A class at the camp of the saints

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I’ve just gotten back from a trip to northern Europe to see my kids and then a wonderful few days in Romania, at a get-together of Christian disciples, mostly East Europeans. I was asked if I would share a Bible class with the ones there and I was glad to do that. But I didn’t really know what I would share.

And then, as it happens in many situations, “It shall be given you in that hour what you shall speak” (Mark 13:11). Often the Lord can lead you to share on a subject that you had not planned to speak about. And it’s usually important to assess who your class is. Are they new to the faith? Mostly in need of the basics and fundamentals?

But when I was in Romania last week, it was almost the opposite. Nearly everyone there was a veteran of the faith, discipleship Christians who were often teachers themselves and mostly well versed in the milk of the Word, and even a lot of the meat. So I felt led to talk to them about things that I probably wouldn’t have to a different audience.

I’d been asked to share something on the subject of Bible prophecy and possibly where we are in the scheme of things, as Scripture portrays the playing out of human history leading up to the end of this age and the second coming of the Lord.

Most of the people at this get together had already viewed my video series on the prophecies of the Old Testament prophet, Daniel. So, all in all, it was rather like trying to teach a class to those at a somewhat advanced level of their Christian experience.

I know some of you were praying for me and I do believe the Lord was hearing and answering those prayers in the lead-up to that class. Thanks so much; the Lord really came through, perhaps more than I was expecting.

Before the class, I felt led to pull together a list of blog articles that I’ve written over the last 10 years or so, touching on some of the most common questions that people have when it comes to the subject of what Jesus was referring to when He told His disciples, “If I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself…” (John 14:3).

And I should mention that for Christian disciples at the stage these dear ones were, classes like this are not for just accumulating knowledge. A fundamental goal for discipleship Christians is to be able to “give an answer to him that asks you” (I Peter 3:15). A verse that speaks of believers in the final days before the Lord’s return says this: “And they that understand among the people shall instruct many.” (Daniel 11:33) So, knowing how to “answer every man that asks you” is fundamental for those who truly want to serve the Lord.

I’ll include here some of the articles that I shared with these ones, primarily related to questions people have about the return of the Lord. Often you can hear folks say, “Oh, no man knows the day and hour.” Somehow many end up coming to the wrong conclusion about what the Lord meant there. Here’s an article I wrote about this that I shared the highlights of with my friends. https://www.propheciesofdaniel.com/no-man-knows-the-day-and-hour/

A similar thing people say on this subject, and they quote Jesus, is this: “It’s not for you to know the times and seasons…” It seems that often they are coming to conclusions on that verse that are not what it originally meant. Here’s an article I wrote about that. https://www.propheciesofdaniel.com/not-for-you-to-know-the-times-and-seasons/

And you may have heard someone surprisingly tell you something like, “Oh, Jesus actually returned to the earth in 70 AD!” How can you factually and tactfully reply to someone who is saying that? I shared this article with my friends on this subject and how they might respond.  https://www.propheciesofdaniel.com/jesus-returned-to-earth-in-70-a-d/

A question for many was, “How close are we?” “Can we tell in specifics how much longer it will be?” Big subject, big questions. Here’s what I shared about this, perhaps one of the articles that has been discussed the most,
https://www.propheciesofdaniel.com/whites-eyes/

Some there were curious to know what things are like in the States currently and how the culture wars here and the social tension is affecting Christian values and the cause of Christ. I shared with them an article about my own experiences here over the last year or so involving the local school district I’m in and the battle there for the hearts and minds of the young people who go the schools near me. Here’s an article I shared with my friends about that. https://markmcmillion.com/checking-your-local-school-board/

There were lots of other things we talked about but perhaps this will give you an idea of the class I shared and what folks there were interested in. All in all it was a really wonderful time to be away in the mountains of Romania and to be in fellowship with like-minded Christians who are endeavoring to serve the Lord and feed His sheep. I hope this is a blessing to you, thanks again for your interest and prayers.

Your friend,

Mark

PS  You might be interested to know what the atmosphere and mood was at a get-together like this of dedicated East European Christians. Seven years ago I was living in Romania and went to a similar gathering. Here’s an article I wrote about how that was.

https://markmcmillion.com/at-the-camp-of-the-saints-part-1/

“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]

 

 

Restored!

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I’ve had quite an adventure with Facebook recently. And there’s been a surprisingly happy ending. It started nearly 3 months ago when, out of the blue, Facebook notified me that they’d “paused” my ability to use Facebook advertising. I still had my account and could communicate with everybody. But my ability to post weekly ads on Facebook, to “boost” the videos and articles I’ve done, was stopped.

As some of you know, I’ve done a series of videos on the prophecies of Daniel in English and afterwards 3 of them have been done in 14 other languages. This is all part of a Christian ministry the Lord as led me into, to “feed His sheep”, as He told us to do. But primarily the method I’ve used to propagate these videos and blog articles to many countries has been Facebook.

At first it didn’t bother me as I’ve had things happen before with Facebook in the last 7 years I’ve been boosting videos with them. At those times, I complied with what they asked and things were resolved in a few days. This time it looked to be the same. They said there appeared to be some anomaly with my payment method and they were pausing my account for my protection. They told me a few things to do, which I did, and I waited for it all to work out. Days passed and I wrote again. They wrote back, basically asking me to be patient. Days turned into weeks.

And perhaps I should explain why this began to get personal to me. Everyone talks about identity nowadays. So many now say, “I identify as a …”. OK, I identify as a Christian missionary. That fundamentally is who and what I am. And I’ve been thrilled over recent years to see how the Lord has made it so that I’ve been able to make these videos and articles and then to be able to publish them to a worldwide audience. There’s been nothing commercial in this; I’ve never monetized the material. But it’s been deeply rewarding to know that there have been a lot of people who’ve viewed the videos and shared them with others.

For this cause, it sort of began to get to me that this means and method of making the videos available worldwide had suddenly stopped. It was soon into the second month of not hearing back from Facebook. And, yes, thoughts did begin to arise in my mind. Had Facebook cut me off? Was my material too radical, had my local activities somehow raised red flags?

At length I began to explore some companies that are specialists at resolving things like this. Basically it comes down to finding some way to communicate with a business so big that they do virtually everything through algorithms and it’s almost infinitely difficult to contact a live person. I talked to one specialist and he mentioned that I’d perhaps been “shadow banned”, a new word to me. It seems it’s a little like what I wrote about in “Ghosted”. Sometimes you just get cut off or cut out by a person, or a company, and you never really get a straight reason why.

But when I looked again at the message Facebook had sent me, it didn’t come across like that. They said it was some payment issue, some kind of glitch that could be easily resolved if perhaps some human being just looked at it all briefly. And just to mention it, during this time Facebook has been going through a major internal restructuring and has laid off thousands of staff. This may have been a factor in what happened to me.

I was into my second month of not hearing from Facebook. Meanwhile I was praying desperately and asking others to do the same. And the Lord really answered and came through, here’s what happened. Over twenty years ago I was on one of the many mission fields I’ve been on and part of what I did there was to teach Bible classes and do home school teaching to the children of fellow missionaries there.

One of my students was a young lady, 12 years old at the time. I’ve kept in contact with her mom over the years and a month or so ago she mentioned that actually her daughter now lives in the same city as me and that she’d like to meet up with me, if that could work out.

So we met up and it was great to see her again, now all grown up. We talked for hours and she mentioned in passing that she’d worked for one of the largest technology companies in the world. So I shared with her what had happened with me and Facebook, mentioning to her that it seemed like I’d perhaps been “shadow banned”.

It was something she knew something about. And then she told me she had a friend who works at a company and that perhaps she could talk to him about my problem. Bingo!! Well, it wasn’t bingo right away but it was a glimmer of hope that I’d not had till then. In a few days she contacted me to say that sometimes these things really almost never got resolved. But that there were ways for ones on the inside to sort of “push people up the queue”.

Long story short, within a week or so I began to get feedback from Facebook that I’d not received up till then. And within about 10 days, everything was resolved! Now that may not sound like much of a miracle to you but for me, it was a pretty big deal. I’m now back to doing my weekly Facebook ads to countries and language groups around the world and it’s just a huge relief to be restored to the place I was 3 months ago, to be able to continue to minister in the way the Lord has provided for years now.

I really did get hit with a lot of conspiracy theory thoughts while this was going on. And I’m not discounting that nefarious stuff goes on all the time. But in this case it’s just been so encouraging to see the Lord come through with one of His “tricks” , putting me in contact with someone who knew someone who was able to do what needed to be done, when all other avenues had failed.

I hope that’s an encouragement to you. Even in this increasingly clouded and techno-dominated world of now, the good God is still able to intervene and fix things when it’s according to His will. Glory to God!

Has Putin shot his bolt?

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There was almost no fear greater than the fear of Russia. But now Putin’s had to (as they say in poker), “Put what you’ve got on the table.” And it hasn’t looked good so far. No one expected Ukraine to be able to withstand Russia. But they have.

One year into the war, it’s rather a stalemate. But that’s a defeat in many ways for Russia. They were our greatest fear and have been for over 70 years. And now? You can feel they have perhaps two choices. Go fully nuclear, the unspeakable alternative that’s remained our global fear since World War II. Or they can continue to send 10’s of 1000’s of their young men (in a nation desperate to repopulate itself) into the meat grinder of eastern Ukraine, to face resolute Ukrainians and the best weapons the Western powers can provide. Simply put, it’s not looking great for the mystique of Russian superiority and ultimate world dominance, as so many of us have bought into for so long.

And what if you study Bible prophecy? What about “the king of the north”? What about Ezekiel 38? My friends, we’ve been counting on these guys, haven’t we? No need to squirm, I could do the same. I think there are a lot of folks around who’ve been counting on Russia to provide a good deal of the power and “evil” to be fulfilled that’s been predicted in the end time build up, spoken of in the books of Daniel, Ezekiel and Revelation.

But presently, Russia is losing huge numbers of troops and equipment on the plains of eastern Ukraine. And those resources in blood and treasure are not something that springs freely up out of the ground. They are depleted, they’re being exhausted and so very many look at it and feel it’s a fool’s errand that Mr. Putin has sent Russian power and prestige into. “All for nothing”, so many feel of the present war in Ukraine. My prophecy aficionado friends, how will Russia invade the Middle East if they can’t even take the eastern most part of Ukraine?

I hope you’re not expecting me to pull the cookies out of the fire and the rabbit out of the hat on this. I’m as stumped as you are. Perhaps some scenario develops where Putin is overthrown and a new leader arises who’ll lead Russia into a wiser and more prosperous future, more than at any time in its past. But as always, “what if’s” abound at every turn.

How does this all impact the picture of the unfolding end time, which in other areas continues to proceed most forebodingly? I really don’t know. And in my searching the internet for anyone else out there who sees all these data points leading us toward… what!…, I haven’t heard of anyone coming up with a clear, cognizant foreseeing of where all this is leading.

New and stranger goings on proceed briskly in the secular nation of Israel in the Middle East. Will the new, ultra religious government there clear the way for the building of the Third Temple in Jerusalem? And artificial intelligence meanwhile is gathering pace by leaps and bounds; some now predict that “the singularity” is only 7 years away. Tragic natural disasters fall on top of immense refugee crises, war against Iran is a daily storm on the horizon, Western nations muddle through their internal befuddlements and suicide rates for young people increase year by year.

And the latest fear is that China will come to the aid of Russia with an infinity of weaponry, matching what the West is giving Ukraine. My, how that would be an unfathomably ominous turn of events in this saga. Would that not bring us face to face with the full scenario of World War III that was so before us at the height of the Cold War?

How does it all turn out? Will Russia ultimately sue for peace (as Germany did in World War I) and be defeated on the battle field after human losses unheard of before that time? Will China come to the side and aid of Russia, creating a new axis of power internationally? Will there be a cease fire where both sides get just enough of what they want so that both can claim a type of victory? Your guess may be as good as mine.

Still, I remain convinced that the end of the matter of these wars and rumors of wars is that through the haze and heartbreak will be the unfolding of Bible prophecy that will ultimately lead to the so welcomed second coming of our dear Jesus Christ to bring peace to the earth, after “a time of trouble such as was not since the beginning of the world”, to establish His righteous government, ordained and foretold by God and the prophets.

Of course that sounds ludicrous to the unbelievers who are in the majority now. But as the final events unfold, I believe so many will see ultimately that the only sane explanation of this present world is one that takes us to what turns out to be truly our only hope: God Himself and His intervention to save us all from ourselves and each other, where the people of the earth accept and welcome the intervention of God to pull our existence out of the destruction we have brought it to.

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)

Hindi Daniel 7 video: “दानिएल की किताब अध्याय ७”

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I’ve been able to complete the Hindi version of the video on the book of Daniel chapter 7. Daniel 7 is the Old Testament chapter that most thoroughly prepares us for the book of Revelation. The imagery, information, characters and timing found in Daniel 7 are all seen more fully in Revelation. I believe much of Daniel 7 has been fulfilled. But the parts Daniel himself was most desirous to know about are for the endtime soon to come. Here is the link to the video:

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!