Category Archives: Christianity Today

Jesus returned to earth in 70 A.D.?

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Did Jesus of Nazareth’s 2nd coming happen in 70 A.D? Did the fulfillments of dozens of prophecies reach their final climax then? Don’t laugh. Sadly there has been a ripple in the community of those who believe in the Lord’s return, somehow gazing toward this view that the return of Jesus to reign and rule happened in 70 AD.

Instead of sharing thoughts I have on this, I think it would be best to just share what the Early Church Fathers said on this subject. Several of these men died a martyr’s death. And they lived and led the Christians at the time when the vehement fires of Christian discipleship were at their strongest, in the first one to three hundred years after the ascension of the Lord.

If anyone had a close understanding of the original mindset of the “church” that Jesus left behind on earth, it would be these men and women. Did they believe the Lord had come back in 70 AD? Were they looking to that date as the time of the fulfillment of most all prophecies?

Of course you know the answer. None of them talked or taught that way. They all looked forward to the future, yet-to-be-fulfilled return of the Lord, after 42 months of great tribulation and the revelation of the endtime antichrist spoken of in prophecy throughout Scripture. Here’s what they said.

Barnabas, who  traveled with the Apostle Paul,  wrote: “The final stumbling block approaches…for the whole past time of your faith will profit you nothing, unless now in this wicked time we also withstand coming sources of danger….then the evil one Antichrist may find no means of entrance….” (Epistle of Barnabas, chp.4)

Justin Martyr (100-165) wrote: “The man of apostasy, [Antichrist] who speaks strange things
against the Most High, shall venture to do unlawful deeds on the earth against us the Christians..” (Dialogue with Trypho, chp.110)

Irenaeus (138-202)  a contemporary of  Justin Martyr, wrote: “And they, the ten kings who will arise, shall lay Babylon waste, and burn her with fire, and shall give their kingdom to the beast antichrist and put the church to flight” (Against Heresies, V, chp.26)

Tertullian (150-220)  a contemporary of  Irenaeus,  wrote: “The souls of the martyrs are taught to wait [Rev.6:9-10] that the beast Antichrist with his false prophet may wage war on the Church of God…” (On the Resurrection of the Flesh, chp.25)

Cyprian (200-258)  a contemporary of  Tertullian,  wrote: “The day of affliction has begun to hang over our heads, and the end of the world and the time of the Antichrist to draw near, so that we must all stand prepared for the battle…” (Epistle, 55, 1)

Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386),  wrote: “The church declares to you the things concerning Antichrist before they arrive…it is well that, knowing these things, thou shouldest make thyself ready beforehand.” (Catechetical Lectures, 15,9)

And there is much more than this, from the pillars of Christianity from the Early Church Fathers to modern times, pointing towards the future coming of the Lord as well as the end time events that the Bible says will happen in the very final days before His return. If you have an interest in these things and want to read more on this, you could go to this link, https://earlychurchbelief.blogspot.com/2008/08/early-church-fathers.html

But certainly some will ask, “Why does any of this matter?”

If the enemy of God can get us to drop our spiritual sword and shield, then he gains victory over us. And it can be a very disarming thought that virtually all Bible prophecy was fulfilled in 70 AD, that the climactic, world- shattering prophecies of Daniel, Revelation and many others in the Bible, not to mention the words of Jesus Himself, were all drained of their significance at the time of the fall of Jerusalem in 70 AD.

It’s like that cartoon I put in another article on this subject, which I’ll add again here. “Relax, it all happened in 70 AD.” Exactly, if that’s the conclusion you come to. Relax.

Except that that’s not the voice of the Lord and the doctrine isn’t either.

I’ve tried to make this article short enough so that folks will feel they can read it without getting bogged down. If you’ve somehow come in contact with this doctrine, it’s technical name is “preterism”, I hope that these quotes on the subject from the Early Church Fathers will persuade you that the earliest Christians did not at all look at 70 AD as “the end”. But they looked forward, as many of us now do, to a coming return of the Lord to establish His Kingdom on earth. God bless you.

 

 

Do you ever feel dumb?

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Do you ever feel dumb? Sometimes I do. But Jesus said, “The children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.” (Luke 16:8 ) He also said, “Be wise as serpents and harmless as doves.” (Matthew 10:16) The Lord closed His thought with the injunction not to be dumb sheep but instead wise, even wise as snakes. Clearly, it’s not that the Lord wants us to just be ignoramuses.

But some people want to portray us as uneducated, bigoted, racist dummies. Sadly, at times they are able to do that because some Christians just default to simplistic, under-educated clichés or sound bites. And they sadly are prone to being uncharitable towards folks who are not of their race, background, nationality or education. Let’s face it, this happens. And it shouldn’t.

Things are very serious now. Incredible battles are being waged in local school board meetings across America where the forefront of cultural/spiritual battles are being waged for the future of the children and grandchildren of this nation. Astonishing inroads have been made into the curricula of public schools to where books that are just gorged with filth and infested with perverse indoctrination are freely available to elementary school kids in school libraries, as well as being put forward by some teachers.

It’s not a time to default to dummy-ism. If you study history, you’ll know that there’ve been some extremely smart Christians over the centuries who’ve championed the cause of Christ in the secular world and have helped to turn the tide of evil in their day.

A few days ago I saw a movie that really spoke to me, maybe you’ve seen it. It is called “Amazing Grace” and it is the story of William Wilberforce who was an implacable foe of the devil and fought for the love of God and the liberty of African slaves 200 years ago in Great Britain. It’s a tremendous movie and really spoke to my heart.

Is there ever a time when a fully dedicated, consecrated Christian who is seeking first the kingdom of God should take his efforts into what could be considered the political sphere?

Wilberforce deeply struggled with this question. But his friend, the future Prime Minster of Britain, William Pitt the younger, was instrumental in persuading Wilberforce to use his considerable speaking talents and his passion to champion the cause of the ending of the slave trade in the British parliament.

It is an amazing movie and an amazing story, probably very seldom told in secular modern education since it so much glorifies the truth of God and those who follow it. I do recommend it, especially at this time when Christian values are being overwhelmed by “identity politics” and so-called “Progressivism” which is working successfully as a carnivorous beast to destroy Christian values as fast as it can across most of the Western world.

If ever there was a time for parents to stand up, and grandparents, against the forces that are successfully proselytizing and seeking to convert our children and grandchildren openly in public schools across the supposedly advanced world, it is now.

But you’re going to have to be sharp. They are. And they will eat your lunch if you let them. If you haven’t done your homework and are just pratering away with weak platitudes about “the Left”, “the Communists” or things like that, they’ll make a fool of you and utterly defeat you in the realm of public discourse. And this is important because all kinds of people have not made up their minds.

No, everyone has not already made their decision. Multitudes are heart-stricken by what’s going on in public schools. But they need to be informed of the facts without being forced to join one camp or the other on the political left or right.

It’s a great time for those who’ve spent years in the struggle for the cause of Christ to recognize this fight that’s presently raging. It doesn’t at all have to be a matter of “Left’ verses “Right”. I strongly resist being labeled that way.

But when it comes to our poor children who are being indoctrinated with perversion in public elementary schools and then they are told to not tell their parents about it, this is outrageous . And it seems to me it needs the intervention of seasoned veterans of the cross to enter the fray and fight for the survival of our children and grandchildren, right in our own nation, states and cities.

Seeing light through the mists

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Without God, life can be like being nibbled to death by ducks. The enemies of our soul want to exhaust you and wear you down with distractions, vanities, “rabbit trails” and meaninglessness. Without God, you ultimately crumble, surrender to the fog and become numb within the mists you’ve come to live in. Certainly, this is not the will of God.

But then tonight, it was like a fresh wind from God that blew through the house. We watched the movie about the “Free Burma Rangers”. It’s the story of a man from Texas who was raised on the mission field of Thailand but then felt led to become a soldier. After having become an elite “Rangers” member of the US military, he felt the call of God to use his training and Christian/military background to help the marginalized peoples of Burma.

It specially spoke to me as this man, with his wife and 3 children beside him, has lived a life of zealous Christian discipleship which has been similar to what I’ve experienced at times in my life on the mission field.

This movie touched me on so many levels. While I‘ve not had exactly the same life as this man and his family, I could very much relate to their commitment to the Lord and their willingness to put their lives on the line for Him in very extreme situations in the hinterland of Myanmar (Burma) for years and then in northern Iraq at the height of the ISIS threat there.

It made me reflect on where I’m at now. I’m still amazed at what the Lord has done in the last year to make it possible for me to get the first house I’ve ever owned in my life, against the backdrop of a crazy housing market in central Texas at this time. Plus the Lord has put me together with a couple I met barely a year ago who now rent two rooms from me here who I get along with very well and with whom I share a background of Christian discipleship faith. So “the Lord has done great things for us, whereof we are glad.” (Psalm 126:3)

At the same time, this movie about these dedicated people at the very front of Christian discipleship in Burma and Iraq helped remind me to not “sit at ease in Zion” (Amos 6:1), as is so normal and acceptable to do here in Christian circles in America. The movie reminded me of my calling and background, my experience and all that the Lord has invested in me and all I can still be used by Him to do, if I will be cautious to not get comfortable and settled in this present wonderful situation I’m in.

Desperation often brings on a clarity that comfort and ease really doesn’t. There’s so much confusion and vanity that every person here in my country is mightily assailed by every day. It’s like living in mists that effectively obscure spiritual realties. So we can end up quibbling about trifles while the starkest realities of the spiritual world mostly escape us in all the Babylonian chatter of our daily lives.

But this movie tonight about this dear, precious man was a bit of a shakeup and a reminder of my calling and life up to this time. Jesus said, “No man having put his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God.” (Luke 9:62) Or it’s like the old prophet and the young prophet (Kings 13). The young prophet was really going great for the Lord. But then he took time out to rest under the shade of a tree, in direct disobedience to God, and this was his undoing.

One of the greatest dangers to Christians in my country is the incredible surge of sickening swill and sludge that flows at us night and day through every organ of the media. It’s virtually all tainted, brackish and deeply polluted by any number of agendas and outlets, trying to sell you their viewpoint or product.

Strange as it may seem, counter-intuitive as you might think it to be, those dear people in the jungles of Burma or the poor souls who were assailed for years by ISIS in Iraq and Syria had a leg up on many of us here. Because they didn’t have to try to sort out reality from fiction. The enemy was right there, real and clear and in their faces, ready to literally kill them physically right then.

It wonderfully concentrates the mind in situations like that. I haven’t experienced it a lot but I definitely have from time to time in my encounters on some far flung mission fields. It quickens you, clears your mind and mostly gets you very desperate as you are face to face with forces greater than you. And you realize perhaps as much as ever before how very much you desperately need at that moment the presence and power of God. Or you may die in the next minute. [Here’s an article I wrote about when I was about to venture into a city on the Syrian border when ISIS was at its peak and how desperate prayer was a life or death matter.]

But are most people in my country experiencing that right now? No. Sadly another manifestation of Satan assails them and for the most part utterly defeats them: lulling distractions, “the pleasures of sin for a season” (Hebrews 11:25), meaningless political debates and diverse vanities that suck the air out of our lives and the clarity of the Spirit out of our hearts.

It was a real wake up call for me tonight to watch “Free Burma Rangers”. I’d better not get drawn in to the allurements and futility of “this present evil world” (Galatians 1:4), but instead keep my eyes on the Lord and my commitment to His cause.

 

A note on the tenor of the times

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Many of us know just how fast and far things have plunged into darkness. The whole trend of light being called darkness, truth being called a lie and love being called hate has already permeated the society I live in and is almost taken for granted in everyone’s lives.

One example stood out to me tonight, not even that much of a major but I was seeing it as an endemic example of the times we’re living in. I was reading about “fat shaming”, maybe you’ve heard of that. Simply put, someone ends up saying something to someone who has become “morbidly obese.”

There’s another relatively new word. When I was a kid, I had a good friend and his grandfather weighed 300 pounds (about 135 kilos). It was the kind of thing you said under your breath. That was the outside edge of what anyone ever weighed when I was 12 years old. Nowadays that’s pretty much within the range of normal here.

But the issue is that to say anything, to even “speak the truth in love” (Ephesians 4:15) to someone who’s been unable to restrain themselves and who has become morbidly obese, this effort to say anything to that person is now called “fat shaming”. I don’t know if it has become a felony yet but I could certainly see how that could happen.

Maybe I’m old fashioned but I don’t see it as being wrong to try to find a way, in sincere and humble truth, love and wisdom, to speak to someone who’s been overcome by their physical desires to the extent to which they’ve become vastly overweight. Certainly here in America this has gone on to the extent to which it is not even mentioned or almost even noticed. It’s not unusual to see people weighing 300 to 600 pounds (about 270 kilos), barely able to carry themselves about because of their girth.

Of course for Christians and actually for everyone, it should go without saying that to tease, mock or in any way make someone feel condemned for their looks or their weaknesses, this is not what I am talking about. Jesus taught love and love is totally different from mean-spirited taunting and teasing.

But it’s now a negative thing for anyone to say or do anything to help any of these people to try to be delivered from this dilemma. You’ll be accused of “fat shaming”. Honesty, I don’t even know if this article will survive the surveillance of the internet powers that be as this may be a bridge to far in the way of social/Christian commentary and observation. Possibly therefore it may be banned from the platform. Being “deplatformed” is the risk one runs for making comments like this.

But, are we “our brother’s keeper”? It’s a fundamental tenet of the New Testament that we are.  And we are to speak up in order to be a help to others who are struggling with human weaknesses, whatever they may be. Obesity is a leading cause around the world of a shortened life span.

When someone suffers an early death because of struggles with any number of cravings and addictions, it’s not just the victim that dies. They often have children, parents, brothers and sisters or friends who miss them dearly as their life is snuffed out prematurely through their “flesh”, as the Bible calls it, getting the best of them and ruling their lives.

But in the modern atmosphere, if any of us speak up, we’re likely to be called out as the guilty ones, guilty of “shaming” someone which is seen as a modern aggression, when actually it’s an effort to admonish and reason with someone who’s been “overtaken with a fault” (Galatians 6:1).

What’s the point? None really, but just an observation, a reflection on the deeply perverse nature of this time that to do good, to try to help recover someone from a series of choices and a lifestyle which can easily mean their death, to do that is seen as an affront and an aggression against the poor soul that needs someone to speak lovingly but plainly about how their choices are leading them to destruction.

Quite possibly some reading this know exactly what I’m talking about. What I’m presenting here is not even that much of a big issue. But it just fades into the overall bedarkening of our times where, on the right hand and the left, the Christian voice of conscience is powerfully hushed by the tenor of the times, the mood of “tolerance”, a mood of independence to the neglect of responsibility and of where doing basic Christian good can now be framed as ethical, moral evil, even to the extent of being criminal.

Christians everywhere are being confounded by these kinds of confrontations in their lives to what the simple prompting of the Holy Spirit would lead them to do. Common decency and brotherly love would lead someone to speak up to a friend or loved one to bring to their attention their being defeated by the desires of their flesh. But in these times, to do that is to invite strong censure from the society which tries to frame that as aggressive cruelty, rather than an act of loving kindness. And this kind of thing is seen everywhere.

What can anyone do? For one, they can recognize it. We are our brother’s keeper. Lovingly admonishing another in order to try to help them is the will of God and is a natural product of common, even human love for another.

As the darkness deepens, it will be decisions like these (against the mood of the times) that will be necessary for true Christians to make, if they’re to follow the leadings of the Lord through the Holy Spirit in our daily lives. God help us all.

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.

 

Judgment begins at the house of God

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The Bible says, “Judgment must begin at the house of God”. (I Peter 4:17) What does that mean? God holds the standard the highest for those who proclaim that they are His. It’s like how Jesus castigated the Pharisees rather than the drunks. In fact He told the self-righteous religious leaders of His day, “The tax collectors and harlots enter into the kingdom of God before you.” (Matthew 21:31) The same principle that Jesus espoused 2000 years ago is still valid today.

The recent pandemic that’s swept America, as well as the world, had a major, transformative effect on the elections of 2020 in the USA. The national government here was seen by many to be aloof and distracted by other things as the Corona virus hit America as hard as any disease has in the last 100 years.

Was this an example of judgment beginning at the house of God? Well, it sure had an effect on the elections last November. And America voted for a new administration and government which it was hoped would take more action and really get to grips with this vast, deadly emergency that has virtually overwhelmed the country.

And now this major historic cold and snow that has just hit here in Texas has had a similar effect. Both the cold in Texas and the Corona virus nationally have been ”natural disasters”, as we call them. Insurance companies actually call them, “acts of God”. But judgment must begin at the house of God. The Lord has ways to intervene in the affairs of humanity, even in our times. And thank God for that.

The Lord has always had ways to bring judgment first upon His own people, rather than on the so-called worldly or the unsaved. That’s why, in God’s eyes, His own saved Christians are so much more accountable than are the unsaved worldly who don’t know His Word or ways.

I often feel that it is a pitiful, fearful time for America. Will they be able to muddle through for a few more years, as they have for so long? Maybe; they’ve gone on a long time, coasting on the momentum of the righteousness of former generations. But, like Israel of old, there comes  time when God requires an accounting. It says in the Bible, “In those days the Lord began to cut Israel short”. (II Kings 10:32) I fear this is now happening to America as well.

The Lord has consistently held a higher standard for His own people than He does for the ignorant and unsaved of this world. But you seldom hear this message from the pulpit here or much less from the opportunistic politicos of our times.

A former US President from Texas once talked about “compassionate conservatism”. I wish I could say I have seen more of that here. In Texas there is a predominance of conservatives; but each of us will have to answer to God if we have truly been compassionate. I could go off on a tangent here, trying to apportion blame and take sides. But instead, maybe I’ll just try to keep seeing what the Lord is doing. I will add that I have certainly known personally some very humble and compassionate conservative Christians here in Texas.

The Lord brings crisis into our lives. He can, in His love and nurturing of us, even expose our sins, both to individuals and to nations. And almost no one really ever likes that, individually or nationally. Still, the Lord does it to purge and purify and to try to bring us out of “the sins that so easily beset us.” (Hebrews 12:1)

JobAnd how we react to that, individually or nationally, will really tell the tale of how our life goes. Almost everyone is very prone to “justifying themselves” (Luke 10:29). I wrote a blog article about justifying yourself which can be found here.

But God’s hope must be that, individually and nationally, we won’t justify ourselves and thwart the working of God in our lives. Instead, we will see the hand of God working when events that He sends expose our unpreparedness, our aloofness, our pride and arrogance. Then the hope must be that we will see it, acknowledge it, repent of it and be the better for the judgment the Lord sometimes brings. So often, it really comes down to that.

How’s this all going to end? Will the leadership of Texas confess their mistakes, ask for forgiveness and make the changes that are so desperately needed? We can hope so. Virtually every major leader in Texas is strongly a Christian conservative. May the Lord have mercy upon us all. May we all, individually and nationally, see the chastening, purifying hand of God in our lives.

“Now no chastening for the present seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to them which are exercised thereby.”  (Hebrews 12:11)

Insufficient in prayer

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I was thinking tonight about how God has been really good to me. So much so that I can’t really express it or find the words. Sometimes you can’t equal with your words of thankfulness the measure of the abundant grace that the Lord has bestowed upon you. Words fail you. But the funny thing is for me, in earlier years, before I came to the Lord and salvation, I went through a time of horror and depravity. And back then words failed me to describe my experiences as they do again now, but at the opposite end of the scale

When I was university I was swept up in a near death experience that took place in the realm of darkness, the spiritual world but without Christ and God. Afterwards it was close to impossible to find words to describe that experience and those things. At the time I didn’t really have any idea what was happening to me or why.

I just knew something was exceedingly wrong and that it was my fault. I knew that word back then, “fault”, but I didn’t really know or accept the word “sin”. Then gradually, as I came through and out of it all, I found the vocabulary in the Bible that described the experiences and grapplings I’d had in the realm of darkness.

By the love of God I had been “delivered from the power of darkness and translated into the kingdom of His dear Son” (Colossians 1:13). Still, I could hardly talk about what I’d gone through. Now, decades later, I again have faced an inadequacy to put into words what is in my heart, but on the opposite side of the spectrum. He has blessed me, “above all I could ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20) so that my feeble attempts to thank Him and to appreciate His abundant blessings seem utterly inadequate to do the subject justice.

So I just have to trust the Lord. The Lord knows what He has done. The Lord knows how He has worked in my life. Hopefully He is pleased that I at least realize and know it somewhat and understand it to some degree. How can we be equal to the magnitude of God? We can’t. It reminds me of what I wrote a few years ago about “Thimbles”. I was struck with my inadequacy to respond to the vastness of God, like having a thimble on the beach to measure the ocean before me.

But I try to praise and thank the Lord for what He has done in my life. So many things have happened that I just know are the Lord, His plan and pre-vision and pro-vision. The Lord can make something out of nothing and actually that’s the way He usually works. He has to make you utterly nothing and so that you know it. And then He can begin to put you back together “a better vessel” (Jeremiah 18:1-4).

You may find yourself speechless, trying to find words to thank the Lord with when it all comes so short of describing the magnity of what He’s done in your life. Maybe that’s not where you are at right now. Maybe you are really going through trails and testings and “contradictions of sinners against yourself” (Hebrews 12:3), like what happened to Jesus. But as each of us keep holding on, the Lord can bring us into a fair haven. (Psalm 107:30)  A verse that often speaks to me is how He can “restore the years that the cankerworm has eaten.” (Joel 2:25) Seemingly years of wasted and fruitless existence when you longed to have a purpose and a meaningful life. But He can restore.

We don’t have to be eloquent when it comes to our prayers. Just honest, sincere and real. Our words are us and we are just little people trying to speak to the King of kings and Lord of lords. So we should just speak from our heart, even if it all seems to be so insufficient to express how we feel or how God has dealt with us. “Pour out your heart before Him”, as King David said. (Psalm 62:8)

“We are not sufficient for these things,” (II Corinthians 2:16). Paul knew it was all far beyond him what the Lord was doing in his life and in the lives of others. But he just kept the faith and kept following, even if it got to where it was beyond what he could ask or understand or comprehend.

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.

“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 be 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.