Category Archives: Insights and personal views

Partitions

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soul heart flat-2Sometimes just to have the vocabulary for a thing is a huge step forward. When I started working with computers years ago, I realized immediately that there was a vocabulary involved. And learning the basic vocabulary having to do with computers was pretty essential in learning to use them.

Somewhat similarly, when I was an atheist in university, I kept experiencing things that I had no way to describe and no vocabulary for. How can an atheist describe spiritual experiences? Maybe that’s one of the reasons why, when I finally came to believe in God and later in Jesus, that it all just flooded into me. Because I had already had things happening to me that I didn’t understand and couldn’t describe until I learned the vocabulary of the Bible that helped to understand those things.

why arent we flatIf you’re secular, basically “your mind” is about as far as the vocabulary goes. Maybe it’s different now but back when I went to university, they sure never ever talked to me about my “soul”, or my “spirit” or my “heart”. Can you imagine going to a university that offered “Soul 101” as a course? Yet the Bible talks about those things all the time. And understanding what they are and what the differences are between them is a mighty step forward in understanding what are the essences of the beings we are. But university sure isn’t going to teach you that. Maybe you’ll hear some rock song about how your girlfriend “broke your heart”. But what is a heart? Is that all just metaphorical or some ancient wives’ tales?

For me, it was an incredible breakthrough to have the vocabulary of the Bible to describe my existence and experiences. Jesus spoke in one place of our “soul” and “heart” and  “mind”. (Matthew 22:47). In another place He said, “that which is born of the flesh is flesh…” (John 3:6) On the cross, Jesus prayed, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.“ (Luke 23:46) And Paul, writing to the Ephesians, said that we should put off “the old man” and put on “the new man” (Ephesians 4:22-24). These are all ancient Biblical terms but they brought light and clarity to my soul that I was utterly lacking before.

So many people bemoan their present state. “Oh, I’m so tired!” “Oh, I’m so afraid!”  But they don’t really know, evidently, God’s way of partitioning our beings. The Bible is full of expressions that use this viewpoint. “While our outward man perishes, our inward man is renewed day by day.” (II Corinthians 4:16) Jesus said, “It is the spirit that quickens; the flesh profits nothing.” The Bible says of the Word of God that it pierces, “even to the dividing asunder of soul and spirit… and is a discerner of the thoughts and the intents of the heart.” (Hebrews 4:12)

There is ageless wisdom and understanding in the Bible that bring us to depths of understanding that university degrees never reach. Wisdom, understanding, knowledge. The Bible can help us to both treasure these things and to know how to apply them practically and daily in our lives.

Recently “my flesh” has been pushed. I’m pushing myself to get off to the next stage of my life. If I didn’t know better, I could say, “Oh, I’m really tired!” “Oh, this is so hard!” But I know that’s just the reaction of “my flesh”, according to how the Bible describes it. Because, truly, my spirit is fine and I’m excited about what’s going on and up ahead.

Admittedly, it’s a little hard on my flesh right now. But if I didn’t know God’s Word and how these things are described in the Bible, then I wouldn’t recognize the partition between “me” and “my flesh”. I’m not my flesh. It’s not the main thing, it’s not the real me. It’s part of me and part of my existence. But I am a soul, I have a spirit and a heart and a mind. So even if I have to push my flesh right now, if I still take care of it and don’t exceed the guidelines of the Lord, then this is generally what the Lord said, to “take up your cross daily” (Luke 9:24) and follow Him.

So many things flatI am benefiting so much at this time by being able to keep a Biblical view of things and what’s going on. I’m trying to go forward for Him. It involves some measure of personal and physical sacrifice and discomforted. But like Paul wrote, “I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18) When we can take to ourselves these simple, basic principles from God’s Word, the terminology He uses to describe us, His creations, then it just helps overall to understand who and what we are, how our spiritual insides are constructed and how things work, what are our components and how we are partitioned.

Close Encounters and Pinnacle Experiences

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Richard DreyfusMaybe you’ve heard the phrase, “pinnacle experiences”, those rare moments in life when you feel like you’re on some kind of spiritual mountain and see things that are almost eternal, truths you almost never realized before. For many people, this is a once-in-a-lifetime experience or perhaps a few times at most. You’re lifted above the mundane, the routine, the trivial, and you briefly glimpse eternal realities.

Moses on MountPerhaps not many in history more fully experienced that than Moses of the Old Testament. He literally was called up into a mountain to hear the very voice of God and to experience the very presence of God. We are told this went on for 40 days. Of course most of us have no way we can relate to that. But many of us have had “mountain peak” experiences, moments of clarity, purity, fullness of truth when we feel we see eternal things and understand things we almost never do.

And Moses was told, “See that you make all things according to how it was showed you on the mount” (Hebrews 8:5). And it’s still the same today. Those “mountain peaks” of truth the Lord lets us see glimpses of perhaps only a few times in our lives, those glimpses of how things can be, how things are in the hereafter through the Spirit of God, those are the ways of heaven that He wants us to emulate here on earth. I’ve had a few times like that and I’ve written about them in the category “Angels and Miracles“.

Dreyfus in truckThere’s an old movie that has become very famous, ‘”Close Encounters of the Third Kind”. One of the main characters, Richard Dreyfus, has a “close encounter” with a UFO which comes to hover over his truck as he drives around to fix power lines one night. His life is utterly changed. It’s like some kind of message or imprint has been made on his soul. He just keeps duplicating “what he saw on the mount”, what he experienced in those few moments with the UFO. He isn’t really the same person he was before, because of the mountain peak experience he had with the UFO.

This to me has always been a parallel of how it is and can be with our experience with God. Many of us have had a moment in the stillness, in the presence of the supernatural Spirit of God. It could have been a dream, it could have been in prayer, it could have been in reading His Word when the affairs of this life drop behind you, you are away from secular things and on the mount with God, even if for a moment.

And I believe that the same way God told Moses to do all things according as it was shown him on the mount, He says the same to us today. Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). Sometimes there are moments when we “see God”. It doesn’t happen all the time but it does happen. And if we hold on to that, if we retain and treasure in our hearts those moments with Him on the mount that He gives us, then we can bring that essence down from the mount, as Moses did.

It says that Moses’s face shown and glowed so much when he came down from Mount Sinai that he had to put a veil or covering over his face because he glowed with the light of God right then. That’s for us too. If we remember our paths to the mountains that He has taken us to, then we can “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in the time of need”. (Hebrews 4:16)

Glow with GodThose mountain peaks don’t have to be once-in-a-lifetime experiences. Maybe they aren’t everyday things. But the influence, the change, the glory, the infusion of His mighty Love and Light can remain with us and we come back to this world as Moses did when he came down from the mount. We can “go about everywhere doing good” (Acts 10:38), as Jesus did. We can be “instruments of his peace”, that Saint Francis prayed he would be. We can bring that imprint of the mountain back to this dark, sad world and be the light He has called us to be.

“See that you do all things according to how it was shown you on the mountain” (Hebrews 8:5). May God help us to remember those mountain peaks of experience He gives us, to live in those moments, even if they’re now memories, and to let others see that heavenly realm in and through us. “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven” (Matthew 5:16). “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were ignorant and unlearned men, they marveled and they took knowledge of them that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13)

Long time therefore…

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west texasIt was late summer in dry, arid west Texas, just before I turned 22. I was standing on top of a hill, thinking about the last few months and the ones up ahead. It had turned out to be the best year of my life till then, the year I very nearly died in torment and went to hell. But instead I was miraculously saved by the undeserved mercy of God. That’s what I wrote about in “Lucifer and the White Moths“.

I’d been staying with some young people who had banded together to study God’s Word and prepare for a life of Christian service. But my time there had come to an end and I was soon to leave to go to California and begin a time of daily witnessing on the streets of Los Angeles.

I don’t remember exactly asking the Lord for a message right then, maybe I did. But something very simple came to me as I stood on that hill, a reference to a Bible verse I don’t remember reading before, Acts 14:3. I carried a small Bible with me so I looked it up. It said, “Long time therefore abode they speaking boldly in the Lord, which gave testimony to the Word of His grace, and granted signs and wonders to be done by their hands.” I took it as a message of encouragement from the Lord that He had a plan for me. And I was especially drawn to the words “long time therefore…” My feeling was that the Lord was telling me I would have a long time of Christian service ahead of me.

thinking long life-flat-flatThinking back to that time and how my life has gone from then to now, I can feel that the verse I got that day has already been fulfilled in my life, for which I am so thankful. If I quit right now, that “long time” has already been a reality of decades of endeavoring to abide in His grace in many lands, during storms and calms, during fruitful times and dry years, but always with the knowledge that “He that began a good work in me would continue to perform it.” (Philippians 1:6)

Back then, that method of the Lord speaking to me that way, by just giving me a reference which would unlock a passage in Scripture that was specifically for me, was not something that happened all the time. But from time to time it did happen. This is what I wrote about in “Direct Revelations” where I mentioned a couple of other times when the Lord gave me Bible references like that in answer to prayer.

It’s encouraging to look back and reminisce about these things, to see how the Lord has fulfilled His promise and Word to me as He does to all of us. But I do feel there’s a potential danger in it. Because it’s just so easy to decide that you’ve gone as far as you want to go.

“Quit while you are ahead” is not a phrase found in the Bible.

But in the world, this is a common theme and very easy to fall into. So looking back and reminiscing about your life, while understandable and very human, is for me at least something I don’t like to spend much time doing. Because it just might influence me to not keep going forward.

under a treeThere’s that strange story in the Old Testament of the old prophet and the young prophet, one of the more “post graduate” lessons in the Bible. (see I Kings 13) God told the young prophet to go do something and then come right back to where he had been. And the young prophet obeyed, at least in some ways, and he even performed miracles. But then what happened? On the way home, he sat down under a tree. He didn’t keep obeying. He sat down. It’s all a really intriguing story; I’ll let you read the whole thing yourself. But the end of the matter was that the sitting under the tree, rather than finishing his task, ultimately led to the death of the young prophet.

path aheadSo our best bet is to keep our eyes on the Lord and to keep obeying and living for Him, even if you think you’ve already had a pretty good life and it’s time to just sit down, kick back, relax and retire from His service that He’s called you to. I’m thankful for the life the Lord has given me; it’s such a blessing to look back and see all the ways He’s fulfilled His Word and allowed me to be a part of His work and plan. But it’s even more thrilling to look ahead to all that may still lie ahead, greater victories to be won and greater experiences to have with Him as He continues to set the captives free and break the chains that enslave so many around the world in these threatening times.

Turning Points

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Turning pointsI guess this is true for everyone. But I know it’s true for a person who’s endeavored to dedicate their life to the Lord. Sometimes you just can’t go on business as usual. You have to keep books with your soul and ask yourself, “Am I still doing what I know and believe is His highest and best?” Not what His best was last year, but is it still His best now?

God is a moving God, in a sense. He’s never static; He’s always going, moving and affecting change in every sphere of His creation. His Spirit is in the process of changing lives, changing hearts, changing situations. He’s never static, except for Himself. “I am the Lord, I change not.” (Malachi 3:6)

Keep climbing-flattenedBut, boy, He likes to get things moving and shake things up. One time God said to Moses, “Why are you crying to me? Command the armies of Israel that they go forward.” (Exodus 14:15) And He’s still saying that today, urging the forces of God to go forward in these times as well. Of course I’m not talking about physical armies of worldly nations. I’m talking about the called and faithful few who will follow the Lord and serve Him in these bedarkened times.

But you can’t go on last year’s battle plans. You can’t rest on your laurels or think you’ve arrived. Solomon said, “There’s no discharge in this war” (Ecclesiastes 8:8). Yes, it is a war we are in, not of carnal weapons and vain, worldly nationalism but for the eternal souls of men to be won to Him. Paul told Timonty that he should “war a good warfare” (I Timothy 1:18).

And when an army ceases to attack, it will be defeated. Because the enemy will launch a counterattack. Or even worse, and what more often happens to Christians, the army’s immobility and it lack of vision, faith and initiation will cause it to have a loss of faith in its own values, and to quit and give up without even loosing. In the cause of Christ, this is far more often the cause of defeat than the soldiers of the cross actually being defeated in battle. This is what I wrote about recently in “The Serpent and The Dragon.”

pillar of cloudBut sometimes we come to a turning point in our ministry. You can just feel it. It’s something that the people of God have experienced almost invariably throughout history. Just like the way God operated with Moses and God’s people in the wilderness, the cloud and pillar lifted from the camp of the saints and moved forward. God’s presence has moved again and it’s up to us as individuals to break camp and follow where He leads, if we still will.

Of course some don’t. They’ve gone as far as they want to go. They want to just stay where they’ve come to and settle down there, enjoy the fruits of their labors and just take it easy for a while. Or the opposition is too strong, the price to great and they “turn back in the day of battle.” (Psalm 78:9) turning backIt certainly seems to be a “reasonable” thing to do and who would blame you? “You deserve it”, like people say nowadays. But certainly the battle is not over; the war is not won.

Someone who has always been an inspiration me in the Bible was Caleb, the brother of Joshua. When it finally came time to conquer the land, Caleb by that time was fully 80 years old. It says of Caleb that he led his tribe and Calebpeople up into the mountains and hills to take his part of the land God had told them to take back then. At 80 years of age, he led his people into battle.

I don’t know very many people who are 80. I’m not really close to that. So I figure I still have a ways to go for the Lord. I need to find out where He’s leading now and the road up ahead. For me, it’s looking like He’s leading me back to foreign lands, after being here in my home country for nearly 6 years. It would be so easy to just settle down here. I like where I am. I like the weather, I like the nature, it’s kind of nice here.

But for me, that just won’t work. I know I have a call of God in my life. I know that I would be miserable and out of God’s will, out of His protection, out of what my life has been about if I don’t keep following the Lord where He is leading me at this time.

For me, the question hasn’t been, “Why are you going?” It’s been, “Why should you stay?”

Every time I’ve put myself into His hands to follow where He leads, there’s been a blessing to it. Often there’s some sacrifice of some kind, often some uncertainty and sometimes even loneliness. But there have been tremendous blessings involved and I’ve been able to be a part of what the Lord is doing and to see His continual hand working in the lives of those who desire Him.

hand of God flatSo I’m right at the cusp of some really major moves and changes. It’s challenging, daunting and almost foreboding in some ways. But like someone said one time, “Put your hand into the hand of God, and He shall be more to thee than a light, and better than a known way.”

The Serpent and the Dragon

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The serpent said flatSo many Christians nowadays are talking about the Dragon, violent physical attacks of the Devil. But it seems the Serpent, with his lies, fears and confusion, is the one who’s really doing the most for the Evil Kingdom.

Doing great work flatThe book of Nehemiah shows how that works, perhaps more than any other in the Bible. During the entire time of Nehemiah, the Enemy never actually attacked God’s people openly and physically. It was all in words: lies, fears, distractions, threats and whatever else it took to persuade them to stop the work God had called them to.

But, thankfully, Nehemiah saw through it all and recognized the hand of his spiritual enemy in those things. “I am doing a great work and cannot come down“, he told his enemies. (Nehemiah 6:3) He and the people of God back then remained persistent and focused in the calling they were given and didn’t get persuaded or scared into coming down from the wall of God’s will and calling.

However, so often in history this hasn’t happened. You can find so many people today who are terrified of some foreign attack on these shores; they are electrified with the vision that “Sheriah law” will be established in the United States. Admittedly, I wouldn’t be surprised if at some point there is some outside attack from Islamic extremists or even extreme American nationalist here, however big or small that might be.

But most of the time, the Devil doesn’t need to send the Dragon if the Serpent will do. And the Serpent seems often to be far more effective, so that the Dragon isn’t necessary.

see it this way flatIf the Serpent can keep whispering in your ear his lies, his fears, his prejudices, lifting you up in pride, casting you down in hopelessness and fear, filling your mind with confusion and double-mindedness, then the victory is his. You may be a Christian. But you have become a completely defeated Christian, stopped in your tracks along the path of faith and rendered virtually worthless to the cause of Christ.

Of course he doesn’t only do this to Christians. The Deceiver is active across the land, propagating his bedarkened views which mostly are supposed to be “enlightened” and modern. Jesus said, “If the light that be in you be darkness, how great is that darkness.” (Matthew 6:23) That’s why the Devil is called “the prince of this world” (John 12:31). It even says that the Devil showed Jesus “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time” and then the Devil told Jesus “all this power I will give you, for it is mine.”(Luke 4:6) How often Christians forget this. They think they’re living in “a Christian nation”. It’s sad. But perhaps more are waking up a little as the darkness rapidly deepens.

“Mark, this sounds pretty hopeless. You’re really being Douglas Downer here.”

My experience is that sometimes you have to be shocked enough to see the spiritual reality around you. And while I see some progress here in American Christianity, I see a lot of people who are still focused on their fears of violent, outside attacks on the USA, the work of the Dragon. But all the while the effects of the Serpent on them and the rest of the country progressively weaken millions from within.

Most students of history have seen that the decline and fall of great empires mostly happens from within, not without. And the same can be said of great people or people who had great possibilities. “It was not an enemy that had done this. But it was you, my familiar friend. The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart. His words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords.” (Psalm 55:21)

The-fight-of-faithSo it is with the workings of the Serpent, “the father of lies” (John 8:44). What’s the solution? Pray sincerely and desperately. Baptize yourself with God’s Word. Obey God’s Word first and foremost. Paul said to “put on the whole armor of God” (Ephesians 6:11). But the only offensive weapon he listed was “the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.” (Ephesians 6:17)

When Satan mightily came against Jesus in a prolonged temptation, Jesus didn’t quote Socrates, He didn’t pull out His pistol. He just quoted the Word of God to Satan. And after doing that a few times, “the devil departed from Him and angels came and ministered to Him.” (Matt. 4:11) Even Jesus Christ Himself knew the power of the written Word of God in battling and defeating the Devil.

How many know how to do that today? How many even know that the Serpent has beguiled them and rendered them useless and a reproach to Christ? ISIS didn’t do that. The government didn’t do that. Our foreign enemies didn’t do that. But millions of Christians struggle with the Serpent while they’re fixated on some distant Dragon. May God, and the dear Lord Jesus, have mercy on us all.

“God is not the author of confusion.”

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Its a hoax-5 flatUmm, I’m a little bit mad. Truth is important to me, I believe there is truth. It’s not always clear and there can be subtleties and all that. But fundamentally some things are true and some are not. Jesus said, “Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice“. (John 18:37) He said that He was the truth.(John 14:6) He said the Holy Spirit is “the spirit of Truth”. (John 16:13) If you’re a Christian (or perhaps just a believer in the God of Abraham), then truth really should be important to you.

Emmanuel Church; Charleston, South Carolina

Emmanuel Church; Charleston, South Carolina

Here’s why this has come up for me. At the moment, one of the main things in the news is the murder of 9 African-Americans in a historic church in Charleston, South Carolina. But in the last few days, numerous web sites and articles are popping up to tell us “it ain’t necessarily so.” “Those murders didn’t happen at all. It was all staged by sinister forces. Actors were used!” This was also said in the same way at the time of the murder of the 20 children and 6 adults in Connecticut in 2012.

The Bible says, “God is not the author of confusion.” (I Corinthians 14:33)

One thing I believe about this: either those murders happened or they didn’t. If the main stream media is being used to deceive the multitudes and the hoax-callers are right, then I firmly believe that some grass roots reporter for a local newspaper or TV station could be able to sift out the evidence on this pretty easy.

Folks, truth is not that hard to find out. Nine people were killed a few days ago. You say that didn’t happen? Someone go interview the relatives. Go to the morgue. This truly isn’t rocket science. Will the caskets be open at the funerals? Come on!

It just gets my goat that someone is really telling us a whopper. And sadly very many Americans are likely to be affected by this. Very many now feel that the main stream media has zero credibility. They say they don’t believe anything they see on the main media outlets anymore. I’m certainly not unsympathetic to some of those views. So much is just tripe and hogwash, “brought to you by” unscrupulous mega-powerful folks with agendas that are not for the best of society.

Conspiracy Theory or Bible Prophecy flatBut then, what are you going to do? Are you going to believe the plethora of websites that have sprung up offering you what they say as “really the truth”? And you think those sites are going to tell you the truth? They don’t have an agenda? My experience with many of those sites is that they’re actually usually worse than the main stream media that they’re supposed to be the alternative to.

Do you know how easy it is to set up a web site and then suddenly become some acclaimed pundit? All you need is Microsoft Word, maybe a little Photoshop experience, the basics of a WordPress web site and… presto! You are an international commentator! And if you’re sensational enough, you’re articles will go viral and you’ll really be making believers of people, no matter how loony and “out there” your ideas are.

May God truly help us all. The Bible says, “Be not carried about with every wind of doctrine.” (Ephesians 4:14) How very much so many people here are exactly in that condition. They don’t know what to believe. “There was a mass murder!” “No, there wasn’t! It was all staged!” “There is a crisis!” “No, there’s not! It’s just a fiction made up by the folks on the other side!” Like the Bible says of the days of old, “Truth is perished.” (Jeremiah 7:28)

confused flatIt’s heart breaking. It’s infuriating. “If the foundations be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalms 11:3) But when we don’t even know what the truth is anymore, we don’t know who, if anyone, we can believe, then we are ripe for the picking of the Grim Reaper, in whatever fashion he may come.

Our local newspaper here has what they call a “truth-o-meter”. It seems to be something nationally syndicated and it investigates what’s being said by noted figures, usually politicians. The worst rating is “pants on fire”, just something that is utterly false, like the saying, “Liar, liar, pants on fire.” But then they do find some things to be true. Certainly we don’t have to be thrown into confusion by a question of whether or not this recent mass murder in South Carolina actually happened.

For me, I’ve come to find that just because the main stream media say something, I can’t just utterly discount that. And when some two-bit, fly-by-night website tells me some alarmist, extremist “news”, I certainly should take that with a huge grain of salt, if at all. I sure hope other people are doing the same. Actually a lot of times we should be calling a solid “BS” on some of these extremist sites that are just disseminating alarmist, often racist or some other hate-filled screed. May it not be said of us, as it was said of Israel of old, “My people love to have it so” (Jeremiah 5:31), when falsehood and deceit were loved and they ruled so rampantly that Israel back then was ultimately destroyed for her sins.

And just to be clear, I’m certainly not saying the main stream media is always right. At times some “voice in the wilderness” tells us the truth that others won’t. Like with Watergate, the Pentagon Papers or Edward Snowden. Or John the Baptist.

Is of the truth-a- flattenedDemand truth. Resist confusion. Get to the bottom of the thing. Don’t be “carried about with every wind of doctrine” (Eph. 4:14)  but “speak the truth in love” (Eph. 4:15) . Don’t let these false websites play to your prejudices, your fears and hatreds. When we lose our love for, and recognition of the truth, there really isn’t much left before our final surrender and defeat, as an individual or a nation.

“Truth be known”

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truth be known-1 flatMost of you who read these posts are native English speakers. But I’m aware that there’s a minority who are not. Having lived for years in foreign countries, I’ve come to where I can speak a simplified English and can at times look into phrases that native English speakers take for granted. One example could be when we say, “Truth be known…” and then go on to reveal something that might not otherwise be said.

Truth be known. That’s really the way things should be, isn’t it? Truth should be known. But is it always? I may have written how that, in my youth, I really wasn’t looking for God since I’d concluded that there was no such thing. “God, Jesus, Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny”, that’s what I always said, with a grin and gusto. “Little did I know.” There’s another good phrase but I’ll stick with “truth be known” for now. But although I wasn’t looking for God, I really was looking for the truth.

Truth has virtually always occupied a major significance on my “operating system”, if you know what I mean. But I’ve also come to realize, often by sad and dramatic experience, that truth is not that big a thing for some people.

King David desire truth flatKing David said to God, “Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts…”. (Psalm 51:6) Or as Jesus said, “That on the good ground are they that in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it…”. (Luke 8:15)

Honesty. Truth. These are the attributes of the Godly, regardless of nation, culture or creed. We’re all tempted to lies and dishonesty; I certainly tried that for a while. But my conscience was screaming at me and struggling for supremacy in my soul.

Sadly and shockingly, I’ve met ones who’ve even seemed to come to the Lord and been taught by me who I found later were not really “dealing with a straight deck”, as they say in poker. They were not honest. And to my chagrin, some of these people played me for a fool and I didn’t catch on for a while.

Was I naive? Too trusting? Too unwilling to see what was going on? Probably so to some degree. But the people I’m thinking of are ones who evidently, I found later, had a history of that kind of behavior and were virtually compulsive liars. Pretty sad, no?

“So Mark, why didn’t you catch that sooner? Why didn’t you see right through them immediately, if you really have a link with the Lord?”

I wondered about that. Well, for one, I think the Lord may have even been pulling a fast one on the folks who thought they were pulling a fast one on me. All the while, “Christ was preached”. Like Paul said about some folks who were preaching the gospel but with contention and not sincerely, “nevertheless, Christ is preached.” (Philippians 1:18) In this case, these were people were coming as His sheep but they were not “without guile”. (John 1:47) But all the while I was sharing the Word of God with them and dealing with them honestly.

What do you do in situations like that? You could get mad at them for their dishonesty and evidently trying to trick you. You could get mad at yourself for being somewhat deceived and made a fool of. I’ve definitely felt that in some cases.

word return void flatBut it does help to have a deeper, higher view of it all. In the times this happened to me (it hasn’t been often), it’s been where I was honest and up front with these people, sharing my faith with them and in some situations trying to strengthen and establish in the faith some who were posing as Christians.

Were they Christians? Deep question. If you feel that folks have to be perfect in spirit to receive the Lord and become a Christian, you might say no. I do know that they all received a strong witness. They said they were Christians. I was sharing the Word with them, praying with them and in some situations having classes with them. It’s good to remember that obscure verse, “God’s Word does not return void. It accomplishes His purpose.” (Isiah 55:11)

Everyone will be accountable for the truth they’ve been shown and seen. It seems like some folks would almost rather hold on to their abilities (if we can call it that) to trick and deceive people. On the other hand, many who’ve dabbled in deep dishonesty and deception have thrown off that temptation when confronted with the pure truth and light of the love of God and His Word.

But for us who know Him, it’s good to remember that “Truth” is right up there with “Love”, when we’re talking about the things of God. Many of us know that “God is love.” (I John 4:8) But equally, Jesus said “I am … the truth..” (John 14:6) “Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” (John 18:37) We should extol, strive for and exalt truth in the same way and as much as we do love. Or so it seems to me.

God Needs You

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Tell them I need them flatOne morning while I was in Bulgaria, I was in a room above the little church where they were hosting me. I’d been speaking  to around 70 people for the first two nights who’d braved the late winter snow to come and hear what the foreigner had to say. I’d shared my life story of how I came to believe in the God of Abraham and then in Jesus. Another night I’d shared some basic classes on the importance of Jesus, the subject of Salvation, the significance of the Holy Spirit, the need for the Bible in our lives.

church crowd 3But I somehow felt that the last night’s time with these folks lacked the full power that an opportunity like this requires. So the next morning I felt desperate that things go better. I’ve already written about this some in “Work? Or Prayer…in Bulgaria” There I mentioned how that I felt the Lord answered my desperate prayer by laying something on my heart which I wrote down after my prayer. Here’s an edited version of that and what has come to be one of the main things I’ve shared with these ones since then.

God Needs You

In Ezekiel there’s an obscure but extremely significant passage. God is speaking and He says, “I sought for a man among them to stand in the gap and make up the hedge, that I should not destroy the land. But I found him not.” (Ezekiel 22:30) The picture is of a broken wall. We can think of it as the city of our fellowship and heritage of the people of God. There was a gap through which the Enemy could attack and God needed a person to rally the forces of God to stand up for Him in the battles of the Lord. But the Scripture says, “He found him not.” God found no one to take up the mission of His will and service.

who shall I send flat-2In another place, God is speaking in Isaiah, “Who shall I send, who shall go for us?” Then Isaiah answers “Here am I Lord, send me.” (Isaiah 6:8) That’s what is needed, but there are so very few. Jesus said the same thing. “When He saw the multitudes, He was moved with compassion. For they fainted and were scattered abroad as sheep having no shepherd. Then He said to His disciples, ‘The harvest is plenteous, but the laborers are few. Pray to the Lord of the harvest that He will send laborers into His harvest.’” (Matthew 9:36-38)

And it’s certainly still the same today. God needs and wants fighters, not just believers. There is a raging war going on. Souls are dying without the Word of the Lord. In the endtime, we are destined to be winners in the battles. Where are the victors of God? Where are the heroes? Where are the “mighty men”, like David had, who knew there was a battle and that they were on the side of the God of light and love and truth?

come out flatThat’s what is needed. Not spectators, but players on the field of battle. God has a destiny prepared for those who will claim it in their lives. God has victorious battles to be won, souls to be set free, lights to be lifted up, and multitudes to turn to Him. But He doesn’t want to do it alone. He wants us to work with Him; He wants to work with flesh and blood us.

Who can He use in your community, in your family? Who does He chose? “The foolish things to confound the wise.” (I Corinthians 1:26). “When they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were unlearned and ignorant men, they marveled and took knowledge of them, that they had been with Jesus.” (Acts 4:13) That’s really all that’s needed. Not theology school, a university degree, the right skin color and the backing of a large denomination. What’s needed is that “they had been with Jesus”. And so, so many have been with Jesus and are with Jesus. But their lights remain “under a basket” (Matthew 5:15), rather than really on a candlestick. The church of our times has left the arena and now sits in the grandstands.

How can we rule with Him in the Millennium if we are not working, fighting and winning with Him right now? “Now is the day of salvation“. (II Corinthians 6:2) Today is the day that souls are fainting in the land, dying and giving up hope. Today is the day that God needs you to step out of your circle of normalcy and to go a little further. It says of Jesus, “He went a little further, and fell on His face.” (Matthew 26:39) That’s what each of us should be doing each day: going a little further and falling on our face in desperate prayer that we can be all that He wants us to be and needs us to be.

harvest is plenteous flatMay God help all of us to not be complacent, not satisfied with the normal hum-drum tediousness of our lives. May we obey what the Lord said, to “Lift up our eyes and look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest.” (John 4:35) The Lord needs laborers, the Lord needs soldiers, the Lord needs simple people like you and me to take the mantel of His mighty men of old in these desperate end times, to have the vision of fighters, winners, overcomers, harvesters, soul winners, sheep-feeders, comforters of the weak, whatever the call or need is, that His people will have the vision of the service He has called us to and which is so very needed in these desperate times.

It’s just a very basic principle of God for centuries, “If you draw out our soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul, then your light will rise in obscurity and your darkness will be as the noonday.” (Isiah 58:10) Even in your own life, if you “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, then all these things will be added to you”. (Matthew 6:33)

It all comes back to love, to love God and your neighbor. But that love is a compassionate, active, stirred up love, love that doesn’t get stopped by barriers, love that ends up being something that isn’t really often seen to the degree it needs to be. It was love that sent the shepherd boy David to the front lines to see and confront the enemies of God. “Is there not a cause?”, young David said. It was love that cause Philip to run to meet the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8), “The love of Christ constrains us”, Paul said. (II Corinthians 5:14)

This is what I have come to share here with these precious ones. I felt the Lord would challenge them to go further in their lives, to look outward to the circle of friends and acquaintances they come in contact with daily, to witness and share the Love of God with the unsaved, those who’ve never heard the message of salvation, so many of whom will willingly come to Him, if someone will just reach them with His love.

History, prophets and progress

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It happens over flatI read a lot of history, basically almost every night. Most of it is in relation to the history of Christianity and faith over the last 2000 years. It fascinates me. I’ve already written elsewhere about Saint Patrick, one of the most influential people in the history of Europe and certainly of the Irish and Scottish people that my ancestors come from.

But over and over again I’m struck by how it so often came down to change. Would the (what we now call) “religious people” make spiritual progress, expand and be renewed with what God was trying to do in their lives? Would they change with the new day or hold on to their old ways?

It’s such a hideous trap. Hideous! People of faith think they have to hold on to the basic tenets of their faith, which often is true. “Let that therefor abide in you which you have heard from the beginning.” (I John 2:24) But some of these can be just religious traditions, rather than really make-or-break absolutes of the faith.

This is why Jesus said, “Well has Isaiah prophesied of you hypocrites, ‘This people honors me with their lips but their heart is far from Me; howbeit in vain they do worship Me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men’.” (Mark 7:6 & 7) Some of those folks perhaps originally were, to some degree and measure, genuinely worshiping God.no man ever spoke flat But when Jesus came along, His reality, His warmth, His truth and His miracles were a manifold greater witness of God’s power than the vain traditions they’d come to mostly be holding on to.

What happened? Some people quickly caught on that “No man every spoke like this man.” (John 7:46) They knew that “He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes.” (Mark 7:29) But some people, the majority, held on to their “old wine”, as Jesus called it.“No man, having drunk old wine immediately desires the new; for he says the old is better”. (Luke 5:39)

Cant put old wine-flattened-againAnd this is such an incredible truth; you can see this repeated down through the centuries and the fate of nations and civilizations hung on it. Some folks were confronted with the “New Wine” of the presence of God in the apostles He sent to the nations. Some pagan kings had the grace and the wisdom to recognize the hand of God and the presence of God in the apostles of their day and they received them and worked with them. The result? Their nations converted from heathen darkness to the God of Light. Read about Boniface and his work to bring Christianity to what we now call Germany.Martin Luther Or the incredible effect Martin Luther had on the history of Europe in the 1500’s. Luther brought change, not with the sword or economics or science, but simply in leading his generation to return to the original truth of the Word of God. And Europe was never the same after so many nations received the truth of God through Luther.

But the sad thing is the times when the people or the rulers were presented with a new message from God, an exposure of their lapses or a call to take a further step in the path of faith and righteousness.

Jerusalem destroyed; 586 BC

Jerusalem destroyed; 586 BC

History is full of examples of both leaders and the masses who shunned the voices of God that He sent, rejecting His messengers and His truth that was sent to deliver them from the troubles they were in. This was never more clearly happening than with the people of Israel, before their destruction and subjugation by Babylon around 586 BC. “They mocked the messengers of God, and despised His Word and misused His prophets til the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, and there was no remedy.” (II Chronicles 36:16)

The history of Europe is strewn with examples of these times, some of which went well and many which didn’t. Multitudes of blog articles could be written regarding these things when the subject of the French Revolution comes up. Or the history of Russia, leading up to the fall of the Czar and the overthrow of Orthodox Russia, bringing in the Marxist-Leninist-Stalinist Empire of the Soviet Union.

There were opportunities in all these things where a leader could have arisen to courageously lead his people out of their dilemmas by taking the higher ground of God’s will, truth and Word. But so often, this just didn’t happen. It reminds me of the heartbreaking verse in Ezekiel, “I sought for a man among them that might stand in the gap and make up the hedge, that I might not destroy the land, but I found none.” (Ezekiel 22:30) How often in history this has happened! God sought for a man among them to stand up for God and His ways in their desperate times. But He “found none .”

Joan of ArcNo leader of stature could be found by God to “stand in the gap” of the broken wall of God’s will and protection. No leader or even a commoner, like Joan of Arc was so dramatically for the French in the 1400’s, could be found to lift up the message of God, to rally the people to spiritually higher ground, greater obedience, further truth and to continue in the paths God was leading them. So He could no longer protect them.

“They that wander out of the way of understanding and shall remain in the congregation of the dead.” (Proverbs 21:16) God didn’t fail to send them His truth in many forms. When you read history, you can see this over and over. Sometimes it was heeded and the nation was saved from what looked like was doom. Many other times it was rebuffed and mocked. As the martyr Stephen cried to his brethren the Jews in Acts 7, “Which of the prophets have not your fathers persecuted?” (Acts 7:52) And so destruction and even annihilation came.

This is what happened with ancient Israel, so clearly recorded in God’s Word so long ago. And it didn’t just happen with the fall of Jerusalem to Babylon in 586 BC. This has happened again and again to societies and nations over the last 2500 years .

Like the old song said, “When will they ever learn?” Well, some do. But the warning to us all is fearful and awesome. “Believe in the Lord your God, so shall ye be established; believe His prophets, so shall you prosper.” (II Chronicles 20:20)

Matches, when I was 5

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I was 5 years old in Marlin, Texas. My parents both went to work every day so I was left alone with a “Negro maid”. I was pretty much on my own so I was out on my tricycle a lot, riding around the neighborhood and just checking things out.

Four years old; Marlin, Texas

Four years old; Marlin, Texas

I guess it was summer because a friend of mine who was 7 and I were out in a vacant lot and we decided to start a fire. I knew enough already to clear all the dead and dry grass around in order to make a little clearing and a circle of stones to make the fire in. But we needed a way to start it. We decided that I would go back home and snitch a box of matches which I knew were in a place in the kitchen, without our maid knowing of course.

So I got back with the matches and we were all ready to make our little fire. Boy, did I learn some lessons. First one was that, strange as it may seem, 7 year olds are not always smarter than 5 year olds. My friend suddenly started striking matches and throwing them out into the dry grass, rather than to light a fire in the circle of stones that we’d agreed on. I was yelling at him not to do that but to no avail. The next thing we knew, the grass was on fire and a right good grass fire was suddenly started up in the neighborhood.Striking matches-a-resized

Heading out into the neighborhood, looking for adventure

Heading out into the neighborhood, looking for adventure

And, would you believe it, the fire department had to come out with two fire trucks and put out the blaze. Good they did, since the vacant lot was surrounded by bungalows on 3 sides.

I really got in trouble. I got some serious discipline which I remember I didn’t fight much as I had enough conscience to know I’d done wrong by going back to the house and sneaking off with those matches. But my 7 year old friend? Nothing happened to him. His dad had been a pilot and was killed in the Korean War; his mom was a nurse at the Veterans’ hospital. He didn’t get any discipline.

I thought it wasn’t fair, he was the one that was stupid, it seemed to me. But I knew what I got was fair as I’d done wrong and I knew it. But it was good in a sense that nothing really bad came of this beyond a grass fire in a vacant lot that the Marlin fire department had to come and put out.

What in the world of a lesson can be found in this? Well, like Moses said, “Be sure your sin will find you out.” (Numbers 32:23) I didn’t know that verse back then but I had an active enough conscience that the principle was certainly clear to me. Also, like Job said, “Great men are not always wise. Neither do the aged understand judgment.”  (Job 32:9) I was really surprised at my 7 year old friend that he didn’t have more wisdom than that to just start throwing matches out into dry grass. Even I knew that and I was 5.

And then I was thinking tonight, “Well, son-of-a-gun, it’s in some ways like I’m throwing matches out into dry grass.” Only in this case it’s not to do mischief but in hopes to start fires for the Lord in a positive way, a little like the verse, “Cast thy bread upon the waters for thou shalt find it after many days.Give a portion to seven and also to eight.” (Ecclesiastes 11:1 & 2) Some of the things I write, it’s like, and “Who needs this? strike a match flatThis is kind of ‘out there’”. But maybe it will catch fire in a good sense somewhere. Someone will be moved by it; someone will respond to it, someone will be inspired and inflamed by it, just like a match on dry grass.

That incident when I was 5 was a very memorable moment for me. The whole episode could have gone much worse. The fire could have caught the houses nearby on fire and injured people. I was doing something I knew in my heart was wrong. The older kid didn’t seem to have the knowledge and conscience that I did, although he was two years older than me. That was a surprise.

But it was a memorable moment on many fronts. I never saw anything good in it at all that I did; it was just wrong. “A child left to himself, brings his mother to shame” (Proverbs 29:15). I’d been left alone to ride my bike around the neighborhood at the age of 5 almost every day and I got into mischief.

But tonight I was thinking about these blog posts and the thought came to me that it’s like throwing matches out into dry grass. Only in this case, it is in an attempt to do good, not mischief. It’s an attempt to help other Christians ignite for the Lord and be a light for Him. “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your father which is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)