problem, as long as you’re a nice person. They say homosexuality is part of God’s plan. They don’t warn people about idolatry. They even teach meditation and yoga.

When a prostitute loses her looks, she has to come up with a new bait, and she has to lower her price.

What is it the new hipster churches DO warn about? “Judgment.” That’s the only sin left, as far as they’re concerned. Anyone who tells you the ship is sinking is a divider and a pharisee.

I suppose the Great Whore of Babylon in the Revelation must be the modern church. The prophet Hosea was told to marry a whore, and she kept running off with other men. She was still his wife, but this is how she behaved. The whore of the Revelation must be a group of people who are supposed to belong to God. If she were not supposed to belong to God, she would be something else, like an armed soldier on a horse. A whore is someone who betrays and sells out.

The modern church is filling itself up with idolatry. Pastors teach mindfulness, which comes from Hinduism. They teach yoga. They teach positive thinking divorced from scripture. They teach self-worship. There is a bride of Christ, and there is the great whore which persecutes God’s children.

People say Kenneth Copeland, possibly the most poisonous prosperity preacher, is trying to start a new religion combining Catholicism, Islam, and charismatic Christianity. If that’s true, it makes perfect sense. The Antichrist will be a religious leader, and he will be someone who comes from Christianity. John said the antichrists of his time “went out from us but were not of us.”

The prefix “anti” doesn’t just mean “against.” It means “instead of.” The Antichrist will try to give us a different way. The world is looking for a form of Christianity that incorporates homosexuality and ends the tension between Bible-believers and those who endorse sexual sin. The Antichrist will probably lure people by “solving” that problem.

I saw Mark Hemans say something very interesting. He was looking at a stained glass window in a cathedral. It showed two men in a bed. He said the Holy Spirit told him this would be the world’s new religion.

I hope God is cleaning me out. I hope he is preparing me to do useful things. I don’t want to be a disgusting environment for the Holy Spirit any more.

What Else is on the Menu?

For maybe 10 years, I’ve been telling other Christians it was crucial for us to get rid of demons and iniquities. One of the best pieces of evidence that I’m right is that I have been persecuted for it. If your pastor doesn’t think you’re a problem, there’s a good chance you’re doing something wrong!

In around 2008, after a long period of backsliding, I turned back to God and started attending Trinity Church in Miami. It’s a feel-good/prosperity gospel church. The pastors are obsessed with increasing membership and getting people to give them money. They live in fear. They’re afraid that if they tell the truth, membership will plummet, and their incomes will be reduced.

At Trinity, the only Bible verse that matters is, “Judge not, lest ye be judged.” That’s Matthew 7:1. They use this verse incorrectly so they can forgive themselves for tolerating and encouraging sin. They say they don’t want to drive people out of the church with legalism, but the truth is that they just want money. They teach people to tithe, which is, of course, legalism. They can’t see or don’t care about their hypocrisy.

Now that I think about it, there are some other verses they like. I mean the ones about tithing and giving offerings. They make very sure everyone is familiar with those.

Trinity is located in a particularly sinful part of a very sinful city. The people who go to Trinity are generally unsuccessful and irresponsible. There is lots of fornication, even in the church’s stairwells. The kids smoke dope. Many sell drugs. Many are thieves. Unwed mothers are all over the church. The pastors don’t think they can change anyone, so they don’t try very hard. They hush things up and let people continue on the way to hell as long as the seats and offering buckets are full.

Here’s an interesting Trinity story. A young man named Alex Nicolas was prominent in the music ministry. People say he was extremely gifted. Trinity promoted him. Alex was also a car thief, and it’s extremely unlikely that this was unknown to the people around him. His Facebook page featured a photo of him in the embrace of another Trinity kid who worked at King of Diamonds, a notorious ghetto strip club. Alex lived in sin, and he probably was not saved.

One day Alex was pulled over in a stolen Mercedes. The police handcuffed him, and then he tried to run. He jumped into a canal and drowned.

Rich Wilkerson had a big memorial service at the church. During the service, he asked people for money. He has a charity called Peacemakers, and he took an offering on its behalf. People were appalled.

Did he say he regretted letting Alex down? I don’t know. People talk a lot about the offering. I don’t recall anyone saying Rich expressed concern over the boy’s soul.

That’s Trinity for you. It shows where the intentional abuse of Matthew 7 leads.

There’s a good chance Alex is in hell. Maybe he could have been corrected, had someone confronted him.

Of course, Christians have to judge. Jesus was just telling us to judge ourselves first and to be cleansed so we can help others to identify and rid themselves of their faults.

The Bible uses language in strange ways. It does not always mean what it seems to mean. For example, when a Biblical figure tells people, “Don’t do this; do that,” he may not really mean you’re never supposed to do the first thing. He may actually mean the second thing is much more important. When a Biblical figure says you should hate one thing and love another, it may not actually mean you have to hate the first thing. It may mean you should greatly prefer the second thing.

When Jesus said, “judge not,” he didn’t mean we should never judge the sins and iniquities of others. He just meant we should judge ourselves first. The Bible actually requires us to tell people about their wickedness. It says that if we do not, their blood will be required of us.

I used to tell people they needed to pray in tongues a lot, and I said people needed to get free of demons and iniquities. Over time, I became an irritant to the pastors. What I was saying was completely obvious, but it was a threat to their operation.

I suppose they thought they had everyone fooled, and that people like me were likely to wake them up and ruin everything. We did wake a few people up, but the pastors didn’t understand that many people at Trinity already knew they were teaching nonsense. People talked about the corruption all the time. One compared the Wilkersons to the mafia. Many people went to Trinity for the social life, so they didn’t care much about doctrine. Many knew what was going on, but they liked the music and the events. They came from corrupt cultures, so I doubt it bothered them to see corruption in their church.

I’ve been to a couple of Last Reformation events. I’ve seen Christians delivered from demons. I have been delivered, myself. I’ve watched Mark Hemans videos in which he cast demons out of church elders.

I was right. Deliverance isn’t just for crazy, homeless unbelievers who live in cemeteries. It’s not just for seemingly autistic or epileptic kids who cut themselves or fall down and foam at the mouth. It’s for all of us, all the time.

Jesus showed me something the other day. In the Bible, he said he stood at the door and knocked. Without deliverance, human beings are full of demons (“dead men’s ones,” as he called them), and the Spirit of Holiness is outside, asking to be let in. Once you’re delivered, the tables are turned. The Spirit of Holiness enters and dominates, and what do the demons do?

They stand outside and knock.

They don’t stop just because you threw them out. They just lose a lot of their power. A demon who is cast out doesn’t hurt you much, and if you keep Jesus out, he doesn’t help you much.

There is always symmetry in the supernatural.

Right now, you are probably dominated and inhabited by a number of demons. You tolerate it because you don’t know they’re there, or because they don’t make you miserable enough to try to get rid of them. You probably enjoy sin and the worldly lifestyle, and you may think it’s okay to go on as you are, because God forgives you. Eventually, though, there may come a time when your demons no longer seem cute, and you will be desperate to get rid of them. By then, they will have done immeasurable damage.

You may be harming yourself physically by tolerating sin and demons. A demon that helps you enjoy anger and greed, for example, may also give you heart attacks or cancer or some other physical problem. The Bible says envy “rots the bones.” Old Testament figures developed skin lesions when they slandered other people. Greed caused Gehazi to develop leprosy instantly. A spirit that helps you enjoy some particular sin may drive the person you’re supposed to marry away. Demons can work against your financial prosperity. They’re like squatters in a rental house. They don’t just live there; they wreck things.

Demons have not changed. They are the same today as they were when Elijah was on the earth, and they do the same things.

For a long time, I’ve known I needed to have a lifestyle of holiness in order to be free from demons and curses, but I didn’t know how far I had to go. Eventually, I got more serious. I threw out my blues and jazz CD’s. I threw out a lot of movies. I even quit drinking caffeine. Until I watched Mark Hemans, however, I didn’t realize just how deep I had to cut to get all the cancer.

Hemans cast a martial arts demon out of a church elder. The man had been studying karate for decades. He said his teacher took a sword and cut him from his chin to his waist, as a sort of dedication. He was a hardcore Christian, but he had to be delivered. Until Hemans talked to him, he didn’t know karate was a problem. The martial arts are full of spiritual mumbo jumbo. They’re not safe.

I saw Hemans cast demons related to rock music out of a woman. How many times have you listened to rock? We should know better. Look how rock musicians live. Many celebrate Satan overtly! They make Satanic hand signs at their concerts. They sing songs like, “Highway to Hell.” Still, I didn’t know I had to get rid of my rock albums. It’s remarkable that I missed something so obvious.

Nearly every American loves evil entertainment. We love occult movies and shows. How many Disney movies do NOT feature the occult? Almost none. All Marvel movies are based on the occult, whether they say so or not. Filling people with gamma rays doesn’t turn them into the Hulk; only spirits could do that. A radioactive spider can’t turn you into Spider-man and give you abilities that defy the laws of physics. Only spirits could. Think about Dr. Strange and the Scarlet Witch. They’re actual witches.

When you participate in the occult, demons try to get inside you, and often, they succeed. Then we wonder why we have illnesses and mental problems.

Drugs and alcohol can bring demons in. I’m not saying you can’t have one beer. I’m talking about abuse. Marijuana has caused many people to turn schizophrenic. They hear voices and hallucinate. LSD and ecstasy are even worse. Opioids make people hear music. PCP makes people think the police are devils. How obvious do things have to be?

Tobacco is a weed that was originally used (still is) in American Indian demon worship. We smoke it, have strokes and heart attacks, get COPD, and turn up with lung cancer. How can anyone think demons don’t work through tobacco?

I saw Hemans cast a tattoo demon out of a lady. It came in while she was getting her tattoo. God hates tattoos. There is a reason why tattoo shops used to be banned. God was watching out for us.

If I said demons entered people who committed rape or murder, most Christians would be willing to consider it, but how many are willing to say their “Jesus Saves” tattoos let demons in?

Some say Satan’s best trick was convincing the world he didn’t exist. A corollary is that he has convinced the world that evil is good or harmless. We pump our toddlers full of occult entertainment, and we think it’s cute. We get tattoos to honor the God who hates them. We sing in church, go home with sex partners we have not married, and pick up bongs. We read horoscopes over breakfast, looking to them instead of God to predict our futures. We insist that God is okay with homosexuality simply because the homosexuals we know don’t seem to be violent or malicious. We insist on celebrating Halloween. That’s a big one.

The Bible says, “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!” This isn’t just a warning. It’s a curse! God has cursed those who call evil good and good evil. That’s us! Are you cursing yourself and your family right now?

The Bible says, “Ye that love the Lord, hate evil: he preserveth the souls of his saints; he delivereth them out of the hand of the wicked.” This is a blessing. It’s a promise. The crazy thing is that we hold onto evil while criticizing God for failing to give us this blessing. “Why did this happen to me? I’m such a good person.” Look around and see what you’re holding onto. You want to hold onto life preservers, not anchors.

I can tell I’ve been freed from some spirits lately. I had sexual drives that never seemed to be completely defeated. Now they appear to be gone. I was quick to get angry when certain types of things happened, and now I’m much better. I want to continue until every contrary spirit is gone.

A funny thing happens to me now. When I see an attractive woman, or an image of an attractive woman, a voice inside me says, “You want a demon?,” and I cut off my thoughts, right where they are. I do not want a demon.

This seems to happen automatically, so I assume it’s the Spirit of Holiness. I’m hoping it will extend to other things. If I see an entire pizza with garlic rolls sitting in front of me, after the second slice, I want to hear myself say, “You want a demon?” When I start to get angry at someone or wish them evil, I want to hear it. I want to hear it before I procastinate. The Bible says laziness is wicked.

I know I can’t perfect myself. It’s nice to try and be good, but I never get real success until a supernatural hand rises up and lifts me. That’s how life is. God gives us grace to succeed, and without it, we always fail. You can’t even breathe without God’s help.

Modern churches tell us demons don’t exist in our world. Many say hell doesn’t exist. They tell us we’re good people. They tell us to continue living in our sins. Preachers are terrified of not living well, so they will say just about anything to make us happy. Of course, they offend and drive out real Christians, so they end up with big flocks of people who are essentially unbelievers. Trinity Church is notorious for this. They have a pattern of running off everyone who can help them. God only lets his servants suffer at Trinity for so long, and then he moves them out.

Preachers like Rich Wilkerson are telling people they do not need repentance or the Spirit of Holiness. It’s like they’re selling counterfeit tickets to a show. A lot of people are going to be shocked when they show their Trinity tickets to the doorman.

I saw a guy talk about outer darkness. Jesus mentioned this several times. The man who talked about it said he had been there. He said he got a man to say the sinner’s prayer, which is not a very good prayer, but that the man continued in drunkenness and did not change. The alcoholic died, and the man who thought he had led him to Christ had his vision at about the same time. He found himself in a dark, empty place, and he was convinced he would be there forever. He believes God showed him this so he could see what happened to the man he had led.

He said outer darkness was mentioned in connection with believers. For example, believers who show up at the wedding of Christ unprepared will be sent to outer darkness. He said it was not for people who had not asked for salvation.

I don’t know if he told the truth or if his doctrine was completely right, but he seemed serious, and I am confident that hell is full of Christians, just as I am sure that the Biblical religious Jews who were against God and his prophets went to hell.

You are spirit-led right now. The only question is which spirit is leading you. You can’t be on the fence. If you think you’re on the fence, you serve Satan, and he owns you. It’s extremely important to seek deliverance and to hold onto it, yet only a tiny percentage of churches teach this.

I’ve seen pastors in supposedly Spirit-filled churches berate and cajole and manipulate people for hours, trying to get them to give money, but how many times have I seen services where Christians focus on casting demons out? Nearly none!

No one wants to talk about demons. We get furious if anyone says we have demons, as though they were saying we had syphilis. Our fear and pride put up walls to protect our demons.

Would you tell a doctor holding a syringe full of antibiotic you didn’t have syphilis? If you had syphilis, you would do anything to convince him you were infected, just to get the shot. But we deny we have demons!

Tom Loud told a Smith Wigglesworth story. Someone asked Wigglesworth if a Christian could have a demon, and he said, “A Christian can have anything he wants.” Ouch. That was God talking.

We’re like Hindus who feed rats. In India, there is a big grain warehouse full of rats. I’ve seen it on TV. The rats are not poisoned. The people who run the warehouse put water out for them. There is a temple dedicated to rats, and people put out big pans of milk for them.

That’s us. We suckle rats while driving off the Spirit of Holiness, and we wonder why the Bible’s promises don’t seem to work for us.

We are incredibly jaded. We can’t see how we destroy ourselves. We need God to throw us into icy ponds to wake us up. We sleep while spirits chew off our limbs.

I don’t want Jesus to stand outside and knock. I want him inside with me, and if someone has to stand outside, let it be the damned spirits that hate us. I’m hoping I’m still young enough for repentance and deliverance to work for me.

I hope getting cleaned out doesn’t take as long as it took for me to fill myself with filth. I worked at it assiduously for decades.

I hope people will read about this and look at themselves and their homes and businesses. I hate to imagine the filthy supernatural vermin we would see and hear if our eyes and ears were opened.

Buy Yourself some Nice Jewelry Instead

Thanksgiving dinner is over.

My Texas trash recipe is excellent. Much better than last year. If you can find it in the post I wrote yesterday, you might as well save it, because it works.

Most Texas trash recipes are underseasoned, and they don’t contain nearly enough peanuts. My recipe has lots of Worcestershire sauce and other stuff. I used a cup of cocktail peanuts per family-size bag of cheddar Chex Mix, and I could have used three and gotten away with it.

My turkey came out great, as always. I think using Aidell’s andouille in the stuffing was not the best choice. Plain old Hillshire Farms beef sausage would have been better. Still, I have never had stuffing anywhere that compares to mine, so I guess it’s okay.

Here’s the big bombshell: everyone agreed that my Honeybaked ham clone blew the real thing away. Not even close. That’s a wrap for Honeybaked. I will never buy one of their hams again.

The recipe I posted works. Just be careful not to burn the crust when you torch it. You want it to harden but not blacken. You’re welcome.

You may not believe my recipe is better, but it is, and it costs 20% as much as the real thing. You may think people all over America wouldn’t be paying Honeybaked prices if they could do better at a small fraction of the price, with a few minutes’ work, but it’s a fact. Here’s something else that’s weird: the Smithfield ham I started with is better, regardless of crust or seasoning, than the meat inside the Honeybaked crust. It’s not as dry, and it’s more tender. You would think Honeybaked would at least try to provide the best meat available.

Spiral-sliced ham crusted with sugar, cloves, and spices is now cheap. You just have to be willing to work for 10 minutes instead of spending 30 minutes buying a ham at a store.

My guests were friends I made at Trinity Church. Their youngest is my goddaughter Gabby. She is really something. Totally fearless. A real firecracker. Runs up to people and grabs them. The thought of rejection is not part of her programming. They have four other kids, and they’re all a pleasure to be around.

We went through a lot at Trinity. We were treated badly by the pastors, of course. When my friends’ son was very young, he got burned while in the care of Trinity’s nursery staff. The burn was on his face, and it was large. The leadership clammed up and refused to talk to my friends. There was no admission of fault, and there was no offer of help.

Of course, when my friends took the boy to the ER, they were treated with suspicion. There were insinuations that they had burned him. It would have been nice if someone at Trinity had had a spine and a heart and could have backed them up.

They left the church. Later on, another child was burned in the nursery. That’s how Trinity is. Nothing changes. Everyone lives with blinders and a muzzle on. The leaders feel that if they pretend everything is fine long enough, eventually the people they hurt will go away and not sue them or otherwise inconvenience them.

My friend was an armorbearer at Trinity, as I was. He remembers spectacularly shabby behavior the Wilkerson family displayed toward me. For example, I put in a long day working for nothing, and then I made the mistake of driving home with Rich Wilkerson’s car keys. I lived 20 minutes away, and that’s in optimal traffic. Instead of showing a little class and gratitude and offering to send someone, like one of his two oldest sons, who did not have real jobs, for the keys, Wilkerson insisted I bring them back the same day.

You would think a grown man would have at least one copy of the key to his main vehicle.

Today we joked about Trinity. I said I wondered who had cooked Thanksgiving dinner for the Wilkersons. We had a good laugh about that. My friend speculated it was some black family still under the Wilkerson spell.

We left Trinity at about the same time, and we ended up in a church run by a man who was an active pedophile. One day that pastor came to church with a Christmas ornament he had bought for my friends’ second-oldest daughter, who would have been maybe eight. My friends thought it was a creepy thing for a middle-aged man to do. When the mother of the pastor’s victim blew the lid off things, my friends were glad they had left the church before anything happened to their daughter.

Being abused by the same preachers can really help people bond.

We cooperated today. I provided the turkey and a couple of pies, and my friends brought sides and soft drinks, plus two unexpected pies. This is how normal Christians do it. They don’t manipulate other people into cooking their food and then stroll in after someone else does all the work.

We had a lot of fun, even though my friends’ rescue dog, Pumpkin, pooped on my carpet. I can pretty much count on Pumpkin leaving me a present on every visit. I have a fair amount of equipment for taking care of a dementia patient, so I was well prepared for any type of spill.

Their eldest daughter stayed in the kitchen most of the afternoon, working on her studies. She had a scholarship to one of Florida’s best private colleges, but she had to turn it down because they don’t offer a pharmacy program. She wants to do the 6-year program at FAMU. Her mother complained that all she did was study. What a terrible problem for a parent to have!

She’s a tremendous young lady. Really restores my faith in young people.

The boy who was burned will be starting baseball next year. His dad had him out in my hard today with a tee-ball set.

When we were done eating, my friends and their kids did most of the clean-up work. The reward for the kids was pie, plus being allowed to shoot coconut-flavored Reddi-wip directly into their mouths.

The conclusion today was that if I’m still here next year, we will do it again, and they will spend the night. Everyone was paralyzed after dinner. They did not want to climb in the car and drive home.

I made them take most of the leftovers. It’s not safe for me to be around that stuff. They made the mistake of leaving an entire pecan pie. I will probably throw it out. That will hurt.

I’m expecting my aunt and cousin for Christmas. We somehow ended up outside the circle of relatives who were invited to family get-togethers, so we will gather here and have better food and weather than everyone else.

I hope your Thanksgiving has gone well. I have to go downstairs now and talk to a couple of birds.

Let’s Bust up the Honeybaked Cartel

I wrote a long post yesterday, but I deleted it because it seemed too negative. I complained about the cost of holiday food. I have a lot going for me, and I have good friends who are coming to share a meal with me, so I should not be crabby. I should never be crabby, really. Crabbiness is not a fruit of the Spirit.

That being said, I have to confirm the primary thesis of the post I deleted, to wit: Honeybaked hams cost way too much!

This year, I’m sharing food expenses. My friends are bringing sides. I’m on the hook for a turkey, a ham, and two pies. I figured the meal would be cheaper than usual, but then I went shopping yesterday and spent over $130.

There were four reasons the food cost so much.

1. I could not get a normal-sized turkey because people who fry turkeys snap them up early. I had to get an 18-pounder, so I paid for three extra pounds.

2. I bought Korbel brut to flavor the turkey and dressing. Poultry without white wine is wrong. We should probably be marinating fried chicken in it.

3. I bought pecans for pies. Nuts are crazy expensive. I don’t know if there was a nut blight or what, but the only cheap nuts now are peanuts. I spent $11 on 16 ounces of pecan halves.

4. I bought a Honeybaked ham. It seems pretty well established that all the other brands are inferior, so I paid the price for the real thing. For a tiny 4.5-pound ham, I paid about $50.

This is a lot of money for a tiny ham. Even Omaha Steaks, which is basically a scam operation that preys on people who have no sales resistance, sells hams cheaper.

Omaha Steaks and other food truck scams have an annoying and insulting Jedi trick they play on people. The guy parks his freezer truck in your driveway, and then he comes to your door and says, “Come see what I’ve got in the truck.” He starts walking backward while looking at you to motivate you to follow. It’s definitely something they teach in their training. The natural response is to follow. The countermove is to shut the door while they’re backing away, and if you want to keep it civil, say, “No thanks! Have a great day!” They will not come back to your door. It’s too awkward. Walking away is supposed to compel you to follow, like the motion of a fishing lure, but it also establishes their motion toward the truck, and once you shut the door, they pretty much have to continue.

I feel for the truck people. I know exactly what happened to them. Someone from Omaha Steaks convinced them to finance a truck and a bunch of substandard food, on the assurance that their methods can’t fail. They work up their courage and go out and try it, and people like me shut the door on them. Ouch.

No one likes to be treated like a cat chasing a laser pointer. If I don’t cooperate, it’s on you, buddy. Welcome to sales.

I’ve actually had their steaks. Thin frozen cuts of what appeared to be plain old supermarket-grade beef. Not good at all.

Of course, I’m assuming all the truck salespeople who pestered me were real Omaha Steaks affiliates. Maybe they were not. But if you Google around, you will find some pretty sad-looking photos of real Omaha Steaks frozen wonders. They look just like the ones I tried.

To get back to the Honeybaked story, my local grocery is selling similar hams right now for under $20, or $4 per pound. They sell bone-in spiral hams for $2 per pound, which is a monumental discount over Honeybaked. I can buy sliced, packaged country ham shipped to me for something like $7 per pound. Clearly, $11 per pound is too much for a Honeybaked ham.

I thought about it yesterday, and it occurred to me that a smart person should be able to duplicate (and improve upon) the taste of a Honeybaked ham at home. I went to my kitchen and mixed up some ingredients.

My efforts were based on the way I remember Honeybaked hams tasting in the distant past. I haven’t had one in years, and I can’t break into the one I just bought. The ones I’ve had tasted like sugar and cloves. That’s about all.

There are clone recipes on the web, but they don’t look good. Some include onion powder, and I don’t see that working at all. At least one includes cinnamon. Honeybaked hams do not taste like cinnamon.

I fiddled around for a while, and I think I can tell you what was in the glaze on the hams I remember: white or light brown sugar, light honey, cloves, nutmeg, mustard, and caramel. Allspice may also be in there somewhere.

For mustard, you can use whatever you have. I used French’s yellow mustard, which is as unpretentious as mustard gets. I would not use mustard powder, because the acidity of prepared mustard is helpful.

You may be wondering how to get caramel to put in your glaze. I learned some new things about caramel.

It’s always possible to burn sugar in a pan to get caramel. The problem is that you end up with a hard piece of sugar glass. It’s not easy to break up so you can apply it to things. Also, it will have some bitterness, which you may not want.

What if you want caramel-flavored granules with no bitterness? You just bake granulated sugar at 300° until it turns brown. It stays in grain form, and it doesn’t get as bitter as burned sugar.

I’m thinking you could use this in your glaze as an addition to plain sugar, or, by controlling how dark it gets, you could replace the plain sugar entirely.

It’s supposed to be an excellent cookie ingredient. Look it up.

Do NOT put cinnamon in your glaze. I tried it, and it makes the glaze smell funky, like something that has been sitting at the bottom of a laundry hamper for a month. It’s a very bad idea.

I looked at some copycat recipes, and while I reject their ingredients, I think their cooking methods aren’t bad. It appears that you just smear the ham with honey, bake it until it’s warm, apply the rest of the glaze ingredients, and then broil it or use a torch to set the crust.

One lady suggests applying butter with the honey. I don’t think the Honeybaked people do that, but it sounds like a good way to one-up them. Nearly everything needs butter.

I can’t tell you how much of each ingredient to use, but you should be able to figure that out by trial and error. I would say maybe 1/4 teaspoon of cloves per ounce of sugar, to start. You don’t want much mustard at all. You want it to be a subtle background ingredient. You don’t want much nutmeg, either.

I would use prepared mustard and mix it with the honey.

If I were doing this, I would use orange blossom or sourwood honey. You don’t want a dark honey with a strong flavor. The honey is mainly there to hold the sugar mix in place.

Don’t put salt in the glaze. It makes it taste worse.

I feel like trying this just to stick it to the man, even though it will cost me more money and I don’t want another ham.

If Honeybaked charged half as much as they do, they would still make a killing, and people like me would not be scheming to outwit them.

I may try this. It’s bugging me.

Bring on the Styrofoam Containers

Last night I was in prayer, and I spent some time thinking about the negative effects popular culture has on me. I thought about the things I still need to clean out of my life.

I thought about the nazirites. I don’t know much about the concept, but in the Old Testament, a nazirite was a person who was dedicated to God. They had to obey conditions going beyond the Jewish law. Samson was a nazirite from birth. He was not allowed to drink wine, let a razor touch his head, or touch a dead body.

It seems like Spirit-led Christians have to be a lot like nazirites. You can’t listen to rock or let your kids have a Pirates of the Caribbean DVD like everyone else, but on the other hand, you get to know God personally, and he gives you things like the ability to heal, prophecy, and the ability to work miracles. He warns you about things that take other people by surprise.

I thought about the verse in the 91st psalm, which says, “A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand, but it shall not come nigh thee. Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.”

When I think about this verse, I am glad to know I’m protected, but I also think about the other people–the vast majority of the earth’s inhabitants–who are not.

In God’s eyes, “the wicked” can be defined this way: “those who have rejected Jesus Christ.” That’s all it takes. You can feed the sick. You can give a stranger a kidney. You can give to the poor. That’s not what God looks at. It doesn’t help. What matters is whether you accepted the sacrifice. It’s not about what you’ve done, because the evil you do is expunged from your record when you receive salvation.

There are reformed pedophiles in heaven, but Mother Teresa, who spoke against faith, may be in hell.

I am not a mushy person who cries at movies, but last night it disturbed me to think of the problems unbelievers are headed for. I felt the sorrow of the Holy Spirit. For a minute, I held my head in my hands and thought about the future of those who won’t listen.

It can’t be repeated often enough: hell is not for “bad” people. It’s for people who don’t listen.

Heaven is for bad people. Jesus was crucified for bad people. If people had been good, he would have had no reason to be crucified, so he would not have done it.

Heaven is for bad people because there is no other kind of person.

If it weren’t for bad people, heaven would be empty except for God, the angels, and people who either died before they could sin or had some issue that made it unreasonable to require them to accept Jesus. It would be full of aborted children, the retarded, and people who lived on secluded islands or in rain forests.

There are a lot of Christians out there who are in danger of hell. I’ve known plenty of Christians who lived in fornication even while serving at church. They thought it was okay to live with people they weren’t married to. I’ve known Christians who used drugs. The world is full of Christians who participate in other religions, such as astrology, fortune-telling, and yoga. I wonder what will happen to them.

I saw a testimony from a Christian who claimed she had visited hell. She said God had told her she was going there because she lived with her boyfriend. How many Christians would believe that today?

There was a young lady who used to sing at my last church. She was single. She had a baby. Okay; I could accept that. People who choose to fornicate repent, as I did. Sometimes people have children in marriage, and then they end up single. No problem. And it was good that she didn’t have her baby killed.

Then another baby popped up. I thought maybe she had slipped. Then she came in with a third one. I was only there for three years, so she was maintaining a high level of production. I can’t even guess how many kids she has now.

The pastor had no problem with putting her on the stage as a corrupting example, because he liked her voice. She must have thought she was doing fine, but she was continuing in a major sin, knowingly and without coercion, without repentance.

God forgives just about anything, but you’re supposed to repent. You can’t go to Jesus and say, “I plan to visit a prostitute this evening, so could you go ahead and forgive me now?”

We’re so terrified of “judging” that many of us have decided anything goes. That’s not how it works. For example, you can be a homosexual and be forgiven, but you can’t get saved, marry another homosexual, and then expect God to tolerate it.

Wrong is still wrong.

I keep seeing people on Youtube, talking about their recent rapture dreams. It’s shocking how many people are dreaming of the rapture. It happened to me in 2016, and now there is a wave of others who have had the same experience.

When I think of the way technology is destroying free will, the astounding filthiness of modern culture, and the tide of rapture dreams, I feel that time is very, very short, and only a small percentage of Christians are ready.

Missing the rapture is a big deal. You will have to live on a planet that isn’t protected by the prayers and presence of God’s children. The terrible things God keeps away from the world today will be released. Plagues that used to go away will rage without hindrance. Meteors that used to miss the earth will land here. Storms that would have missed major cities will strike them and rest over them. And if you profess faith in God, you will be executed.

This is all bad, but there is more to think about. If you’re not fit for the rapture, how can you think you’re fit to be saved when you die? It doesn’t make sense.

Many preachers teach people that all you have to do to be saved is to raise your hand and ask, and Christians like to believe it, because it means they can go on enjoying sin. It’s a very dangerous teaching. You’re supposed to change. The word says you’re supposed to become the righteousness of God. Should you really expect God to reach down into your bedroom and lift you off the earth while you’re lying in bed with your girlfriend, smoking a joint, and playing a violent video game?

We should be looking for ways to do a lot for God, but instead, we keep trying to find out how little we can do and still avoid hell.

Jesus said very clearly that we would not see him coming. He said he would return at a time when we did not expect it. That means we will not know when it’s coming. Any human being who tries to pin down the date will be wrong. But he did tell us there would be signs to tell us when the end was near. We keep seeing those signs.

What does “near” mean to God? To me, it would mean a year or less, but I’m just a man. For all I know, to God, “near” means a century from now. But with the end of free will approaching quickly, it’s hard to believe we will be waiting that long.

We shouldn’t be trying to guess the date so we can sin until the previous week. We should live as though he were coming this afternoon. Living for God is always the right thing to do. You shouldn’t have to be motivated by a crisis.

It’s a weird time to be alive. One way or the other, it will be a relief to see things reach a resolution.

I have to go get a turkey and a ham now. Friends are coming for Thanksgiving. I don’t want to cook at all, but I can’t stand the thought of a lame turkey with bones in it, so I’m going to bone and stuff a bird. My friends have agreed to supply the rest of the food. They’re planning to go to Cracker Barrel for it. I’m all for that.

There was a time when I would have rebelled at the thought of eating restaurant food on a holiday, but those days are done. I am somewhat tempted to abandon the turkey project, if the truth be told. Even without side dishes, the turkey will be a two-day effort.

I’m so tired of cooking and cleaning, I don’t look forward to the food.

I think we make too much of holidays. I know I’ve written about that before. People go into debt on Christmas. That’s ridiculous. We celebrate the birth of the one who told us not to borrow…by borrowing. Holiday meals are also over the top.

When my dad was alive, I had to cook a ton of stuff. He insisted on cranberry sauce, which is sad and inferior compared to relish, and he demanded oyster dressing, which is, quite simply, disgusting. I always made sauce, relish, oyster dressing, and normal dressing. Then there were the other dishes. Yams, potatoes, beans, two kinds of pie…it’s just too much.

I can’t understand why anyone would put nasty canned oysters in dressing. Why not toss a few slugs in there while you’re at it?

Maybe it tastes great, but I can’t get past the smell.

I have been asked to fix a sweet potato pie. I have no idea how to do that. I figure it’s a pumpkin pie made with yams. I think I’ll just crank out two pecan pies instead. They’re much better, and the preparation time is only a few minutes.

Someone asked me to make a sweet potato pie a few years back. They had invited me and my dad to Thanksgiving dinner, so I was happy to do it. I told them I didn’t know how to do it, but they were okay with that. I substituted yams in a pumpkin pie recipe, and everyone was happy.

Here’s something you need to know, if you can’t cook. When you know a good cook, and you want them to fix something for you, you do NOT ask for something they’ve never cooked. They’ll just open a cookbook and use someone else’s bad recipe. Being a good cook doesn’t mean you can cook anything anyone wants, on demand. It means you can cook certain things you’re familiar with.

I knew a professional chef who collected cookbooks. She was willing to cook anything on a one-off basis. It generally did not work well. It all depended on which recipe she used. She didn’t write recipes, so when she needed a dish, she just cracked a book. Most cookbooks are bad. When she happened, by chance, to find a good recipe, she did okay, but she couldn’t hit the gong consistently.

Make me work out of cookbooks, and you will get similar results.

The sweet potato pie I made was not good. It was sort of okay.

A good cook isn’t someone who can take a cookbook, follow it precisely, and make good food. A good cook writes or improves recipes. You can also fake being a good cook by collecting proven recipes.

I look forward to seeing my friends. That will be great. The food, I could not care less about. When I think of big meals, I think of dirty dishes and trips to the dump. I picture myself in the kitchen, alone, at 10 p.m., with a pot in one hand and a brush in the other.

The best holiday meal, to avoid hard work, is prime rib. You only use two things: a roasting pan and a serving platter. You salt and season the meat, roast it at 200° until it’s around 95° inside, remove the foil, crank the heat to 500°, and brown it. Done. Cleaning up after prime rib is easy. Of course, many people I know will not eat properly cooked beef, so prime rib can be a problem.

Women, especially, tend to reject beef unless you ruin it by serving it well done. When I used to give my dad prime rib, I had to put his perfectly prepared serving in the microwave and ruin it first. If you only eat beef well done, you might as well buy the cheap stuff, because you have the palate of a terrier.

I don’t care much about food any more. I don’t know anyone who can cook well enough to make me happy. I don’t know of any restaurant that prepares food that compares to my own. I am tired of doing dishes and cleaning the stove. It’s hard to get excited about a turkey.

Today I’m roasting a chicken because I could not think of anything else I wanted badly enough to work on. Throw it in the oven with seasonings and vegetables, take it out three hours later…done. Good enough.

We should really abolish mandatory holiday meals. It’s so much better when you can share a meal whenever you want, just because you want to. Making giant holiday meals and splurging on Christmas gifts is like going to homeless shelters to feed people on Thanksgiving and Christmas. If you’ve been a jerk all year, go ahead and ruin your holiday, because you deserve it, but we should be charitable all year long.

I wonder how people who run homeless shelters feel about folks who drop by to hand out food on holidays. I can guess. They resent them for not showing up the other 364 days of the year. It’s like going to church on Easter and Christmas to make up for backsliding. You just make the volunteers mad and jam up the parking lot. And those awful hats. No one can see around them.

Okay, okay. I will be grateful. I have wonderful friends. I have a beautiful house in which to host the meal. I can afford good food. I will work on my attitude. I really will.

I have to get up. The turkey and ham aren’t going to buy themselves.

We Worship People our Ancestors Would not have Permitted in Their Homes

Note: I wrote this a couple of days ago. Something kept telling me not to publish it. Today I felt that I was released.

I am disturbed today.

This morning during my prayer time, I picked up my phone for a minute, and somehow I ended up Googling Stanley Kubrick. From there, I went on to read up on Dr. Strangelove, Terry Southern, the beat generation, William S. Burroughs, Rip Torn, Saturday Night Live, and a number of popular movies.

I have never liked Stanley Kubrick movies. The only exception is Dr. Strangelove, which was a pretty fair picture of the way human organizations work. It was like Dilbert’s view of the Cold War.

I just realized I liked another Kubrick movie. I don’t like it now, however. When I was a kid, I watched A Clockwork Orange, and I got caught up in the way it made extreme cruelty and rape funny. I think most people who like the movie like it for its humor, and that’s unfortunate, because it shows how our consciences have been seared. I should never have found it funny. I should have left the room in shock.

I never thought much of 2001. It was an extremely boring movie. The plot could have been summed up in less than 10 seconds. It was not clever. It was not funny. It was not moving. It was like something a high school student could have written.

Full Metal Jacket was somewhat like A Clockwork Orange. Thanks to R. Lee Ermey, Kubrick again succeeded in making depravity amusing. The rest of the film was just sensationalism, pessimism, and hatred of humanity. There was no plot. It’s not clear if Kubrick had any type of structure in mind when he made the film.

He obviously hated the military. That much is clear. Of course, his freedom to make his films was built on the corpses of dead soldiers.

Terry Southern rewrote Dr. Strangelove, which means he made a small contribution to the film, but many people think he wrote the whole thing. He was a Texan. He was a pal of beatniks and counterculture apostles. He ran around with William S. Burroughs, who is the very face of depravity and damnation. You haven’t debased yourself with literature until you’ve read his book Naked Lunch.

Terry Southern wrote Easy Rider, which was an exceptionally poisonous movie. He also wrote The Magic Christian, a cult film in which Peter Sellers convinces people to humiliate themselves in exchange for money. I don’t think Southern ever turned down money, but he seems to have been pretty disgusted with other people who thought about things like paying bills.

There is a scene in The Magic Christian in which Sellers’ character fills a tank with excrement and slaughterhouse waste and then adds a huge amount of British currency. People walking by start trying to pick notes out from outside the tank, and they end up swimming in it in order to maximize their success.

I read that Mike O’Donoghue tried to get Southern to write for The National Lampoon, which spawned P.J. O’Rourke, John Hughes, and Doug Kenney, who would probably have become famous, too, had he not fallen off a cliff.

I could say the Lampoon spawned me, too. A lot of the humor I’ve written was influenced by the Lampoon. Many of the self-destructive things I did in college were inspired by the spirit of Animal House.

As I read about various people and movies, God showed me that our secular culture is generated by a club, or, more accurately, a family. Directors know actors and screenwriters. Actors and screenwriters know musicians. The whole crew is in bed with leftist journalists and politicians; in fact, Southern, not Hunter Thompson, is said to have been the father of “the New Journalism.” It’s a big, sprawling guild, spreading infectious pus over America from a thousand points of darkness.

I’m so sorry I ever had an interest in popular culture. I see how poisonous it is now.

I used to fantasize about working for the Lampoon. I once sent submissions to a show SNL spun off, hoping to be hired as a writer. I’ve written a gigantic amount of sick humor on the Internet. I got three books published. I knew I could write humor as well as anyone. I thought it was only a matter of time until I was recognized.

I have to thank God my career didn’t go anywhere. What would have happened to me? I would have become convinced I was on the right track. I would have had no incentive to turn to God.

When I think of popular culture, I think of carnies. A carny is a person who works for a carnival. Carnies are typically moral nullities. They have been rejected by decent people for centuries.

Carnies have a reputation for coming to town, conning people out of their money, stealing things that aren’t locked up, seducing women, and enticing men with sex. Their reputation is well-deserved. They do all these things. A carnival is like a traveling apparatus for spreading disease. You could say carnies are like reverse evangelists.

The other day I saw an episode of American Pickers. This show is about two men, Mike Wolfe and Frank Fritz, who roam around buying collectible items from people. They have a female assistant named Danielle. She’s a stripper. She is covered with tattoos.

In the episode I saw, Danielle and Mike visited an artist who collects flash art. You may be wondering what that is. It’s wall art used in tattoo shops. Tattooists create posters of their designs, and they hang them on their shop walls. You look at the flash art and choose the tattoo you want.

Danielle was beside herself with awe as she looked at the tacky, sleazy, artistically feeble posters of filthy drawings. It was as though someone had given her a private viewing of Michelangelo’s statues. She was looking at garbage, mind you. She knew the names of the “artists.” She spoke of them the way a pianist might speak of Art Tatum. She spoke with true reverence.

Imagine speaking of a pornography dealer or a pimp with reverence. That was how it sounded to me. Actually, many Americans do revere a pornography dealer. In his last decades, Hugh Hefner–a giant among degenerates–was treated like an elder statesman.

She talked about the connection between carnivals and tattoos. She said she was a carny at heart.

The posters featured things like nude, whorish women with exaggerated physiques. Very tasteless.

As I watched her, I thought about what America had become.

America is in love with evil, and the people who lead us in our love are bound together surprisingly tightly. Look at one prominent exponent of sin, and you will be presented with links to others. It’s like a game of six degrees of Satan.

We have many celebrities who are open about loving evil. Consider rock music. On the other hand, we have a lot of evil-loving celebrities who appear squeaky clean or at least morally neutral. Look how Disney kids turn out. Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera. Shia Laboeuf. Lindsey Lohan. Miley Cyrus.

In order to become prominent in the arts or journalism, you almost have to be in the club. I didn’t know that when I was trying to get in. I was running from God, but I had enough of the smell of Christianity on me to make me an impossible fit. The vast bulk of the arts are harmful. The arts have been instrumental in promoting our decline as a civilization.

The arts promote leftism, sexual sin, hatred of authority, emasculation, cruelty, narcissism, drug abuse, pride, anger, the rejection of logic, and selfishness. It’s amazing we’ve done as well as we have, under the influence of the arts.

I feel bad about trying to get into the club, and I also feel bad about holding onto certain things too long. I feel bad about amassing a big blues and jazz collection, which I discarded not long ago. I feel bad about owning literature that poisoned me.

When I was young, I owned a lot of books by Henry Miller and Anais Nin. That could never have happened, had I known anything about God. I was ignorant. I had no one to tell me I was hurting myself. My own mother introduced me to Henry Miller!

I admired Hunter Thompson, who was one of the biggest failures in modern history. I watched other people destroy themselves, and I wanted to take my turn.

I have a friend who loves Harry Potter. I could not convince her to give it up. The books brought her comfort while she was growing up with abusive parents. I don’t think she understands that she brought demons into her life, and that they are connected to her current problems. It’s bad that I lived in ignorance for so long. I wish I were better able to help other people get out of it, but human beings tend to wait for their own self-generated disasters instead of learning from the bad choices of others. My own experience is an example.

I’ve been watching a lot of Mark Hemans lately. He’s an Australian healer who goes around casting out demons and teaching. He sometimes tells people they collected demons via one-off experiences. For example, getting one tattoo or talking to one “psychic” can invite a demon that never leaves and nearly destroys your life.

How many times have I opened doors? I can’t count the dirty movies, books, magazines, and websites I’ve seen. My uncle took me and my cousin to a dirty movie, which wasn’t even very good, when we were 8 and 7, and I watched Deadpool when I was deep into middle age. I watched many things in between. I’m not even mentioning the non-mainstream things I’ve seen.

My uncle also took us to see Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex. I don’t know what he was thinking.

I consulted a psychic once. I let my mother have my astrological chart done. I used various drugs. I said all sorts of careless things.

Christians tend to think that as long as they go to church and reject the worst sinful activities, it’s okay to be part of mainstream culture. That’s not true. Things we think are harmless can be very damaging. I saw Hemans tell a lady to go home and throw out her daughter’s fairy tale books. He said they were a reason demons were afflicting her daughter. How many Christians have shelves full of Pixar and Disney films about supernatural creatures?

There is no significant difference between watching fetish pornography and watching John Wick or a Harry Potter film. A demon is a demon, no matter what vehicle it arrives in.

I can’t believe I let myself watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer. I must have been insane.

When I think about the things I’ve ingested, the sensation I have is a wish that I could vomit everything out and be clean. I have been praying for hours every day for years, I have been baptized with the Holy Spirit, I am very sincere about serving God, and still, this is where I am. What must life be like for Christians who are not even trying?

Maybe Satan doesn’t mind it all that much if you get baptized with the Holy Spirit, as long as you hold onto your culture. If you go home and wallow in worldly filth and defend it to other people, you aren’t a big threat, and you are likely to return to him. You are also likely to serve him very powerfully even while you think you’re on God’s side. Christian TV is full of preachers who do tremendous work for Satan and almost nothing for God.

Understanding all this, I believe I know what’s happening with Kanye West. He is not a sound Christian. He is very dangerous. He has let worldly Christians and his own flesh convince him that he’s supposed to help God out with his fame and money. He wants to show the world a rich, famous Christian can do powerful works for God, and that Christians are the ones who are supposed to have the TV cameras and big venues.

West is under the spell of Richie Wilkerson, who is as toxic as preachers get, short of starting cults in the Amazon basin. Richie has no interest in God. He believes in money and fame. Richie’s mom and dad run a cult church where money is god, and the apple fell right next to the trees. Richie thinks earthly promotion is proof of God’s presence, even if you have to debase yourself to get it.

If you look at things Richie says in public, you’ll see he’s very defensive. He’s always defending what he’s doing. He knows he’s in the wrong.

Paul made it clear we are not supposed to associate with Christians who continue in willful sin, yet Richie has no problem using his closeness to Kim Kardashian to promote his ministry. After years of connecting with Richie, Kim Kardashian still works for the devil. She is a powerful promoter of sexual sin. She has not repented. Kanye West, if he has changed at all, is an embryonic Christian who should not be leading anyone. When Richie hangs out with them and endorses what they do, he is not being loving and inclusive. He is just whoring out and being a follower. This is exactly what his dad does, with less success.

I think there is hope for West, but I think his breakthrough won’t come until he gets free of the Wilkerson curse. Until you see him abandon and denounce his secular works–completely–don’t be fooled. He’s still deceived.

I was there when people who actually cared about God fled the Wilkerson church. I know what I’m talking about. The Wilkersons had secret meetings about me, and Richie actually preached publicly against what I was saying in private. They are not nice people. They grin and smile and talk about love when they’re really just trying to seduce people so they can take their money. Then if you tell people what they’re up to, the Wilkersons call you a hater.

It’s a wonderful pose. You smile and forgive in front of the crowd, and you claim you love everyone who is against you. The idea is to make yourself look holy, and to make people who speak for God look wicked, while you pick people’s pockets.

Satan appears as an angel of light. Why? Because people like to be kissed and coddled and told they don’t have to change. They prefer flatterers who destroy them to honest people who love them and want to help them.

People like the Wilkersons defend themselves with numbers. “Look how many people came to church today.” They don’t know how few of those people belong to God. They use the wrong bait, so they attract the wrong people. The Bible says, “Better a little the righteous man has than the riches of many wicked.”

When Jesus becomes popular, he ceases to be Jesus. He said the world would hate his children, and it does. You can’t have a glamorous, worldwide movement everyone approves of and expect God to be part of it.

The best that can be said for Richie and Kanye is that some people may go to their events and get to know God in spite of the errors of the organizers. How well such new Christians would do would depend largely on their willingness to ignore everything Richie says and find better teaching. I improved a great deal at Trinity Church, but the better I got, the more I disagreed with the management. Had God not given me a prodigious habit of praying in tongues, which brings revelation, I might still be at Trinity, drinking the Kool Aid.

Leaving Trinity was wonderful. It was like a graduation. I felt like a runaway slave. The rapture will feel the same way.

Even the pharisees who rejected Jesus and are now in hell taught some useful things, as Jesus himself said. That’s how it will be with Kanye’s new project.

I will keep looking at my life and trying to rid myself of anything toxic.

Coercion Results in Welding Table Purchase

It seems like the exciting news never stops. I have made a decision regarding buying a welding table.

Why am I buying a table at all? I still haven’t finished painting the grinder pedestal I welded together. A fine fabricator I turned out to be. I keep putting things off.

The finish on the top is going to have to be sanded and repainted at least one more time. I also need to enlarge or replace a couple of holes for the bolts that hold the grinder on. I put them in the wrong places.

I really will finish the pedestal. I could use it right now (after using the drill twice). I just want it to look a little better.

Anyway, I had a couple of table ideas in mind. One was to build my own table, which would be somewhat challenging…without a welding table. Another was to buy a Fabblock table from Weldtables.com and assemble it myself. The Fabblock I wanted, plus legs, runs $800 plus shipping. Ow.

There was a third alternative, but my opportunity to try it was temporary, and I let it slip by. Now I have another opportunity, so I’m pouncing.

Northern Tool sells Klutch tools. I think it’s their house brand. They have a welding table that usually sells for almost $400. For some inexplicable reason, they put it on sale for $179. I noticed it a while back. Then, while I was fighting temptation, they took it away! Fiends!

This is a very nice table. The top is 4mm thick, which means it’s around 1/6 of an inch. It has 16mm holes all over it. It comes with a bunch of clamps and fixturing tools. You can open the box, put it together, and start welding without buying a single clamp.

People say the top is generally very flat, but you may get a lemon with a 1/16″ crown or dip. I think it’s worth the risk. It might be possible to improve a warped table, and in any case, it shouldn’t be hard to shim workpieces and get them flat. A 1/16″ bend is not hard to compensate for.

Is it the table of my dreams? No, but it’s very cheap and very good, and if I move to Tennessee, it will be a lot easier to move than a Fabblock. If Northern Tool kills the sale price again, I should actually be able to sell it locally for more than I paid. Then I can buy a Fabblock when I’m firmly situated.

I can use this table to build a bigger table, if I want. That may actually be the best move. My milling machine is about to be returned to me, so preparing slats for a shopmade table will be easy.

Northern Tool made it impossible to say no. They brought the low price back, and then they sent me an email saying they would give me a $10 gift card for ordering online (code 268178). That brings the price to $169 plus tax. The other day I spent $180 on a lame restaurant meal. How can I say no to a welding table that costs $11 less?

Strong Hand Tools makes wonderful [Chinese] stuff, and their version of the Klutch table costs about $430. Strong Hand is actually kind of disturbing, because it’s one of those companies that show us the future. Their products are Chinese, but the quality is really good. I have their version of the famous Bessey clamp, and it looks like an improvement to me.

I can’t wait to abandon my Harbor Freight table. For the money, it is a stellar tool, but when you consider what they cost, that’s faint praise. It’s wobbly, it’s not flat, and it’s small. I may keep it for use as a portable, which is the purpose it’s made for. I do not plan to weld on it in my shop unless I have no choice.

Now I need to get wheels for the new table. Once that’s done, I’ll be sitting pretty.

Speaking of Chinese, I finally have a good source of Chinese food. The only local place I have tried was a disaster. It was hot and dirty, and the proprietress kept screaming at the cook in Chinese. Their kung pao chicken was pretty bad, and instead of cooking the peanuts in sauce, they just dumped dry raw peanuts on top of the food.

Small towns are known for terrible Chinese, as is Miami. My area had only one decent place, and they tore it down to build something or other.

I know good Chinese food. When I was a student at Columbia University, I had access to very good Szechuan places. For example, I used to eat at the Hunan Balcony on upper Broadway. I also know bad Chinese food. The oil smells rancid. The meat always seems to be nearly spoiled. The smell when the kitchen door opens is scary. All the sauce is basically duck sauce. The seasonings are off.

I found myself a recipe for kung pao chicken, over at Epicurious. It’s from a book by a lady named Kuan. I used Epicurious because I’m not a Cook’s Illustrated subscriber any more, and I hate Cooks.com and the Food Network’s revolting recipes. When I think about the Food Network, I always think about Bobby Flay’s inept 325° prime rib recipe. Don’t buy a rib roast and cook it at 325°. Just buy some liquid rubber, pour it in a roast-shaped mold, and let it cure for several days. Same result.

The recipe called for a couple of weird items. It called for black vinegar and hoisin sauce. I went to an Asian grocery to pick up the vinegar. I told the girl there the local Chinese food was heinous. She said it wasn’t Americanized. I can understand why she would stand up for her pals, but no, it has nothing to do with being Americanized. Bad food which is authentic is still bad food.

I can’t tell you what authentic Chinese food tastes like, and I’m not sure I want to find out, because authentic Mexican food is garbage compared to American Mexican food. I can tell when a person is a bad cook, however, regardless of the cuisine.

She sold me a big bottle of black vinegar for $4. I would say it tastes like malt vinegar that has been strained through dirt. I don’t like it. I suspect her brand is really cheap.

I got my hoisin sauce at a supermarket. They had several brands. I don’t like buying prepackaged sauces, but in order to make hoisin sauce, you have to ferment soybeans. Not going to happen. Also, let’s face it: Chinese cuisine standards are pretty weak. I have zero doubt that I have never had a Chinese meal that wasn’t made with stuff from bottles and cans.

Making the dish was not easy. It did not require skill, but there were a lot of ingredients, and the recipe was confusing. Basically, you marinate chicken, prepare sauce ingredients in another bowl, fry the chicken, throw the sauce in, throw in a few more ingredients, and call it good.

The recipe said to put corn starch in the chicken marinade. I am not a Chinese chef, but I’m not an idiot, either, and I don’t see how this can work. If you put starch on meat and then throw it in a hot pan, what happens? The starch burns instantly and sticks to the pan. This is what happened to me, and it was not a surprise. I ended up with a layer of burned stuff on my skillet.

I don’t have a wok. I don’t even have a burner that will work with a wok. I used a 14″ stainless skillet. I don’t think the food really fried all that much, because I don’t have a way to provide that much heat, but here’s the thing: the texture and so on were exactly like what I’ve experienced at good Chinese restaurants, so if I’m doing it wrong with my skillet, they’re also doing it wrong with their fancy woks, and it doesn’t matter at all.

The recipe had virtually no vegetables in it, so I added diced bell peppers, both red and green. So much for authenticity.

I also tripled the sauce recipe. People who commented over at Epicurious said the recipe was extremely dry, so I took their advice and multiplied by three.

The result was very nice, but there was a dirt aftertaste I did not like. I considered the hoisin sauce and the dirt-tasting black vinegar, and I chose the most likely culprit.

Yesterday I made the dish again. I made a lot of changes. No corn starch in the marinade. I halved the black vinegar and made up the difference with balsamic. I cut the number of chiles in half. I also added a can of baby corn, because I like baby corn.

I figure I can add whatever I want to the dish. Here’s a known fact: all spice Chinese chicken dishes taste nearly alike. Kung pao has peanuts. Ta chien has baby corn. Orange chicken has citrus peels. Other than little differences like these, they’re pretty similar. I like baby corn, and I think it belongs in kung pao chicken, along with tasty bell peppers. So there. I would have put little Asian mushrooms in it if I had been able to find them. I think water chestnuts would also be good.

How was the food? Amazing. Best “Chinese” food I’ve ever had, hands-down. There was still a slight dirt taste from the awful black vinegar, which I plan to eliminate next time by blending malt and cider vinegars, but other than that, it could not have been better. I especially liked the way the tiny bits of fresh ginger exploded in citrusy flavors when I bit down on them.

There was too much starch in the sauce. The recipe called for an obscene amount, which I knew was wrong, but I gave the author the benefit of the doubt. The sauce was clumpy and didn’t flow well. Next time, I’ll use half as much, if that.

The recipe calls for one pound of chicken and supposedly feeds 4 people. I am totally serious. I used two pounds, and I plan to get a total of three dinners out of it.

Here is what I learned: professional Chinese chefs are not very good. They must not be putting their hearts into what they do. No surprise. Anyone who has smelled the rear of a typical Chinese joint knows they’re not doing everything they should.

I can’t cook any Chinese dish except this one, and I’ve only cooked it twice, and my recipe still needs work, yet my version blows the real thing away. That’s a scathing indictment of restaurant chefs.

If I decide to learn how to cook anything else, it will be pan-fried dumplings. I can’t think of any other Chinese dishes I like enough to learn how to cook.

I can’t understand why professional cooks are so bad. It’s not just Chinese cooks. It’s nearly universal. It’s like cooking school fundamentally does not work.

I don’t feel like buying a wok or a propane burner, because my food comes out nearly the same as wok-cooked food. I don’t know if stir-frying is really frying, except when there are only a few little things in the wok. Adding a lot of food pretty much moves you into the simmering arena.

What a beautiful future I see stretching out before me. Myself, seated at a wonderful welding table, consuming the best Chinese food in North America. It’s hard to imagine how things could get better, unless I moved a couch into the shop.

Now there’s an idea.

More

I went and got the table. The box was very difficult to get in the car. The weight is only 73 pounds, but it hangs way out there when you’re trying to wrestle with it, and the Northern Tool cart kept trying to scoot around the parking lot while I maneuvered the box.

I thought I felt something going funny in my back, so I slowed down and tried to use common sense. I hate that. Prayed in the car on the way home, and my back seems okay.

I can’t tell you whether it’s a good table until I use it, but things look okay right now.

The top is not far from 3/16″ steel, which is very good for a cheap table. It’s also nearly flat. It looks like it has a 1/32″ crown in the middle. It’s hard to get upset about that. I doubt I’ve ever welded anything that warped less than 1/32″.

The legs have a funny rectangular brace that goes around them. It’s held on by friction, which is not good. The frame has little hooks which fit in holes on the legs and pinch them. I figure I can stabilize it by drilling holes and adding some screws.

The legs have M10x1.5 threaded holes for the feet. I am looking around for casters that will screw into those holes. The table is light enough to pick up and move, but casters would be better.

I can tell it’s going to fit well in my shop, because I’m already using it to hold things I should put away instead.

The square inchage is 864, which is considerably better than the Harbor Freight table, which comes in at just under 600. Also, because the table has round holes instead of long slots, I should not have any problems with objects falling through it. That was always a concern with the other table.

If you follow the directions, the table takes an hour to assemble. If you just guess, you can do it in about 15 minutes.

I have not tried the clamps yet, but they must work, because people are not howling about them all over the web.

I sprayed it down with lanolin and mineral spirits. I want to keep the top shiny and silvery for as long as I can.

Not much to complain about here. I finally have enough tools to weld relatively well. Now all I need is skill.

Libertarians Will be Disarmed Wholesale

I saw an interesting story on the web. I found out what happened to the host of FPSRussia.

If you don’t know what FPSRussia is, you must be a woman or a liberal. FPSRussia is a Youtube channel featuring automatic weapons and explosives. The star, who no longer produces videos for the site, called himself “Dmitri Potapoff.” He spoke with a Russian accent and fooled a lot of people, although smart viewers realized it wasn’t all that likely that a Russian was able to get ahold of machine guns and make videos without being imprisoned immediately.

Here’s a video. Language alert.

The host’s real name is Kyle Lamar, and he’s from Georgia. Our Georgia. He has had some trouble with the law.

In 2013, his house was raided by the ATF and the state of Georgia. The justification was that he was making money using explosives on Youtube. He continued making videos after that raid, so I suppose it didn’t amount to anything. In 2015, he was raided again, and he had to take a plea and spend a short time in what he calls “federal prison.” Other sources call it a halfway house, but I guess he knows where he was.

It’s a weird story. He had a pal who had a gun business, and one day, his pal turned up dead. He was in his office, and his surveillance equipment was gone. Someone had shot him in the back of the head. Some people thought Lamar did it. Conspiracy theories abounded. I suppose it makes sense that when a person gets shot in the head from behind, in his own secure office with a surveillance system, you would assume he was murdered by someone he knew, but I think that’s about all the theorists have.

It was not long after the murder that the 2013 raid took place.

The 2015 raid involved drug trafficking, if you believe the prosecution. They were monitoring his mail, and they found a small package of hash oil in a mailbox he rented. The total amount was 25 grams, which is just under one ounce.

He says the Georgia side of the 2015 case was dismissed because the warrant was bad. The feds, however, had a better case. They based their search on the fact that he appeared to be a marijuana user and owned guns.

To me, this is what’s interesting about the story.

When you fill out a 4473 form during a background check, you have to say you don’t use illegal drugs. You can probably guess how many people lie on the form. Maybe 40%? Weed is really popular.

Even if weed is legal under the laws of your state, it’s still illegal to the feds, so yes, if you smoke a doobie once a week while floating in your pool, you are a federal criminal. If you didn’t mention it when you bought your guns, you are a felon.

How about that?

I’ve filled out more than one of these forms. I have never admitted that I use weed. I haven’t admitted it because I don’t use weed. I never liked it, and by the time I bought my first gun under the background check law, I was years past my last effort to try to like it. I have no interest whatsoever in drugs.

Lamar says he was charged with possession with intent to distribute. In other words, he is a convicted drug dealer as far as the feds are concerned. When you have certain amounts of certain drugs on hand, the law presumes you’re a dealer.

I have no idea how much hash oil you need to get high, but it’s hard for me to believe that a person who buys less than an ounce online is planning to sell any of it.

The other day, I saw a photo of Billy Ray Cyrus’s wife standing in front of their open weed safe. There were bags and bags of weed in it. I don’t know if they’re insane or what. I can’t see any reason to own that much dope. How much can two people smoke? Here’s the thing to think about: why haven’t the Cyruses been arrested? I don’t know how much weed a weed store keeps on hand, but I’ll bet you could run one for a month on what the Cyruses have in their safe.

Another question: why haven’t the feds closed down all the “legal” marijuana stores in states that have changed their laws? What could be easier? You don’t have to tap phones. You don’t have to get warrants. You just go in during business hours and arrest everyone.

There must be a reason. I see something online about the Supreme Court making it illegal for the feds to shut down medical marijuana stores, but what about stores that don’t hide behind medicine? I’m too lazy to look it up.

I looked around online (welcome to the federal list, me), and there are sites advertising weed extracts for sale. I guess Lamar didn’t have a hard time finding what he wanted. Did the feds shut down the company that sold him the dope? I don’t know.

Here’s what I wonder: how many Americans who own guns have set themselves up for drug-based searches and confiscation? The number must be in the tens of millions.

It’s a dream scenario for someone like Elizabeth Warren. When the political timing seems right, you tell the DOJ you want the drug laws enforced, and they send the FBI around, knocking on doors. First thing you know, tens of millions of guns are behind locked doors and slated for destruction, and millions of Americans are felony defendants who are likely to take pleas and give up their gun rights.

Lamar thinks he had around $400,000 worth of guns. Now they’re scrap metal. He can’t have a gun again, under federal law, until the laws of Georgia say he can.

I am suspicious of the federal claim that Lamar was believed to be using illegal explosives. These days, anyone can go to a gun store and buy explosives legally. You can get exploding targets made with a composition called Tannerite. One target won’t hurt anyone, but you can buy a lot of Tannerite, concentrate it, and create an explosion strong enough to throw a refrigerator the length of an NFL pass. Youtube is full of Tannerite videos. The fact that you blew something up doesn’t mean you made explosives.

Maybe misusing Tannerite is a crime, but if so, why would you need to search someone’s house? Finding boxes of Tannerite wouldn’t prove anything. The videos would be the proof.

Message for the DOJ: I do not use Tannerite.

I get it. It’s neat to blow things up. It’s just not my bag. I like to shoot for accuracy. You can’t really tell how well you’re shooting when every shot blows a target up.

I guess there are people in power who think I’m part of a dangerous movement because I pray in tongues and enjoy shooting. I’m also the proprietor of a DoD-banned “hate site,” although I have never been told what the basis for that strange honor is. My guess is that a heavyset female soldier with a short haircut and no makeup read my site one day, saw that I was a Christian, and put me on the ban list with a couple of mouse clicks. I don’t think they have educated people or highly ranked officers looking at blogs. They probably farm the work out to privates or civilian hipsters. I’m sure no one over the rank of private has any idea my site is banned, except for military people who used to visit.

I’m not thrilled with the way our rights have been destroyed, but I don’t want anything to do with insurrection or any type of armed resistance. When they find a way to take my guns legally, my plan is to stack the guns by the front door, invite the feds in, offer them donuts, and help them carry my guns to their van. I have more important things to think about. If a Christian is going to give up his life and go to prison, it should be because he did something like smuggling a Bible or casting a demon out of a sick kid. You shouldn’t go out shooting because you want to keep two Glocks and a Taurus .38.

I don’t think Lamar was making illegal explosives. He wasn’t convicted of that. I have to doubt that Obama’s FBI suspected it. My hunch is that they saw all those guns, as well as his wild videos, and wanted to shut him down. Maybe they were also trying to get information on the murder of his friend. The drug thing was incidental. It was just the key that opened the door for them. They would never have gone after him just for buying hash oil. Think how many Democrats would in federal prison today if they routinely went after people who bought hash oil.

Speaking of our rights, it’s remarkable how the noose is tightening. On Sunday, I drove to Sanford, Florida, as the government already knows from recording my toll payments, credit card transactions, and cell phone locations. I drove to the same area several months ago to buy a buffer. This time, there were new cell towers everywhere. There were so many, the landscape was defaced. They looked positively sinister. It was as if they were looking down on us and monitoring us, like giant concentration camp guards. And, of course, they were!

I visited Sanford in June and then again in November. During the short interim, telephone/surveillance towers sprang up like ragweed. Things are changing much more quickly than I expected, even though I’m one of the people who keep saying things are going to change more quickly than we expect.

I used to worry about creeping totalitarianism, but now I don’t, because I know we can’t stop it. I pay for everything electronically, leaving a digital trail. I don’t use a VPN service. I don’t keep a hundred pounds of gold under the floor. I can’t grow my own food. I don’t even have a decent generator, which would be useless anyway if I couldn’t get gas. I trust God to protect me as well as possible, and I accept the fact that Christians are going to lose. Americans are going to lose all of their rights, except for those relating to things like sexual perversion, obscenity, and drug use, and America will be just as scary as Cambodia used to be. Hoarding guns, buying Bitcoin and shooting FBI agents will not change that. The important thing is to get aligned with God and prepare for the rapture.

The other day God told me the rapture was going to be a hypocrite filter.

I know someone who lives in total denial. This person always pretends everything is going fine in his walk. He even teaches others and holds himself out to be a man of God. When you try to give him useful information, he says he already knows about it. He wants people to think he’s doing great. In reality, he needs to get real and stop bluffing. He needs prayer in tongues. He needs deliverance and confession. He needs to quit trying to tell people his carnal efforts at ministry were ordained by God.

Christians who are living that way will be able to pull it off for a time, but what will they say when solid Christians are taken and they’re still here? “Jesus lost my boarding pass”?

I used to wonder if the rapture would actually be a wave of executions, but I have looked at the Bible, and it makes it clear that people will literally vanish. When Jesus “meets us in the air,” it won’t be because our bodies have been shot in the head. It will be a supernatural event. If it happens and you’re still here, you will be in real trouble, and you will have no possible defense for the decisions you’ve made. You will be exposed. I hope to avoid that.

Fighting the government in the streets is pointless. Jesus isn’t for it, and it will not do anyone any good. People who know Jesus won’t be involved. If a war takes place, it will be between various factions, all of which belong to Satan.

Jesus will have a political reign, but it won’t happen during this age.

What an interesting time to be alive. Me, I would have preferred to be born in 1930.