Category Archives: Angels, Miracles and the spirit world

Just a little false

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The devil fought me for hours. I was asleep and kept having these strong experiences, not really terrifying but just false. I knew it was some alternative reality that was upon me and I resisted it. I even quoted Bible verses to defy the things my mind was seeing in my sleep.

Yes, you can quote verses in your sleep and you should if you need to. But this just kept happening and coming back. I’d wake up and quote the Word to resist and wash away the things I’d seen in my sleep. Then I was so tired I fell back asleep and there was a new alternative reality, almost like a rabbit hole I fell down. It wasn’t really super bad, just that I knew it was false.

The Bible says, “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” (James 4:7) So much truth in that verse. But sometimes you have to keep up your resistance. You have to keep fighting, keep praying and keep quoting Scripture. This went on last night for quite a while with me.

And the funny thing is, it wasn’t just all blood-curdling, heart-stopping terror. It was just a false reality that was mixed with confusion that kept trying to take over my mind, my heart and my sleep, very persistently.

Finally some hellish imps appeared in my dream. They seemed like people but they were taunting me and challenging me. I had to fight emphatically in my dream and I thrust forward towards one of them as I called on the name of Jesus and quoted Scripture. Of course they disappeared and were defeated. And then again I woke up.

It’s not the first time this has happened; it doesn’t happen much but I suppose it’s the price of being on the wall of discipleship for the Lord, that from time to time the enemy will try to break in and attack us when and if he can. I’m not certain I really prayed over my sleep last night before I went to bed, as I should have and usually do.

Also I’m about to launch out on another activity abroad and I’m sure the devil doesn’t want me to. So, it comes with the territory. Those of us who are trying to be fighters for the Lord, part of the spiritual army of the Lord, living for Him in this world, can just expect to experience opposition, even the kind that comes with spiritual attacks in the night.

Then today at the end of the day, I had a really funny thought. I was recounting how the experience in the dream was before I woke up this morning and the nature of it all. And I remembered that it actually was not just some kind of horrific deviltry and gruesome wickedness I was seeing in my dream. It was just definite falsehood. It was some kind of alternative reality that I recognized as not having the essence of truth to it.

And tonight it dawned on me, “Well, that’s the way things are now in many ways.”

Here in the “civilized” West and North, we are not experiencing what the poor people in Syria or parts of Africa are experiencing, the violence, the anarchy, the collapse of civilization and the prolonged mayhem that grips many parts of the world.

But on the other hand, we here are strongly, persistently attacked every day by vehement falsehood, parading as some inside information, some “truth” that only that source has access to. Like my dream last night, it wasn’t horrific, just definitely false. And if I had not fought it and resisted it, it would have been the reality I would have accepted.

But I knew in the deepest place in my heart, even though I was asleep, that something was wrong with it. It didn’t have the ring of truth that I knew from many years of experience in the Lord’s service. It didn’t even have the elements of Godly dreams when the Holy Spirit can open our eyes and mind to His truths when our spirits are more sensitive when we are asleep.

It was just blatant falsehood. But very persistent. I had to keep continuing to resist it and to not accept what I was seeing in my night hours. The Bible says, “The Spirit bears witness with our spirit…” (Romans 8:16) We just get “the witness of the Spirit” sometimes. Or we don’t get the witness of the Spirit. And if we are in tune and experienced in these things, we notice that we don’t get the witness of the Spirit.

That can happen in your sleep or when you are awake and perusing the issues of the day and our times. Some of it is not really horrific, it’s just false. It is not confirmed by “the Spirit of Truth” (John 16:13). But if you are not paying attention to the checks you are getting in your heart, you can miss the signals of the Lord and not recognize that falsehood is before you and trying to take a place in your heart and mind.

So watch out for plain “not-so-bad” falsehood. The devil shouldn’t have to show what you think is his very worst before you recognize it for what it is. We should have enough of the presence of God in us to recognize falsehood, even if it “isn’t so bad”. That seems to me what is before so many of us in these times.

The need is very great for greater discernment and a willingness to not accept falsehood, even if it is pretty polished, kind of reasonable and is even selling itself as trying to expose some evil. God help us to recognize the attacks and devices of the enemy and not accept counterfeits or substitutes for the truth and reality we have within the Word of God and the life we have in Christ.

 

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

The book of Daniel chapter 10 video

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I’ve been able to complete the video about chapter 10 of the book of Daniel. While this chapter isn’t a prophetic chapter, it is one of the strongest ones in the Bible to show the realities of the spiritual world and the battles that go on there. Daniel chapter 10 presents the scene and the events leading up to one of the most significant messages ever given to a prophet of God in the Old Testament. So significant in fact that Jesus of Nazareth Himself some 550 years later specifically referred to parts of the messenger given by an angel to Daniel in this experience. And Jesus went on to say of this, “whosoever reads, let him understand”.

Daniel chapters 10 through 12 are almost certainly one event but it was divided up into chapters, perhaps because it was so long. I’m very glad to be getting this video up on YouTube, the first one I have done in English in 6 years. Presently I am far along with the next video after this one. That one covers Daniel 11 from verses 1 to 31. Here’s is the link to the Daniel 10 video:

Heart Attack Blessings?

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Two days ago I had a heart attack. Last night I got back from the hospital I was rushed to where I had a stent placed in a vein. It’s been a very  (…)  time; I don’t even know what word to use to describe it. But I’m left here realizing what an amazing and loving God we have and how I’ve just survived, utterly by the His grace, an event that kills millions every year. And, strangely, there’s an emerging element of supernatural blessing and divine purpose in what’s happened to me over the last 36 hours.

I was fixing my lunch just after finishing a rather vigorous workout that I do at home. And I began to realize I was having a strange pain in the middle of my chest, unlike any I’d ever had before. I went to look up the symptoms of a heart attack and many of them I didn’t have: pain in my left arm or jaw, excessive sweating, shortness of breath, and others. But there was definitely a discomfort in my chest that didn’t go away.

After some hesitation, I talked to a dear friend who rents me the room in the place where I stay. He was busy but I told him it was an emergency. With difficulty I told him that I thought I was having a heart attack and needed to go to an emergency room. God bless him, he immediately dropped everything and we were off in the car right away.

At the emergency room things really swung into quick action. They did an EKG and the doctor said that I’d had, or was having, a heart attack. All during this time I wasn’t really feeling super bad. They ask me what my pain was on the scale of 1 to 10 and I said about 2 or 3 but that it was more discomfort than really pain. But it certainly was discomfort.

The emergency room people immediately took me in an ambulance to one of the main cardiac hospitals in our small Texas city. I actually was in fairly good spirits and was conversant with people in the ambulance and once I got to the hospital. Admittedly the thought did cross my mind, “Well, am I going to die now? I don’t feel really bad.”

It all was moving very fast. And I knew the reason for this as I’d read in the past how it does really come down to a matter of time in these situations. During this time one super busy nurse told me “Minutes are muscle” and the goal is to try to intervene before the damaged heart muscle really gets worse or the overall problem escalates.

What they did was to insert a stint through a hole in my wrist, up into my heart. I learned later that an EKG is able to identify the quadrant of the heart where the problem is. But then they insert some kind of dye in that area and by seeing how it interacts, they can identify exactly what the place is that needs the stint.

And I learned that this is not all actually about big arteries but about the smaller veins that run along the outside of the heart and supply blood to the heart itself. One of those veins had become blocked and needed the stint.

But here’s where it gets interesting. The big arteries that carry blood in and out of the heart could be seen like very big highways. But the veins are like smaller city streets, some bigger and some smaller. The place where my vein was blocked was what could be like a somewhat smaller street. They were able to identify it and put the stint in so blood could flow again. Within less than an hour after the operation, I was beginning to feel ok again and not having those symptoms.

And here’s the eerie thing, what they told me today. While I was on the operating table, when the doctors used that dye to find where the blockage had happened, they found another “bigger street” vein that was still functioning but was 90% blocked.

My cardiologist had not been able to know that without doing the stint work that was done yesterday during the operation. So they said very definitely that I need to come in and discuss another similar operation to get a stint into the vein that is 90% blocked. But if this incident yesterday hadn’t happened, we would not have known how badly that one is blocked and that vein is larger and more strategically placed than the one that went bad yesterday. This heart attack was used by God to bring to light a more serious condition I’ve had which no one was aware of until now.

I’m still personally coming to grips with all this. In Texas you can be bitten by a rattle snake. It may not kill you but it certainly can. Or your house can be hit by a tornado. It may not kill you but it certainly can. And 36 hours ago I had a heart attack. It may not kill you but it certainly can.

But here I am, back at my desk, in my room and not really at a place yet where I’ve fully fathomed what has happened to me. And it seems like it was, so strangely, almost an act of Providence that this till-now unknown blockage of a vein on my heart could be made known, so that it can be operated on.

What kind of comment can be made to this? What an experience of underserved mercy and prescient providence to allow something like this to happen. I think of the many people who have been praying for me. I think of the open doors of ministry that the Lord has given me over the last few months and years. I think of how my life on this earth could have come to its end over the last 2 days. But God has turned it all into something good. “Oh the depth of the riches, both of the wisdom and knowledge of God. How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out.” (Romans 11:33)

 

“The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen”

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What a dream I just had! I was racing up the stairs of a large apartment complex, right behind a friend of mine who was basically running for his life. Because also running up the stairs was another man who was out to probably kill the first man. Both men were professional athletes, on the brink of being very rich and successful men.

But in the dream, the younger man, maybe he was 19, had been messing around with the girlfriend of the man chasing him up the stairs. This enraged man, he was like maybe 28, was utterly beside himself with anger, chased the young man to the top landing of the apartment building and found the young man hiding.

In my dream, there was an extremely tense confrontation between these two men and it seemed like at any moment it would explode into what would probably be a fight to the death. The older man’s eyes were really bulging out with an almost insane look of fury and I tried to reason with him that he shouldn’t throw his life and career away by killing the young man for what he’d done.

But then suddenly one of their friends, a woman who had also raced up the stairs, was on her knees in front of the enraged older man, begging him with all her heart to let it go and to not let this incident be the end of both of the men in some fight to the death.

It was a very intense scene for me and, as dreams can sometimes be, it seemed utterly real at the time. The young woman was between the two men, begging with all her heart for the man to not avenge himself and attack the young man he’d chased up the stairs.

Then, almost strangely, the older athlete relented and backed off a little. I was really, really surprised that the woman’s pleas had been listened to by the angry man because he had just been hell-bent for violence in his fury. He backed off some feet away, still full of emotion.

And at that point I went up to him, also full of emotion because I knew these two guys and really didn’t want to see them throw their life away. And I said to the aggrieved man, “That’s the most beautiful thing I have ever seen” and I gave him a hug.

And it was; it was extremely beautiful because I was so thankful that the man had listen to the woman on her knees who’d begged him with all her heart to not kill the younger athlete. He made the right decision; he listened to her wisdom and reasoning. He was right at the brink of throwing his life away in wreaking vengeance on the man who’d messed around with his girlfriend.

It was a very intense dream and a very beautiful outcome. Though he still was extremely upset, he’d made the right decision. Even if it wasn’t a matter of forgiving the young man, who evidently was apologetic, the older man had listened to the restraint and reasoning of the girl rather than his passion. He had avoided killing the young man when they both were right at the cusp of professional athletic stardom.

The Bible says that, “Jealousy is the rage of a man and he will not be appeased though you give many gifts.” (Proverbs 6:34 & 35) How many lives are ruined in some moment of rage and passion; promising, beautiful, even blessed young lives are ruined forever  over what seems to be an unforgivable wrong.

How difficult and rare it is to listen to the voice of reason in times like that or even to have the voice of reason there to still speak to you at that moment. But this young woman friend of theirs was on her knees, matching her passion with his, begging him not to throw his life away in killing his friend over his foolishness.

It was beautiful, it was rare, it was someone making the right decision when it really didn’t seem like he would. Solomon said “The discretion of a man defers his anger and it is his glory to pass over a transgression.” (Proverbs 19:11) I was so happy that one moment of foolishness on the part of the young athlete didn’t lead to another greater moment of greater foolishness which would have ended up destroying the lives of both of them, either by death or by prosecution.

Well, it was only a dream but it woke me up, long before I normal get up and I knew I should write it all down. Some dreams are just strong, meaningful and have a point to them. I’m not going through anything right now like those two young men but I’m sure it’s happening to many people. It was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, which I told to the man who’d deferred his anger. He didn’t yield to his rage, as “reasonable” as it had seemed at the time. He in a sense saved his own life by not taking the other man’s life.  “Every man shall kiss his lips that gives a right answer” (Proverbs 24:26)  and I just had to tell my friend how beautiful it was that he’d not thrown his life away in a moment of rage. And I gave him a hug.

Maybe there’s someone, somewhere who’s going through the same thing because it happens all the time, all over the world. Maybe you’re like the woman on her knees, begging your friend to not yield to rage. Maybe you’re like the young man who was running up the stairs, knowing you’d done a foolish thing by messing with another man’s girlfriend. Or maybe you’re like the older athlete, full of seemingly righteous fury and about to kill someone. But wisdom won the day. One sin didn’t lead on to a greater one. It was beautiful, surprising and unexpected.

Please don’t avenge yourself, no matter what has happened and how you’ve been wronged. Listen to reason; listen to the restrainer which is often the very voice of God, begging you to turn from your foolishness. “Brethren, avenge not yourselves but rather give place unto wrath for it is written, vengeance is mine saith the Lord, I will replay.” (Romans 12:19)

Our giants

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One of the more interesting, and to me puzzling guys in the entire Bible is the patriarch Jacob. Some may chide me for saying so but he’s always seemed like almost an anti-hero among the pantheon of Biblical greats.

Jacob even means “deceiver”. He lied to his dad. He tricked his brother out of his inheritance. And he conspired with his mother to do these things. He ended up having to flee for his life and he never saw his beloved mother again.

Did that really teach Jacob a lesson and he was a changed man from then on? No, certainly not immediately it seems. But then God had Jacob work under a more conniving and hard man than he himself was, his uncle Laban. It’s a long story but after some 21 years of work, growth and certainly some bitter lessons learned along the way, God spoke to Jacob, “Return to the land of your fathers and to your kindred, and I will be with you.” (Genesis 31:4?)

“Oh, great”, you could say, “He’s finally going to be able to go home.”

In Jacob’s case, it was a good deal more problematic than that. By this time Jacob was pretty much a rich man, with vast flocks and herds, wives and children, servants and helpers. And his twin brother, Esau, who he’d so blatantly and subtlety tricked out of his inheritance, was a fairly major local warlord. One way we know this is because, when Esau heard that Jacob was on his way back, he gathered 400 of his personal troops to go out with him to meet his brother.

For what purpose? To get revenge? To give him a big hug? It seems Jacob didn’t really know. But most likely his conscience was still eating away at him because of the scoundrel/crook/rogue-like nature that seemed to be a part of his personality. And this is where it gets really interesting.

Did Jacob boldly walk at the head of his tribe and go forward to meet his brother? No, he sent almost everyone else ahead of him: wives, children, flocks, etc. And then, the night before he was to meet Esau himself, it turns out that the Bible says Jacob “wrestled” with an angel. (Genesis 32:24 & 25)

What a scene, what drama, what pathos. God had evidently softened Jacob’s heart through the years at least somewhat. It wasn’t just him alone anymore. He had a large family who he evidently loved very dearly. And now the possibility was strong that he would get what in most ways he deserved: judgment and destruction of himself and his whole family for the perfidy he’d worked on his parents and brother many years before. He probably knew that if that happened, he would only be getting what justice would decree.

Jacob’s giants were not like David’s hundreds of years later. Jacob’s giants were his own sins and his own evil inclinations. Had he outgrown the sins of his youth? Or was now the time when they would finally catch up with him and it would mean the death of himself and all he loved?

For most of us, our biggest enemy is not someone else, or even the Devil. Our biggest enemy is ourselves. “The devils are subject to us“. (Luke 10:17) But it’s our own evil spirit, our own ornery will that seems to constantly rise up like an ogre to defy God and to lead us astray, even without the devil’s help.

jacob and angelBut Jacob knew the jig was up. We don’t have the entire dialog of that night and all the details. But it must have been one of the most intense battles any man ever fought, pleading with God through the angel as Jacob said, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.” (Genesis 32:26)

What kind of blessing did Jacob need? Well the next morning he would face his brother and 400 armed men. He needed God to have his brother’s heart touched so that he would receive him as his long lost brother rather than as the trickster and villain he’d actually been. If ever someone had to get their heart right with the Lord and probably really plead with God for the cleansing and remaking he so desperately needed, it must have been Jacob right then.

It sounds like it went on for hours, hours of desperate prayer, wrestling not only with the angel but also his own sins that so easily beset him. But at last, Jacob found grace in God’s sight. The angel even gave Jacob a new name at that time, “Israel”, meaning prince of God and man, perhaps signifying that he was “a new creature” (II Corinthians 5:17) in God’s eyes.

Jacob and esau meetAnd although we don’t know all the story of that momentous night, we do know that, almost surprisingly, the next day Esau didn’t go forward to kill Jacob. It says, “And Esau ran to meet Jacob, and embraced him, and fell on his neck, and kissed him: and they wept.” (Genesis 33:4) A heartfelt embrace of brothers, much matured and changed through the years who were just glad to see each other again.

Would things have been different if Jacob had not been so desperate in prayer the night before? I’ve always really thought that. Because Jacob really got down to desperate prayer with God, perhaps one of the most desperate in the Bible, most likely God was able to change Esau’s heart also to have mercy rather than justifiable judgment against his brother. God saw that Jacob was desperate for God’s mercy and the Lord did a major miracle.

What a story. Our biggest enemy is ourselves. Getting the victory over “the sins that so easily beset us” (Hebrews 12:1) is our greatest challenge. And, let’s face it: a lot of us don’t always win that battle. May God help us all to fight our “giants” that defy us and will defeat us except for our desperate prayers for the Lord to “deliver us from every evil work and preserve us unto His heavenly kingdom.” (II Timothy 4:18)

Are you in your war room?

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I saw a really good movie last night, “War Room”. Often Christian movies can be a little corny and contrived but this one hit the mark for me. Of course the cynic in me and the cynic among us will say that things aren’t always just like we see in this movie. The other side of the coin is that I personally have experienced what’s in this movie and it changed my life.

It’s not exactly a low budget film but it’s no Hollywood extravagance either. A young wealthy African-American man and his wife are having marriage difficulties when the wife meets a woman a generation older than her, Miss Clara, also African-American. Over coffee Miss Clara learns of Elizabeth’s despair about her marriage and she suggests that a Christian and Godly approach to the trouble would be to fight the problem in prayer and with spiritual weapons to get at the root of the difficulties: sin, forgiveness and the huge need of them all for God’s grace.

In one sense it’s a very modern movie, dealing with modern problems. But in another sense it’s a throwback to the storylines of 60 or 70 years ago. Once upon a time, it was common to have happy endings to movies. Like the famous movie with Jimmy Steward, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, things all work out in the end. That type of movie fell out of vogue long ago and so often in more recent times there’ll be some horrific ending, some depressing tale ending in death and defeat for everyone. But the thing is, for those who are in the Lord and are holding on to Him and His will, there really are happy endings, just like in this movie.

Elizabeth, the wife, after some early stumbles, finally gets down to real and desperate prayer in her “War Room”, a cleaned out closet in her house, after seeing the example of how Miss Clara had done the same at her house. I hate to say it but somehow I feel it does work better to have the lead characters in the movie be African-American. I know white folks who are just as messed up as this young wealthy couple. And also I know white folks who are just as adept at storming the gates of heaven through desperate prayer to get answers as is Miss Clara. But for this movie and for the purpose of the producers, it seems to work better with things the way they’ve done it.

So after Elizabeth getting her own repentance and personal house in order, she continues to pray desperately as she literally fulfills the words of Jesus to “enter into your closet and shut the door and pray to your father in secret.” (Matthew 6:6) And, as the Lord said, the “Father which sees in secret shall reward you openly.” Elizabeth’s husband, a very successful man by wordly standards, comes to his senses of the heart that he’s been a failure to his wife and daughter to love them and a failure to God in his hard heartedness.

Well, there’s more to it but this is the gist of it. Not a bad story line at all and certainly one that’s as needed to be seen in our times, as ever. But the original twist in some ways is that the “war” has to be won in personal, fervent prayer, repentance, confession and then going on the attack against the devil to be able to regain the ground lost to “the prince of this world”. (John 12:31)

The movie of course was panned by critics but, not surprisingly, it’s become a pretty successful movie at the box office. I personally really liked it and agree with everything that they portrayed there. If I had any qualms, it would maybe be from the perspective of someone who’s lived outside the USA for over 30 years of my adult life. The movie was evidently made and directed towards an American audience. Some scenes were reminiscent of somewhat frothy American television productions and at times I did  wonder how those in Berlin or Budapest would view and react to what they were seeing. But for those who can rise above the chummy, feel-good Americana portions of the film, the actually message and spiritual reality that’s being portrayed there is five star.

I was glad to see that there wasn’t a whisper of politics in the film and the actors all evidently really knew personally what they were trying to portray. Miss Clara in particular, the elderly African-American prayer warrior (played by Karen Abercrombie) was excellent. Again, a quibble, I’m from the southern USA and I could understand her accent without a problem. But possibly those outside the USA might have difficulty understanding Miss Clara’s southern, African-American drawl.

Overall I’d say this is a great movie and one I’d recommend. Of course if you are a smug, staunch unbeliever and scoff at prayer, you’ll probably not watch it. Or maybe you’re somewhere in between faith in God and unbelief? In that case, I’d say you should check it out.

What’s in this movie isn’t exactly what happened to me but some of it is mighty close. I had to go through some forceful breakings of my stubborn will and hardened heart by the hand of God. And it was only the undeserved grace of God I ever pulled through into the wonderful life I’ve had for many years. This movie well portrays the spiritual realities of desperate prayer, repentance, fighting spiritual warfare through prayer and the intervention of God in our lives. It’s a good movie; I hope you’ll check it out.

“The LORD said to my Lord…”

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Perhaps the biggest surprise of my life was finding out who Jesus is/was. Maybe it’s second only to finding out earlier that God actually is for real. I’d been told that Jesus was a great man, a wonderful teacher. But that’s about it. “God? Well, yeah, He’s up there somewhere but we don’t hear much from him. Be good, do good and, yes, love people. That’s about all that it really amounts to.” So I’d thought.

But it took basically the edge of death and hell to bring me to realize that the spiritual world is real. And through some indescribable rough times, I did come to experience the reality of the God of Abraham, the God of the Bible. But then what?

Well I then had this question on my heart for months, “Who is Jesus?” And it was some activist young Christians who finally showed me from the Bible about receiving Jesus into my heart. I’d already been so whittled down by the Lord, my self confidence shaken and my heart engaged by the Holy Spirit that I did take that step and prayed for Jesus to come into my heart and life.

But I still didn’t feel like I knew who Jesus is or was. So a few days later I was asking my friends again, “But, who is Jesus?” So then one of my friends showed me verses that just exploded inside my mind and heart virtually like a bomb.

They showed me where it says, “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. All things were made by him and without him was not anything made that was made.” (John 1:1) Then they showed me John 1:14, that was the one that really did it. “And the Word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”

Spontaneously, almost immediately I got on my knees and face and prayed for I don’t know how long, for the first time in my life, to Jesus. “There are two of them!”, I thought. “Jesus was with God in the beginning and even before the beginning! He was like us but also He was not!” John 1:14 exploded in my heart and mind to show me for the first time who Jesus is and was, the question that had been on my heart for months.

Maybe it’s like the Bible says, “We are to be married to another, even to Him who is raised from the dead.” (Romans 7:4) But even in a worldly marriage, it goes through stages. The first time you saw each other. The first time you touched or kissed. Your marriage ceremony. The first time you were intimate. Your honeymoon and thereafter. There are so many stages in love and I think it’s the same in our relationship with the Lord.

But like a good marriage, it continues to grow and get better as the years go on. And it was the inflowing of truth into my heart of the Word of God through the Scriptures that began then and has continued since then. One of the most amazing things is the depths of it and particularly of prophecy. In fact the reality of Jesus as being one with God and also with God from the beginning was shown repeatedly to the Old Testament prophets. And maybe it’s like someone you are married to, you just never get over how amazing they are. I guess that’s how I am with Scripture and the truth revealed there.

To me perhaps the most amazing revelations of Jesus being with God and co-equal with God can be found in Psalm 110 and Daniel chapter 7. King David wrote “The LORD said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand until I make your enemies your footstool.’” (Psalm 110:1) But perhaps what some people notice, after the first reading, is that the word “Lord” is used twice but is written differently. Why?

Like a good mystery, the plot thickens with the telling. And we find that Jesus Himself, when He was on earth, specifically used Psalm 110:1 to try to elucidate His religious detractors. Here’s what the Bible says happened.  “While the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them,  ‘What do you think of Christ? Whose son is he?’ They say to him, ‘The Son of David.’ He said to them, ‘How then does David in spirit call him Lord, saying,  ‘The LORD said unto my Lord, ‘Sit on my right hand, till I make your enemies thy footstool?’ If David then call him Lord, how is he his son?” (Matthew 22:41-45)

The Jewish leaders expected a Messiah to come who would be a descendent of King David (which Jesus actually was) and they expected the Messiah to be an earthly leader, a military man. But Jesus was bringing out through Psalm 110:1 that David in the Spirit of God, had seen “my Lord”, the Messiah to come, sitting at the right hand of God and being told that God was preparing for his future kingdom. David saw the Messiah and called him “my Lord”. This was a very different view indeed of the Messiah to come from what the Pharisees had, a Messiah sitting next to God the Father who David would call “Lord.”

Even in Old Testament times, God was revealing that the Messiah to come would be more than just a man. And this is something I brought out when I did the video on Daniel chapter 7. Because that’s another place where there’s an almost indescribable vision of Jesus Himself, seen over 500 years before He was on earth.

Abruptly, in the middle of his vision Daniel saw this, “I beheld till the thrones were cast down and the Ancient of Days did sit, whose garments were white as snow… Thousand thousands ministered unto Him and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before Him. The judgment was set and the books were open.”  (Daniel 7: 9 & 10) This is one of the clearest visions of God the Father, the “Ancient of Days” in the Old Testament. And it has a strong resemblance to what King David spoke of at the beginning of Psalm 110, calling God the Father “The LORD…”.

And like we saw in Psalm 110:1, we see Jesus again in Daniel 7: 13 and 14. “And I beheld in the night vision and one like the Son of Man came unto the Ancient of Days and they brought Him near before Him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroyed.” Jesus Himself on earth almost never used the term, “the Son of God”. But He did use over 70 times in the 4 Gospels the term used to describe Him here in Daniel 7, “the son of man”.

What an abundance of grace and truth has been revealed to us! And for those who’d like to make this just some concoction of the followers of Jesus after He was crucified, we have it all here from centuries before Jesus’ birth on earth that the Son of David, the one David saw in the spirit seated next to God, and the one Daniel saw in spirit being brought before God, was already seen, spoken of and foretold to come. And then Jesus did.

It’s been decades ago since I was led into this truth and life. And like a good marriage, it just gets better, deeper and stronger through the years. I hope this look into the Scriptures to see our dear Lord in His glory and in His Word, even before He was ever even here on earth, has been a blessing to you. God bless you!

 

Christmas Miracle, 1875 and now

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It was Christmas Eve, 1875. Ira D. Sankey, one of the most famous Christian singers of those times, was traveling by steamboat up the Delaware River. It was a calm, starlight evening and there were many passengers gathered on deck. Mr. Sankey was asked to sing. He stood leaning against one of the great funnels of the boat and his eyes were raised to heaven in quiet prayer.

It was his intention to sing a Christmas song but he was driven almost against his will to sing “Savior Like a Shepherd Lead Us”. There was a deep stillness. Words and melody, welling forth from the singer’s soul, floated out over the deck and the quiet river. Every heart was touched.

After the song ended, a man with a rough, weather beaten face came up to Mr. Sankey and said, “Did you ever serve in the Union army?” “Yes”, answered Mr. Sankey, “in the spring of 1860.” “Can you remember if you were doing guard duty on a bright, moonlight night in 1862?”   “Yes”, answered Mr. Sankey, very much surprised.

“So did I,” said the stranger, “but I was serving in the Confederate army. When I saw you standing at your post, I said to myself, ‘That fellow will never get away from here alive.’ I raised my musket and took aim. I was standing in the shadow, completely concealed while the full light of the moon was falling upon you.”

“At that instant, just as a moment ago, you raised your eyes to Heaven and began to sing. Music, especially song, has always had a wonderful power over me and I took my finger off the trigger. ‘Let him sing his song to the end,’ I said to myself. ‘I can shoot him afterwards. He’s my victim in all events and my bullet can’t miss him.’ But the song you sang then was the song you sang just now. I heard the words perfectly:

We are Thine, do Thou befriend us,

Be the guardian of our way.

“When you had finished your song, it was impossible for me to take aim at you again. I thought, ‘The Lord who is able to save that man from certain death must surely be great and mighty’ and my arm of its own accord dropped limp at my side.

“Since that time I have wandered about, far and wide. But when I just now saw you standing there praying as on that other occasion, I recognized you. Then my heart was wounded by your song. Now I ask you to help me find a cure for my sick soul.” Deeply moved, Mr. Sankey threw his arms about the man who in the days of the war had been his enemy. And that night the stranger found the Good Shepherd as his savior.

Well, Merry Christmas to you. I read this story this morning from “Streams in the Desert”, one of the books I read for my daily devotions. It really got through to me as not only a beautiful story but another striking miracle from the God of miracles and His Son, Jesus.

I guess I’m a person of my times and easily jaded by hype and razzle-dazzle. And I’ve heard the Christmas story so many times and seen it presented so many ways that I’m probably cloyed by it all, as probably many are. But this that I read just now, of an outstanding miracle happening at Christmas to two men, one of whom who went on to reach many thousands with his voice and music, was the jolt I needed to remind me again of the God of miracles.

Miracles have been a mainstay of my life in many ways. I’ve written about some of them and they continue to fascinate me. In this day of cynicism, postmodernism and demonic darkness, the good God is still doing miracles as much as ever, perhaps even increasing them.

So thank God for Christmas, a day in the year when we earthlings are almost forced and dragged, kicking and screaming, to remember the birth of, not only the greatest man that ever lived, but the eternal Son of God come down to earth as a poor helpless baby. Parents have to, often reluctantly, explain to their curious children what Christmas is all about. And in some fumbling way they’re almost forced to try to give a decent reason to their own kids why the whole world stops to remember the birth of a baby in Palestine two thousand years ago.

But that wasn’t God’s last miracle. Jesus’ life was more full of miracles by far than any other man that ever lived. And God is still doing miracles, at the time of Jesus, at the time of Ira Sankey and the Civil War and in our times as well. This is what I needed to hear today, not just something that happened 2000 years ago but that the miracle-working power of those times is just as alive today as it was then. That’s been my experience over and over, thank God, of a caring, loving Savior and Father, a “very present help in the time of trouble.” (Psalm 46:1)

I hope you have a great Christmas and that we all keep in mind that it’s all still as real as it was in Bethlehem way back then. God’s not dead or even sick. He loves us and will protect and provide for us just as he did for dear Ira Sankey on Christmas Eve in 1875. God bless you, Merry Christmas.

“Is it not a little one?”

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Lot had just been rescued and delivered from the fiery judgments of God which He had rained down on Sodom and Gomorrah. Lot, his wife and two daughters had to be led by the hand out of Sodom, being warned by the angels to not even look back. Famously, Lot’s wife did look back and was turned into a pillar of salt. That might be hard to believe but evidently Jesus Christ believed it. See Luke 17:32.

You might think all this would be an incredible shake-up for Lot. My gosh, that guy is going to walk the straight and narrow the rest of his life, no? Evidently not. And it’s a watershed moment in the history of sin when we read what happened next. Lot turned to the angels as they passed by another heathen town of wickedness and said to the angel, “Behold, this city is near to flee unto, and it is a little one. Oh, let me escape thither; is it not a little one? And my soul shall have rest.” (Genesis 19:20)

Folks, you can get the soul out of the worldly satanic system, whether it be Sodom of old or the satanic amalgam of metropolises that now dominate the earth. But just like with Lot, it’s not easy to get the satanic system out of the soul. God had “delivered just Lot, vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked.” (II Peter 2:7) But was Lot all contrite and trembling before the Lord? Did Lot make a bee line to his Godly uncle Abraham and his family up in the hills and highlands of God, begging to be taken back in like a prequel to the Prodigal son?

Nope, Lot immediately tried to cut a deal with the angels, “reasoning” with them that another little Babylon-like city not far from Sodom would do just fine and he’d really like to get back to some system preserving compromises and worldliness, even after God had just destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah literally right before their eyes.

“Ah,” you say, “this happened 4000 years ago and things are different today.” Really? If you think that, I’ve got some bad news for you. It’s like Jeremiah said, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked, who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9) As difficult as it was to go through, I’m thankful that God made about as plain to me as He could just how hopelessly sinful and lost I was long ago. My own ignorance, my own willful darkness very nearly took my life except for the totally undeserved, almost strange mercy of God who brought light to my soul when I was writhing in the agonies of the afterlife without God.

“Oh, Mark! Why did God do that to you?! Why did He treat you like that? Why does a God of love send us to hell?!!” Sister or brother, you got it wrong there. God doesn’t send us to hell. We send ourselves to hell through our willful, stubborn ignorance and choosing the wrong path, away from the presence of God to live in the presence of our choices which we made against His truth and light.

He didn’t have to plead with the angels to let him go to a new manifestation of the worldly system of his day. Lot could have asked to have a place at his uncle Abraham’s table and to learn more fully of the ways of God as evidently Lot did believe in the Lord. But it’s just like how it is for millions and billions of people: sin does have dominion over them. And except for the mercy of God, sin will and does have dominion over every one of us. Lot was like the Prodigal Son but who never “came to himself” (Luke 15:17). And sadly there are a lot of those it seems.

In the last book in the Bible, we are told of “Babylon the Great”, pictured as a wretched prostitute which sits upon many nations and rules over the kings of the earth. And God says, “Come out of her, My people, that you partake not of her sins or receive of her plagues.” (Revelation 18:4) But God in a sense has been saying that for thousands of years. He even had the angels take Lot and his family out of the Babylon of his day by the hand. And in the last days before the setting up of God’s kingdom on earth, He is going to destroy the final Babylon the Great, this final Sodom and Gomorrah that has now spread across the earth. Whether or not any of His people will get the message and “come out of her” remains to be seen.

We need to acknowledge our sinful nature and ways every single day and pray desperately and sincerely that God will “withhold you from sinning against Me.” (Genesis 20:6) Because as sure as your garden will start turning up weeds if you don’t diligent tend it, your own human heart and nature will rise up against your Christian convictions and character if you don’t daily “keep your heart with all diligence.” (Proverbs 4:23)

“Oh Mark, I’m not going to read your blog posts anymore! I’m going back to Joel Osteen and his lovely wife. They’re so sweet and positive, always encouraging and uplifting, not like you!” Friends, I’m all for being loving, positive and uplifting. But I’m just telling you from extremely hard experience that none of us had better ever get to the place where we forget how much we need the Lord , how much we should be able to say with the Apostle Paul, “Oh wretched man that I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this death?!” (Romans 7:24)

Don’t be like Lot. If the Lord has delivered you from your Sodom and Gomorrah, don’t beg the angels to let you off at the next hellish place just down the road so you can continue in the compromised worldliness that is anathema to God’s highest and best in your life. Instead, be like Moses who “forsook Egypt” (Hebrews 11:27) because “he had respect unto the recompense of the reward.” (Hebrews 11:26) What Egypt, Sodom or Babylon is God calling you out of?