Monthly Archives: January 2021

Should we change?

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Should we change? Big question. It depends. Does God change? He actually answered that. “I am the Lord, I change not.” (Malachi 3:6) But when we search the Scriptures, we see examples where the Lord’s way of dealing with His people changed over the centuries. “The word of God was precious in those days, there was no open vision.” (I Samuel 3:1) But then in later centuries there came a time and age of prophets raised up by the Lord who received visions.

Jesus seemed to advocate change. His original message from the beginning was a commandment to change. “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is at hand.” (Matthew 4:17) Repent, change, have a transformation or even more, be transformed by the power of God.

I guess it depends on what you are changing. There’s a time to not change. John the Beloved disciple said, “Let that therefore abide in your which you have heard from the beginning. If that which you have heard from the beginning shall remain in you, you also shall continue in the Son and in the Father.” (I John 2:24)

But, equally and on the other side, Jesus seemed to strongly advocate change.  When His disciples asked Him why the disciples of John fasted but they didn’t, He said, “No man having drunk old wine straightway desires the new for he says the old is better.” (Luke 5:39) His teaching was “new wine” but some people, very religious, were stuck back with the old wine and just couldn’t get on board with the new.

So it seems like we are supposed to do both: at times hold on to the old and at other times break away and follow the new. Solomon wrote, “Destroy not the ancient landmark which your fathers have set up.” (Proverbs 22:28) Seems like we are supposed to hold on to the original foundations we receive from our beginnings.

But other times we are supposed to forget the past and press on to that which is before. (Philippians 3:14) So the only way this will make sense is through the mind of Christ in which these things don’t contradict themselves at all. Let go of the ways the Lord is no longer leading in. And hold on and seek the new ways God has for us now in these times. That’s been the primary procedure and secret of truly following God and abiding in Him for 4000 years or more.

And, without complicating things, we could look briefly at another kind of change. Definitely the wrong one. Paul spoke of this when he said of his formerly loyal helper and companion, “Demas has forsaken me, having loved this present world.” (II Timothy 4:10) Yes, some sadly (many even in these present times) make a change for the worse. They put their hand to the plow and look back. In Demas’s case they go back, they forsake their calling for “this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4).

We have to follow God. What is He leading, saying and doing now? It actually won’t contradict what He has said before but at the same time He is fully able to lead us in some shocking and unusually ways which have often confounded His dearest followers. The Bible is full of times where God’s greats were stunned by His radical ways and often they were barely able to keep up with the Almighty.

We think of God as “the Ancient of Days” (Daniel 7:9) which is true. But at the same time He is the most present and future entity we could ever encounter. Only God is way out there in front and knows what’s going to happen and is able to lead us and guide us and show us what to do.

Sometimes we need to hold on and sometimes we need to let go. If you put both of those in their right context, both are right. Let go of your old ways of doing things, your old procedures that worked years ago and hold on to what the Lord has for now, what works for today, what He is seeing the need for today. And you’ll find that probably He has actually done it before at some time, only now evidently He is going to pull it out of His bag of tricks again as it’s what’s best for theses time.

Only in the mind and wisdom of God can these two things be compatible and true at the same time. We need to change and not change. We need to be God’s new bottles, desiring the new wine of His radical ways and means to meet the challenges of right now and the future to come.

But also, equally and at the same time, we need to continue to be so rooted and grounded in the eternal truths of God that we in no way abandon the eternal foundation of faith and truth that has been the pillar and groundwork of all we’ve ever believed in.

Contradiction? Impossible to reconcile the two? Not in the Lord at all. But only with the mind of Christ which He gives us. Change and remain the same. Forge forward as we are led by the Spirit of God into greater victories of souls won and the sheep of God established in the faith. But at the same time, remain unmoved, rooted and established in the faith. Only in the heavenly minded can these things make sense and be the beacon for us that the Lord wants them to be.

The Book of Daniel Chapter 12 video, “The End and Beyond”

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I’ve been able to complete the video about the last chapter in the book of Daniel, chapter 12. There the angel highlights the main points of the future that have been revealed to Daniel and, in the last verses in the chapter, adds a surprising final revelation that takes us further beyond “the end”.

I started this series of videos on the prophecies of Daniel around 19 years ago so it’s something of a milestone for me to have finished the series. And in doing this video, I came to a much greater appreciation of this chapter and all that is there.

Even though Daniel 12 is the shortest chapter in the book, this video turned out to be over 50% longer than any of the earlier videos on Daniel, mainly because there was so much to go into, to unpack and then to explain.  Jesus Himself actually quoted from this chapter when he was answering His disciples’ questions about His second coming.

In these presently strange, dire times we’re passing through, it was a comfort and clarification for me to look again at how things will actually all turn out, according to God’s prophetic Word. I was reminded of what the true battles are that we should fight, how the disciples of the final days are suppose to conduct themselves and the genuine heavenly vision they should have. Currently there are so many distracting local skirmishes going on. So it helps to see again what the battle lines of the final endtime will be and what our roles will be then, and now as well.

I hope you enjoy the video. Below is the link to it on YouTube.

Your friend in Him,

Mark

“Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”

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A famous phrase from at least the time of Rome said, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”. Does it apply to now? Is God preparing to destroy parts of the world and so is allowing them to descend into madness so that they bring on their own destruction? To say the least, it’s happened before. The Latin rendition was, “Quos Deus vult perdere prius dementat,”  an opinion that’s been around for centuries.

Paul the Apostle spoke of this in a different way. He said that God sends “strong delusion, that they should believe a lie.” (II Thessalonians 2:11) But to whom is that strong delusion sent? Paul covers that quite succinctly. Those who “receive not the truth, that they may be saved.” (II Thessalonians 2:10)

I’ve personally witnessed the progression of history over the last 50 or 60 years. I enjoyed and spent time sharing my faith at Trafalgar Square, Piccadilly Circus and Hyde Park in London in 1971. How has Britain progressed over the last 50 years? Or Dam Square in Amsterdam where I was in 1972? Have the nations of Western Europe and North America “progressed”? You might think to say yes. But what do you think the answer would be in the eyes of God? “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.”

What incredible depth that saying has and I think I only for the first time really saw it and realized it tonight. Is that saying something that the Hebrew Bible would agree with? It certainly is. One of the most incredible passages in the Old Testament bears out this thought. God said to the spirits around His throne, “Who shall persuade [ancient king of Israel] Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth Gilead… And one came forth and said, ‘I will go forth and being a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets’. And the Lord said, ‘Go, you shall persuade him’.” (I Kings 22:20-22)

This is almost unfathomable for many people. But the Bible says that the Lord convened a multitude of spirits before His throne and that he sanctioned one who said he would go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of the prophets of the evil king Ahab.

This is not taught in the kids’ Sunday school class on Sunday. Or most likely even from the pulpit. But it’s the same idea as the ancient thought, “Quos Deus vult perdere prius”. Or as another translation gives it, “Those whom God wishes to destroy, he first deprives of reason”. Perhaps, if you prefer the Greek rendition, Sophocles said, “Evil appears as good in the minds of those whom god leads to destruction.”

God, at length, when they have rejected His messengers, despised His words and misused his prophets, sends a lying spirit to deceive fully and utterly those ones who have already gone so far in rejecting Him.

Like the Bible says of ancient King Saul, who ruled before King David, “The Spirit of the Lord departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord troubled him”  (I Sam 16:14). This is where we are now in our times. Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad.

We all feel it and sense it. There is a spirit of madness and virtually insanity that is upon so many in our nations at this time. It is unsustainable. It is overwhelmingly lacking in basic truth and a grasp of reality and the truth that is of this time. But historically this is what happens before destruction. The ancients knew this.

But these are the overwhelmingly fearful and foreboding times we live in. If you study history, you’ll be aware of times when a lone voice was raised, “one crying in the wilderness”. (Mark 1:3) But it went unheeded. The multitude had hasted to follow evil. “They mocked the messengers of God and despised his words and misused his people until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people and there was no remedy.” (II Chronicles 36:16) Ask the Germans, they can tell you about it.

Well, this kind of talk is not popular. It’s depressing and discouraging. Still, historically, a solid case could be made that the times we are in right at this moment could be encapsulated by that phrase, “Whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”.

Madness, unreasonableness, fierce senselessness is the order of the day here in our times and even is daily seen in my home country. Hopefully you are not sucked into these things. Hopefully you are anchored in the Lord and His truth. Because the delusion is very strong in our times. And multitudes are being confused and perplexed by it. May God help you and us all.

 

Tossed About

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We’re not just supposed to “watch our tongue”, we’re to watch our ears too. Jesus said so. “Take heed what you hear”, He said (Mark 4:24). And you may wonder how you can do that. But that verse came to me very strongly in relation to what I’m experiencing with so many Christians nowadays.

Maybe a better way it is expressed or explained is where Paul said, “That we no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine.” (Ephesians 4:14) So very many believers today are very much “tossed to and fro”.

In this case, it’s not like some specific Biblical doctrine. But, boy, they are carried about with every wind of political hearsay and rumor. Millions are just enthralled and entangled with political hearsay, as long as it has a little sprinkled sugar coating of what passes for Scripture glazing it.

Solomon said, “The simple believes every word but the prudent man looks well to his going.” (Proverbs 14:15) Most of the time it’s good to be simple. But in this Bible verse, “simple” has the connotation of the naïve and gullible. We’re supposed to be harmless as doves but also wise as serpents. (Matthew 10:16) I’m so often grieved when I see how very many Christians are sucked in to modern political quarreling and think they are doing God service this way.

Christians are just getting sucker punched by the enemy in the way of listening to secular, worldly diatribes which seek to allure Christians into their orbit by having a veneer of Christianity to them. But in actuality it’s just another Godless temptation to pull Christians away from our foundations in the Word and out into the latest concoction of the enemy to get us off the wall of God’s will.

In Job it says, “The ear tries words as the mouth tastes meat” (Job 34:3). Christians so much need to exercise discernment in what they allow themselves to hear. It doesn’t happen by just isolating yourself away from everything, I’m not talking about that. Jesus said we are to be “in the world but not of the world”.  (See John 17:15 & 16)

But I think it does come down to discernment in what we hear, recognizing when some broadcast or publication is just the devil’s slop, dressed up in a Christian costume. Jesus warned of false prophets that come unto you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly they are ravening wolves. So then we get all vigilant about some pastor or Christian teacher that we’re told is a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

But we spend a couple of hours a day online on sensationalist, provocateur sites and channels that are nothing but political propaganda to indoctrinate you into a set of beliefs and actions that are not Scriptural and are not in truth leading you to true Christian service.

I’ve been making videos recently that go into the details of how things will be in the final days before the coming of the Lord and some places there have stood out to me so much. Here’s what the angel told Daniel it would be like in the very last days, how the people and servants of God will be in those times. “The people who do know their God shall be strong and do exploits.” (Daniel 11:32) Do you think that those are political exploits? Military or militia exploits? Or will it be like the exploits that happened in the book of Acts and the early church?

Another verse from Daniel, “And they that understand among the people shall instruct many.” (Daniel 11:33) Is that going to be understanding conspiracy theory and correct political stands? Or will it be in understanding the foundational truths of the endtime that will be playing out then? Are we going to be leading the believers and seekers of those times to a knowledge of the Lord and His soon coming? Or every wind of doctrine and confusion that will be blowing about in those times?

So this is something of a heart cry for me and from me. It just grieves me how many are actually falling away to fringe secular teachers and I’m talking about brethren who were before strongly on the wall of Christian service, even some who I knew on the mission field.

Take heed how you hear. We need to not only keep our mouth and our tongue, we need to keep our ears. “Go from the presence of a foolish man when you don’t perceive in him the lips of knowledge.” (Proverbs 14:7) We need a lot more discernment in what we’re spending our time listening to, how and where we’re getting out information from and what we are allowing to enter our hearts and minds. Lord help us!

One of the most sobering verses about the prophetic endtime is not found in Daniel or Revelation but in II Timothy. It says this, “And they shall turn away their ears from hearing the truth and shall be turned to fables.” (II Timothy 4:4) My gosh, how much this is happening across Christianity right now. Not fables like some ancient children’s fiction but broadcasts and publications that have just enough smattering of Christianity or the Bible so that they can pose as something of the Lord when it so utterly isn’t.

To me this is one of the greatest dangers facing Christians in these times, not secular governments or other religions but these empty, poisonous falsehoods, posing as truth by having a thin glazed veneer of Christian tinge. Brethren, watch out. Recognize it. Test it and if it is pulling you away from the depths of the truth of God’s Word and His service, the reject it like the plague.