Category Archives: Personal views & lessons

“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, 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 there was 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)

Floors and ceilings

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Most of us want to hit the ceiling, but we aren’t always as thankful for the floor. We mostly want to ascend the heights of the Lord, to have the thrills of heaven and the visions He gives, from time to time. But perhaps we should be more thankful for the floors He provides. That’s how I am now. I’m seeing how I need to be thankful for how the Lord provides the floors and often even strengthens them and raises them.

Tonight I had friends to pray with. I wasn’t just alone in my room, going through my battles of the day alone. I know, lots of people do that and I’ve certainly had times like that. But presently He has given me a good and solid discipleship couple here, who I can pray with, talk with, fellowship with and just be in the Lord with.

All the lonely people, where do they all belong? There certainly is a time to get alone with the Lord and it’s a known fact that many of God’s saints had years where they were often alone with only the Lord as their companion and friend. But then, “The Lord sets the solitary in families”.  (Psalm 68:6)

One of the first things God ever said was, “It is not good for man to be alone.”  (Genesis 2:18) And when Jesus described the final days before His return, one of the characteristics of those times, Jesus said, was “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall grow cold.”  (Matthew 24:12) What an apt and brief synopsis of our present modern world.

But for those of us in the Lord, He often engineers ways for His sheep to find other sheep, for them to find the fellowship, warmth and camaraderie of fellow believers. There’s just something about it. We’re just made for this, being together, bouncing things off of each other, being in community, hanging out with friends and our family, if nothing else our spiritual family.

Believe me, I know so many really don’t have this. So, so many are alone, and just that experience can contribute to mental anxiety, depression, negative thoughts and premature old age, not to mention succumbing to drug or alcohol addiction and even suicidal thoughts. And so often it’s because someone is a sheep of God who is separated from the flock.

What a wonderful verses that is, “Underneath are the everlasting arms.” (Deuteronomy 33:27) If we will receive it and recognize it, the Lord doesn’t just have our backs but He’s got our floors. “Whosoever shall fall on this stone...”. (Matthew 21:44) The Lord talked about building our house on a rock. We’ve got good floors because we’ve got a good foundation, which is actually built upon a Rock, the Lord Himself.

The problem of course is that we rather easily get our eyes off of this. Like Peter, we start looking at the waves, start looking at ourselves, our present conditions, anything actually as long as it doesn’t involve our remembering the foundations of our faith and the multitude of promises that the Lord has made, to “be with us always, even unto the end of the world.” (Matthew 28:20)

So if you aren’t exactly hitting the ceiling right now, maybe at least you can be thankful for your floor. Or the Lord’s floor that He keeps under us, all the things that don’t happen to us each day because of His protection. The accidents that don’t happen, the sicknesses we don’t experience, the overall good fortune that is almost always a constant of our lives.

“Mark! What are you talking about!?! Mark, I’m sick, my kids turned against me and the Lord! I don’t have almost any friends! I’m struggling to pay my bills!!”

Yep, that does happen to most of us, at times. But here’s a verse that has greatly inspired me and one that I really recognized when I came to the Lord as being true, even during the horrific times before I got saved, when I was on drugs, in mental anguish and in many ways suffering the torments of hell, while just living here on earth as a college student.

Here’s that verse that I experienced during those times, even before I got saved. “The Lord will not allow us to be tempted above that we are able to bear. But will, with the temptation, also make a way to escape, that we may be able to bear it.” (I Corinthians 10:13)

Truly, things can get really rough, really. But for those who know the Lord, He always makes a way to escape and doesn’t let us be tempted above that we’re able to bear. He prompts us to phone someone and ask for prayer. Or even to ask if we can come to their house and visit before we go crazy. Or He speaks to our heart. Or we unexpectedly meet someone who turns out to be the Lord’s love for us.

“Been down so long, it looks like up to me”, someone once said. I’ve experienced that. Still, even there, God put a floor. “If the foundation be destroyed, what can the righteous do?” (Psalm 11:3) God’s foundation doesn’t get destroyed. It’s just good to remember this and to even claim His promises like this at times. Certainly our own foundations can be destroyed, especially if we’re building and standing on foundations and floors that are not of Him.

“Underneath are the everlasting arms.” And He even does the work of helping us to somehow recognize it, to “see God” or at least His workings in our lives. Thank God for the floors; they are just as important as ceilings.

 

An Answer from the Lord

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I got a little answer from the Lord today to a major question that’s been on my heart a while. He’s so faithful to get through to us with some new viewpoint or insight on what’s been a personal dilemma. For me, it’s been about how much I should be involved in what many could consider just worldly, secular politics.

Politics is the background I come from. I was planning for a political career before the Lord really “rang my bell” with a horrific near-death experience while I was in university that thrust me from atheism into being a startled believer. Months later I came to Christ and became after that a missionary abroad for close to 40 years.

I embraced the words of Jesus that He spoke to His disciples and took those to be His words to me. His cause became my cause, His solution to the problems of individuals and the world at large became what I’ve held to be the highest and best path for all mankind.

But for a couple of years, I’ve been deeply concerned about situations happening in my local community. I wrote about that in a recent article, “Checking your local school board”.

All the while though, there’s been this gnawing question on my heart, “Are you getting tripped off? Moving from your calling as a Christian missionary and disciple back into your former ways and mindsets?” It’s been a real question on my heart as I try to be certain that I’m following the Lord’s leading and not my own personal inclinations.

Today though, I feel I’ve had a breakthrough with this uncertainty. So often with these things, it’s just a simple thought that comes to you, a new viewpoint that you’d not had before that brings light and simplicity as well as clarity and relief. The Lord put this whole question about involvement with the local school crisis into a framework of what some have called “consider the poor”. This comes from the verse in Psalm 41:1 that says, “Blessed is he that considers the poor, the Lord will deliver him in the time of trouble.”

The whole Bible is full of this, as was the life of Jesus on earth. He said for us not only to love God but to love our neighbor. To explain, He told the story of “The Good Samaritan”. The Samaritan stopped on his way to help a man who’d been beaten by robbers. According to Jesus, several very religious priestly types had already passed by before but they’d done nothing for the beaten man. In other words, taking personal, physical action to alleviate the wrongs we are confronted with in this world is definitely what Jesus did Himself and what He taught in the gospels as well.

And this morning the Lord brought back to me a time when I was in my early 30’s, a missionary in Vienna, Austria with my wife and kids, trying to reach the nearby closed-to-the-gospel countries of Communist eastern Europe. We’d taken some clothes and food to a nearby camp for Romanian refugees who were in very meager circumstances. It was a way to get to know them, to try to help and to try to bring the gospel message to those folks.

But it created a stir among some of our missionary friends who thought we were going down a strange path, getting off into social work and humanitarianism, rather than really sticking to evangelism. Then, back then, someone shared  some wise council with us on this subject. It went something like this, “Feed the poor and cloth the needy if it gives you an opportunity to share the truth and love of God with them. But don’t let feeding the poor become your main occupation. Continue to primarily follow the example of the Early Church in putting salvation and ministering the Word first.”

This was such a help at that time to clarify the place and priority of this kind of activity. And it was a very similar feeling I had in the Lord’s thoughts this morning. I came away with the feeling that the Lord approved of my concern for the situation in the schools near me. It doesn’t have to be a trip-off or a departure from Christian discipleship to be involved and active in that.

But at the same time, there’s the gentle guidance that it shouldn’t become my all in all. And I do approach it as an activity that the Lord is leading me to be involved with, rather than as a political activist of some political party.

And meanwhile I still have plenty of other things that the Lord has done in my life, such as the two web sites and the YouTube channel in many languages that I’ve been maintaining for the last few years.

It just helps to know that I’ve gotten a word from the Lord on this, some direction and guidance on how a measured approach to these present distresses in society around me are things that He approves my taking some time and involvement with.

Maybe it’s like what Jesus said, “These ought you to do, and not leave the other undone.” (Matthew 23:23) I feel freer to go forward with these things but to also keep it all in perspective within the overall plan of God in my life. I hope it’s ok to share this personal lesson and victory with you as we all individually keep looking to the Lord for His daily leading in our lives. God bless you!

 

The Waning West

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When’s the best time to attack your enemy? When he is weak, divided and distracted. This principle works across innumerable fields. And let’s be blunt. The West at this time is all of those to a huge degree: weak, divided and distracted.

Did Putin have that in mind when he launched the attack on Ukraine? Quite possibly. His war efforts were initially thwarted. But recently he seems to be in the ascendency as the West faces the increasingly grave consequences of their own sanctions against Russia. Putin can yet enact policies that can probably inflict economic hardships on West Europe that they will not be willing or able to bear this coming winter.

But Ukraine is not the only front. Other nations are watching. They’re seeing the obvious weaknesses of so many Western nations: weak leadership, weak convictions, even the weakness of character that’s so evident in many Western populations.

Eastern and southern nations are observing it all, making decisions, taking sides, getting on board with one agenda or another. Did you know that there are two nations that, if they weren’t so ostracized, could have an almost immediate impact on the world oil markets? Venezuela and to a greater extent Iran have very vast oil reserves and they could bring these reserves into the world oil market very quickly.

Why hasn’t that happened? Well, Venezuela has been shunned and banned by the USA for years because of their embrace of socialism so that there have been embargoes and they’ve been excluded economically by the USA, with the cooperation of other Latin American countries.  But their oil reserves are immense and bringing Venezuela on stream and into world oil markets would have a quick, very major effect.

The same is true and even more so of Iran. Iran has been so vilified by Western media that we’ve all been successfully lulled into thinking that there’s hardly anything worse than Iran. But their proven oil reserves are such that allowing them to sell on the open market again could in a few short months very strongly change the world energy picture. But nobody would dare tell you that and it’s not going to happen because great work for decades has gone on in the media around the world to picture Iran as a villainous, pariah state.

Meanwhile, the nations of the world watch things unfold. Have you noticed how and where the largest nations seem to be placing their bets? Simply put, it doesn’t look like they’re really getting on the band wagon with the West’s confrontation with Putin. But there’s another front, another flash point that just might erupt.

Years ago I was in my driveway watching two doves fighting it out on the ground in the front yard. Suddenly I heard and felt a “swoosh” go right by my ear. It was a hawk which had seen those two birds fighting and was doing all it could to take advantage of their distractions. The hawk swept past me incredibly fast to try to capture at least one of the birds and it was able to do that. In their distraction of fighting amongst themselves, they didn’t see the outside danger of their mutual enemy and it cost the life of one of them.

Could this simple principle be at work internationally right now in our times? As the West is so weakened, distracted, divided and morally exhausted, could another front open similarly to the one in Ukraine? I hesitate to get too specific but many of you in Asia know of a smaller country there that has been eyed by a very large country for years. The smaller Asian country has long felt that it would be protected by strong friends in the West.

But many are saying that if the wise men of that large country ever were seeing a time when a move against that smaller country would possibly be met with (at best) a feeble and inept response, this might be the time.

Would it be moral? Ethical? Christian and resounding with the values that have been upheld by the West for centuries? No. But in the grim world of Machiavellian realty, this present Western weakness may provide a golden opportunity for things to seem to be possible to non-Western, non-Christian world leaders that stronger governments and stronger times in the West would have been able to prevent. Obviously I’m speaking obliquely. But “they that have ears to hear”, and those who keep up with East Asian power politics, will know what I’m referring to.

Am I predicting this? Prophesying it? No. But I’m reading things from pundits who are more observant than I am that this is like a very obvious “chess move” that’s presenting itself at this time, as the virtually leaderless West is so weighted down with its own problems that it makes for an excellent moment for great Asian leaders to launch attacks they have considered for decades.

And, yes, the Bible has precedents for all this. One man said of how he was defeated, “While I was busy here and there, the man was gone.” (I Kings 20:40)  While he was distracted, while he was turned aside from his task of the Lord’s highest service, the enemy swept in and carried off what he was responsible for.

Or, from the New Testament, “If the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself for the battle?” (I Corinthians 14:8)  Western leadership can currently at best give a very hesitant, uncertain sound of any foreign danger while America is so preoccupied with its own internal wrangling. And the classic annals of battle will tell you that

one’s enemies are constantly looking for a weakness, an opportunity and an unguarded moment to launch an attack when they feel their adversaries are at their weakest.

Still, the mercy of God prevails. But it is a very serious moment and most people have no idea how vulnerable the distracted, weakened West is to an assault at this time.

Jesus returned to earth in 70 A.D.?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

Don’t be soon shaken in mind or be troubled

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The hits keep coming, no? Seems like, if the right one don’t get you, the left one will, unless you watch out. That’s what I’m experiencing right now. And from what I’m hearing from friends, a lot of people -young and old- are experiencing the same.

Maybe you could say, like in the song in the movie “Joker”, “That’s Life!” But actually life isn’t always like that and all the time. Kids in schools here are “identifying” not only as opposite to their genders, but some public school students are identifying as cats or other animals in elementary and middle schools! And they’re getting public attention and media backing if the other students and the school administration don’t fully support them in their new identity as a cat or dog in public school!!

One in 7 students in some middle schools here have recorded a personal suicide plan. Teachers are leaving public schools in unprecedented numbers.

School board meetings across America are becoming the culture wars’ front line of combat. I’ve been involved in those here locally in recent months. But just everywhere you look, there seems to be a great confusion upon this country and it may be the same in other countries as well.

I had to ask some dear friends tonight to pray for me as I’ve been having some health issues and then on top of that the outlook across the landscape of my nation is looking increasingly bleak and foreboding. It’s like a howling storm outside and I’ve had to retreat a little bit at the moment, just to draw back and count my many blessings, to remember the Rock upon which my personal life is founded and to not let “the affairs of this life choke the Word” (Luke 8:14), which can happen if I pay too much attention to “the affairs of this life”.

For the people of faith, the people of Jesus and His Word, these are the times that can test us to the edge. Really a lot of people are just throwing in the towel. They are committing suicide. They are seeking solace in drugs and multitudes are dying there, so many in their teens and 20’s. Or they are grabbing their rifle and going out to kill as many as they can. They are despondent and at wit’s end corner. I too have felt to some degree what I imagine millions of Americans are feeling.

It’s hell to be alone. “All the lonely people, where do they all belong?, sang the Beatles. What a heart cry and question for our times. To be expected, the Bible answered that question 3000 years ago. “God sets the solitary in families” (Psalm 68:6)..

I’m so thankful that I’ve had at least some fellowship and community to be a part of in the last 6 or so years. Fellow missionaries rented a room to me in their house and I became part of their family to some degree. Then in the last year it’s worked out to get my own place; a dear missionary couple now rent two rooms from me here and I’m very blessed to have their fellowship and camaraderie.

I don’t know how I’d be doing if I was just totally on my own in this increasingly crazy, cold, confusing world as it is now. I talked to a sister in the Lord a few days ago, another dear soul who’s “borne the burden and the heat of the day” (Matthew 20:12) on some far-flung mission fields for decades and is now alone, a sad widow, longing for friends, family and to find a way forward.

The verse that came to me that prompted me to write this article is worth referring to at this time. Paul wrote to the Thessalonians, “That you be not soon shaken in mind or be troubled…” (II Thes. 2:2). . That is totally how things can be sometimes. Without the strong tower of the Lord –Proverbs 18:10- and His salvation, His Word and safe keeping, none of us are able to stand against the onslaughts that come against every person alive in this world.

But just toughing it out won’t really work. It’s a bigger storm than that. Think of the suicides, the drug overdoses, the mass killings, the howling rage on the Left and on the Right that is just the way it is here in America in these times. And you think you are just going to be blithely oblivious to it all? If you have a conscience and are aware at all of the conditions of our society, you are going to be distraught, troubled and desperate, at least I think so.

Solutions. For one and the first, be saved in Christ. Be assured of your salvation and as well, receive the indwelling power of the promised Holy Spirit, as the Early Church did. You can think, “Oh, if I was about to be martyred by the Islamic forces of ISIS, I would be an incredibly bold witness for the Lord!” Maybe you would be.

But so often the Devil attacks as the serpent, with his words, before He attacks physically as the dragon. Right now the forces of the Serpent are grinding insidiously upon every individual in our nation and you as a Christian are going to have to take on the full armor of God to withstand the darkness, perhaps as you never have until now.

Are you standing on the Word? Have you memorized and are you quoting the promises of God? Are you steadfastly resisting  the darkness and drawing near to the Lord? Also, are you in some kind of fellowship with others who are strong in Him? This doesn’t necessarily have to be some formal church; that actually might not even work since so many there consciously choose to minimize the crises of our times. That’s often been my personal experience here.

Are you in fellowship with other Christians who can pray with your and support you in your faith and battle? “One shall chase a thousand and two shall put ten thousand to flight” (Deut 32:30). You will have all the more difficulty if you’re trying to face these hellish times on your own. Get in contact with praying, believing, fighting, aware Christians who you can band together with and be stronger together with.

“Mark, is this the end time?! Are we about to see the final end time events, Mark!?”

 

I don’t know; it would seem so. But I do know that presently we are seeing “Men’s hearts failing them for fear” (Luke 21:26) ; we are seeing “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold” (Matthew 24:12) and many other such verses about the end time that describe well our present distress.

I was listening to a daily devotion by Charles Spurgeon this morning and it really spoke to me. He talked about how God closed the door of the Ark upon Noah and his family. God separated and protected Noah’s family as the very worst days of God’s judgments on earth happened. And then Spurgeon quoted a verse that I’ve been aware of but have seldom every used much.

Isaiah 26:20 says, “Come, my people, enter into your chambers and shut your doors around you; hide for a little moment, until the fury has passed by.” I’ve never been one much for monastic living or the hermit’s life. I’ve believed that the Lord’s admonition, “Go out into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in” (Luke 14:23) was what Jesus wanted His disciples to do.

But certainly there is a time and place to, for the most part, hunker down, to pray and stay in fellowship with others almost like how it is in Texas when a hurricane or tornado is going over you. Things right now may actually be just that tough.

Are you about to get knocked out by the tempestuous storms of confusion and Godlessness that are prevailing presently in America? Are you staying strengthened in the Lord? Do you know of any lost sheep out there alone in the storm who may not make it without your fellowship and inclusion? It’s very rough right now for many people, 11 year olds and 70 year olds. God help us all to be drawing circles that count others in. Be not soon shaken in mind.

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?