Truck Gun

I solved my truck gun problem. I figured I’d write about it so people could tell me I’m an idiot. Half of the fun of buying a gun is getting on the Internet, letting people know, and having them call you an idiot. You bought the wrong gun. You paid too much. You got the wrong optics. Your mother shoots homey-style. Whatever.

I found three really good solutions. One is the Yugo (Zastava) M92 pistol. Wonderful weapon. Not expensive. No 922r problems, unless I am misinformed. The second is the Vz2008. This is a Century Arms Vz58 with a non-chromed barrel. They’re supposed to be somewhat crappier than the ones Czechpoint sells, but they only cost about $400, so it’s a wonderful choice. The third gun is an AK variant made specifically for people who carry in vehicles. It’s the AMD-65, made in Hungary. It’s under 26″ long, folded, and you can shoot it without opening it up. The barrel is chrome-lined, and people say they get good accuracy. It comes with a vertical foregrip, which is fantastic. You can get one of these guns for about $440.

I probably should have gone with the Vz2008, but I don’t have any AK-47s, and the AMD-65 looked really good. I have one on the way.

My plan is to stick a Chinese laser under the gun’s barrel. That will take some thought. I’ll need to drill holes in the handguard and install a rail, or I’ll have to replace the handguard entirely and get a rail-mounted foregrip.

This gun has very few US-made parts, so magazines are a problem. You have to have a certain number of US-made items in order to beat 922r, and the AMD-65 relies heavily on American magazines. No cheap surplus foreign jobs. I decided to pick up a couple of 30-round Tapcos. They’re plastic, which purists hate, but supposedly they work well, and if they stink, I’m only out $14.

Hogue makes a handguard for it. That would count toward 922r. I think an American foregrip would, too, but I’m not sure. I can definitely score a point with a new gas piston.

I have read differing opinions of the AMD-65. Some people say it’s crap from one end to the other, except for the way it functions. Others say it actually looks nicer than other AKs, except for the Krylon finish, which can be fixed with Duracoat or something similar. Some say the accuracy is bad, but others say they get tight groups. I’m inclined to suspect that the shooters are the main problem. Hungarian barrels have a good reputation, and this gun has a short sight radius, which would tend to make a poor shooter perform worse.

We are equipping the police with this rifle over in Afghanistan, presumably so it will be more convenient for them to shoot our troops in the back.

The buttstock is wire. I have no problem with that. I don’t want to hear about cheek welds and 100-yard groups. It’s tough to plead self-defense when you’re shooting someone a hundred yards away, and I may never get a chance to open the stock anyway. If I can do well at a hundred feet or less, I’ll be ecstatic.

I shot my Vz58 folder the other day, and it has a crappy buttstock (or whatever you call a wire buttstock substitute). Without even trying, I put four shots in one hole at 75 feet. That will do. If the Hungarian rifle even approaches that level of accuracy, it will shoot better than I do in a panic situation.

I think I have my needs covered. Glock for carry. Cheap but reliable AK for true disasters that happen away from home. Both lasered.

I have high hopes that Obama will lose the election, but this makes me feel a little better.

Lasers are the Future

Once I got a laser mounted on my Vz 58 rifle, I had a moment of lucidity and realized all short-range weapons are incomplete without lasers. It’s a simple fact. There are a lot of people who hate lasers, calling them “crutches” and so on, but their ancestors probably whined about rifling and sights. Back when people fought by poking each other with sticks, there were probably stick gurus who said it was crazy to sharpen the sticks. Lasers just plain work. End of discussion.

Yes, the batteries can poop out. Yes, other things can go wrong, preventing a laser from working. What happens then? You’re right back where you were before you got it. You’re no worse off, so why not do it?

On the 99+% of occasions when your laser does work, you’ll shoot much better and much faster, without the need to use the sights, hold the gun with both hands, or even raise the gun. If the dot is where you want the bullet to go when you pull the trigger, you will score a hit. On top of that, you might even be able to think about shot placement, which is a gigantic advantage. A person who shoots a .22 accurately is ten times as threatening as a person who shoots a 10mm badly.

The only thing I can think of that could improve your survival chances more than a laser is practicing offhand shooting. If you can shoot well without aiming, you will rule any gunfight, because most people who get into gunfights forget their training and shoot that way. But you’ll have to use the same gun every time, and you’ll have to buy 5,000 rounds of ammunition to get there. You’ll also have to find a place where they let you practice. A lot of ranges do not like anything other than slow fire, so you might have trouble if you go to your local joint and start emptying magazines while shooting Mozambique drills from the hip.

A long time ago, I got my dad a Crimson Trace for his 9mm. It’s a nice thing to have. It turns on and off automatically when you grab and release the grip. But it’s hard to get the beam lined up with the sights, and it’s easy to block the beam with your hand while shooting. I’m told replacing the batteries is a pain, too. I decided the Crimson Trace was not for me.

I decided to try a Lasermax guide rod laser. This is a laser mounted in a guide rod assembly. You take the guide rod out of your pistol and replace it with the Lasermax. If you have a Glock, you have to spend fifteen minutes replacing the thing that releases the slide, but that’s not a big deal.

When I saw the Lasermax online, I figured it was going to be way out of alignment with the barrel. I decided I could accept a dot that was a few inches off-target at twenty feet, if it saved my life in a difficult moment. But when I installed the Lasermax, I found that it was surprisingly accurate. When I use the sights and turn on the laser, the dot is right at the top of the sights, in the middle, at self-defense distances. I haven’t tried it at the range yet, but I would guess that it will keep my shots within a 3″ circle at 7 yards. Maybe better. That’s as good as it needs to be.

The Lasermax dot goes on and off. There are two good things about this. First, it gets your attention much faster than a steady beam. Second, it makes the batteries last longer. The literature says they should run between one and five hours, continuously, and that you should have a set you use for practice, plus a fresh set for self-defense.

You turn the laser on by pushing the slide release to the left or right. This is very easy. You can do it with your index finger. Unfortunately, you may find that it turns on too easily, so you have to make sure your favorite holster doesn’t mash the release when you put the gun in it.

I had a problem when I installed it. The Lasermax is not very long. It doesn’t put much pressure on the barrel and slide when the gun is at rest. This means it tends to slip. This can make the gun hard to reassemble, and it can cause the laser to turn on when it shouldn’t. The solution is to rack the gun a number of times and release it. Supposedly, this settles the Lasermax in place and somehow makes it function correctly. It worked for me.

The dot is clearly visible forty feet away in a house in the daytime. At night, it should be considerably better.

This has me rethinking my truck gun needs. I believe the laser will extend my useful range with the Glock. Maybe that means I won’t need to keep a longer gun in the vehicle. But pistol rounds are not that powerful, regardless of whether you hit the perp. Can I hope the laser will improve my shot placement so much, the weakness of the rounds won’t matter? I don’t know.

Right now a really neat long gun is available. It’s called a PPS-43C. It’s a new semiautomatic pistol made in Poland. By “new,” I mean it’s not used. These things start life as 7.62x25mm submachine guns with folding stocks. Then they’re converted to semi-auto, and the stocks are tack-welded shut. That makes them pistols, as far as Uncle Sam is concerned.

They have 35-round magazines. They’re supposed to be super reliable.

The caliber is a little weird. It’s a .30-caliber round that can be pushed as high as 2000 fps. If you use FMJ bullets, they will zip through two thicknesses of body armor. Not all body armor, of course. But most. They go through things like car doors really well. They don’t expand or tumble, but 35 rounds with good placement…nothing to be sneezed at.

As I have said before, I am not overly concerned with “overpenetration.” Most shots fired in gunfights miss completely, which is like overpenetrating by as much as a mile. Every time you use a firearm in self-defense, you are taking a chance on hitting an innocent person. That’s just a fact of life. And the general rule is that a round that won’t “overpenetrate” won’t penetrate enough.

If I get a 7.62x39mm pistol or rifle, the rounds will move at about 2200 fps. That’s better than the 1500-2000 (probably more like 1600) you can get from the Polish gun. But I’ll also have to deal with muzzle flash. I guess that’s not a big deal. Flash hiders can help. The noise would be worse, but the sound of a 7.62x25mm round going off is not exactly therapeutic, either.

The really nice thing about the PPS-43C is that it’s very cheap. It won’t ruin your life to have one stolen. They cost about $270. Wolf makes pretty good hollowpoint ammunition for it. Presumably you lose some penetration with that.

Anyway, this is a good puzzle to have. It’s not a bad choice to deal with. In many countries (and some states), people have to choose between hiding under the bed or in the closet.

Stupid Love is Bad Love

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rachel is Out There Waiting

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Dot of Death

What a day I had.

For weeks, I have been trying to get to an outdoor gun range to test a pet theory. I thought it would be clever to put a laser on an AK47 pistol and put it in my truck, but I didn’t want to fool with it until I knew how well it worked in practice. To find out, I needed to shoot a similar weapon without using the buttstock. An AK pistol is really a shortened rifle with no buttstock, so I knew that if I could control a rifle, I would be able to control a pistol.

I made it to the range today, and because my last safety class was so long ago, I had to take a 20-minute refresher. That wouldn’t have been so bad, but they didn’t hold the class until an hour after I got there. Then I got ready to go in, and a static electricity alarm went off and shut the range down.

I know you have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s new to me, too. They have a machine that detects static electricity, and when it gets nervous, it sounds a horrible siren. That means there is a risk of lightning, so you have to stop shooting. Because…I guess it’s better to be struck by lightning when you’re not shooting.

We waited maybe 45 minutes for the machine to calm down. During that time, it rained like crazy. I wanted to leave, but after the half-hour drive to the range, the wait for the course, and the course itself, I just couldn’t. I refuse to shoot on weekends because it’s like a buffalo stampede, so my next opportunity would have been Wednesday. Forget that.

Eventually the machine reconciled itself with its inner child, and we were allowed to shoot. I managed to get 25 rounds off before the machine wet its pants again. I used my Vz 58, which shoots the same ammunition as an AK47. It’s a carbine with a folding stock, so it’s nearly the same thing as a pistol. In fact, you can buy a pistol version. They cut a few inches off the barrel and remove the stock.

I was not allowed to shoot with the stock folded, but that didn’t matter. I held the gun away from my body, so the stock didn’t come into play. Same thing. I did not use the sights. Without any effort at all, I got 3″ groups at 75 feet. I shot one group using the sights, and I was amazed. I was just playing around, but four bullets went through one hole, and the fifth was a nearby flier. This is an incredibly easy gun to shoot.

The recoil was pathetic. Not worth discussing. The green laser was clearly visible. The weather was a little overcast, but I think that even on a bright day, you’d have to be blind to miss it at distances under 50 feet.

I wasn’t allowed to shoot rapid-fire, but I managed to shoot rounds a couple of seconds apart, and I had no problem finding the aim point after the first shot.

The accuracy is probably better than my test indicates, because I had problems with the laser mount slipping.

Here’s the target. I realize the holes are all over the place, but that’s because I used different aim points to distinguish the groups.

If a burgler was in my house, even if the groups opened up by a factor of four, I’d still be within a circle about 10″ across. That’s at 75 feet. Who shoots people 75 feet away in self-defense? It’s pretty rare. At realistic distances of fifty feet or less, I’d be the Angel of Death himself.

I really don’t understand why gun people are so afraid to admit the mindblowing awesomeness of lasers. A lot of gun nuts hate to hear people say things like this, but it’s true: the bullets go wherever you put the dot. It’s just that easy. No sighting required.

If the laser craps out, you still have a gun with a nice long sight radius (helpful even when point shooting), plus 30 rounds of hellacious ammunition no handgun can come close to matching. What’s not to love?

Now I know lasers and 7.62 rounds work. The only question is whether I should go to a pistol or stick with a folding rifle. The pistol would need a flash hider, adding about two inches to the barrel. I think the whole thing would come in at about 22″. The rifle is 26″ long, folded. Still compact.

An AK pistol would be a lot cheaper than a Vz 58 folder, so if it got stolen, I would cry less.

I know people moan a lot about the risks of overpenetration with a rifle, but that’s silly. The vast majority of pistol shots miss the mark entirely, which is infinitely worse than overpenetrating. Rifles are much more accurate. It’s probably better to hit a criminal and then deal with a slight risk that someone behind him will be struck by the slowed-down round than it is to miss and have someone hit with a pistol round traveling at full speed. And if you miss with the pistol, you still have a criminal coming at you or a loved one.

The laser mount needs to be tightened, but I don’t think there will be any movement, once I hit it with an Allen wrench. The groups will probably tighten up once it’s secure.

I’m sold on this thing. It’s nice when a plan works out.

Before You Help the Neighbors, Clean Your House

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Pastor Has to Have Guts

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Natural and Otherwise

I am still thinking about a dedicated vehicle gun.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Glocks Don’t Cut It

I’m trying to decide what to get for a truck gun.

I’ve been researching the law. Don’t bet your liberty on this (I am not your lawyer), but it looks like Florida law is less troublesome for pistol owners than rifle owners.

You can keep a pistol in your truck in a zippered pouch or even a box with a lid held on by gravity. It’s pretty stupid, really. The law says the gun has to be “securely encased,” and “securely” is apparently an attempt at legislative humor, because you could pretty much toss your gun in a paper bag and roll it up, and it would be okay.

The idea, I think, is that you shouldn’t be able to grab the gun instantly and shoot someone without fumbling around. If you have to fumble around, the gun is not “readily accessible,” so it’s legal.

It’s a little strange. If you put a pistol in your center console with the lid closed but no lock, it’s legal. But if you put it under a beach towel on the passenger seat, somehow it becomes a concealed weapon. I’m pretty sure.

This is what happens when legislators argue too much. You get a legislative camel. A law with parts that don’t seem to match up.

Why do I care about pistol laws? I have a permit, don’t I? I can wear a shoulder holster under a flappy shirt, and I’m good to go. It doesn’t matter that I can reach the gun fast and shoot people without undue inconvenience. I shouldn’t care, right? Wrong. The reason I care is that I’m thinking about getting a pistol too big to conceal. If you can’t conceal it legally under a garment or whatever, you’re back in the arena of “securely encased” and so on.

I’m thinking I want an AK47 pistol. This is really a rifle with no butt. It’s a little bit less than 20″ long. It has an 11″ barrel. You can’t stick this under your shirt unless you’re really fat.

I’d like to get one of these because real (i.e. small) pistols are pretty stupid. I love my Glock, but let’s get serious. In a shooting situation, almost everyone who fires a pistol at a criminal misses. And the Glock holds a total of eleven rounds, so if I miss 11 times, I’m in deep poo.

An AK pistol holds 31 rounds. And the ballistics are even better than the remarkable ballistics of my 10mm handloads. It’s also much more accurate.

I know I’ll upset people with that accuracy comment, but I think it’s correct. People have cautioned me about the incredible difficulty of firing stockless weapons, but I took my 12-gauge Saiga to the range, and guess what I found out? When you put a laser on it, the shots go where the little green dot goes, every time. You don’t have to use the buttstock. I shot at 50 feet, and the pellets went poomp-poomp-poomp-poomp into a little area the size of a fist.

Now, maybe I’m a superhero with a unique and amazing ability to shoot this way, but whatever the explanation is, it’s very clear to me that an AK pistol with a laser will be much more accurate than a Glock, in a real-world shootout. If you can hit people reliably at fifty feet, you will be the king at any civilian firefight.

Aside from that, I have to add that I’ve fired weapons from the hip more than once, and generally, the accuracy has been way better than what I would need to hit someone within ten yards. If that makes me special, whoo-hoo, but it’s the truth. I think people get way too excited about using sights. Seal Team Six practices without using sights, so I have good company. You can get used to a weapon, to the point where hitting a can at twenty feet is no problem. It’s not as hard as people make it out to be. I used to shoot mile markers offhand from a car moving 70 mph. In my opinion, people don’t practice this kind of shooting nearly enough. In a real shootout, this is the kind of shooting you’re going to find yourself doing, so why not get good at it?

Let me get back to lasers. To use the Glock in the conventional way, you have to hold it at eye level and sight carefully down the barrel. You have to line the little doodads up and squeeze the trigger with extreme patience. If you don’t do those things, your shots will range all over an imaginary cone with an angle of–if you’re good–fifteen degrees. At ten feet, that’s a miss. With a laser, you don’t have to sweat about the sights or the trigger. You put the dot where it has to be, and as long as it stays more or less in that location when you jerk the trigger, you win. You can shoot from the hip. You can shoot behind your back. You can hold the gun like Jimi Hendrix and pull the trigger with your teeth. Doesn’t matter.

In my experience, 95% of the difficulty of target reacquisition has been in finding the sights with my eyes after a shot. Reorienting the weapon is easy, and you can do it as fast as you can move your hands. With a laser, you don’t have to find the sights again. You just have to find that dot.

The laws concerning rifles are somewhat off-putting. You can put a rifle in the window of your truck, right here in Dade County, and the cops can’t say a word. You can also drive down the road with it on the passenger seat, fully loaded. But if you cover it up and leave it within reach, it may become a concealed weapon not covered by a permit. Or something. There have been cases in which people got in trouble because their long guns were partially covered. So you could get arrested because you threw a newspaper in your truck and part of it landed on top of your AR15. I don’t know if I want to mess with a potential trap like that. In practice, I think this usually boils down to, “Is this cop an incredible jerk who likes ruining people’s lives unnecessarily,” and maybe you’ll come out okay 95% of the time, but why take a chance?

The AK “pistol” (I still can’t believe a 20″-long gun fits that legal description) is easier to maneuver than a full-size rifle. That’s helpful if–God and your ENT forbid–you have to fire from inside the vehicle. It also makes it a little easier to get to the gun and get it ready.

The VZ 58 rifle with a folding stock is about 26″ long. This is a wonderful weapon. Unlike an AK, it’s made to be fired with the stock folded, so it’s nearly as versatile as a pistol. But that extra half a foot could be a little aggravating to deal with.

When you shorten the barrel, you lose velocity. Some dude did a test. It turns out you go from around 2300 fps to 1900 fps with an 11″ barrel. I don’t know if that will prevent the bullets from opening up. It’s still an incredible improvement over 1250 fps in 10mm. Pistol rounds don’t really expand, according to what I’ve read. I mean, sometimes they do, and sometimes they don’t, in spite of the pretty hollow points they put on them. When firing a pistol, you should assume FMJ performance, which is bad. I think 31 rounds at 1900 fps, with dramatically improved accuracy, has to be better than 11 rounds at 1250 fps. The extra accuracy and capacity, even without expansion, tumbling, or fragmentation, are worth a lot.

I checked into AR15 pistols, and I’m convinced they’re worthless. Since the war in Iraq began, we’ve been getting a lot of complaints about NATO rounds failing to kill or even slow down Islamist nutwads. If I understand the situation correctly, the AR15 does tremendous damage inside the body, except…when it doesn’t. Which is very often. It seems like a stupid choice to me, especially in a short-barrelled weapon with lower velocity. By the way, I have read that 5.56 mm suffers greater velocity losses than 7.62 when you shorten the barrel. Something to consider.

Oddly, when I started researching this, I learned that two 7.62 pistols had just come on the market. One is the VZ 58 pistol, and the other is the Zastava M92 AK47 pistol (Yugoslavian). The M92 is not really new, but it has been unavailable for a long time.

The VZ 58 was tempting, but it’s a $900 gun, and it’s a little longer than the Yugo. Also, when I emailed the seller with some questions, I was not all that pleased with the responses I got. The guy who sells these things in the US is named Dan Brown. I’m sure he’s a great guy, and he’s probably busy, but I needed some technical advice before buying, and I thought his responses were unnecessarily terse. That turned me off. I don’t like being referred to a URL when a one-sentence answer would work much better. When you send someone a URL, it’s like saying, “Here, stupid.” I already bought one of his excellent guns, so I think I’m entitled to a whole sentence. Making people feel comfortable is a crucial part of sales. There’s more to it than providing information.

The Yugo is under 20″ long, and all sorts of existing AK doodads will fit it. When they’re available, they run about $560. That’s not bad. The Romanian Draco is another alternative, but it’s slightly longer, and God only knows when it will be available again. Century makes something called a Centurion C39, but it gets horrible reviews, so I’m afraid of it. Arsenal makes a pistol, but it’s 5.56, which is not acceptable.

The muzzle flash from these things is supposed to be heinous, because the short barrel doesn’t give all the crap enough time to burn. It exits the barrel while it’s still on fire. I’ve seen tests that suggest the ugly cone-shaped Russian suppressor works very well.

If I get one of these things, I’ll stick a Chinese green laser on it. You can see the dot a hundred yards away on a bright day.

As of this writing, the Yugo is sold out, but it will come back soon. Obama is the best gun salesman the world has ever known.

Why go so crazy on a truck gun? Because I want to live, and half-measures do not work. As I said above, most trained shooters miss with multiple shots, even at close range. Why would an intelligent person invest in a weapon which is EXPECTED to provide that outcome? It’s like buying a seat belt made from defective cloth. It’s just plain stupid. The better question is, “Why are so many people satisfied with ordinary handguns?” The answer is ignorance. They see people do wonderful things with handguns…in MOVIES. Maybe they do well at the gun range, too. That doesn’t mean a pistol is a smart thing to have in your hand when one or more assailants are coming at you from twenty feet away, and you don’t have your $300 shooting glasses, your tactical jockstrap, or your special Cabela’s Sooper Marksman carbon-fiber range stool.

I think our notions of self-defense are contaminated by the idea that fighting is a game. In a game, you deliberately handicap yourself with rules and bad equipment. This is the main thing that distinguishes games from real life. Think how easy golf would be if you could use a scoped air gun to shoot the ball. In a defense situation, you don’t want rules and handicaps. You want to CHEAT, CHEAT, CHEAT. It’s not a game. You want every advantage.

I remember reading a book about some US soldiers who fought in Vietnam. It was nothing like the movies. In the movies, two guys will go into a town to kill fifty bad guys who have better weapons. They’ll walk right up the middle of the street and yell stupid things like, “LET’S PLAY.”

The soldiers in the book used to get together in superior numbers, using superior weapons, and slaughter the enemy in sneak attacks. If the enemy is on the toilet, great. Shoot him in the back, through the wall of the shack. If the enemy has three guys, show up with thirty and kill them in their bunks. Bomb them from the air before they can get to their weapons. Shoot from concealment, so they can’t fight back even if they want to. Determine the most likely path they’ll take to escape, and set up mines that rip them open when they run away. That’s the attitude you have to have about self-defense.

I’m not saying you’re supposed to go beyond what’s necessary to prevent a crime; I’m saying you have to go all-out, while you’re defending yourself legally. You should not limit yourself, the way you would in a sporting contest.

It’s not supposed to be sporting. Is it sporting when a criminal decides to kill or rape you, on the assumption that you can’t defend yourself? Get real. Going big is the correct practice.

Here’s what I think. When you’re attacked, and you’re trying to defend yourself with a Kel-Tec, you’ll definitely wish you had an AK on full auto, plus body armor. You’re not going to pat yourself on the back for bringing just enough gun.

If the gun is wildly overdone, and I never need it, no harm done. But if I need it and it’s not adequate, they’ll be putting me in the ground.

Years ago, a couple of sociopathic nuts made their own body armor and robbed a bank using automatic weapons. You can probably find footage on Youtube. The cops were totally lost. They shot these characters repeatedly, and the criminals just walked through the bullets and kept firing. It was horrible. They did incredible damage. But they showed the difference preparation makes.

Anyway, I think the AK pistol is a good choice, although using my VZ folder is not out of the question.

I’m In

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Breakthrough has me Butchering Standards

I have a new music teacher.

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

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

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

I was impressed. He reminded me of me.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Over the Rainbow Transcription

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

http://youtu.be/GopekAOMCE4

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

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

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

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

Try it yourself. You have nothing to lose.

Shove the Thief Out the Window and Shut it

I got an interesting breakthrough this week.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I felt prayers being answered, forcefully.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Power Belongs to the Kingdom

Lots to write about today.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Government Officials Now Persecute Christians Openly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I only wish they had been selling hats.