And Get Those Poor People Out of the VIP Seats

I am beginning to believe there is no such thing as a healthy church.

I belong to a denomination called the Assemblies of God, but the oversight in this denomination is so weak it amounts to almost nothing, so an AG pastor can do just about anything he wants. For this reason, churches vary tremendously, and the denomination is not well defined, and it makes more sense to talk about a broader movement to which the Assemblies of God belongs. I use the term “charismatic” churches. The main thing that unites them is a belief in the baptism with the Holy Spirit, followed by outward manifestations.

This movement seems like the only hope for Christianity at the moment. The older churches tell us Jesus isn’t God, or that he’s one of many gods, or that he’s God, but he won’t do anything for you, or that he’s god, but now he thinks there is no such thing as sin…they are useless. They have no idea who God is or what he wants. I’m not sure why they exist. Everything they teach can be found in the secular world, and the secular people are more professional and effective. You don’t need to spend three hours a week at the Crystal Cathedral when you can get a better version of the same thing cheaper, in less time, from Tony Robbins or even Richard Simmons.

The problem with this movement is that it is full of greed and heresy. As I understand it, apostasy means believing too little (God is just an idea, tongues are not real), and heresy means believing too much (Joseph Smith read the Book of Mormon off of magical gold plates in a dirty old hat). Many popular charismatic preachers teach stuff that is found nowhere in the Bible or even the Talmud. They make this nonsense up in order to sell books or motivate people to give them money.

There is a guy named Larry Huch. He wrote a book called The Torah Blessing. It’s about our Jewish origins. I thought that might be interesting, so I bought a copy. It turned out to be full of legalism. He wants us to wear prayer shawls and have Jewish-style sabbath dinners. I threw that out. Come on. Paul made it very clear that we are not Jews, and we are not under the law. He said really nasty things about people who tried to bring back the law. I believe Paul more than Larry.

Some pastors are telling their flocks to command the angels. That’s just crazy. The Bible makes it clear that Jehovah is the supreme commander of the armies of heaven. There are no Biblical examples of righteous men commanding the angels. In fact, on one occasion when a man spoke to the Angel of the Lord, asking him whether he was on the man’s side or the side of the man’s enemies, the angel said he was on neither side. He was working for the Lord. Jesus himself did not command angels in the Bible. He said he could ask his father to send them, but we never see Jesus in the flesh, telling angels what to do.

The Bible is highly critical of people who worship angels, and it also condemns fallen angels who got together with women and bred abominations. I believe commanding angels is idolatry. It’s what voodoo priests do every day.

Lately we have been hearing a lot about the Seven Blessings of this Jewish holiday or that Jewish holiday. I believe Steve Munsey came up with this, and Paula White teaches it, too. So far, we’re up to Passover, Pentecost, and the Atonement (Yom Kippur). I think I can safely predict that another holiday will be added eventually, because the three we already have generate a good deal of money.

Here is the pitch: three times a year, all of Israel’s males went to Jerusalem and gave “their best offerings,” and in return, God gave them various blessings found scattered in the Old Testament. So now we’re supposed to give three really big cash offerings per year.

There are problems with this doctrine. Ask any Jew, including Messianics who generally agree with what we believe.

1. There were no big cash offerings in the Old Testament, except for freewill offerings unrelated to holidays. Old Testament offerings were scaled, like a progressive tax. If you were poor, you gave less. The idea that Jews were supposed to strain their budgets to give offerings is antithetical to this principle.

2. The blessings mentioned in these holiday drives have nothing to do with Passover, Pentecost, or Yom Kippur. You will never find a Biblical passage that says God will give you seven enumerated blessings for giving him money on these holidays. The blessings mentioned are in the Bible, but they are not mentioned in relation to holiday cash offerings.

3. The rules about holidays and the offerings that accompanied them only applied to Jews. They were never applied to Gentiles. And as Paul said, we are not under the law anyway. So when the law was in effect, it did not apply to us, and it’s not in effect now, at least with regard to Christians.

It’s extremely obvious that this doctrine is wrong. I actually fell for it once or twice; I don’t know if I wasn’t paying attention, or whether I was blinded somehow, or what. Maybe I didn’t buy it but still felt like giving something. I don’t remember. But it should have been very clear that the Seven Blessings stuff is imaginary.

What I’m learning is that some churches have no faith, and others have so much faith that they get used to believing remarkable things, so when a lie pops up, the first instinct of the people who hear it is to believe it. Hence the Seven Blessings craze.

Unfortunately, there will always be people who have testimonies supporting bad doctrine. I saw someone testify about the Seven Blessings. This person gave a certain amount, and later on, this person received an unexpected amount of money. Problem (which no one but me seemed to notice): the amount received was less than the amount given. Is God skimming now? I don’t think so. If I donate a thousand dollars, and God rewards me with eight hundred, something is clearly wrong. I can do better than that at the track.

If I find three thousand people and tell them God will do x if they do y, a certain percentage of them will get the promised result, even if God does nothing. That’s just probability. In every church, a certain number of people will get unexpected money or jobs every week. That doesn’t mean God is blessing them for giving money. It just means that in the big lottery of existence, their numbers hit.

People don’t understand math, so they don’t think about these things. So you can tell Christians almost anything, and if they want to believe it, they will find corroborating evidence.

If the give-to-get teachings worked, good things would happen to people CONSISTENTLY. It wouldn’t be three people out of a thousand. It would be whatever percentage are giving their tithes and offerings. In a good-sized church, this would amount to dozens or hundreds of people driving around in new Mercedes-Benzes. We don’t see those people. They do not exist.

I do think God rewards giving, and I think financial prosperity is one of the things he uses to reward people. But you have to give at the urging of the Holy Spirit, not some TV preacher who has seven Bentleys and makes up doctrine on the fly.

Perry Stone believes his ministry’s lack of debt is partly due to his support of Israel and the Jews. I think he’s probably right. The Bible makes it clear that God will bless those who bless the Jews, and it implies God will bless those who love Jerusalem. It also says God will reward us for helping the poor. But that doesn’t mean God is contractually obligated to make me rich because I give my Social Security checks to Benny Hinn. God does not owe us anything. Not even air. We are the ones who owe.

If life worked the way the money-lovers say it does, God would be the servant of Satan. If we remain unchanged by the Holy Spirit, our flesh is dominated by Satan, so we want money and property way too much. If we give because we want our flesh to be satisfied, we are giving in order to satisfy the urges Satan inflames in it. If God rewards us, he is doing what Satan wants. Does that make sense? Of course not. The chain of command goes like this: God –> spirit –> mind –> flesh. Anything else is perverse and pathological.

So what do you do? You’re faithful to your church, but every so often, you hear something you’re sure is wrong and crazy. Do you leave? Do you picket on the sidewalk, with a sign saying, “ALL HERETICS BURN IN HELL”?

It’s very hard to know the answer. I know you don’t start fights with people, and you don’t stand up in church and start arguing with the pastor during a service. You can’t achieve spiritual goals by carnal means. Satan wants people who start spiritual living to end up doing using carnality. You see that praying for two hours a day helps you, so you kidnap ten people and put them in your garage and make them pray at gunpoint. That’s an exaggerated example.

Do you leave your church? I guess it depends on how bad the situation gets. You have to be in touch with the Holy Spirit. You have to get his guidance, and you have to listen to it. He will tell you where to go. My guess is that he is fairly slow about telling people to get out. The down side of playing musical churches may be greater than the down side of being in a sick church.

A friend of mine recently left church. He said he could not feel God there any more. I completely understand, but he also rejected a regular prayer meeting where God’s power was pretty obvious. I think he focused on the wrong thing.

You have to pray people who teach this stuff will come around, but don’t you also have to pray that the people will get the right teaching, regardless of who has to replaced? Isn’t it about the mission, not the man?

I know you can’t let yourself lose your soul. You can’t kiss rear ends and say, “What a wonderful teaching!” God never criticized any Biblical figure for telling off authority figures who were in rebellion. He rewarded them for it. But you have to show patience. No one is right every week.

I don’t give as much to my church as I used to. I ask God for a number, and that’s what I give. It has gotten lower. I think I was burdening myself too much in the past. I also know that a lot of what I give will be wasted, and I don’t want to spend God’s money stupidly. I have come to believe that if God approves of a ministry, it will do well, and that indicates that I should give more. If a ministry is in trouble, maybe it needs hard times in order to bring about repentance and change. One of the best ways to ruin someone is to give him everything he wants.

I think giving to people in need is extremely important. The Bible talks about it a great deal. We are here to express God’s love in the earth. Helping the poor does that better than building a giant megachurch with jet runways and bowling alleys. I also think it’s important to find ministries that do really wonderful work, and to support them generously. Generosity is extremely important. But it has to be guided, or it’s destructive. If God had given me everything I wanted, I would have ended up like Chris Farley or Elvis. We have a lot of Chris Farley churches today, and they will end much as he did: bloated, squandered, and cut short.

By the way, you really have to watch what ministers do. Sometimes the preachers who seem most wrapped up in helping the needy are actually ambitious and of little use. Never listen to what they say about their motives. Always ALWAYS look at what they do. I’ve seen preachers walk right by people in need, leaving ordinary churchgoers to fumble and scramble to get help. A person who does that has no authority in my eyes. If you can’t respect people on the bottom who are in real trouble, but you’re always there when someone influential needs a fresh bottle of water, as far as I’m concerned, you’re just another butt in a pew.

I am not going to be discouraged by what I see human beings do. God will steer me to the right places at the right times. I will keep my eyes open and call them as I see them, but I think leaving in haste would be the wrong move, because I will never find a church where everything makes sense.

How Good Can it Get?

I wrote a long piece about the crazy “Seven Blessings of Passover/Pentecost/Atonement” doctrine that is sweeping charismatic churches, but something told me to keep it to myself for now. So instead I’m writing about PIZZA.

My pizza gets better and better and BETTER. Over and over, I find myself saying, “This is the best pizza I’ve ever had.” Every time it happens, I think it can’t get significantly better, but I’m always wrong. I’m positive God gives me food ideas. There is no other way to explain it. If the food were merely great, I could say it was me, but it’s so good it’s beyond explanation. I can’t do that.

A while back I made sourdough starter and froze portions of it in foil. Last night I thawed one out. I would say I got about 100 grams of usable stuff from it. I mixed it with my regular dough recipe, with the yeast reduced by two-thirds, and I stuck it in the fridge overnight. This morning I let it warm up, formed it into a crust, and let it rise all day.

I got Boar’s Head whole-milk mozzarella from the grocery deli counter because I was out of delicious Costco mozzarella, and I used Bel Gioioso provolone. Ordinarily I use frozen cheese, and it’s cheap and excellent, but freezing reduces the quality a little, so it’s not perfect. And deli-counter mozzarella is the only decent substitute I’ve found for Costco cheese.

I topped the pie with quartered Hormel pepperoni slices. I am not a pepperoni fan, because it makes pizzas sour, greasy, too spicy, and orange, but for some reason it WORKS with my recipes. Like you would not believe. So I cut 30 slices in quarters and used them.

I generally use very fresh dough, because it’s fast and convenient. The resulting crust is way better than anything you can buy around here, so I’m satisfied with it for most purposes. But sourdough culture improves the texture of dough, and I suspect letting dough sit overnight is also beneficial. I don’t have the patience to use pure sourdough for an ordinary meal, so I made the little starter packets. You get a lot of the improvements, and it’s easy.

Anyway, I made my usual sauce and put it on top of layers of provolone and mozzarella, and I baked it in the usual way. I somehow ended up with about one and a half times the right amount of pepper in the dough, and that worried me, but it actually made the pizza better. The crust was chewier, and the added pepper really brought out the fruity flavor of the sauce. The aftertaste was almost like cherry pie.

That deli cheese melts much more smoothly than anything frozen. It spread out so well some of it went off the edge of the pie. That’s a plus, though, because you get little bits of crunchy cheese at the edges.

Geez, it was good. I’m still reliving it in my mind.

What is the purpose of this? It’s too good not to have a purpose. If I couldn’t make my own pizza, and I knew of a shop that used this recipe, I’d stand in line to eat there.

We all Voted, and We Decided “God” was Wrong

It amazes me how many so-called “Christians” do not believe in prophecy or God’s promises.

I just read that Anglican, Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran priests in Israel are endorsing the “Palestinian” state, with the 1967 borders and Jerusalem as the capital.

The area that God promised–PROMISED–Abraham and his descendants is not contained within the 1967 borders. In fact, it’s much bigger than the current borders. The 1967 borders amount to a holding area to house the Jews until they can be exterminated. These borders are indefensible. They cut the country in half. What we have right now is a gigantic cession by the Jews. To ask more is unconscionable. Giving Palestinians their own nation within the tiny area currently recognized as Israel is like parachuting armed jihadis onto the deck of the MS St. Louis.

Is it any wonder Jews don’t trust Christians? We stab them in the back every chance we get. The idea that Jews and Christians will eventually reach a state of peaceful agreement is ludicrous. SOME Christians support Israel and will never let it down. The majority will always be tools of the enemy.

I suppose it makes no sense to speak of the Jewish mistrust of Christians in a negative way. It’s perfectly healthy. It shows that Jews aren’t crazy. Trusting us…that would prove they weren’t thinking clearly.

I don’t understand what the old denominations believe. It’s clear they don’t believe in God’s promise to Abraham. They see the Jews as oppressors and land thieves.

I think it all boils down to a fundamental belief that God is not real. They honor him and talk about how great he is, but aren’t they doing it with a wink? Increasingly, God is seen as mythical figure based in ancient superstition, who somehow (in spite of having an existence based on lies) managed to hand down a useful moral code which can be summed up in the two words “Be nice.” People think there are a lot of good things about the teachings of Jesus, but you have to understand: he was part of a primitive, patriarchal culture. Now we know things Jesus did not know. He’s not coming back, and he wasn’t God (they say in their hearts), and some of the stuff he told us has to be discarded.

If you believe God is alive, and that he is truthful and faithful, you have to believe Israel (Greater Israel, not the little bit the Jews possess now) belongs to the Jews. Even if you don’t believe God is alive, it’s impossible for a moral person to oppose Israel’s reasonable efforts to protect its existence, and it’s equally impossible to overlook the horrendous moral failings of Israel’s adversaries. Israel is all the Jews have, and their enemies are vicious and untrustworthy. There is no way they can give up. They are not fighting for wealth or domination. They are fighting for the right to live.

A long time ago, Satan managed to cut man off from the Holy Spirit. Jesus died partly so we could be inseminated with the Holy Spirit and wield his power, and we get that power through the charismatic gifts. Satan convinced us we had to earn God’s favor and his power, and tongues died out. When the Holy Spirit left us, we also lost revelation. We lost the ability to perceive God’s thoughts. As a result, we believe all sorts of stupid things, and the Palestine lie is one of them.

The clerics who are attacking Israel probably have no idea what God is like. They have probably never heard his voice. They have degrees. They’ve read books. They’ve learned ritual. Meanwhile, they’ve never met the subject of their studies. If they knew him, he would shape them. Because they do not, they have decided to shape him.

It’s fine to study flowers and learn about the chemistry and genetics that underlie their workings. It’s fine to learn about the soils they prefer and their natural enemies and their climatic needs. But these things can never replace the experience of walking outside and seeing a flower for yourself. The Holy Spirit permits us to know God personally. The books and rituals don’t do that. In fact, being based in fantasy, they tend to prevent us from knowing him.

I have often said that it’s better to know God than to know about God.

I know God. I don’t know him perfectly, and I let him down all the time, but I know him. Jesus himself entered a room where I was trying to sleep. He entered a car I was driving. I encounter the Holy Spirit every day. I learn from him. Sometimes I physically feel him doing things to my body. He has healed me a number of times. He has shown me spirits. He has changed my moods. He answers prayer after prayer. He explains the Bible. And here is one thing he has made clear: I am to be a friend of the Jews. So I don’t care what a blind man with a fancy costume tells me. God is right. Guesses made by frail human beings don’t matter to me.

Israel is going to prevail. I don’t care how many bombs the Iranians build. I don’t care how many benighted people march in the street chanting slogans. God will judge those who divide the land, and I am not going to be their ally.

The Vessels of the Temple are not Man’s Spittoons

Last night I had some fun. My chef friends Liz and Donna volunteered to prepare food for a fundraiser at my church, and they asked me to help, so I got to work in the big commercial kitchen Donna manages. There were about seven of us, all told.

I didn’t do anything all that interesting. I followed other people’s recipes. I chopped herbs and made herbed cream cheese spread, and then I grilled a whole bunch of chicken breasts and sliced them into hors d’oeuvre portions. I also got to use a deep fryer for the first time in my life. We have one at church, but I never fooled with it. Last night I used it to make piles of fried plantain slices.

This kitchen uses knives provided by a service. They come and pick up the knives every week, and they replace them with sharp ones. I didn’t bring any of my own knives, so I grabbed a 10″ chef’s knife off the wall and went to work on the herbs. I was very impressed. It took an edge very quickly, and it made short work of the herbs, much as a Chinese cleaver would.

I decided to check the brand and look into it further. The name is “Mundial.” It’s a European company, but they manufacture in Brazil to keep prices low. They’re not fancy. The blades are thin and somewhat flexible, and they have plastic NSF handles. But they seem to work extremely well.

Anyone familiar with this blog knows I have had bad experiences with expensive Japanese knives. They chip easily, they can’t be put in a dishwasher, and they cost a fortune. I think they’re a complete waste of money. My favorite chef’s knife is a $22 Forschner, and my favorite all-around knife is a carbon-steel Chinese cleaver that ran me $9. I love a good cheap knife.

I found the Mundials on Amazon, and I decided to try a cleaver, a santoku, and a 14″ slicer. I’m hoping the cleaver will work as well as my Chinese job, with the added convenience of stainless. We’ll see.

I don’t know if the fundraiser will work. I got an invitation, but I’m not going. I will make a total of four trips to or for church this week. I felt like that was plenty. On the way to the commercial kitchen, I got a text asking me to start teaching a class in a discipleship program. I’d love to do it, but I can’t do everything.

The church has a gigantic mortgage, and I don’t think there is any possibility that we will be able to pay it off, so the fundraiser doesn’t seem like a good idea. I think we would be better off moving to a building we can afford. Most people who attend the church are poor or middle class, and the size of the congregation (and therefore the offerings) is limited by the size of the sanctuary. It’s very obvious that this is not a good situation.

I don’t think God is going to swoop in and save the day, because we don’t take care of the things he has already given us. We’re doing many, many things badly instead of doing the important things well.

We’re also having problems because we attract the wrong kind of people. We’re using secular music and prizes and all sorts of other tricks to get people to show up. The problem with this is that we get people who want to party, while we offend serious Christians. Over and over, people come to me complaining. They hate the loud music. They find the rap beats offensive. I can’t defend these things. I just tell them not to worry about the services, because they can get what they need in the prayer groups.

We have something like 2,000 young people coming to the youth services every week, but an awful lot of them come to socialize, not to meet God. Let’s face it. They come to get laid. Kids have always used churches as cheap substitutes for clubs, and we are helping them by making our church as much like a club as possible.

Some people believe that anything that gets people to come to church is a good idea. They say, “It’s all about souls.” That’s wrong. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it grows a church full of weak people who will eventually fail. A human being is like a seed in dry soil. When you receive salvation, you’re like a seed that has sprouted. If you don’t get the right teaching after you sprout, you rot. You can’t grow a healthy church with stunted Christians who never grow up.

I believe we’re trading strong future souls for the weak ones we’re getting now. These people won’t have power in their lives. They won’t be blessed. They won’t have anything going on that will make other people want what they have, so they will be very poor evangelists. If we taught people to live for God and walk by faith, and if we made them understand that they are not to conform to the world, great things would happen to them, and down the road, they would be so blessed the unsaved would find their testimony compelling.

We worry too much about pleasing men. We never hear anything about the anti-Christian things our President does, because so many people in the church think he’s great. We have given special treatment to rappers, and I don’t mean the Christian kind. We hear a lot about the great things God will do for us, but we don’t hear much about getting in touch with him personally and submitting to him, and we don’t hear much about his angry side. God kills people. God gives people cancer. Sin and iniquity are still very dangerous. We don’t talk much about that. That puts the people in danger.

What can you do? No church is perfect. Some churches let the mob lead. Others reject the Holy Spirit. Every church has a weakness. At least our people acknowledge the Holy Spirit’s existence. He still has a foothold.

I would like to move north and find a church where I would not be faced with the amazing paradox of liberal Christians. How anyone can claim to serve God while voting for enemies of Israel, the church, God-given sex roles and the unborn is beyond me. People who know God well and study his ways inevitably become conservative, because the left is doing everything it can to oppose God. I never imagined I would see a charismatic church were so many people preach one way and vote another.

I know many wonderful people at my church, and I would really miss them if I left, but I know there will eventually come a point where the church changes or I move on.

God is still doing powerful things in my prayer group. More people are praying in tongues and learning about the Holy Spirit. The other day someone who has been heavily into carnal effort came to me and started talking about the way prayer in tongues was changing his life. This is someone who has become extremely intolerant of any kind of dissent, so it surprised me to see him talking this way. He hasn’t been learning this in the sermons, I guarantee you.

My friends are I are seeing more and more blessings in our lives. That will continue. We are getting more revelation. We are getting help with our character flaws. God is bringing people to us and slowly increasing our numbers. Maybe a time will come when there are enough of us to draw attention to God’s power, so others will turn away from baby food and try what we’re having.

The other night I felt God’s presence more strongly than I have in twenty years. I could physically feel the Holy Spirit moving in my body. For a time I felt a strange pressure in my head, and it reminded me of a tree root growing in a rock and splitting it. For a long time, I’ve been saying that the Holy Spirit is the living water that feeds the mustard tree within each of us, which is the kingdom of God. I’ve said it grows and splits the rock and changes us from inside. When I felt it inside me this week it struck me as funny. I felt that God was reminding me that my head is one of the hardest rocks there is.

What is happening to us is as real as dirt. I guess that means persecution is coming. Oh, well. I’ve started keeping a diary of revelations that come to me, and here is the latest thing I felt God was saying to me: “Satan isn’t that tough.” It doesn’t mean Satan is weak or stupid, or that we don’t have to give him the same respect we would give loaded guns or rattlesnakes. It just means he isn’t as hard to beat as you might think, and that you should expect to win. It should not surprise you. He has made himself seem bigger than he is, but he’s just a mortal spirit. He is very small compared to our God. He has an end, and we don’t.

I have to order parts for my next tube amp now. Hope this material is useful to someone.

Too Good for This Earth

Here are some cell phone photos of yesterday’s lunch extravaganza. It’s amazing what you can do when God is in control. Best pizza I’ve ever had, and that’s saying a lot.

The big orange thing is a mango cheesecake, made with homegrown mangoes. The little round things are obviously pineapple upside-down cakes made with tons of butter. The pizzas…are pizzas. Too bad we didn’t get a shot of the Hawaiian we made.

Zechariah 4:6

Samson yanked the gates of Gaza out of the ground and carried them up a hill. He beat a thousand idiots to death with the jawbone of an ass. How did he do these cool things? Easy. The Spirit of God rested on him.

In the movies, Samson is always a big steroid addict with no neck. In real life, Samson was probably about five two, with a thirty-inch chest and bandy legs. Seriously, why would God pick Victor Mature? When it comes to pulling city gates out of the ground, Victor Mature is no better than Burgess Meredith. The gates aren’t going anywhere without something extra. I think God picked someone who would make the Holy Spirit look good, so I really doubt Samson looked like Lou Ferrigno.

Why bring this up? Today I returned to my church’s cafe and made pizza and garlic rolls, and I brought two cheesecakes. My friend Liz brought individual pineapple upside-down cakes plus salad and chocolate-dipped strawberries. We were cooking for the pastor from the biggest AG church in the US. He works in a city known for pizza. And my pastor said we “blew his mind.” So you could say we did a good job.

In the past we were limited to pepperoni pizza and cheese pizza. Today I decided to open up the throttle. We made cheese, pepperoni, sausage, pizza with multiple toppings, and Hawaiian. I arrived at church at 8:15. We didn’t serve until 11:45. I didn’t eat until after 2:00. When I finally got to try the pizza, my skull nearly exploded. A shock wave of ecstasy shot up to the ceiling and rippled across the acoustic tiles. It was stunningly good. I have never had pizza like that.

The cheesecake…I made it with homegrown mangoes, of a cultivar I chose for its deliciosity. These things taste like ice cream, right off the tree. After I got home, a buddy texted me and said, “That mango cheesecake is probably the best thing I’ve ever eaten!!”

The pineapple cakes were perfect. She made them with real butter and lots of whatever that sauce is that gives pineapple upside-down cake its heft. Right on target. Could not have been better.

I don’t think I can cook as well as I cooked today. In fact, I didn’t do all the cooking. I got two young people, Travis and Eboni, to show up and help, and once I showed them what to do, they cranked it out like General Motors. Okay, bad analogy. Like Ford. Or some other company that actually functions well without socialist handouts.

We had a shortage of pizza pans, so we didn’t really have the equipment to keep pizza crusts rising fast enough to meet demand. Somehow, though, we ended up with three extra pizzas and some extra dough portions that had to be thrown out. I don’t know what happened, because I was too busy to watch.

It seems like things went much better than they should have.

I think it’s because of the Holy Spirit counterrevolution that has been going on among my friends. We commit to pray in tongues a lot, and we try to listen to the Holy Spirit. Things just plain go well for us. Life goes together like a dovetail drawer. So I feel like Samson. I shouldn’t be able to do the things I do.

We got to do the things I wanted to do when I tried to start this ministry last year. I made everyone pray in the Spirit for ten minutes, with worship music, as soon as we were able to get a moment. In my opinion, that is what assured our success, and it made an impression on my crew, whom I have been trying to reach for quite a while.

I don’t know if we’ll ever do it again, but it was a blast. I am so grateful. I know I’m not the reason it worked.

If you want what I have, do what I do. That’s all it takes. It’s not genetics. It’s not random chance. It will work for you just like it works for me. In many instances, better.

Wonder what great things will happen during the rest of the week.

Still Standing

As always, too much is going on to write about.

Some of you know I used to cook at my church. I made everything from scratch. I cooked pizza and garlic rolls, cheesecake, pies, brownies, and all sorts of other stuff. But some people there treated me so badly and decreased my duties so much, I realized it was wrong to reward them and waste my time by continuing to work there.

Since then, the cafe has not done well. Can’t tell you everything. It’s closed these days, except for a few hours on the weekends. Everyone who gave me a hard time and treated me disrespectfully is gone. None of them have ever apologized or admitted wrongdoing.

Last week, the pastor called and asked for a “huge favor.” He knows a pastor from a gigantic church in another city. That city is known for pizza. The other pastor sent my church four frozen pizzas from a well-known pizzeria. They sat in the freezer for a long time. When the other pastor scheduled a visit, our staff cooked the pizzas and ate them, so they would be able to say something about them when our guest arrived.

Our pastor thought it would be fun to make pizza for him, in our own kitchen. So tomorrow I cook for about 35 people.

I’m making Sicilian pizza and garlic rolls, plus two mango cheesecakes. One cheesecake is strictly for my team; the guests don’t get any. We’re also having desserts and pineapple upside-down cake.

I have helpers.

I got driven out of the cafe just as I was getting moving on a ministry there. A number of young people wanted to work with me, and I was going to show them how to cook. We were also going to ground everything in prayer. God provided me with a friend who is a successful chef, and she was going to help. I was doing all this at the urging of people above me in the volunteer structure and staff.

After I was asked to cook this big meal, I started looking for people to assist. Who showed up? You can guess. My chef friend was on board in about ten minutes, and she volunteered to leave work and bring salad and desserts. I also got the two young people who had been most interested in learning to cook.

On Saturday we cleaned the kitchen until it was safe to use, which was a horrible chore, and we made a pizza and some rolls. We had a fantastic time. Only the kids showed up. They did an excellent job, and they’re coming back tomorrow morning to help again.

The pizza we made was astounding. It was just pepperoni pizza, but it was better than anything I’ve had in a restaurant. And we’ll do even better tomorrow.

Right now I have cream cheese warming up for two cakes. I’m also going to prepare topping ingredients for the pizzas. I may also make a coconut flan.

I don’t know where this is going. The church is faring poorly, so I don’t know if the cafe will exist in six months. Nonetheless, it’s very rewarding to be able to accomplish the most important parts of the job. I’ll be able to improve my relationship with the people who are helping, and we will draw closer to God. And it’s nice to be vindicated, without lifting a finger to defend myself or harm those who mistreated me.

It’s not about vengeance or seeing obnoxious, carnal people suffer. It’s about God, being faithful and powerful to establish the things he begins.

Needless to say, some of the tools I got for the cafe have been lost, stolen, or destroyed. Here’s a great lesson for Christians: never give your church anything, unless you know they’ll make good use of it. The pizza stones that used to be in the cafe are gone, so I brought one from home, and today I bought a second one. Am I leaving them at church when I’m done? Forget it. I’m not a moron. I’ll have one stone to use, and I’ll have a spare. If the church needs pizza, I’ll throw them in the truck and take them for a visit.

It’s funny how things are working out. Someone else ended up paying for the cheese for the pizzas. When I went to Gordon Food Service to get flour, they only had one bag of the kind I wanted, and it had a tiny hole in it. A cute girl came over, put tape over the hole, and marked the bag down 50%. Today when I went to get the second stone, the store had stopped stocking them. I told God I was not going to any more stores. On the way out, I saw the last stone on a clearance rack.

I haven’t done much to make this work. People and things are coming to me. That’s how it should be. I would just mess it up, if I got in there in the flesh and started mud-wrestling. If the whole event falls through, it’s not my concern. God started it. If he wants it to happen, he’ll finish it.

In other news, my buddy Mike is divorced now. He met a nice lady, and they’re attending a charismatic church. Her dad owns a dog track that has legislated out of business. The dog track contains a fully equipped pizzeria. She also owns a storefront that needs a business. Mike is planning to open a place that sells pizza, rolls, and my cheesecake. How about that? He says I have to go up and help get it started.

I hope things go well tomorrow. I am already looking forward to resting on Wednesday.

Wild Week

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Flash Mobs: the Labor Unions of Crime

I keep thinking about the flash mob crime phenomenon.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Finally on the Scoreboard

It has been a strange few days.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Fresh From the Time Capsule

Someone on a forum asked for photos of my damaged Powerstat 116 autotransformer. Since I have them, I’ll put up a blog post. Here she is.

It looks so good, it’s freaking me out.

It looked perfect on Ebay. Naturally, the Postal Service was not satisfied with that, and the seller packed it so badly the boys in blue had no problem wrecking it. It must have landed on the socket side, because the rim of the socket was shattered, and the terminal board lost its lower corners.

I have been dithering about keeping it or sending it back. I am told the plastic stuff is Bakelite, which is very hard to mend, supposedly. I got a lame response from the seller, so I tried to put it back together with super glue for plastic. Surprisingly, it worked. Here you can see the mend. The cracks are highlighted because there is excess glue that needs to be taken off.

I couldn’t make myself give up on it, because it’s so strange to see a product roughly 60 years old, looking this good. And I paid about 20% of the cost of a new one.

Actually, there are no new ones. The models that came after this have three prongs. I can get a replacement terminal board, but they don’t stock these old 2-hole sockets. I’m going to have to modify a Home Depot receptacle and cram it in there. I hope the machine still looks pretty when I’m done. I shouldn’t care, but come on. That’s a neat-looking variac.

Antisocial Media

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

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

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

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

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

Look out.

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

The Pharaoh Who Knew Not Joseph

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

Unbelievable.

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

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

Nerd Resurrection

I’m practically giddy.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I am Controlling Transmission

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

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

Here’s my tidy workbench.

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