Category Archives: Insights and personal views

Bad death, good death

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I was thinking about death. I guess I experienced “bad death” just before I turned 21. I had a near death experience that wasn’t one of those “the-angel-introduces-you-to-Jesus” experiences. Nope, I got the other guy. And rightly so.

I was an utter atheist and I enjoyed trying to break the faith of any quasi-Christians that came across my path. But when I was very nearly pulled out of my body by the spirit of darkness, there was a terror and a bundle of emotions which don’t really have words to reflect them in English.

I was experiencing a bad death. I didn’t believe in God and I was very nearly at the edge of the precipice into eternity and everlasting life but in an unregenerate state.

This was the experience of the unsaved because that was how I was at that time, passing out of my body and into eternity but without salvation in Jesus. If you have read much about folks who have life-after-death experiences or near death experiences, one continually striking characteristic is that almost everyone finds it hard to describe what they experienced.

And I believe it’s because they’re trying to describe experiences and realms that our language just doesn’t have words for, or at least very little. So folks think that those who experience these things are just making it up. Or they are in some kind of strange place in their minds and that they will soon “return to their senses”.

But so often those who have gone through these things say that actually and really, those experiences were more real, more true and more containing the essences of life than what we mostly all experience on a day-to-day level. And I can certainly agree with that. So I went through, or at least nearly so, a “bad death”. The death of the unsaved.

And as folks age, as we all do, we often think more of death. For me, I have to comfort myself in the thought that my death at the end of my life will not be what I experienced just before I turned 21. I experienced a “bad death”. And I deserved that at that time because I’d “mocked the messengers of God and despised His word and misused his prophets” (II Chronicles 36:16) so that the Lord allowed me to receive what I deserved, right up to the very point of death and eternal damnation.

But that was what it took to deliver me from atheism. That was the most major turning point in my life and the dawn and beginning of a life of faith, belief and deliverance in God. Some months later I received Jesus as my Savior and after that have served Him in many countries for over 50 years.

Now in my 70’s, longevity in my genes, I look forward to the point somewhere ahead when I do experience what we all experience. “So death passed upon all men…” (Romans 5:12) But that death ahead of me will not be like what I went through over 50 years ago. That coming death will be what can be called a “good death”. Paul the Apostle said, “For me to live is Christ and to die is gain”. (Philippians 1:21)

Death for a Christian, although this goes against so much of our “carnal mind” as the Bible calls it, is actually a release, a graduation, a transition and an alteration into the condition God has planned and ordained for His children and saints since the beginning of time. Jesus said, “Whosoever believes in Me shall never die.” (John 11:26)

So my experience from when I was 20 is not really a good analogy for me to use when thinking ahead to what that experience will be at the end of my life. Maybe in some ways it is because I did experience that sudden, shocking and complete change that occurs. But back then, it was from this world into a so much worse world of horror and meaningless confusion that words fail to describe. I experienced the terrors of hell in its eternal state.

But the “good death” to come for me will have a few similarities but mostly be utterly different. I won’t be falling into bottomless nothingness forever. I will be leaving this physical plane, this earthly existence and going on to inherit the destiny that’s been planned and prepared for me by the Lord since the foundation of the world.

That’s what the people of faith, the people of Jesus, have to look forward to at the end of their lives. Their carnal minds may still grown and creak with the whole concept of “eternal life”. But that’s ok. Like God said to Job, “Shall it be according to your mind?” (Job 34:33) No, it will not be according to our carnal, worldly minds and understanding.

“Now unto him that shall do exceeding abundantly, above all we can ask or think…, unto Him be glory in the church throughout all ages, world without end.” (Ephesians 3:20 & 21)   I’m looking forward to a good death. How about you?

Smoke and Mirrors

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Have you ever felt you were surrounded by fluff and froth? The hype, the posturing, the flaunted pretenses? Just think, did Jesus have a public relations team? Did Jesus worry about His image and issue press releases? Umm, no.

One of the greatest blessings of being a discipleship Christian is that the Lord strips away the pretension, the falsehood, the insincerity that’s so naturally a part of the landscape of this present world. The Lord has ways of putting us through the fire to burn away the dross and the immense vanity that is the accompanying baggage of virtually every person in this world.

The Lord said He would have us be as children with their guileless innocence and their nearness to the fundamentals of life. But the farther we go in “the course of this world” (Ephesians 2:2), the more we take on what Jesus called “leaven” (Luke 12:1). That’s not a word used or understood much anymore but it refers to the yeast that bakers would use back then. The yeast “leavened” the bread. It made it rise and be bigger but it didn’t really add much in the way of substance or nourishment.

The Bible said it so simply 2000 years ago that people get “puffed up”. But when that’s all that you can see anymore, it becomes the new normal, “par for the course” and the emperor’s clothes that everyone is suppose to see. But a few still blurt out that there really isn’t anything there!

I can’t tell you how thankful I am for the pureness and reality that can be found in a life of following the truths of the Bible. As so many poets, song writers and thinkers have said through the generations, this present world is an upside-down, backwards fantasia that we all have to navigate through each day. And it’s a battle for the people of faith as we’re just humans of like passions and can easily succumb to the sirens of Satan that seem to be virtually on every corner and on every web site.

And the funny thing is, nearly everyone is still strangely aware that something is not quite right. So many things have a funny ring to them. Or, like food, you bite into it and you can just tell there is nothing there; no nourishment, no value, just fluff. So I am dumbfounded that somehow the high God has made it so that I can turn back to the truths that were revealed to me when I was 21 years old. I can go back to the Bible verses I memorized at that time and find that they still strongly resonate with me, like dear old friends whose companionship is still as strong and real as it was when I first met them long ago.

To be honest, perhaps all of us of the people of faith get hit with the idea every so often, “I guess I’m a little weird.” Ha! Do you think Moses in Egypt ever thought that? Or Noah before the Flood? I guess that’s the price we have to pay for being “strangers and pilgrims on the earth” (Hebrews 11:13).

But here’s a thought. Pity the multitudes of pitiful “sheep” in this present world, people who are mingled among the great mass of humanity in these present times but who don’t really know the Lord yet. That was how I was. I was a sheep of God but I didn’t know it. So I tried to run with the wolves and the people who are truly comfortable with the darkness and the valueless vanity of these times.

I just didn’t fit in, although I really tried. I was a sheep of God but I didn’t know it. And there are still multitudes like that now, misfits, “queer” characters who don’t know who they are until somehow the voice of God breaks through to them. It could be someone who shared some snippet of the truth of God with them, some Christian song they heard, some dream they had, something that awakens them out of the present darkness and draws them into the light of God’s truth and love which is what they were actually looking for all along.

But really, how can any of us discern the fluff from solid, tangible truths and realities? For the people of faith, we have the measuring stick of God’s truths in His Word and personal contact with the Spirit of God who can “lead us into all truth” (John 16:13), even in times such as these.

Thankfully there is an alternative to the smoke and mirrors, bells and whistles and façades and charades of these times. There is the blissful resonance of the truth to be found in the Word of God. There is the warmth to be found in the matchless love that the Lord can bring to you through a fellow Christian. Without the truth and reality of the Lord, those of us who are His would not be able to withstand the forces of the insanity that is upon the world at this time.

Perhaps that is why there’s such an increase in suicides and drug use. May the Lord help us all to continue to be His light and salt, to be His hands to reach out to help the immense number of people who are fainting and dying in this time that’s so lacking in truth and flooded with shadows.

Truth us, oh Lord!

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Can “truth” be a verb? Can God “truth us”? I never thought of that before. But, my gosh, how we need God to truth us. What darkness we live in, what confusion, what banality. But God can truth us. He can just almost blast us with the truth, blowing away the clouds and the gloomy uncertainty.

Oh, how we need that. Left to ourselves, we would be quickly overcome with the onslaught of bewilderment that assails us every day. No wonder many people just leave all to go live alone in the woods. Maybe they hope to find their sanity again there. Or they reluctantly take their little children out of public school because they realize how much darkness now dominates those formerly happy halls of learning.

So we need a powerful infusion of truth, the same way people die without an infusion of oxygen. It’s that serious in these times. Maybe that’s something I like, strange as it may seem, about this present indescribable war in Ukraine. I lived in eastern Ukraine for 18 months just over 10 years ago so I know those cities , those roads, those fields, those people and those children and orphanages. But, strange as it may seem, the war in Ukraine has brought a glimmer of sanity back into the Western world and the world overall.

When your personal friends who you know and love are face to face with one of the strongest armies in the world, when they could die any day along with the hundreds of people who they are regularly ministering to in a city you once lived in, then the whole question of “fake news” and what the “elites” are doing really fades out of the picture.

I don’t know what’s happening in Ukraine from the mass media. I know from what my personal friends are telling me from there. And this is good because for far too long so many of us have been imposed upon to live in some kind of fantasia “la-la land” where there virtually is no truth but everything we hear and read is doubted and questioned. I don’t question the war in Ukraine. I wake up every morning to find if my personal friends still in Kharkov, Dnipro and Kiev have survived the night and are alive this morning.

The Bible says “God is not the author of confusion” (I Corinthians 14:33). But then who is the author of confusion? Truly, it’s the devil himself. He thrives on sowing confusion at every opportunity and that confusion is so much a hallmark of our present times.

We need the Lord to truth us, to just be that powerful that His love, His truth and His reality will be that much greater than the confusion and insanity of this present evil world. I’m so thankful for the promises of God in His Word that He will tell us the truth, that we will be able to continue with a “sound mind” (II Timothy 1:7) and that the onslaughts of the enemies of God, as well as the meandering confusion of the lost sheep, goats, snakes, foxes and wolves of this world will not be victorious over the truth of God that He continues to pump into His children.

Lord help us all to hold onto the truth of God the way an underwater diver holds on to their oxygen mask. Truly we are like that, under water in this world of misinformation, confusion and lack of absolutes. So we need our good Godly helpers in the Spiritual world on the surface above us, like as if they were in a boat above us in the water, to keep that spiritual oxygen pumping to us, so we can stay alive down here in these present depths.

As strange as it may seem, this is perhaps how those in the spiritual world and God’s great hereafter view us who presently live in these realms below. That we are totally dependant on the armor of God, sustained by the lifeline from above of truth-giving Spirit and life itself that only comes from God. Thus we survive and can function here in this alien world but only as we work together with our life-giving sustainers, the angels of God and the Sustainer Himself, God’s Holy Spirit.

Stay alive brethren. Don’t get “the rapture of the deep” where you just get enchanted with the strange underworld we presently live in and decide to go sauntering off into it. Keep the vision that we are not of this present underworld. Keep breathing the oxygen that is from above, pumped down to us by God’s blessed Holy Spirit through the mask and piping of His salvation so that we can continue to exist in this strange reality that we now dwell in, “as strangers and pilgrims” (Hebrews 11:15).

And may the Lord continue to “truth us”, to powerfully pump His truth to us so we can make sense of things and keep our heads while all about us others are losing theirs. So it is for now. Amen, Lord truth us!

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.

What if the wolf was really there?

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What if the wolf was really there? In the end, the real wolf showed up in the story of the little boy who cried wolf. But people had become so skeptical, they didn’t believe it. Folks and friends, the wolf is there. No, he doesn’t show up all the time and there are lots of people falsely crying “wolf” nowadays. Nevertheless, the wolf is real.

That’s what bothers me. At the end of the movie “Don’t look up”, as the doomsday apocalyptic comet is striking the earth and vast earthquakes shake the planet, the scientist played by Leonardo DiCaprio is having a “last supper” with his family and he pauses to say whimsically to everyone, “We really did have it good, didn’t we?”

But too late. He had been the scientist trying desperately to tell the leaders of America that they had 6 months to take action against a “planet killer” comet that was in alignment to strike the earth. But to no avail. Like Jeremiah of old, he was mocked and dismissed by the leaders of his country, while making little headway with the general population who in DiCaprio’s case were overwhelmingly preoccupied with the technological delicacies of our times, along with the glitzy glamour of the modern media.

In the end, the wolf got them because they’d been lulled to sleep by their hardened hearts and increasingly skeptical perceptions so that reality in its most true form was not really able to be perceived anymore. That’s one reason why I got a lot out of that movie.

A verse that came to me about it after watching the movie was, “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23). It just shows the enormity of the sin that is upon this nation and so many others in our times to which virtually all are oblivious to. When someone shows up who’s telling them verifiable, objective, in-your-face truth about a coming reckoning unlike any before, were they believed? No.

Unbelief and reprobate, hardened hearts were unable to come to grips with simple truth-tellers and so the window of time they had to take action in was frittered away. And, in the end, the planet was virtually destroyed.

It so much reminds me of the obscure but deeply haunting verse at the end of the second book of Chronicles. Talking about the all-encompassing judgment on the nation of Israel 2600 years ago, as the Babylonians closed in to devastate and destroy the nation that had represented the God of Abraham for around 800 years, the text describes the situation in Israel as this. “But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised His words and misused His prophets until the wrath of the Lord arose against His people, till there was no remedy.”  (II Chronicles 36:16)

They had been warned, repeatedly. It’s not for the faint-hearted but if you think you can take it, read the first chapters of the book of Jeremiah and see if any of it reminds you of modern America or the Western world at large.

My friends, in the case of the people of those times, the wolf came. And God allowed it. He had warned them, repeatedly. But an increasing dullness and darkness had settled upon and entered into the hearts of the vast multitude of people so that the lone truth-tellers were looked on as cranks and fools.

The wolf came but they didn’t believe. What a warning, what a lesson. I just wonder who will have taken this to heart? Actually, we don’t have to look back 2600 years to see this process in action. If there was ever a “wolf”, it was Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement in Germany in the 1930’s.

But the clear historical record shows that so many people in the Europe and even in the America of that time just vehemently didn’t want to believe that it was really that bad. “Surely we can work out around this. Surely there will be ‘peace in our times’.” That was the popular and majority opinion. But in this case, it was the British statesman Winston Churchill who with flint-like resolution continued to sound out a warning to all who would listen about the mortal threat of Hitler and Nazism.

Was Churchill listened to? No, not for a very long time and almost until it was too late. Churchill said that at one point in the late 1930’s he could count on the fingers of one hand the number of friends he had in the British parliament. But Churchill was proven true. The wolf was real, he was there and it was just almost too late before the people of Britain awoke to this truth.

Do you know of any Churchills around today? Sadly, I don’t. So we get our warnings from wherever the Lord can somehow engineer them to get to us. I’m sorry if I end this on a sad and foreboding note. But that movie, “Don’t look up” struck me personally to very accurately portray the dithering, distracted, weakened, sin-soaked souls of what seems to be the majority of the peoples of the Western and northern worlds at this time. May the Lord help us all and have mercy.

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.

Not easily satisfied

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Often, we’re not easily satisfied. The general of an ancient king came to a prophet to be healed. The prophet didn’t even go out to meet him. Instead he sent a messenger to tell the general to go wash in a small, muddy local river. The general was incensed. “Is that all?” seemed to be the question of his heart.

Scripture explains the incident like this. “But the general was very angry and went away saying, ‘I thought surely the prophet would come out to me and stand, calling on the name of the Lord his God, and strike his hand over the place, recovering the leper.’”

Continuing his complaint, the general said, “Are not the rivers of Damascus better than all the waters of Israel? May I not wash in them and be clean? So he turned and went away in a rage.”

This gets to be rather like what I wrote about in “Does God have a sense of Humor?” We can look at it now and smile at the petulant, pompous commander in his fit of pique. What a patient and loving God we have who could have just gotten fed up with the situation and struck the general dead on the spot. But instead, the Lord allowed the general’s servants to admonish and reason with the him.

The Bible says, “The general’s servants came near and spoke to him, saying, “My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, wouldn’t you have done it? How much rather then, when he said to you, ‘Wash, and be clean‘”?

And it all turned out to have a happy ending. Scripture goes on to say, “Then the general went down and dipped himself seven times in the Jordan River, according to the saying of the man of God. And the king’s flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child and he was clean.” This is all found in II Kings 5:10-14.

How about you? For that matter, how about me? I’ll admit that I may at times have a little of the attitude of that ancient military commander, Lord help and deliver me. There are times when I want to see some mighty moving of the hand of God in my life or in the world, when instead the message that comes back from heaven is rather like what it says in Zachariah, “despise not the day of small things.” (Zach. 4:10)

When Elijah was on the mountain and it was rent with fire and storm, the Bible goes on to say that the Lord wasn’t in either of those. But then, after the fire and storm, the Bible says that Elijah heard a “still, small voice”. (I Kings 19:12)

Some of us want the storm. I wrote about that recently in “Before the storm”. I don’t think that’s bad in itself. Jesus even named two of his top disciples, “Boanerges” which meant, “sons of thunder”.  (Mark 3:17)

But for all the times in our lives when we are swept up in the mighty power of the Lord, in huge reapings or winings of souls across a nation, miraculous healings, astounding revelations and life changing events, you have to admit that the majority of the time that’s just not how things usually go for most of us.

More often we are to be about our Father’s business in meaningful but simple daily tasks, whether they be physical or spiritual. But it’s easy for some of us to let dissatisfaction creep in. The Bible talks about “patient continuance in well doing” (Romans 2:7). But then we are tempted to “grow weary and faint in our minds” (Hebrews 12:3).

The Bible says, “Moreover it is required in stewards that a man be found faithful” (I Cor. 4:2). But our own wayward heart can find fault in this. We can find the temptation to boredom springing up in the garden of our heart. We can be like the people the Bible talks about who say, “‘My Lord delays his coming’ and they began to eat and drink and be merry” (Luke 12:45).

I wonder if Jesus was ever tempted with anything like this? It says He was “in all points tempted like we are” (Hebrews 4:15). But then I’m struck by the simple adverb that’s repeatedly used to describe the Lord towards the end of His time on this earth, “He set his face steadfastly to go to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51)

Steadfast. Not bored, not cynical, not jaded or double-minded, not weary in well doing and fainting in His mind.

Maybe the Holy Spirit is saying to some of us today what the king’s servants said to him long ago, “My father, if the prophet had bid you do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much rather then, when he said to you, “Wash, and be clean?”

We, or perhaps I should just speak for myself, I need to steadfastly continue in all the Lord has already shown me I should be doing, all that He has opened the door for and gotten started already. It’s not smart in any way to get impatient or dissatisfied with the ways of the Lord. It’s good to stay desperate with Him and to desire to stay close to Him. But the main thing is to continue to obey, follow and be satisfied with what He has been directing personally in our lives, as we delight ourselves in Him.

Continue in the things you have known

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Sometimes you don’t know what to do. You seem to be in fog. You become uncertain about your direction and even your vision and goals. I’ve been like that. And tonight I had to really go out and pray about it.

In these times there is a major cacophony of voices and proponents, fervently pointing to what they feel is the way forward. Meanwhile for most folks, it’s like what the verse says about “Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision” (Joel 3:14). What really is the way forward? Who actually does have the high ground when it comes to truth, relevancy and anything close to the voice of God and His love, truth and reason in these strange times?

I’ve been troubled and somewhat weighted down by these things for some months. Meanwhile I’ve been very embroiled in the physical side of making a move and buying house for the first time. I know it’s been the Lord and amazing things have worked out.

But it gets to be a little like what the apostles said in Acts chapter 6, “It is not right that we leave the word of God and serve tables.” (Acts 6:2) There are times when every person is called to just simply take care of things and of other people physically. But usually the Lord doesn’t want that to become our preoccupation. He has other things that are more pressing for the work of the Kingdom of God for us and I’ve certainly been feeling that.

Sometimes we just lose the thread, lose the rhythm and the pace of our lives , lose what we feel the Lord is really leading and doing and what His highest and best is. It’s been that way for me for a while as I try to turn back to more of the will of God overall after months of consolidating this new housing change.

If you’re used to trying to maintain a relatively close link with the Lord, trying to abide in that place where you feel the Lord is leading you presently and specifically, then it can be a troubling thing to feel you’ve not heard clearly from the Lord for some time about what exactly He has for you. Of course some Christians, perhaps many, have never really been taught to try to have that kind of relationship with the Lord.

But for those who’ve had a lifetime of Christian service, you just take it on board that you need to do what you can to maintain a continuing link with the Lord through prayer, where you feel and know you’ve really continued to hear from the Lord personally, His answers coming back to you in response to your desperate prayers.

There are so many verses on this. One of my favorites is “Call unto me and I will answer you and show you great and mighty things which you know not.” (Jeremiah 33:3). I was in a new Sunday school class last week and there was something in the lesson that opposed the idea of “name it and claim it” when it comes to Scripture. So I felt led to pipe up and say that actually there are times when we can and should claim and appropriate Scripture, bringing it before the Lord and claiming a verse in His Word that it will be fulfilled in our lives.

So I personally believe and live by the knowledge that we can get personal answers to prayer, directions, response, feedback and basic communications personally from the Lord to lead our lives and answer our prayers and needs.

That’s what happened tonight. I just really needed to get some response back, some direction from Him as He has done so regularly in my life for decades. I was looking for clarity, direction, some setting of the tone, some flash of lightning on what has been becoming an increasingly dark night.

And the Lord responded. Nothing shocking or profound but as is often the case, rather reasonable and what was almost common sense but also filled with wisdom, peace and strength. It could be boiled down to the verse which says something like “Continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of”(II Timothy 3:14) . The Lord was telling me that I should just continue in all He’s been telling me to do for months and years now. All the projects that He has gotten me started on but that are far from finished, all the articles, all the videos, all the leadings and new directions which He’s already set me in motion towards which I’ve not in any way finished.

“The slothful man roasts not that which he took in hunting, but the substance of the diligent man is precious.” (Proverbs 12:27) I’ve got a lot of stuff like that. Unfinished videos, nearly done, which could be a help to so many people, in over a dozen languages. Articles unfinished, directions that Lord has pointed me down, all of which are like “half baked cakes” which means there is still plenty more to just do what the Lord has already shown me to do for some time now.

It was refreshing to get this feedback from the Lord. I need to continue in what He’s already shown me to do. I don’t have to have some new revelation at this time. If I’ll just continue with all the Lord has shown me already, all that He’s done already, then I will stay on track and continue to proceed towards these visions and goals.

“Then shall we know if we continue on to know the Lord.” (Hosea 6:3) This was a help to give me a little nudge and encouragement to continue to go forward with all the truth, love and direction that I have had already from the Lord. And probably, further down the line as I go forward for Him, He will show me even more. I feel better now, ha!

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.

 

Friends

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Friends. I’ve never really thought deeply about that word. We say it, use it, but seldom deeply look into it. Churchill’s friendship with Roosevelt was a bedrock of the alliance between Great Britain and the USA which were able to overcome Nazi German nearly 80 years ago.

That’s all mostly forgotten in these times. But so often it really did come down to the friendship, trust, and accord between two men of that time that radically and utterly changed the course of history, without which many of us, if we were even alive, would now be speaking German or Japanese. Really.

Churchill repeatedly stressed his personal friendship and camaraderie with Roosevelt in those times and, from reading Churchill’s 5 volume tomb on the history of World War II, I utterly believe that is true. In a very personal telegram from on March 18, 1945, Churchill wrote to Roosevelt, “Our friendship is the rock on which I build the future of the world, as long as I am one of the builders.” Roosevelt passed on to his heavenly reward less than 4 weeks later.

Who examines friendship? Who studies it or delves into its being or interworking? I can say I’ve never read much about that. I’m a Christian and I often revert to the words of Jesus. He said to His 12 followers, “I have called you friends.” (John 15:15) Honestly, I’ve never in my life really thought about that. I’ve just taken that word and concept for granted as something we all understand.

But right now in what I’m reading in Churchill’s history, it is at an extremely pregnant moment. It’s early 1945. Allied forces have already crossed the Rhine River into Germany and are focused on reaching Berlin to end World War II. Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin have met in the Crimea to discuss the aftermath of WWII and how the world will be governed afterwards.

Suddenly a dark cloud appears in the earlier relative camaraderie and unity that existed between the leaders of Britain, the USA and the USSR. Poland in particular is falling more and more under the rule of what Churchill sees as utterly Soviet puppets, “the Lublin committee” who were totally in the Marxist/Leninist/Stalinist camp. These ones rejected any other group but their own being a part of the new Polish government, something totally at odds with the agreements between Churchill, Roosevelt and Stalin at Yalta in the Crimea a few months before.

In what could be considered a measured desperation, Churchill kept sending communications to Roosevelt, his trusted and true friend, to try to head off what Churchill could see was happening. But something had changed. Evidently it was a result of Roosevelt’s steeply declining health at this time. Churchill came to realize that the communications between him and Roosevelt were not the same as before and he felt that what he was hearing back was no longer really and truly from Roosevelt personally.

Like a movie where 75% through it the plot suddenly changes and there’s a deep twist into the unforeseen and the unfortunate, Stalin of Russia turns from the agreements between the 3 men a few months before. Churchill implores Roosevelt to intervene, to try to get things back to what the three world leaders had agreed on at the Yalta conference.

But it was not to be. As the German Nazi menace moved towards a final defeat, a new danger and darkness arose, not totally unforeseen but certainly hoped against as Churchill had gone the extra mile over and over again to try to establish a friendship and trust between himself and Stalin, as well as the Soviet foreign minister Molotov.

But it was not to be. Stalin, following the self-interest of Soviet, Marxist/Leninist doctrine, did not stay true to the agreements made with Churchill and Roosevelt at Yalta. And Roosevelt himself was entering into the last months of his life. Churchill writes that he felt an ominous chill upon his soul at this time to foresee what was arising before him, even as World War II was reaching its conclusion.

I’ve been struck by how much weight and significance Churchill put on friendship as being a rock for him in the war years.

He and Roosevelt really liked each other and enjoyed each other’s company. They mostly saw eye to eye on the affairs of WWII and Roosevelt truly respected Great Britain and Churchill in how Britain, led by Churchill, almost single-handedly stood up against Hitlerian Germany all through the early war years, when basically only Britain was left undefeated in Europe and the USA had not entered the war yet.

It’s an incredible read and I never saw how much it came down to friendship, the friendship and trust between Roosevelt and Churchill and even the bond that was able to be forged for a while at least between Churchill, Roosevelt and to a surprising degree, the leader of Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin.

Maybe I need to appreciate friendship more. Evidently Jesus certainly did. He said, “I have not called you servants but friends.” We can’t comprehend this. The very Son of God, having come down from heaven, saying this to bumbling, uncouth fishermen and the “unlearned and ignorant men” (Acts 4:12) who the Lord chose to be His followers.

I think I’ve never really thought about friendship as much as tonight. Winston Churchill was having the truth dawn on him that his dear personal friend, the President of the United States, was quickly fading from relevance as his health rapidly declined. And Churchill’s bond with Stalin was also unraveling as Poland, Romania and other countries increasingly came under the dictatorship of Soviet Communism even before World War II ended.

How many know that Churchill was the one who coined the phrase, “the Iron Curtain”, the most well-known axiom for the annexation of eastern Europe by Soviet Russia at the end of World War II? Churchill’s “Sinews of Peace” address of 5 March 1946 used the term “iron curtain” in the context of Soviet-dominated Eastern Europe. Church said,

“From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the Continent. Behind that line lie all the capitals of the ancient states of Central and Eastern Europe. Warsaw, Berlin, Prague, Vienna, Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest and Sofia; all these famous cities and the populations around them lie in what I must call the Soviet sphere, and all are subject, in one form or another, not only to Soviet influence but to a very high and in some cases increasing measure of control from Moscow.”

In my growing up, “the Iron Curtain” was heard in the news almost every day. To Churchill, it must have been a real and unforeseen nightmare that he did all he could to withstand.  But his coalition of friends which he worked so hard to forge and keep together unraveled in the last months of World War II.

Friendship. How deep and important it is. How unappreciated, how unstudied, how foundational it can be in the most significant affairs of each of our lives. What a shocking tragedy it is when it unexpectedly ends. Jesus had His Judas. We hear of Quisling of Norway or Benedict Arnold.

Or Ahitophel who turned against king David of Israel. King David said,

“My own familiar friend in whom I trusted. We took sweet council together and walked into the house of God.” (Psalm 41:9 & 55:15) The psalm goes on to describe the treachery of this friend of David

What can we say? Hopefully we can appreciate our friends, love them, value them, cultivate them, cherish them. That’s what I’ve been learning from the unfolding of events and the ending of the relationships between Churchill , Roosevelt and Stalin at the end of World War II. Churchill called his ending book on the history of World War II, “Triumph and Tragedy”. How truly fitting that title is.

A Bible verse I often think of is, “Be not overcome of evil, but overcome evil with good.” (Romans 12:21) In World War II, Churchill, Roosevelt and even Stalin banded together to do just that, to not be overcome of the Nazi evil but to overcome it with the good of their united stand, based so much on the bond of personal friendship between the three of them which at least lasted long enough to overcome the indescribable Nazi horror of those times.