Category Archives: Personal views & lessons

Commune with your own heart

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I had a rough night. Woke up at 5 AM and started thinking about current dilemmas I’m in. I was soon wide awake and thinking hard, as well as also praying and looking to the Lord. At length I got up, took a small amount of a sleep aid and went back to bed.

But I was troubled and searching my thoughts and heart for a solution. After a while an idea kind of rose to the surface that I’d not thought of before. I was hoping for something more of a direct revelation that I could be sure was straight from the Lord.

Hours past as I eventually went back to sleep and woke somewhat refreshed. The new idea had come to look like at least a reasonable possibility which I want to try to put into action today.

But the real kicker came later this morning, after my daily devotion time, when I went out for a little prayer. A verse came to mind, “Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still.“ (Psalm 4:4) It wasn’t until I got to the second part of the verse that I realized how closely it matched my experience a few hours earlier. I had been communing with my own heart upon my bed.

That realization astounded me. I guess I had never thought of it that way—that simply searching my heart in the quiet of the night could be a form of hearing from God or at least a space where He could bring ideas to mind. But that’s what had happened. And then, as I was walking outside, the Lord brought that very verse to me—an obscure one, yet perfectly fitting.

Of course there were so many “knock on” effects to this. There’s nothing more encouraging than knowing the Lord has spoken to you, even in a quiet, unexpected way. It’s easy to feel like “it’s all over now,” that your best years are behind you, and there’s nothing left but to be put ‘out to pasture’ by the Lord. But getting something from the Lord helps to dispel thoughts like this.

And then there was more. When I went back inside to add that verse to my memory system, my eyes landed directly on Psalm 4:4—already written on one of my memory cards. I had evidently memorized it some time ago. But today, the Lord led me to look directly on it as I was going through my memory system, bringing it back a second time in such a personal, unmistakable way.

Well, God’s little miracles. I really needed this. Since returning from Uganda three weeks ago, I’ve faced some intense battles in my ministry. I know I’m at a major crossroads, needing to move in new directions, but many things still feel uncertain, and I’ve been wrestling with “the big picture.”

So I just wanted to share with you this little thing I got from the Lord and how “communing with your own heart upon your bed” can be a way sometimes for the Lord to bring things to your mind, answers from Him, even though it can almost seem like “leaning to your own understanding”. (Proverbs 3:5)

Sometimes the Lord can use our good common sense and gifts of the Spirit like wisdom and knowledge, instead of any outstanding revelation, thundering down upon us from heaven. May He continue to bless us all with His presence and whispers. He’s the one who’s way out in front and knows what’s going to happen and is able to lead us and guide us and show us what to do.

“For the Lord your God, He it is that goes before you.“ (Deuteronomy 31:8)

Me and USAID

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I woke up before dawn today, reflecting on my experiences with USAID. I was at the western tip of Indonesia twenty years ago today, in the aftermath of “the Christmas Tsunami”, which claimed the lives of 155,000 people in Banda Aceh, the capital of Aceh province.

At the time, I was an aid worker at a large, makeshift refugee camp north of the city, alongside three friends. We were doing what we could as translators for a group of Korean doctors who had just arrived to assist in the chaotic aftermath of the 9.2 earthquake and subsequent tsunami that struck the Acehnese coast.

I had brought a video camera with me and was capturing footage while I helped at the camp that morning. I later compiled a video of the events, which you can view on YouTube here. I recommend jumping to 15:02 in the video. The next 2 minutes there shows what I experienced with the United States aid agency USAID that day.

Suddenly, there was a flurry of excitement as people pointed to the sky. A large helicopter, with no markings, began circling low over the camp. It then landed about 100 yards away and began unloading boxes. In the video, you can see dozens of Acehnese people, along with a tall Texan friend of mine, rushing toward the helicopter to investigate.

I’ll never forget the overwhelming sense of pride I felt when I realized it was a US Navy helicopter, stationed on an aircraft carrier off the coast, unloading boxes of supplies from USAID. Young men from the camp began collecting the boxes that had been dropped from the helicopter and bringing them back to the main tent. Camp elders later distributed the aid to families of the thousands of survivors who had gathered there in their time of need.

The helicopter had no markings because Aceh province had been embroiled in a violent civil war for years. I assume the US forces wanted to avoid being identified or misunderstood in their motives. However, the aid boxes were clearly marked with “USAID,” making it evident that the US military and government were working to alleviate the suffering of the people.

Later, I learned that US helicopters were continuously ferrying doctors up and down the coast, as nearly every bridge had been destroyed by the tsunami’s three 90-foot waves.

This morning, as I thought about the current controversy surrounding USAID in the United States, those memories came flooding back. There’s a massive shake-up underway in Washington. And while I believe much of it is necessary, I also find it personally relevant, given my own experiences abroad as a Christian aid worker, often in refugee camps and orphanages.

I vividly remember the pride I felt when I saw my country’s military providing crucial aid in the wake of one of the worst natural disasters in the last century. It was a moment that reminded me of what I hope my country stands for: genuine, selfless altruism and “loving our neighbors.”

The Bible is full of calls to this kind of action. And I don’t think I’ll ever forget seeing my country represented in such a profound way, both on the ground and in the air, at the moment when help was needed most.

My belief is that the activities of USAID should not be eliminated in the ongoing government reorganization. Whether on an individual level or a national one, caring for the poor and those affected by disasters should be a fundamental part of our lives. You don’t have to be a Christian to believe in this.

In the Bible, God told Jeremiah to “root out, pull down, destroy, and throw down.” But He also told him to “build and plant.” My hope is that in this new wave sweeping our country—and even the world—we won’t throw out the baby with the bathwater. In our zeal to eliminate the bad, we mustn’t stop loving our neighbors, even sacrificially. Jesus said that the greatest among us are those who serve others.

Make America great again? I’m all for it. As Jesus said, “Whosoever will be great among you shall be your servant.”

(An added afterthought from a few days later)

Perhaps a major factor is that my experiences in Indonesia with the USAID happened 20 years ago during the time George W. Bush was President. In recent times Progressive wokism has evidently permeated the organization and skewered it into something totally different from what it was.

 

Christmas thoughts

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Whew! I’m glad it’s Christmas time. Just to have that whiff of fresh air that comes with the sounds, sights and thoughts of Christmas. I’ve had a somewhat traumatic year. It’s not only been the two major surgeries and numerous teeth removed, it’s been the constant depressing news from both abroad and here in my country.

But that’s why I’m embracing Christmas more this year than at other times. I need to get my mind out of the dismal turmoil of the present and on the verities of the enumerable miracles that occurred at the birth of Jesus, which still resonate and impact our present, so many centuries later.

They say, “the greater the darkness, the greater the light” and that’s how Christmas is to me right now. Medically for me this year, there was lower back surgery in February, several months of dental work and then “full reverse shoulder replacement” in August. And I am so very thankful and amazed to be able to say that those all worked out extremely well, with utterly competent doctors and dentists so that I’m now feeling better than I have in years. I really do have a lot to be thankful for.

But also this year, my heart has been grieved and heavy for the plight of the Ukrainians and those suffering in Gaza. I lived 2½ years in eastern Ukraine and Moscow so I feel I know that part of the world pretty well. It has so upset me to hear of the plight of those dear folks and the utter unjustness of Putin’s aggression there.

And although I’ve never been to Gaza or the West Bank, I have friends who’ve lived for extended periods in those places, in Christian service to try to alleviate the suffering there. And in both the news from Ukraine and from the Middle East, the frustration and heart ache builds up in me to an unbearable degree.

Of course, all the while, we are to “cast all our cares on Him for He cares for us”. (I Peter 5:7)  And I do that. Also I am thankful that the Lord has made a way so that I’ve been able to have material produced in both Russian and Arabic which I air weekly throughout the Russian and Arabic speaking world.

Back, before the fall of Communism, Radio Free Europe would broadcast into the countries “behind the Iron Curtain” to provide an alternative view of realty that contradicted what totalitarian Communism propagated to its captive peoples. And still today, though Communism fell over 40 years ago, there’s still an incredible need to broadcast the truth of God to so many parts of the world that are mostly cut off from hearing the gospel of God.

Bethlehem-at-ChristmasSo, thank God for Christmas. Thank God for a “holiday season”, as it is called now, in which nations hearken back to the birth in Bethlehem 2000 years ago of the most unique Man in history, prophesied to come, born of a virgin, despised by His own people, willingly crucified and raised by God the Father on the third day. CNN will probably not be running a special on this and in some places in the West it’s nearly become illegal to even mention it or openly celebrate it.

Nevertheless, the celestial elixirs of God yearly blow upon us like refreshing heavenly monsoons each Christmas, to refocus our minds on the eternal truths that pull us out of the chaotic present and back in to the saving power of God, to deliver us yet again from ourselves and this present evil world.

And I might add, I’m so thankful for my many friends in many lands who I have known through the years, “companions in tribulation” or Facebook friends who I’ve never met physically, who keep in touch and with whom I can have a kindred spirit and to know that there is a link that unites us through faith in Him.

I hope you have had a good year, even if you’ve had to smile through your tears or even your clinched teeth. Somehow we’ve made it through the year, we’ve kept the faith (at least more or less, ha!) and we’ve been strengthened through our trials and experiences. I hope you are continuing to let your light shine before men, that you are “falling on the Rock” and letting Him sustain you and that you are at peace with Him and those around you.

Your friend in Him, Mark

 

 

Eclipse coming my way

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I’m expecting 4 minutes of total eclipse here at my house in less than 3 days. I don’t really know what will come of it. A half million people are said to be travailing to my area to check it out and there are plenty of scare mongers who are telling everyone to stock up on groceries, gasoline and water. Actually, very many Texas counties have declared a state of emergency already in preparation for the event.

It does make sense that there could be really a whole lot of people parked on the side of the road that goes past my house. Full total eclipses are rare and that’s what will be happening here. And folks in these parts can rather easily get pretty free and rowdy so it all just remains to be seen how this will play out.

Meanwhile, the weather forecasters are saying it will be “nip and tuck” as to whether there will be clear skies enough for anyone to be able to view the eclipse. It’s supposed to happen in early afternoon and it’s not certain at all that there will be clear skies to see it. One way or the other, day will be turning to night as the full eclipse passes over here so at least we will be seeing “darkness at noon”.

I’ve thought a lot about what if anything I should write about this event that will be here where I am. Forty years ago, right at this time, I was going through perhaps the greatest “eclipse” of my personal life as my own family fell apart. And, strangely, there was a pop song that was popular right around that time called “Total eclipse of the heart”. It really somehow struck me so deeply what the words of that song said as it summed up what I was going through, so unspeakable and mostly unbearable.

I was going to make a video from my house here, linking this upcoming eclipse to my “eclipse” at this time in 1984. I decided not to do that but instead write something since so very many people in these times are going through their own “eclipses”. The light of their lives suddenly leaves them, their dearest loved one, mate, child or whoever is suddenly just not there and they’re plunged into darkness, just like a total eclipse in the middle of the day.

When that happened to me, I cried every day for 5 months. I woke up in the mornings and was crying in ten seconds. Why am I sharing this? To somehow reach out to anyone, and there are so very many, who are in a personal, mighty “eclipse of the heart”. If that’s not you right now, then perhaps you know of someone who’s life has collapsed, whose dearest loved one has left them, or their family has turned against them and they are suddenly so alone and without light or love in this world that many just give up and die.

I’m so glad I came through that time; it took around 13 months before the vast shadow that was upon my life began to lift. Maybe that’s you just now. Or someone who’s near to you in your life right now. Folks, there is an epidemic of loneliness, despair and spiritual darkness that’s descended on many millions of people around the world in these times.

But eclipses don’t last forever. Mine didn’t. Perhaps a secret for me was that I knew God and His son Jesus. And They are able to deliver us from the lowest hell. It was that faith, that God was bigger than my circumstances, that gave me the grace to just hold on and keep praying through a time like I’d never gone through before.

If it’s you, or someone you love, the secret is to hold on to faith in God. This coming eclipse to my part of the world will pass. We all take that for granted now. And I can tell you personally that if you’re in a total eclipse, a sudden darkness unlike you’ve ever seen before, then hold on. You say you can’t hold on because you don’t know God or Jesus? Then it really is a great time to get acquainted with them.

God is in control of the world and He can bring you through and out of whatever you’re going through, just the way He will bring us through this darkness that’s soon coming to my neck of the woods in central Texas. Hold on to the Lord, He can do what no other can do.

And I might add, back when I was going through my “total eclipse of the heart”, there were a few very dear friends who remained friends with me when it really looked like to most that I would shrivel away and die. But they encouraged me and did what they could to help me through that time. Would to God that all of us would remain steadfast and true friends to those we know who are in a place of darkness at this time. “A friend loves at all times and a brother is born for adversity.” Proverbs 17:17

Angels in Austin

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I’m happy to announce that I’ve started making audio recordings of my blog articles. It’s a new thing for me to produce this kind of material but I thought it would be good since so many people nowadays listen to pod casts and recordings.

This first recording is about supernatural experiences I’ve had in Austin, one around 13 years ago and the other two when I was going to university here. These are articles that on my site, markmcmillion.com. My hope and plan is that this will be the first of more audio shows like this, where I narrate the articles that, Lord willing, will be interesting and be a blessing to you.

All the best to you,

Mark

Here’s the link on YouTube

So, Mark, are you religious?

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“So, Mark, are you religious? Do you think that religion will solve the problems of the world today?”

You’ll hardly every find me using that word, “religious”. I think that word is only twice found in the Bible. I’m not religious, but I found out by severe experience that there is a spiritual world. That Satan, Lucifer is real and so is the God of the Bible.

You don’t like that? I know how you feel. But when reality and truth raised their strange heads directly into my life, then the wise thing to do was to just accept it, whether it was my former viewpoint or not.

That’s how it is for me. There is a spiritual world. The most severe, taxing, words-fail-me-to express experience of my life involved coming to find that there is a spiritual world, inhabited by good and bad spirits. And I had to make an immediate decision at that time as to which group I wanted to align myself with.

That wasn’t religion; please don’t demean me and minimalise me by using that now-hated word. But truth it was; the most fundamental battlefront and expose of truth that could happen.

I don’t come here to discuss religion but to tell you what I found from the most existential personal battle I ever experience in my 70+ years of my life. Don’t talk to me about religion. You are seriously missing the point. It’s the spiritual world I found was real and which I love to talk about, whether it be the miracles I’ve experienced or the fundamental truths I’ve based my life on since I was 21.

Face it. You are trying to trivialize me and mock me when you talk about religion. If there is a spiritual world, and that is what I found, then YOU may find that YOU’re ill-prepared and on shaky ground, if you’ve no knowledge or experience of that realty.

And probably a little “PS” needs to be added. It’s possible that someone reading this might think, “Why did he get so upset? Wasn’t that just a simple, innocent question Mark was asked?”

What I wrote above was the result of a conversation and experience I had with someone. In that situation, it was clear through the tone of voice and overall demeanor of the person I was talking to that it was not a sincere, seeking question but a snarky, veiled attempt to hang the “religious” label on me.

I can see how that question asked by someone else, seeking to understand me better and what I stand for, might have said the same thing. In that case, it would be easy to hear the sincerity in their voice and in that situation I would have answered completely differently.

 

“Summoning” and A.I.

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I scan the horizon daily for “the signs of the times”. Some things have been there for years. But, what’s new? What’s now in view that indicates progress toward the very final end time foreseen in the Bible?

“Artificial Intelligence” has been around for years, in some sense. But in recent times, with things like Chat GPT, there’s a new chapter and a new time of greatly enhanced computer advancement. For me, I view this from the perspective of a Christian who’s looking to see the fulfillment of Bible prophecy and the coming of the future foretold through the Biblical prophets.

I prefer to keep things as simple as possible. But I’m going to need to take the narrative up a notch in discussing A.I. and the Bible, to some of the more mysterious, complex aspects of the Biblical future, spoken of by Jesus and the prophets.

Most of those reading this have heard somewhere of “the Anti-Christ”, the prophesied world dictator who will arise, just before the return of Jesus. And certainly the concept of “the mark of the beast” has become more and more known, even by secularist around the world.

They may not believe it but many millions have come to know the ideas behind the verse that says of a future point in time, “No man might buy or sell unless he had the mark of the beast… in his hand or his forehead”. This is also where the famous reference to “the number of the beast [the anti-Christ] which is 666“. (Revelation 13:16-18)

But the number of those grasping these things greatly shrinks when we get to places in the Bible that may be where we find Artificial Intelligence becoming part of the fulfillment. We could start with one of the least understood things Jesus of Nazareth ever said. And He said it at a pinnacle moment in a pinnacle chapter, when He was telling His disciples about His return to earth and the time just before that event.

Don’t worry if you don’t understand it, I’m not sure anyone yet has a complete, total grasp of how this will be fulfilled. Jesus said, “When you shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, whoso reads, let him understand.” (Matthew 24:15)

Didn’t get it, did you? No worries; we’re going to try to delve into this, comparing Scripture with Scripture, as well as bringing in AI, and then see if there’s a clearer idea of it all from doing that.

Probably the biggest enigma in what Jesus said there is that phrase “the abomination of desolation”. Most likely you have no idea what that is. And I’m not going to be able to definitely clear it all up for you. But it’s worth looking into since Jesus brought it up. And also the prophet Daniel was told about this over 500 years before Jesus pointed to it, when talking about His second coming. [By the way, I went over these things in more detail in a video I did some years ago which linked Jesus’ words in Matthew 24 with the last verse in Daniel 9, verse 27. Here’s the link to that video:]

“Mark! Mark! I have it! The abomination of desolation is the Anti-Christ!”

Well, some do teach that but I personally don’t think the “AC” is the abomination. Jesus said “the abomination of desolation” was spoken of by the prophet Daniel. That phrase is used in several places in Daniel but the one that is most clear is Daniel 11:31. It says this. “And arms [armaments] shall stand on his part, and they shall pollute the sanctuary of strength [soon to be rebuilt temple in Jerusalem]; and they shall take away the daily sacrifice, and they shall place the abomination that makes desolate.”

This and other places always give the picture of the abomination being a thing. Jesus said it will “stand” in the temple. It will be “placed” there. But the Antichrist is a person “the son of perdition”, similarly to how Jesus was a person, the very Son of God. As well, II Thessalonians 2:3 & 4 says the Antichrist will “sit in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God”. So I feel pretty strongly that the abomination is “a thing”, not a person.

The mystery deepens, no? One thing to remember, the word “abomination” in the Old Testament was often used to speak of what we today call an idol. They were physical objects, placed in temples where the gods of old, Dagon, Ashtoreth, Baal and others were worshipped. The Greeks and Romans had similar things, all the way up to New Testament times.

“Mark, is there anything in the book of Revelation about this?”

I think there is and this is where we get a view of where Artificial Intelligence may be an integral part of it all. I mentioned already those mysterious verses in Revelation 13 about “666” and “the mark of the beast”.

But we have to go deeper. We have to squeeze the truth from more of these verses to get a fuller picture. Many have heard vaguely of the Antichrist to come. But far fewer know that the book of Revelation says he will have a “side kick”, evidently a number 2 man, who the Bible calls “the false prophet”. And it says of this false prophet, in Revelation 13 that, “he has power to give life to the image of the Beast, that the image of the Beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the Beast should be slain.” (Revelation 13:15)

What’s the image of the beast, you ask? It becomes fascinating when we find that the word “image” in the Bible is often referring to an idol, just as the word “abomination” did in the Old Testament. If you do a Word study on those two words, “abomination” and “image”, you’ll see how many times they are referring to what we today call idols.

And I’ve taught and do believe that “the image of the beast” in Revelation 13 and “the abomination of desolation” that Jesus spoke of in Matthew 24 are the same thing. That might be a jump for some but I believe it is a sound conclusion that can stand review.

It is my opinion that “the abomination of desolation” and “the image of the beast” both refer to some kind of very advanced “machine”, for lack of a better word. Or I could say computer but one that’s so far advanced that it’s beyond what most regular folks in the world today can imagine. My thought on this is similar to a number of Bible students who’ve looked deeply into the specifics of the Bible’s teaching on the end time.

And this falls into the realm of reality since we all know just how fast and how far technology is advancing in those fields. Elon Musk is creating bio chips to link our brains into a mega-network that may bring on forms of bio-technical eternal life.

In all this, I zero in on the verse that says, “He had power to give life to the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak and cause as many of those that did not worship the beast should be slain”. So, a life-infused computer that can speak, also directing or monitoring all economic transactions on earth, as it says in Revelation 13:17. But actually, how farfetched does that really seem to be in the times we now live in?

I want to bring in here some things that have appeared recently in the New York Times newspaper. And keep in mind the part about “he had power to give life to the image of the beast”. Because that’s what’s comes to my mind when I’ve several times seen the word “summoning” in connection with what the absolute top scientists in Silicon Valley and elsewhere are working on with these things.

What are those tech creators summoning? The articles say they are summoning spirits, demons from beyond or whatever to inhabit and dwell in their most advanced computer concoctions in order to have them reach the limits and realms that the A.I. coders are trying to take things to. And this sounds exactly like what those verses in the book of Revelation said would ultimately happen.

I’ll end this with just a few of the quotes I’ve taken note of in the New York Times articles that have come out about this. Here’s one.

“In 2018, Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google — and not one of the tech executives known for overstatement — said, ‘A.I. is probably the most important thing humanity has ever worked on. I think of it as something more profound than electricity or fire.’”

[from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/11/technology/silicon-valley-confronts-the-idea-that-the-singularity-is-here.html]

And even more, this quote gets to the essence of where AI advancement has come to. Read this paragraph with focus and bring in what the Bible says “the image of the Beast” will be capable of.

“We typically reach for science fiction stories when thinking about A.I. I’ve come to believe the apt metaphors lurk in fantasy novels and occult texts. As my colleague Ross Douthat wrote, this is an act of summoning. The coders casting these spells have no idea what will stumble through the portal. What is oddest, in my conversations with them, is that they speak of this freely. These are not naifs who believe their call can be heard only by angels. They believe they might summon demons. They are calling anyway.”

[from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/12/opinion/chatbots-artificial-intelligence-future-weirdness.html]

Friends, this is not coming from Alex Jones or some loony loner in a cabin in Idaho. This is published in what’s considered by the power elites to be the most reputable newspaper in America. They boldly publish that the most advanced scientific creators are now openly summoning demons into their computers.

I’ll end this with part of an article by Ross Douthat, again in the New York Times. It perhaps summarizes much better than I can what we are seeing here and what this is leading towards.

“In this sense what we’re doing resembles a complex incantation, a calling of spirits from Shakespeare’s “vasty deep.” Build a system that imitates human intelligence, make it talk like a person and answer questions like an encyclopedia and solve problems through leaps we can’t quite follow, and wait expectantly to see if something infuses itself into the mysterious space where the leaps are happening, summoned by the inviting home that we have made.

Such a summoning is most feared by A.I. alarmists, at present, because the spirit might be disobedient, destructive, a rampaging Skynet bent on our extermination.

But the old stories of the magicians and their bargains, of Faust and his Mephistopheles, suggest that we would be wise to fear apparent obedience as well.’

[from https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/02/opinion/magic-science-ufo-ai.html]

 

 

Going to hell

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The pinnacle experience of my life was going to hell when I was 20. I’ve shied away from talking about it over the years because it was so unspeakable. But perhaps I shouldn’t. Near-death experiences are rare and ones where the experience is a horrific one seem to be even more rare. But that’s what happened to me.

Many scoff at the idea of hell. I smile when I see things like that. Through that experience in 1969, I was delivered from severely entrenched atheism. Back then, I was an “evangelist” of atheism; I found joy in defeating weak, vacillating Christians in debate. But entering the spiritual world, utterly naked and without any protective covering that salvation in Christ gives, I experienced the full onslaught of the afterlife outside salvation.

I don’t know if I’ve ever really described that experience. Perhaps I should. You may not be able to relate to it, it may seem like gibberish to you. But life after death for someone without salvation in Jesus is going to be a very, extremely, strange world, as it was for me.

Without salvation in the afterlife, I was like a person without diving equipment, 150 meters (yards) below sea level. There was no oxygen. It was a strange, foreign world. There were beings there that were in their realm while I was not in mine. I was in extreme panic and in great confusion. But worst of all, there was no way back. It was too late. The level of fear, confusion, despondency and utter hopelessness defies explanation in words we have in our present realm.

It’s an incredible thing to enter the spiritual world. One thing I saw so clearly is that it’s really “all by faith’. We say that glibly here in our realm. But in the spiritual world, faith is utterly the coinage of the realm. And I endlessly gasped for even a whiff of faith. Everything is inside out, compared to this present world we live in. Materially things there are completely secondary, if they register at all. Elements of the soul and heart are the substance of that realm and your spiritual condition is the only thing that matters.

Jesus talked about the man who came to the wedding feast without a wedding garment. (Matthew 22:12) That’s how I was. I didn’t have the garment of salvation, the transformation that makes life in eternity possible. So I was utterly unprepared to experience the spiritual world.

Did I understand all that then at that time, as I somewhat do now? No; really, really I didn’t. I was in a prolonged terror, experiencing things that I totally didn’t understand and didn’t even have words to describe what was happening to me. I had virtually no understanding of what I was experiencing or the words to describe it , which I came to find after becoming a believing Christian and reading the explanation of life that the Bible gives.

Time, as we experience it here, ceased to exist there. I was in eternity. But also in utter confusion, utter hopelessness, utter lack of truth. I do believe that this is within the element and range of what the unsaved experience in the hereafter, in hell.

The apostle Paul talked about, “Knowing therefore the terror of the Lord…” (II Corinthians 5:11). No, Paul was not in hell in Acts 9 but he was suddenly face to face with the Lord, who told Paul, “I am Jesus who you persecute.” Paul was utterly on the wrong side of the Lord and that was his introduction.

You don’t find many preachers talking about Paul talking about “knowing the terror of the Lord.” Talking about hell in these times is very passé. It’s just not done. It’s not cool.

Be that as it may, I feel I should speak up more about how that is what I experienced. For me, it was totally what I needed to stun, shock and sear me out of my unbelief. Nobody could talk to me. I was always the smartest guy in the room, at least in my own eyes. So the Lord let this happen, in His mercy, so that I could get a real glimpse of how very far away from the truth I was.

And truth was actually what I’d been looking for all along. So God gave me this experience, outside any contact with others, not a pastor, not my grandparents, not a church, but just me alone. And it worked.

I was so stunned, shocked and almost in unbelief that I was able to return to this realm where we all now live, after experiencing so horrific a place, that it was like some kind of Sci-Fi movie where someone comes back to this earth and world, after a prolonged absence. That might sound like I’m exaggerating, but I’m not.

If this is just outside your realm of understanding, I can give you the text to two songs that rather well articulate the atmosphere of Hell. The Eagles wrote in the last words of “Hotel California”, “You can check-out any time you like, but you can never leave!” That’s how hell works: you can never leave.

Similarly, Bob Dylan sang in one of his songs, “There must be some kind of way outta here, said the joker to the thief, there’s too much confusion, I can’t get no relief.” As the song says, you look for a way out but it eludes you. Meanwhile, confusion engulfs and consumes you. Snippets and dark glimpses of hell, brought into contemporary music.

I’ve been happily encouraged through the years when I’ve read of others who’ve had near-death experiences, that they too have had very similar feelings to mine. They don’t even want to talk about it. They don’t think anyone will believe them. They struggle strongly even to find the words to describe what happened to them. It’s a very personal thing that often their friends and family can’t believe and it makes them estranged from their loved ones, since it all seems so farfetched.

I’m glad I’ve been able to put this on paper, so to speak. Experiencing hell was what it took to lay a foundational event in my life that prepared me to receive the message of salvation from young “Jesus People” a few months later. And it was this experience, that the spiritual world is fundamentally the real world, that made the decision to follow Jesus and to take up my cross in service to Him to be the only “common sense” thing that I knew was the high will of God.

This was all when I was in my early 20’s, long ago. But looking back, I see again how pivotal that experience I had in the spiritual world was, even if it was in the dark side of it. I was there, thrust there by God, because of my hardness of heart and repeated resistance to the Holy Spirit which was trying to reach out to me.

I hope this is somehow a blessing to someone. The spiritual world is real. Unbelief and atheism are your worst enemies, at least they were mine. There is no depth that God in His mercy cannot reach to find us in our worst condition and to lead us back out of that blackness, even virtual insanity, back to the glorious light that is in Him.

 

 

What has the Lord already done?

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So often Christians pray but the Lord’s already answered. Moses was almost overwhelmed by the calling he was given by God and he knew his own weaknesses. But God told him, “What is that in your hand?” (Exodus 4:2)

In Moses’ hand was his own old, personal staff. But when Moses cast it to the ground, it turned into a writhing serpent. The lesson is, so often the Lord has already given us what we need for our calling and battle. But then we don’t recognize it or even see it.

It’s just so fundamental: you’ve got to see God. In this case it doesn’t mean to see the Ancient of Days in His glory but you really do have to see what the Lord has done and is doing in your life. And I think almost all of us Christians are somewhat deaf, dumb and blind to a degree in the things of the Lord.

In one of the greatest crisis of my life, in the aftermath of my divorce, I was so much groping for understanding of it all and desperate to be free from the bitterness and hurt I felt. I knew I had some deep problems but I couldn’t find the way forward and really get any kind of handle on what the Lord was doing.

In abject desperation I looked again at the only really clear verse in the Bible that talks about bitterness, Hebrews 12:15. “Looking diligently lest any man fail the grace of God, lest any root of bitterness springing up trouble you, and thereby many be defiled.” I had reviewed that verse so many times and so many people had shared it with me that I was almost sick of it. But still I was floundering .

Finally I thought to try to go back and squeeze that verse again, like if you do a second or third squeeze of an orange. Was there some juice in that verse I was missing? I looked again at it slowly and deeply. “Looking diligently lest any man fail the grace of God…”

What does that mean? How in the world can you “look diligently..”? But the verse goes on to say that if you don’t “look diligently”, then that is when you “fail the grace of God” and a root of bitterness springs up. Therefore it must mean that the antidote and prevention of bitterness is to “look diligently”.

It came to me that it means that you have to see God in things. You have to look and believe that there is something there from Him for you, a lesson, a way of escape, some “grace of God”, as the verse says, that can be missed if we don’t look diligently.

So I realized more deeply than ever before that we have to “see God”. We have to see the Lord in things and what He is doing, in spite of what it really looks like that people are doing. Joseph in Egypt told his brothers,

“You meant it for evil but God meant it for good.” (Genesis 50:20) An incredible verse and possibly one of the best examples in the Bible of someone not getting bitter because he truly “looked diligently”.  Joseph really saw the hand of God in his life, regardless of what his brothers had done to him.

We just have to do that. We have to see what is already in our hand, what has God already given us, or what has God allowed and His hand even ordained, even though it looks in the physical and temporal to be totally against us and even contrary to God’s will.

So one of the greatest things we can do or strive to try to do is to see the Lord in things. The story is told of a man in the flood, on his roof as the waters rose. Some locals came around with a boat to rescue him but the man refused, saying “No thanks, I’m trusting the Lord!” Two more times that happened and then the floods rose and the man drowned.

In heaven the man was questioning God. But God said in return, “What do you mean? I sent that boat around 3 times!” The man didn’t see what God was doing and very often we don’t either. We don’t recognize the hand of God in our lives, or His input, His answers, His provision, His outstretched hand with the answer to our needs.

God help us all to have seeing eyes and hearing ears. He’s so often already answered prayer, already answered or is answering. May He help us all to be spiritually awake enough to recognize it and to go forward with his answers and provision.

The horse latitudes

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In the time of sailing ships, they’d often get stuck in “the horse latitudes”, a place in the Atlantic where the winds were often calm and the ships would stay for weeks, without wind in their sails. They’d end up having to get towed by row boats of their crew to zones where the winds would be there again.

Sometimes we ourselves are in “the horse latitudes” in our lives. It reminds me of what the ancient Jews said, “We see not our signs”. (Psalm 74:9) God seems to be silent. Our ability to “discern the times”, as Jesus called it, evidently has diminished. (Matthew 16:3)

Before, we were swept along by the mighty winds of God’s will and were able to see the hand of God closely guiding our lives. We felt at the apex of history, a part of it and willing to do what we could to further the cause of Christ and to see truth and justice triumph over darkness and deceit.

But then we find ourselves in the horse latitudes. The clarity, so strong in other times, appears to abandon us. Everything feels to be relative. You are stilled, like a ship in a calm on an open ocean.

Perhaps earlier, a calm is all you prayed for, as a respite from the storms that were assailing you. But now you pray for clarification, for the hand of God to even send lighting on a dark night to illuminate, for wind, for direction in your surroundings, to help you know where you stand, what’s around you and where you are going.

I’ve certainly been in the horse latitudes for periods in my life. It’s like the verse about how “the Lord will restore the years that the locusts have eaten”. (Joel 2:25) But I suppose there must be these pauses, these stops, even as there are in a piece of music, to complete the symphony of our lives.

Maybe the Lord does it to see if we’re satisfied, if we’ve gone as far as we want to go. Are we ready to quit? Had enough? Ready to throw in the towel and to sink into somnolent surrender?

Or are you looking for a breath of wind? Are you looking for the next leading from God? Are you looking for the wind to blow, the lights to come on, for the vision in the night, like Paul experienced when he saw a man of Macedonia in a dream saying “Come over and help us”. (Acts 16:9)

Paul and his companions could have just thrown in the towel. “Well, the Lord has stopped leading us. We tried to do this and that but He’s not leading any more so I guess it’s all over. Time to go back to Jerusalem and get my job back with the Pharisees.” No, Paul didn’t say that, even though he might have felt at that time that he was in the horse latitudes, unsure which way the wind blew and feeling in a bit of darkness at the moment.

But then it came; the wind began to blow. A direction and the presence of God began to be made manifest, as He’s done so many times to His servants. Elijah, alone in his cave, thought that he was the only one that was left of the faithful in Isreal. But the Lord told Elijah that “7000 have not bowed the knee to Baal”. (I Kings 19:18) “And besides that, Elijah, I’ve got a new direction for you. You need to get up and get moving”, just like Paul needed to do some 800 years later.

The Lord sends the wind after the stultifying calm in the horse latitudes. It’s not the end; just a bend in the road, a lull before the magnificence of the next stanza in the sympathy of our lives.

Are you becalmed in “the horse latitudes”? It almost reminds me of the verse in John 5 about the man by the pool of Bethesda, “waiting for the moving of the waters” (John 5:3). You have to admit, the things of the Lord do sometimes work that way. I think about Cornelius in Acts 10, a man evidently faithful all his life.

And then one day the angel of the Lord appeared to him and said, “Your prayers are come up as a memorial before God. Now send men to Joppa.” (Acts 10: 4 & 5) You can read Acts 10 to find out how that turned out and how the history of Christianity and human history itself was changed by the Lord honoring the faithfulness of that man.

But if you’re in a calm and stillness, when you’re hoping for the leading and intervention of God in your life, do keep holding on. Keep praying, keep believing. God’s delays are not denials. Wait till the lights come on. Wait for the winds to pick up and for the Lord to set your sails again with the wind of His will.

If you’re in the horse latitudes, just hold on. It can be scary, it can be almost suffocating. But the Light of the Lord and the wind of the Lord never fail to show up in our lives, even if there are pauses from time to time. “Wait on the Lord, be of good courage, and He shall strengthen thy heart.”  (Psalm 27: 14)