Turning things around

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Love for (and from) our families turns out to be one of the biggest things of all. At times in our lives, it hasn’t always seemed that way. “They get on my nerves”, as the saying goes. You’re fortunate and rare if you’ve been close and dear to your family and they to you throughout your life.

It’s just plain tough being a parent. Let’s face it, kids get in the way of our career path. You really love your wife and want her time and attention, but then that demanding little kid really gets in the way. And they cost money. And they have their own ideas and opinions about everything. So unless you are pretty smart… oh wait, we’re all sure that we’re pretty smart. So let’s say, if you are not pretty wise and mature, then you are going to end up losing your patience with your kids. Or just not find time for them when they really need you.

Before long, there is a division between you and your kids. And if you don’t recognize it and have (again) the wisdom to change and to try to fix things, then soon you have a real big, long-term chasm in your family.

“Time heals all wounds”, right? Actually, lots of people have found that not to be true. You hardly talk to your kids and they don’t talk to you. Someone says “I hate you!” and that becomes the new state of affairs. And as things flash forward 20 or 30 years, you find that you basically hardly even have a family but  just a permanent state of extreme estrangement.

Brethren, these things ought not so to be. And as most of us know, this kind of thing is found prevalent basically everywhere but specially in “advanced” Western and Northern countries. They say, “You can always tell when you are in Third World countries. Children are respectful to their parents there.” Ha!

I know a lot of people who are in this situation. Folks now in their 60’s and 70’s, with their estranged kids in their 30’s and 40’s. And I think many of us are strongly finding out that loneliness is one of the most discouraging, soul-sapping, life-draining existences there is. If there’s anything we mostly all hope to do, it’s to love someone. And the most natural people to love are our own children and parents. Yes, we should love the whole world. We should love strangers, the oppressed and downtrodden. And often we feel we try and want to do that.

But that doesn’t always take the place of our children, grandchildren and our parents and family. Frankly, it is a real touch of hell, real hell to have hatred and discord with those who we should love, and be loved by, the most. Perhaps even more when we are along in life and that animosity and separation that’s been there so long still has predominance in our family circles.

Well, maybe that’s not you. Maybe your family has been one that’s never really had the roots of bitterness and hatred ever get real domination of your lives and loved ones. But, I’ll tell you, those evil roots do exist and they seem to specially prey upon families, if they can.

I don’t care what you’ve accomplished, how big your house or bank account is, how famous you are or what kind of car you drive. If your family has little or no accord, if the times you come together don’t have warmth and love, if there are no hugs and kisses, even tears, then I think it’s hard to have real peace and joy in your heart. Something will be eating away at your soul that you didn’t really handle things so well, you didn’t come through it all with the kind of accomplishments in life that matter the most.

Well, here’s some good news. I think it is pretty much true that “While there’s life, there’s hope.” I won’t mention names here but I certainly could. I’ve personally know some families for 40 years and they are almost utterly estranged. And it’s so very rough on at least some of the members.

But that can change. I’ve known families which, after decades, have had some kind of event or catalyst so that there is reconciliation, or at least the beginnings of a real desire for that.

And can I say, if you see anything like that around, fan that little flame of love, that attempt at a turning towards love, forgiveness and coming together. You may look back ultimately and feel that the biggest, best thing you ever did in your life was when you began to try at least to forgive your parents, or your children or whoever it was that has created such loneliness and despair in either you or someone in your family.

Restoration is just one of the most beautiful things in this world. And if you even make an attempt towards that, the forces of Love, which are the forces of God, will swing in to your aid and make it all the more possible for it to happen.

Love your family. Forgive your parents, or children. Let restoration happen, while there’s still time. It might easily turn out to be the most important thing you ever did.

Eclipse coming my way

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I’m expecting 4 minutes of total eclipse here at my house in less than 3 days. I don’t really know what will come of it. A half million people are said to be travailing to my area to check it out and there are plenty of scare mongers who are telling everyone to stock up on groceries, gasoline and water. Actually, very many Texas counties have declared a state of emergency already in preparation for the event.

It does make sense that there could be really a whole lot of people parked on the side of the road that goes past my house. Full total eclipses are rare and that’s what will be happening here. And folks in these parts can rather easily get pretty free and rowdy so it all just remains to be seen how this will play out.

Meanwhile, the weather forecasters are saying it will be “nip and tuck” as to whether there will be clear skies enough for anyone to be able to view the eclipse. It’s supposed to happen in early afternoon and it’s not certain at all that there will be clear skies to see it. One way or the other, day will be turning to night as the full eclipse passes over here so at least we will be seeing “darkness at noon”.

I’ve thought a lot about what if anything I should write about this event that will be here where I am. Forty years ago, right at this time, I was going through perhaps the greatest “eclipse” of my personal life as my own family fell apart. And, strangely, there was a pop song that was popular right around that time called “Total eclipse of the heart”. It really somehow struck me so deeply what the words of that song said as it summed up what I was going through, so unspeakable and mostly unbearable.

I was going to make a video from my house here, linking this upcoming eclipse to my “eclipse” at this time in 1984. I decided not to do that but instead write something since so very many people in these times are going through their own “eclipses”. The light of their lives suddenly leaves them, their dearest loved one, mate, child or whoever is suddenly just not there and they’re plunged into darkness, just like a total eclipse in the middle of the day.

When that happened to me, I cried every day for 5 months. I woke up in the mornings and was crying in ten seconds. Why am I sharing this? To somehow reach out to anyone, and there are so very many, who are in a personal, mighty “eclipse of the heart”. If that’s not you right now, then perhaps you know of someone who’s life has collapsed, whose dearest loved one has left them, or their family has turned against them and they are suddenly so alone and without light or love in this world that many just give up and die.

I’m so glad I came through that time; it took around 13 months before the vast shadow that was upon my life began to lift. Maybe that’s you just now. Or someone who’s near to you in your life right now. Folks, there is an epidemic of loneliness, despair and spiritual darkness that’s descended on many millions of people around the world in these times.

But eclipses don’t last forever. Mine didn’t. Perhaps a secret for me was that I knew God and His son Jesus. And They are able to deliver us from the lowest hell. It was that faith, that God was bigger than my circumstances, that gave me the grace to just hold on and keep praying through a time like I’d never gone through before.

If it’s you, or someone you love, the secret is to hold on to faith in God. This coming eclipse to my part of the world will pass. We all take that for granted now. And I can tell you personally that if you’re in a total eclipse, a sudden darkness unlike you’ve ever seen before, then hold on. You say you can’t hold on because you don’t know God or Jesus? Then it really is a great time to get acquainted with them.

God is in control of the world and He can bring you through and out of whatever you’re going through, just the way He will bring us through this darkness that’s soon coming to my neck of the woods in central Texas. Hold on to the Lord, He can do what no other can do.

And I might add, back when I was going through my “total eclipse of the heart”, there were a few very dear friends who remained friends with me when it really looked like to most that I would shrivel away and die. But they encouraged me and did what they could to help me through that time. Would to God that all of us would remain steadfast and true friends to those we know who are in a place of darkness at this time. “A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.” Proverbs 17:17

Surviving Surgery, and other things

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Here I am on the other side! Twelve days ago I had major surgery on my lower spine; and it was utterly needed to delivery me from months of strong pain in my hamstring muscles, tendons and buttocks. It’s such a relief to be able to walk around and not have that pain that would so take over my leg muscles each morning.

The operation is call called a “laminotomy” and “lumbar fusion”. It took 90 minutes, I was totally unconscious and they had to get down to the real nitty gritty in my lower spinal column. But it worked. Or more actually, the Lord did it and used the expertise of these doctors to “roto rooter” my lower vertebra, relieving the constricting that had heavily pinched my spinal column there. As soon as I was conscious after the operation, I could feel that the leg pain was now gone that had been there since last summer.

And now, since the surgery I’ve been managing the new pain that’s come up after they cut through my back muscles so they could get to where the “severe spinal stenosis” has been. Hats off to my sister who really came through in the hour of trouble, taking care of me at the hospital and then at her house before I got back here at the beginning of the week.

I was aware of a lot of people praying for me at all times. So many things didn’t happen that could have gone wrong. And I’m so thankful that I’ve had peace in my heart and mind through all this. I’ve realized again that “me” is not primarily my physical body. My body really went through the wringer in the biggest way. It seemed like I’d been shot in the back or that a mortar shell had hit me.

But it’s like I wrote about “You you”, 7 years ago. The real ultimate “me” didn’t get a knife stuck through it and become all sliced up, like my physical body did. It helped so very much to have a Christian perspective on it all and that “me”, me physically as well as my heart and soul were experiencing this. But through it all, the actual real me inside was doing pretty good and something really positive was happening. The cramped, pinched spinal column was being fixed by real experts. That was very good, even if it was a traumatic experience to go though physically, with an operation like that.

Shortly after I was back in my hospital room after the operation, I was aware that I was “on the other side”. There was discomfort but I could already feel then that the leg, tendon and buttocks pain was gone. What a relief and joy!

They had me on strong pain medication and the main one was Oxycodone, a narcotic. It did work; along with adding some Tylenol, the pain level overall was bearable. But it wasn’t long before I was experiencing some stuff that was messing with my thoughts and emotions. As the pain drew down over a few days, I decided to just stop the Oxycodne and also to really dial it back on the other pain killer meds.

After 4 or 5 days at my sisters’, she took me back to my place and that’s where things are now. I wear a back brace about 12 hours a day to keep my back aligned as the new situation in my spine stabilizes. There’s still pain in my back but it’s to a much lesser degree than what I experienced for the months with the leg cramps, before the operation.

I think perhaps the thing that helped me the most through this time was a God-given sense of humor. It kind of surprised me at times that, in very pinnacle situations, I found something to laugh about and to not be overwrought by the events of the moment. Perhaps this was an answer to the many people who were praying for me. I was able to laugh or at least be cheerful and light-hearted through all this and I do feel it was something supernaturally, God-given from the Lord.

And I thought to just give you a little back ground to all this, as my last year has been one of the most unusual I’ve ever had. Last February Facebook suddenly “paused” my ability to use Facebook advertising. I still could communicate with everybody but my weekly ads on Facebook were stopped. For years, I’ve been doing Facebook advertising of the videos I’ve done in many languages. So this “pause” from Facebook stopped my ministry to millions of folks.

Facebook said there was some anomaly with my payment method and they were pausing my account. They told me a few things to do, which I did, and I waited for it all to work out. Days passed and I wrote again. They wrote back, asking me to be patient. Days turned into weeks and weeks into months.

I got increasingly desperate as well as rather hopeless. Facebook has billions of customers and you don’t just call up a representative. But here’s how God answered the prayers of many for my situation. I lived in Brazil in the late 90’s and out of the blue a friend I knew there wrote to say that her daughter, who I knew when she was 12, now lived about 5 kilometers from me and would like to meet me after all this time.

We did that and guess what? Turns out that she had worked for some time in the Meta company, which owns Facebook. I told her my plight and she said she might know someone on the inside. Things moved fast after that and in 10 days my account was restored. To me this was just an astounding miracle when I saw no way I was going to be able to contact anyone in Facebook to get my account back on.

Then, 5 days after Facebook was restored, there was a sudden lightning strike around 40 yards from my desk here. There was sort of a storm going on right then but there’d been no lightning nearby. My laptop was destroyed, my router, modem, the printer, the aircon system in the house and wiring under the house, all were knocked out. Replacing the laptop, which is what I do the video editing and website work on, was a big deal. Thankfully none of us were hurt and the house and cars were not hit. But getting back to where I could work on videos and do editing on a new computer took many weeks.

Two months after the lightning, I was holding on to a tree stump in my backyard that I’d held on to many times before. Suddenly it snapped and I was diving through the air towards the bottom of the garden. I guess I went close to 4 meters forward and 3 meters downward. The full force of the dive/fall was taken by my left hand which transferred up to my left shoulder. The result was that I had a major tear in my left shoulder, so much so that a rotor cuff surgery was not possible. I’m awaiting an operation to replace my left shoulder joint at some point when it can be worked out.

One month after my fall down the hill, in July, I left for my yearly visit to see my kids in Scandinavia. I was already feeling a little funny but not too bad. But when I got over there, I was diagnosed with Shingles. Thankfully it was a relatively mild case but it continued through my visit to Scandinavia.

In August, before returning to Texas, I was briefly visiting friends at a fellowship in Romania. That’s when the leg and tendon problem really took center stage. I’d been having pain in that area for months but it had been manageable. In Romania though, the pain got so bad that I was walking awkwardly and not really able to be a part of the activities. So when I got back to the States in late August, I knew that finding out what the matter was with my legs was top priority

Back in the States, I began in earnest to try to find the root cause of my leg pain which continue to worsen. But no one really knew what it was. The first doctor prescribed pain killers and “muscle relaxants” which were some of the worst things I’ve ever taken. I stopped that immediately. The next doctor said I had “Polymyalgia rheumatica” and sent me to a rheumatologist. At that appointment that doctor said that it didn’t really seem like rheumatism to him and I didn’t think so either.

Of course all this took time, months in fact. I was well into the fall and still kind of flaying around in trying to find out what was causing all this. But the Lord was certainly working behind the scenes. I had a regular appointment with my cardiologist and I was explaining to her how there hadn’t been anyone really knowing what was the problem with my leg pain. She then told me she thought it was my back. I sort of corrected her and told her my back was just fine, never had any pain there.

But she went on to explain that the nerves that affected my hamstrings, tendons and buttocks all run down through and out of my spinal column. So she ordered a MRI as soon as possible. And that was the breakthrough that was needed.

By then it was the first week of January, 3½ months after I got back from Romania. But at least the problem had been found: “severe spinal stenosis” in my lower spine. As one doctor explained, my spinal column should be 15 millimeters wide at that place but it was only 4 millimeters wide. Quite a pinch. In mid February I had the surgery on my back, what I already wrote about at the beginning of this article.

You thought that was all, right? Nope, I didn’t tell you the other traumas of September through December. I had two loose teeth and hadn’t been to the dentist in long time. Although I didn’t have any pain, I thought it would be good to get the loose teeth checked out. And dear God in His great Providence led me to some exceptionally competent, compassionate South American dentists not far from me.

On my first visit the lady gave me a thorough exam and then rather somberly told me I had 11 teeth that were infected and that the infection was most likely spreading to every part of my body. She said I needed those extracted, plus two crowns replaced, a root canal and various other cavities taken care of. Also there will be bridges top and bottom to replace the pulled teeth.

Actually, by this time, I’d been under such an onslaught from one side or the other for months that this didn’t really faze me very much. So through October into December I had the 11 teeth pulled and almost all the other things she mentioned were taken care of. But it all was made so much easier by these two amazing Christian sisters and their touch of expertise, as well as they gentle ways. And of course the mighty grace and mercy of the Lord.

Well, I hope it’s been ok to tell you about all this. Many of you keep up with me on Facebook and I have been posting prayer requests about these things. I don’t think I’ve ever had a time like this that’s happened to me over this last year. And so it looks like I have come through and out of this intense period and now I’m in a rehab after the operation. They said this would take 4 to 6 weeks and it hasn’t been 2 yet.

Possibly some of my friends are going through similar things currently: shake ups in their health, severe and long term challenges across multiple fronts, personality changes as we enter new periods of our lives. I’m so thankful that I have been able to remain rooted to the Christian foundations I’ve had since I was 21 and to be able to stand in Him, through it all.

And I’m so thankful for the many of you who’ve stood with me in prayer during this time. I’m utterly sure if I had not had the Lord and His continuing strengthening in my soul, I certainly could not have survived all this. I could write much more but this is already long. I hope this is a blessing for you. Many are going through medical experiences in these times and perhaps this is a help to some to know how the Lord took care of me through it all.

God bless you, thanks so much!

Mark

II Tim 3:11  “…but out of them all the Lord delivered me.”

II Tim 4:18   “And the Lord shall deliver me from every evil work and shall preserve me unto His heavenly kingdom.”

 

“It’s all by your grace Lord, cause somebody prayed.”

 

 

 

Talking to angels

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What’s it like talking to angels? On the street? The first thing you notice is that they can read your thoughts. So you begin to realize that something is really up. Something strange is going on and you grasp more and more that this person in front of you is very unusual. But you’re also aware that this person is not malignant, they are benign. And it just grows on you: as soon as you think something, they know what you thought.

So you’ve been talking to this person and when you say something, their immediate response is so complete, so all encompassing and so precise that it nearly takes your breath away. Then again immediately it’s happened to me that, before I voice a thought and respond to the “person” in front of me, that they respond.

Sometimes it is verbally, as humans do. But also it can be a thought, a response that appears in your mind, that this person answers you back, “at the speed of thought”, without going through the normal human channel of verbal communication.

This can be really surprising and …shocking, as I search for a word to match that experience. In fact, this is where things quickly go. Because you are sucked up into an upper level experience that is basically beyond any normal human experience.

There may be words exchanged. But you are utterly aware that there is a channel opened, a thought exchange unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. As you think a thought, the “being’ in front of you, who looks human, is communicating back to you in your mind. This is in real time, physically, person to person.

And the answers are not gibberish and confusion. But they’re incredibly “spot on”, to the point, uplifting, enlightening and of a caliber and richness that you didn’t think humans could convey. It’s just hard to describe. It’s like they are talking to you from some kind of place of light, a place of sanity, clarity and even overwhelming common sense that puts all else you’ve experienced into a lower realm of clouds and haze.

How long does it last? For me it didn’t last really long. I wrote about one experience I had in San Francisco when I was nearly 23 which was the longest I’ve ever been in that kind of atmosphere. Needless to say, my experiences like that, if I try to count them right now, come to around 5 to 7 times, from in my 20’s til now. But to be in that realm, where the supposed human in front of you can read your thoughts and respond before you’ve hardly thought you thoughts, is unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.

These were not demons. I’ve had encounters with demons too. You become aware that the person in front of you is not speaking of themselves but is being spoken through. Often this is with extremely vile, vulgar, aggressive, sickening language. But you are just aware that “something” is speaking through the person in front of you, who seems to know your weaknesses, fears and inner thoughts but who is your violent enemy, out to destroy you through confusion, astonishment and other such things.

When you meet an angel on the street, their communication has a “oneness”, a composite clarity, order, height, depth, richness and utter edification. When you meet a person who is demon possessed who talks to you, you are aware at some point that the person in front of you is not speaking of themselves, that another entity has been able to take over the human in front of you and to speak through them.

An evil spirit has been able to posses or take them over and use that body to speak to you. But an angel speaks of themselves, an agent of the God of the higher realm, who has been assigned or allowed to communicate with you.

guardian-angelsAdmittedly, this happens rarely in my life and probably most people seldom ever experience these things. Or if they do, many of us are dull to what is happening at the moment and don’t really catch what is going on. They/we experience these things but recognize how strange it is and that they/we can’t tell our friends or family because they won’t believe us. So they/we keep it to themselves, sometimes the rest of their/our lives.

Have you ever had an experience with an angel? Or demon? They both exist, now and in our present world. Sometimes the Lord wants to expand our horizons by letting us experience these things, to deepen us, to open our eyes to the mostly unseen real world we actually live in, and to make us stronger for him. “Be not forgetful to entertain strangers for thereby some have entertained angels unaware.” (Hebrews 13:2)

Miracles in Europe

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Coming from an atheist background, the miracles in my life have been beacons of personal experience and sustenance. In this second audio recording, I’ve included 3 events that happened to me in the years I lived in Europe where the miraculous hand of God got me through dangerous, virtually impossible situations.

I’ve found that it’s a much quicker process to do audio recordings like this, compared to doing full 30 minute videos as I have been doing for years. So my plan is to continue to produce more of these.

I hope you find these accounts to be an inspiration and uplift to you in your life. I’d be glad to hear any feedback or reactions to these recordings from any of you. The link to the recording on YouTube can be found below.

All the best to you, your friend,

Mark

Angels in Austin

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I’m happy to announce that I’ve started making audio recordings of my blog articles. It’s a new thing for me to produce this kind of material but I thought it would be good since so many people nowadays listen to pod casts and recordings.

This first recording is about supernatural experiences I’ve had in Austin, one around 13 years ago and the other two when I was going to university here. These are articles that on my site, markmcmillion.com. My hope and plan is that this will be the first of more audio shows like this, where I narrate the articles that, Lord willing, will be interesting and be a blessing to you.

All the best to you,

Mark

Here’s the link on YouTube

So, Mark, are you religious?

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“So, Mark, are you religious? Do you think that religion will solve the problems of the world today?”

You’ll hardly every find me using that word, “religious”. I think that word is only twice found in the Bible. I’m not religious, but I found out by severe experience that there is a spiritual world. That Satan, Lucifer is real and so is the God of the Bible.

You don’t like that? I know how you feel. But when reality and truth raised their strange heads directly into my life, then the wise thing to do was to just accept it, whether it was my former viewpoint or not.

That’s how it is for me. There is a spiritual world. The most severe, taxing, words-fail-me-to express experience of my life involved coming to find that there is a spiritual world, inhabited by good and bad spirits. And I had to make an immediate decision at that time as to which group I wanted to align myself with.

That wasn’t religion; please don’t demean me and minimalise me by using that now-hated word. But truth it was; the most fundamental battlefront and expose of truth that could happen.

I don’t come here to discuss religion but to tell you what I found from the most existential personal battle I ever experience in my 70+ years of my life. Don’t talk to me about religion. You are seriously missing the point. It’s the spiritual world I found was real and which I love to talk about, whether it be the miracles I’ve experienced or the fundamental truths I’ve based my life on since I was 21.

Face it. You are trying to trivialize me and mock me when you talk about religion. If there is a spiritual world, and that is what I found, then YOU may find that YOU’re ill-prepared and on shaky ground, if you’ve no knowledge or experience of that realty.

And probably a little “PS” needs to be added. It’s possible that someone reading this might think, “Why did he get so upset? Wasn’t that just a simple, innocent question Mark was asked?”

What I wrote above was the result of a conversation and experience I had with someone. In that situation, it was clear through the tone of voice and overall demeanor of the person I was talking to that it was not a sincere, seeking question but a snarky, veiled attempt to hang the “religious” label on me.

I can see how that question asked by someone else, seeking to understand me better and what I stand for, might have said the same thing. In that case, it would be easy to hear the sincerity in their voice and in that situation I would have answered completely differently.

 

Every man to his tents!

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Sometimes you just feel like, “Every man to his tents”. You’ve had enough. What’s in front of you is overwhelming. You’re taken aback by the events of the times and just feel you have to get away from it all.

Of course, “Every man to his tents” was expressed close to 3000 years ago by commoners in ancient Israel after their utter disillusionment with “the house of David” which had ruled them with the blessing of God for so long.

King David’s grandson, Rehoboam, had neither the heart of his grandfather David or the wisdom of his father Solomon. He exposed himself as a shallow, heartless neophyte and the people of Israel came to say “What have we to do with the house of David?” “Every man to his tents!” That’s how it is now, in many ways.

The institutions, individuals, symbols and beliefs that so many have held fundamental for generations are now often crumbling to dust. The political parties that held the allegiance of millions, even many of the denominations that were the hitching posts of millions, have morphed into some new, strange, alien thing.

So, “Every man to his tents”. And is this all bad? Maybe not. For those sincerely seeking truth, this is a time of turning away from the images and forms of the present day and turning back to “your tents”, to a time with your family and a time to reassess in your heart “What the heck is going on!” And also asking ourselves profoundly “What should we be holding on to?” is actually an act and mercy of God, when that question becomes paramount.

I think millions are turning to their tents, away from the confusion of present debates and the cacophony of media disputations. It looks like a defeat to turn away to your tents. But maybe there you’ll find, as you pause, ponder and move away from the din and discord of the present, that there you’ll actually be better able to hear the “still, small voice” of God, like Elijah did when he fled alone to a mountain and there heard God’s voice. (I King 18:36).

That period of time just after King Solomon was actually a very significant time. It was at the end of God’s mighty blessings on a united Israel, which reached its zenith in King David and then continued with his son Solomon afterwards.

But there’s much truth in the statement that the influence of one mighty man of God seems seldom to reach beyond the second generation of his followers. In King David’s case, God actually gave him a son, Solomon, who did very much to follow in the footsteps of his father David. And the reign of Solomon, after David, was pretty much the zenith of Israel’s power, close to 3000 years ago.

But God has no grandchildren. Solomon’s sons were far from the sample they’d seen in their dad and grandfather. The commoners of Israel soon sensed it and there comes the phrase, “ever man to his tents.” The music wasn’t playing anymore. Those who’d spoken to them the Word of God for several generations were now, in their children, no longer doing that.

So, “Every man to his tents”. It turned out that the individuals of Israel had to each themselves sort out the new situation and find for themselves a new, personal channel of truth as the former channels, their Godly kings, had ceased to be the oracles and shepherds of God.

But was God dead? No, of course not. And this time of each individual withdrawing to his tent was the way and hand of God to draw His people back closer to Himself. The time of the united kingdom of Israel was at its end. What actually was happening was a huge transition in the nature and composition of the believers in the God of Abraham. Had He abandoned them? No. But there was fundamentally no longer a truly Godly king to be led by, as there had been for 80 years in the realms of David and Solomon.

But the Lord was still there. And perhaps in the lowly individual tents of the Jews back then multitudes were drawn closer to the Lord than they’d ever been.

There were really no prophets yet, as there later came to be. But they had the words of David and Solomon to feast upon and to grow in as they adjusted to the new times they were living in, after Israel broke up into the 10 tribes of the north and the tiny rump remnant in the south, the 2 tribes of Judah and Benjamin.

Does this mean anything for today? Very many in these times are feeling the same, “Every man to his tents!” They find no affinity with the divisions and the shenanigans of the present because they find no underlying truth or direction in it, compared to times just a few years back.

So they abandon social media, abandon denominations and/or political parties and they come to the same conclusions folks did after King Solomon. “What have we to do with the house of David?!” Or in our times, “What have we to do with the political parties or even denominations that formerly spoke the truth and led the way forward but now are overtaken by darkness?”

Head to the hills! Go off grid! Or for some, just really withdrawing from all the tumult and shallowness of the present evil world and seeing if you can’t at least find some peace and sanity in your heart by withdrawing to “your tent”.

I say, “More power to them.” There are certainly times for this. Pulling back, turning away from the frolicking, foaming, foolish, frivolous present and searching alone in your tent and in your heart to find that still small voice which can cause you to rise above the confusion of this present world.

Feel you need to withdraw to your tents? Could be a good idea. Maybe you’ll come back a much better person for it, with a clearer vision of the present realities of God as He speaks to you, away from the battle. We certainly all need tent time, especially when those we followed and looked to turn out to no longer be the instruments of God and truth.

A class at the camp of the saints

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I’ve just gotten back from a trip to northern Europe to see my kids and then a wonderful few days in Romania, at a get-together of Christian disciples, mostly East Europeans. I was asked if I would share a Bible class with the ones there and I was glad to do that. But I didn’t really know what I would share.

And then, as it happens in many situations, “It shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak” (Mark 13:11). Often the Lord can lead you to share on a subject that you had not planned to speak about. And it’s usually important to assess who your class is. Are they new to the faith? Mostly in need of the basics and fundamentals?

But when I was in Romania last week, it was almost the opposite. Nearly everyone there was a veteran of the faith, discipleship Christians who were often teachers themselves and mostly well versed in the milk of the Word, and even a lot of the meat. So I felt led to talk to them about things that I probably wouldn’t have to a different audience.

I’d been asked to share something on the subject of Bible prophecy and possibly where we are in the scheme of things, as Scripture portrays the playing out of human history leading up to the end of this age and the second coming of the Lord.

Most of the people at this get together had already viewed my video series on the prophecies of the Old Testament prophet, Daniel. So, all in all, it was rather like trying to teach a class to those at a somewhat advanced level of their Christian experience.

I know some of you were praying for me and I do believe the Lord was hearing and answering those prayers in the lead-up to that class. Thanks so much; the Lord really came through, perhaps more than I was expecting.

Before the class, I felt led to pull together a list of blog articles that I’ve written over the last 10 years or so, touching on some of the most common questions that people have when it comes to the subject of what Jesus was referring to when He told His disciples, “If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself…” (John 14:3).

And I should mention that for Christian disciples at the stage these dear ones were, classes like this are not for just accumulating knowledge. A fundamental goal for discipleship Christians is to be able to “give an answer to him that asks you” (I Peter 3:15). A verse that speaks of believers in the final days before the Lord’s return says this: “And they that understand among the people shall instruct many.” (Daniel 11:33) So, knowing how to “answer every man that asks you” is fundamental for those who truly want to serve the Lord.

I’ll include here some of the articles that I shared with these ones, primarily related to questions people have about the return of the Lord. Often you can hear folks say, “Oh, no man knows the day and hour.” Somehow many end up coming to the wrong conclusion about what the Lord meant there. Here’s an article I wrote about this that I shared the highlights of with my friends. https://www.propheciesofdaniel.com/no-man-knows-the-day-and-hour/

A similar thing people say on this subject, and they quote Jesus, is this: “It’s not for you to know the times and seasons…” It seems that often they are coming to conclusions on that verse that are not what it originally meant. Here’s an article I wrote about that. https://www.propheciesofdaniel.com/not-for-you-to-know-the-times-and-seasons/

And you may have heard someone surprisingly tell you something like, “Oh, Jesus actually returned to the earth in 70 AD!” How can you factually and tactfully reply to someone who is saying that? I shared this article with my friends on this subject and how they might respond.  https://www.propheciesofdaniel.com/jesus-returned-to-earth-in-70-a-d/

A question for many was, “How close are we?” “Can we tell in specifics how much longer it will be?” Big subject, big questions. Here’s what I shared about this, perhaps one of the articles that has been discussed the most,
https://www.propheciesofdaniel.com/whites-eyes/

Some there were curious to know what things are like in the States currently and how the culture wars here and the social tension is affecting Christian values and the cause of Christ. I shared with them an article about my own experiences here over the last year or so involving the local school district I’m in and the battle there for the hearts and minds of the young people who go the schools near me. Here’s an article I shared with my friends about that. https://markmcmillion.com/checking-your-local-school-board/

There were lots of other things we talked about but perhaps this will give you an idea of the class I shared and what folks there were interested in. All in all it was a really wonderful time to be away in the mountains of Romania and to be in fellowship with like-minded Christians who are endeavoring to serve the Lord and feed His sheep. I hope this is a blessing to you, thanks again for your interest and prayers.

Your friend,

Mark

PS  You might be interested to know what the atmosphere and mood was at a get-together like this of dedicated East European Christians. Seven years ago I was living in Romania and went to a similar gathering. Here’s an article I wrote about how that was.

https://markmcmillion.com/at-the-camp-of-the-saints-part-1/

“Summoning” and A.I.

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I scan the horizon daily for “the signs of the times”. Some things have been there for years. But, what’s new? What’s now in view that indicates progress toward the very final end time foreseen in the Bible?

“Artificial Intelligence” has been around for years, in some sense. But in recent times, with things like Chat GPT, there’s a new chapter and a new time of greatly enhanced computer advancement. For me, I view this from the perspective of a Christian who’s looking to see the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and the coming of the future foretold through the Biblical prophets.

I prefer to keep things as simple as possible. But I’m going to need to take the narrative up a notch in discussing A.I. and the Bible, to some of the more mysterious, complex aspects of the Biblical future, spoken of by Jesus and the prophets.

Most of those reading this have heard somewhere of “the Anti-Christ”, the prophesied world dictator who will arise, just before the return of Jesus. And certainly the concept of “the mark of the beast” has become more and more known, even by secularist around the world.

They may not believe it but many millions have come to know the ideas behind the verse that says of a future point in time, “No man might buy or sell unless he had the mark of the beast… in his hand or his forehead”. This is also where the famous reference to “the number of the beast [the anti-Christ] which is 666“. (Revelation 13:16-18)

But the number of those grasping these things greatly shrinks when we get to places in the Bible that may be where we find Artificial Intelligence becoming part of the fulfillment. We could start with one of the least understood things Jesus of Nazareth ever said. And He said it at a pinnacle moment in a pinnacle chapter, when He was telling His disciples about His return to earth and the time just before that event.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand it, I’m not sure anyone yet has a complete, total grasp of how this will be fulfilled. Jesus said, “When you shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoso reads, let him understand.” (Matthew 24:15)

Didn’t get it, did you? No worries; we’re going to try to delve into this, comparing Scripture with Scripture, as well as bringing in AI, and then see if there’s a clearer idea of it all from doing that.

Probably the biggest enigma in what Jesus said there is that phrase “the abomination of desolation”. Most likely you have no idea what that is. And I’m not going to be able to definitely clear it all up for you. But it’s worth looking into since Jesus brought it up. And also the prophet Daniel was told about this over 500 years before Jesus pointed to it, when talking about His second coming. [By the way, I went over these things in more detail in a video I did some years ago which linked Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 with the last verse in Daniel 9, verse 27. Here’s the link to that video:]

“Mark! Mark! I have it! The abomination of desolation is the Anti-Christ!”

Well, some do teach that but I personally don’t think the “AC” is the abomination. Jesus said “the abomination of desolation” was spoken of by the prophet Daniel. That phrase is used in several places in Daniel but the one that is most clear is Daniel 11:31. It says this. “And arms [armaments] shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength [soon to be rebuilt temple in Jerusalem]; and they shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that makes desolate.”

This and other places always give the picture of the abomination being a thing. Jesus said it will “stand” in the temple. It will be “placed” there. But the Antichrist is a person “the son of perdition”, similarly to how Jesus was a person, the very Son of God. As well, II Thessalonians 2:3 & 4 says the Antichrist will “sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God”. So I feel pretty strongly that the abomination is “a thing”, not a person.

The mystery deepens, no? One thing to remember, the word “abomination” in the Old Testament was often used to speak of what we today call an idol. They were physical objects, placed in temples where the gods of old, Dagon, Ashtoreth, Baal and others were worshipped. The Greeks and Romans had similar things, all the way up to New Testament times.

“Mark, is there anything in the book of Revelation about this?”

I think there is and this is where we get a view of where Artificial Intelligence may be an integral part of it all. I mentioned already those mysterious verses in Revelation 13 about “666” and “the mark of the beast”.

But we have to go deeper. We have to squeeze the truth from more of these verses to get a fuller picture. Many have heard vaguely of the Antichrist to come. But far fewer know that the book of Revelation says he will have a “side kick”, evidently a number 2 man, who the Bible calls “the false prophet”. And it says of this false prophet, in Revelation 13 that, “he has power to give life to the image of the Beast, that the image of the Beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the Beast should be slain.” (Revelation 13:15)

What’s the image of the beast, you ask? It becomes fascinating when we find that the word “image” in the Bible is often referring to an idol, just as the word “abomination” did in the Old Testament. If you do a Word study on those two words, “abomination” and “image”, you’ll see how many times they are referring to what we today call idols.

And I’ve taught and do believe that “the image of the beast” in Revelation 13 and “the abomination of desolation” that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24 are the same thing. That might be a jump for some but I believe it is a sound conclusion that can stand review.

It is my opinion that “the abomination of desolation” and “the image of the beast” both refer to some kind of very advanced “machine”, for lack of a better word. Or I could say computer but one that’s so far advanced that it’s beyond what most regular folks in the world today can imagine. My thought on this is similar to a number of Bible students who’ve looked deeply into the specifics of the Bible’s teaching on the end time.

And this falls into the realm of reality since we all know just how fast and how far technology is advancing in those fields. Elon Musk is creating bio chips to link our brains into a mega-network that may bring on forms of bio-technical eternal life.

In all this, I zero in on the verse that says, “He had power to give life to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many of those that did not worship the beast should be slain”. So, a life-infused computer that can speak, also directing or monitoring all economic transactions on earth, as it says in Revelation 13:17. But actually, how farfetched does that really seem to be in the times we now live in?

I want to bring in here some things that have appeared recently in the New York Times newspaper. And keep in mind the part about “he had power to give life to the image of the beast”. Because that’s what’s comes to my mind when I’ve several times seen the word “summoning” in connection with what the absolute top scientists in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are working on with these things.

What are those tech creators summoning? The articles say they are summoning spirits, demons from beyond or whatever to inhabit and dwell in their most advanced computer concoctions in order to have them reach the limits and realms that the A.I. coders are trying to take things to. And this sounds exactly like what those verses in the book of Revelation said would ultimately happen.

I’ll end this with just a few of the quotes I’ve taken note of in the New York Times articles that have come out about this. Here’s one.

“In 2018, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google — and not one of the tech executives known for overstatement — said, ‘A.I. is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire.’”

[from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/11/technology/silicon-valley-confronts-the-idea-that-the-singularity-is-here.html]

And even more, this quote gets to the essence of where AI advancement has come to. Read this paragraph with focus and bring in what the Bible says “the image of the Beast” will be capable of.

“We typically reach for science fiction stories when thinking about A.I. I’ve come to believe the apt metaphors lurk in fantasy novels and occult texts. As my colleague Ross Douthat wrote, this is an act of summoning. The coders casting these spells have no idea what will stumble through the portal. What is oddest, in my conversations with them, is that they speak of this freely. These are not naifs who believe their call can be heard only by angels. They believe they might summon demons. They are calling anyway.”

[from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/12/opinion/chatbots-artificial-intelligence-future-weirdness.html]

Friends, this is not coming from Alex Jones or some loony loner in a cabin in Idaho. This is published in what’s considered by the power elites to be the most reputable newspaper in America. They boldly publish that the most advanced scientific creators are now openly summoning demons into their computers.

I’ll end this with part of an article by Ross Douthat, again in the New York Times. It perhaps summarizes much better than I can what we are seeing here and what this is leading towards.

“In this sense what we’re doing resembles a complex incantation, a calling of spirits from Shakespeare’s “vasty deep.” Build a system that imitates human intelligence, make it talk like a person and answer questions like an encyclopedia and solve problems through leaps we can’t quite follow, and wait expectantly to see if something infuses itself into the mysterious space where the leaps are happening, summoned by the inviting home that we have made.

Such a summoning is most feared by A.I. alarmists, at present, because the spirit might be disobedient, destructive, a rampaging Skynet bent on our extermination.

But the old stories of the magicians and their bargains, of Faust and his Mephistopheles, suggest that we would be wise to fear apparent obedience as well.’

[from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/opinion/magic-science-ufo-ai.html]