“Sound Doctrine”? or Speculation

Posted on September 22, 2013 by Mark McMillion

For all my life, truth has been important to me. Then, when I went from being an atheist to a Christian, discovering the Bible was like a real love relationship. Before I became a Christian, for several months I believed in God but didn’t know who Jesus was. During that time I read the Bible, cover to cover, but I really didn’t understand it or get much out of it. Then when I received the Lord, I read the Bible again and it was like floods of truth were pouring into me, something I desperately needed.

The apostle Paul admonished Titus to “speak the things that become sound doctrine”. (Titus 2.1) But there’s really a lot today that is preached here in America or taught on some websites that is really not sound doctrine. It’s often nebulous speculation on Bible themes, frequently mixed with a worldly agenda to compel Christians to vote for one political party against the other.

Ten years ago here in Austin, Texas I went to a large, well known evangelical church on a Wednesday night. It was packed with nearly 3000 people. The guest speaker was going to teach on a subject dear to my heart: the prophecies of Daniel. But after his first 10 minutes or so of hurriedly speaking on the things I’d come to hear, he then launched into what evidently was the main burden of his heart: a long discourse on a controversial opinion of Bible prophecy that dovetailed perfectly with his political views. I became incensed. At length it became the closest I’ve ever gotten to disrupting a church service in order to be some kind of voice of truth.

This was a church I attended regularly, where the pastor had really been teaching the pure Word of God and many people were coming to hear the sound doctrine regularly coming from the pulpit. But on Wednesday night, the pulpit was being used for propagating speculation and controversy, mixed with a strong political agenda. But the thousands of people there figured it was just as much the truth as what the preacher was telling them on Sundays. But it wasn’t. It was speculation and worldly politics.

This was an older, mainline church with many wealthy members. I was a nobody; just a returning missionary, trying to find a home church. But I felt compelled to try to contact the pastor and I went to his office to express my views. He wasn’t there but his secretary took a note of my concerns. To my complete surprise, one evening I got a call from the pastor, the head of this church of around 7,000 people here. We talked for around 45 minutes. I told him about my background of becoming a Christian through the Jesus Movement of the early 70’s. And then I poured out my heart to him about how I respected his teaching very much but felt that he’d allowed his pulpit to be used for speculation and politics when the members of the church would think that anything said there had the same degree of truth that he taught.

He took it really well, basically agreed with me and also agreed that what had been taught on Wednesday night was not really sound doctrine. It was just one of many disputed views on the subject of Bible prophecy and how it will unfold in times to come. Honestly I was stunned that he would even take time to phone me about it. It gave me a respect for that man that he would“condescend to men of low estate” (Romans 12:16), like myself.

And now, being back in the States again after more years on the mission field, I again find the same thing. I find in some places really strong and feeding sermons being preached, which I get a lot out of. But in other places there are the same spurious, specious speculations being taught, especially about Bible prophecy. And often it’s just an opening to supposedly lay a Biblical foundation for extreme political views.

It’s not only heartbreaking, it’s motivating. It motivates me to try to make the material on this web site to be “sound doctrine”. A Bible teacher should consider it essential to differentiate between their own speculations and what can be accepted as sound doctrine. Otherwise you are creating confusion in those you teach. Quite possibly you’re engendering unbelief when your speculation on current events as being a direct fulfillment of Bible prophecy turns out differently from what you taught your flock. There’s even a verse about “handling the Word of God deceitfully.” (II Corinthians 4:2) Like by using it to promote your political agenda?

My goal on this site is to lay out from Scripture what can be taken as much as possible to be sound doctrine, not politically-mixed prophetic speculation.

Angel stories: Lights on the Road

Posted on September 18, 2013 by Mark McMillion

It was like being able to go back and see where you died. I recently went back to a country road west of Austin, Texas where, for all intents and purposes, I really should have died in October of 1969. It’s a sad, sobering story of what was truly God’s infinite mercy and my depraved wrongdoing.

This is another story, similar to the ones I wrote earlier, “Lucifer and the White Moths“, “The Radio Miracle” and “Don’t Ever Ask Again“. Those events all happened a few short months earlier in July/August of 1969.

You’d think, after all I’d experienced, that I’d be a good boy for the next 80 years. But that’s not what happened. Like I wrote about in “God Is Chance”, at this time I had a fancy European sports car which was in every way a real idol for me. After my near death experience involving drugs in the summer, I stopped using strong stuff. But I soon got back to smoking marijuana again. And later that fall I decided to go out for a “joy ride” with my girlfriend.

She and I were smoking marijuana, driving along winding Hill Country roads west of Austin at night and listening to Jimi Hendricks on the cassette player. I guess I was thinking, “Everything’s back to normal”. In the last month I’d been reading my Bible, a new thing for me, and praying. But I didn’t know who Jesus was; I wasn’t saved and I still was hanging out with my old friends.

The car could go very fast and I liked that. We were driving in an area where there was often a rock wall on one side of the road and a drop off down a steep hill on the other. And recently I went back to this place so I could add photos of the actually location.

What happened next was this. We were driving down a long straightaway that I knew took a slight turn to the right at the end of it. That’s what you can see in picture “A”.

While driving down the straightaway in the dark, probably doing 80 mph (about 135 kph), suddenly on the side of the road in the darkness, just before the curve, I saw two lights. I recognized that they were supernatural as this was in the middle of nowhere. And I said loudly in my mind, “There are angels here!”

Almost immediately I went into the turn. What I didn’t calculate in my driving was that the road not only turned to the right but it had a dip also in the road there. My car was going so fast that, because of the dip, the back end of the car spun around completely backwards, 180 degrees.

So the next thing I knew, we were going totally backwards at the same speed I went into the turn. I furiously clutched the car, looking behind me into the darkness, applying the brakes, trying to steer the convertible, going backwards at high speed on drugs. Utterly miraculously, we came to a stop on a small shoulder of the road around 100 yards passed the turn with the dip in the road. I turned off the engine and we sat there. I turned off Jimi Hendrix and by then all the effects of the marijuana were totally gone. The second picture “A” is the same turn and dip in the road, seen from further along and around the bend. And picture with “A” and “B” is taken approximately at the place where my car came to a stop, still backwards, around 100 yards past the turn and dip.

That moment was one of the greatest zeniths (or nadirs) of my life. If I ever, ever felt that I didn’t deserve to be alive right then, that was the place. After all God had done to save me from death and the devil just a few short months before, there I was back at it again.

Sin is not a popular or politically correct word nowadays. But I knew without a doubt that I had sinned and gone back to the ways that had nearly killed me before. I didn’t deserve to survive that experience. I deserved punishment, big time.

But God had shown me two angels just a few seconds before that incident who were there to somehow guide that spinning car, hurdling backwards through the darkness along that mountainous road so that the car came to a standstill instead of flipping over or going off a cliff.

The total, undeserved, mercy of God. My willful, sinful self. The revelation of angels to show it was an act of His unearned clemency. We were totally unhurt. The car didn’t even have a scratch on it. We drove back to Austin as I was silently in awe, deeply stunned, sobered and humbled by what had happened.

Why had this happened? First, I was not yet a Christian and didn’t have the power of salvation to give me the strength to flee temptation and follow Him in a new life. But God evidently had a plan for my life. It wasn’t His time or place for me to have a big car wreck as there were a number of things that kept happening during the fall of 1969, leading up to my meeting some young radical Christians during the winter who led me to receive Jesus.

But if I ever have any doubts about where Jeremiah said “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked” (Jeremiah 17:9), then I can think back to my depraved foolishness as I tempted fate and God after He’d delivered me from death just a few months earlier. “His mercy is from everlasting to everlasting“. (Psalms 103:17) “The angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them.” (Psalms 34:7)

What’s next for me?

Posted on September 11, 2013 by Mark McMillion

For so many people who believe in God, they sort of instinctively “hedge their bets” when thinking about the future. James, in his book in the New Testament, said this to folks who were boasting about how “…today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a town, stay there a year, conduct business, and make money.” James went on to say to them, “You don’t know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? Instead you should say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live—and do this or that.’” (James 4: 13-15)

Maybe that’s where we get the often-used phrase, “Lord willing”, when we talk about our future plans. It’s a thought that transcends many faiths. The Muslims say, “Insha’Allah”, which basically means the same as we say in English, “Lord willing.”

But this doesn’t mean we’re to sit around, waiting for supernatural directions from heaven for every little thing we need to do. Most of the time God uses our common sense and gifts of the Spirit like wisdom, knowledge and understanding to get us through our days, rather than some dramatic, direct revelation from heaven.

Several people have asked me what I plan to do next, now that the Daniel 8 video is up on my other site. So I thought to let you know what my tentative plans and hopes are concerning the videos and other things over the next months.

As for the videos, I’ve already written and done a preliminary filming on 4 smaller videos which are basically supplementary material to the Daniel 8 class. It’s looking like they’ll be around 5 minutes each and will zero in on various spin offs or tangents from the study of Daniel 8. Here are some thumbnail sketches of these 4 videos:

“Alexander the Great comes to Jerusalem, reads Daniel 8”

The first will be an amazing story from secular history of when Alexander the Great and his generals came to Jerusalem during his conquest of Asia around 333 BC. The high priests escorted Alexander into Jerusalem and showed him the prophecy about him in Daniel 8. Alexander in response basically said to them, “What can I do for you?” This is all recorded in ancient secular history. I think a lot of people will be shocked.

“Famous Prophetic Flops”

Another video, also around 5 minutes, is going to look briefly at famous prophetic flops. Not that prophecy flopped but where individuals and religious leaders taught, “This is it!” and literally had their followers up on their roofs in white sheets, waiting for the return of Jesus that night. It’s good to realize how it’s possible to really misinterpret some of these things and how much of a bad testimony it is for the Lord and His Word when we do this. I sure believe in Bible prophecy. But I’m not blind to the many times in history when it has been misinterpreted.

“The Antichrist Has Already come?!”

Then there’s another short video, based around Daniel 8 and how this chapter in particular has been misunderstood and also challenged by skeptics. The truths in these chapters as we go forward get so deep and strong that the Darkness seems to really fight against the Light that is found in these. It’s good to be aware of this.

“God used the truths of Daniel 8 to help me in a difficult time”

And a forth short video will be about a time where the Lord used the truths in Daniel 8 to be a personal comfort and specific Word from the Lord that rescued me from a very difficult situation years ago.

Hopefully these 4 videos won’t take a long time and I am expecting them to be of special interest to a lot of people.

“Daniel 9 and Matthew 24”

After these are done, the next thing will be to continue on the main full length videos. I’m aiming to do the next chapter, Daniel 9, in two segments. The first will be about the part that’s already been fulfilled, “the 69 Weeks”, covering verses 1 to 26. Then the second video will be about the last verse in chapter 9 and how Jesus Himself talked about this verse and some others in Daniel, when He was answering questions from His disciples about His coming in Matthew 24.

This looks to be the agenda for me in the next months. I’ll be continuing my live classes and witnessing here in Austin. Also I’ll continue to post blog posts and will try to put the texts to the Daniel videos done so far into posts so that folks can read and study the material there. Thank you to everyone who has prayed for this project and for your thoughts and comments, God bless you!

Morning Miracle

Posted on September 7, 2013 by Mark McMillion

Miracles sometimes happen when you really weren’t expecting them. This morning I woke up one and a half hours earlier than usual, wide awake and ready to start my day.

I had a light breakfast, took 20 minutes to read some devotional material and review some verses, my regular start to most days. It was still early and my folks were not up. (I’ve been living with my parents, both 91 for the last year as they asked me if I could move in and be a help to them.)

I was on my way out the door to go to the park for a walk and prayer time when I saw that the door to my dad’s room was just barely opened. I peeked in and saw my dad out of bed and standing up, but severely crouched over, as he always is nowadays. He seemed to be having difficultly so I knocked on the door. He quickly asked me to come in and help him. Just as I got to him, he could stand up no longer and fell backwards. I grabbed his arm to slow his fall so it was more or less a controlled let down to the floor. Then I noticed that directly behind him was a wooden piece of furniture that he almost certainly would have crashed his head on if he’d fallen alone, backwards to the floor.

I went to wake up my mom, she came down and together we decided how to help my dad to his feet and back to his bed. But as I was considering all that had just happened, I realized that I’d just been a part of another one of those “little miracles” that the Lord engineers and that so often we don’t even perceive or take note of.

Why did I wake up so early today? Why did I go past my dad’s room just at that time? Why was his door slightly open so I could see him there? What would have happened if he had fallen backwards and hit his head on that wooden furniture? Had God engineered the whole thing, causing all the pieces to be in those places at that time so that a serious injury didn’t happened to my dad when he was alone in his room in the early morning?

“Oh Mark, you’re always spiritualizing things! You were just lucky! Why make such a big deal about it? Why do you have to include ‘God’?! Why can’t you just leave God out of it and just realize that it was just a coincidence!”

I have a lot of friends who live in places where probably 99 people out of 100 would say just that. They live in atheist, “post Christian” societies and any mention of their being a God who can and does engineer little miracles like this is scoffed at and considered a “medieval” way of looking at things. It’s nice in some ways to live where I do now. Maybe 50% of the people in this city would possibly give God the credit and glory for making it so that my dad didn’t fall alone in his room this morning and have a serious injury.

God’s behind the scenes workings in our lives go virtually unnoticed most of the time. His behind the scenes workshops where He does most of His work are unknown, unseen and unrealized by the vast majority of people. So probably that’s why Jeremiah 10:23 says, “Oh Lord, I know that the way of man is not in himself; it is not in man that walketh to direct his steps.” Or like Solomon said in Proverbs 20:24, “Man’s goings are of the Lord, how then can a man understand his own way?”

If you are trying to live the light you have, trying to follow the Lord and are “acknowledging Him”, then according to Proverbs 3:6, “He will direct your paths.” It’s not really anything you do or anything special about you. Like someone said, “Right time, right place, God’s will.” We have very little to do with it besides just being “sheep” who follow “the Shepherd”. But it really does pay off. And sometime you get to see those little glimpses into the heavenly workings of His Spirit when He manifests Himself in His recognizable way to protect us and help us avoid serious accidents. “Eye has not seen, neither has ear heard, neither has entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love Him. But God has revealed them unto us by His Spirit.” I Corinthians 2:9 & 10.

The Daniel Chapter 8 video

Posted on September 6, 2013 by Mark McMillion

I’ve been able to complete a 29 minute video on Daniel chapter 8. You can click here to see the full version.

There is also a two minute clip of the video for those who’d like to have a preview.

This is the fourth in the series of videos I’ve been working on concerning Bible prophecy and the prophetic chapters in the book of Daniel. Like the other videos before this one, much of the video is filled with illustrations of Daniel, the angel Gabriel, “the ram and the goat”, Alexander the Great, and the Antichrist of the endtime. Much of this was partially fulfilled in ancient history. But it’s explained in the video how there are important parts that are yet to be fulfilled in the times leading up to the return of Jesus.

This chapter builds solidly on the previous revelations of Daniel chapter 7 where we saw the 4 beasts. But, in putting the video together, I was struck by how much this chapter lays the groundwork for what is revealed in perhaps the most important chapter, Daniel 9.

For example, perhaps the most difficult part of Daniel 8 is where, almost out of the blue, two angels are discussing “the sanctuary”, “the daily sacrifice” and “the transgression that makes desolate”. These are all totally new subjects to these visions and prophecies but they introduce key factors in the revelation of Daniel 9.

Understanding this information and seeing how it all fits is a challenge for those who are new to all this. In fact, we find that during this revelatory experience, Daniel himself evidently fainted twice. He said the vision disturbed him for days and that he didn’t himself understand it. So we can expect that it will not be all that easy to understand for those who are going over these things for the first time.

There’s much in this chapter about Greece and Alexander the Great. There is also key information about the Antichrist of the endtime. And we note that Gabriel specifically tells Daniel three times that the vision relates to “the end”. This is particularly important because some Bible teachers have tried to say that the most important parts of this chapter were already fulfilled in the century or two before the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem.

As I’ve done in the other videos, this class has been produced with the target audience being folks who are mostly new to the subject of Bible prophecy. There are English subtitles which will help those whose first language is not English.

I hope this video will be a blessing to you and yours. I’d be glad to hear any questions or comments on how these videos can be more of a help to you. You can reach me at mark@markmcmillion.com. God bless you, love you lots! Mark

Peripherals

Posted on September 1, 2013 by Mark McMillion

If you’re like me, you probably have a “to do” list. There are so many good things to do and most of us have more to do than we know what to do with. So, what do you do?

This is one place where being a Christian, having faith in God and a personal relationship with Him and His Son really helps. We can know from the Word what the truth is and that clarifies so much. We can know what His will is, what our priorities should be and even just that should simplify our decision making.

But still, there’s just so much to do. If you are a mommy, there’s all that has to do with taking care of the kids and all they need in their lives. If you are a daddy, probably you have to bring home the pay check and not only be diligent with your job but have time for your family and home. If you’re a missionary or a witnessing Christian, you want to do what you can to lead people to the Lord and/or to “feed His sheep” (John 21:16) through classes or personal counseling.

Most of us know we should “major on the majors”. But even to figure that out takes some wisdom at times. Of course if you know the rent has to be paid in two days or you’re going to get kicked out of your apartment, it’s easy to know what your major is for the day.

Just so many of these things all meld together to where, if you really want to have peace in your heart and to know at the end of the day that you’ve done your best, then you usually need to take some time of prayer or deep consideration to try to prioritize what’s most important to get done.

There’s a phrase in English, “running around like a chicken with your head cut off”. That’s kind of graphic. But the idea is that at times, if you don’t watch out, you’ll just be super busy but with no plan, no goal, no direction. This is where for those of us who know the Lord, it helps so very much to have His directions. We are supposed to be “led of the Spirit” (Galatians 5:18). That’s not just some esoteric, spiritual mumbo-jumbo. We can and should really get our orders from the Lord. It’s not only possibly, it’s virtually essential if you want to have any order or meaningful accomplishment in your life.

So let’s say you have got to that place. You know what your priorities are. You know what your goal is and you believe it’s in line with God’s will for your life. Still, there’s a lot to do, right? How much time and resources should I give to this item? Should I take time to do that? How can I use my time the most effectively? Should I take any time to just kick back and relax?

For me, I find I need to really watch out about what could be called peripherals. Those are the little things on your to-do list that you know you need to do but they don’t seem really essential. They aren’t really the major, big things that will really get me moving forward towards what I know are the major goals the Lord has set for me. So it’s easy to keep overlooking the peripherals.

But Jesus said, “He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much. And he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.” (Luke 16:10) In another place He was talking to some people who had been very diligent in some things but utterly unfaithful in other areas. He told them, “These ought you to have done, and not to leave the other undone.” (Matthew 23:23)

It seems impossible. “How could God expect this of us? It’s just too much! I can’t do it! It’s not fair! I’m gonna quit!” But that doesn’t really work either. It’s just the nature of the world as it is that we have to take care of the big things and the little things. Have you heard the story of the king in old times who lost his kingdom because of a nail? The saying goes, “For want of a nail the shoe was lost. For want of the shoe the horse was lost. For want of the horse the king was lost. For want of the king the kingdom was lost.” All because of one little seemingly insignificant horseshoe nail, it set in motion a series of events that lost the kingdom.

How in the world can we be that diligent, that faithful, that wise to know how to take care of everything, even the little things we need to do? Maybe it’s like Jesus said in one place, “With man it is impossible, but not with God. For with God, all things are possible.” (Mark 10:27) If we’re “looking unto Jesus” (Hebrews 12:2) if we’re “seeking first His kingdom” (Matthew 6:33), if “our eyes are upon Him“, (II Chronicles 20:12) then we can really expect Him to do the miraculous and even the supernatural, which can sometimes be nothing more than to help us get through our to-do list and to be like the woman Jesus talked about when He said, “She has done what she could.” (Mark 14:8)

New live classes

Posted on August 29, 2013 by Mark McMillion

It’s worked out for me over the last month to begin to give live Bible classes here in Austin. I’m really glad about that as this is something I’ve done in the past in many places, including here in Austin for a time between 2001 and 2003.

From classes I taught in Jakarta, 2007

Actually, the series of videos that I’ve been working on comes from the live classes that I’ve taught for years in places like Scandinavia, Hungary, Indonesia, Brazil and Ukraine.

It’s been refreshing to find that so many Christians here who really feel that the best place for fellowship and Christian feeding in the Word can be found in what they call “small groups”. I do go to a “mega church” here in Austin and I wrote a blog post about it called “A Flock of Whooping Cranes”. But it’s been the smaller groups and adult Sunday school classes where I’ve really made new friends and these are the ones who’ve invited me to start going through the prophecies of Daniel with them. So far, it’s been around 15 people who come each Thursday night and it’s been a good time of deep Bible study.

In the past when I was abroad, much of the time my teaching was to what could be called “beginners”, folks who are relatively new to the Lord and to Christian teaching. Some of those times I was also teaching the children of missionary friends. But here in Austin, I would say the ones who are coming to the classes now are more “intermediate and advanced”. These are folks who have a pretty good knowledge of God’s Word and also are relatively familiar with what the Bible says about the times leading up to the return of Jesus. With these new freinds we can dig deeper as well as also answer some questions (or try to) about some of the more controversial subjects of the endtime picture.

Daniel 7: the 4 beasts

I’m really glad that things have gone so well with the web sites this year and also the Daniel 8 video which should be viewable in the next week or so, Lord willing. But I’m also very glad to see this door open to be able to teach in a live setting again. With all the art that’s been done on the videos so far, it’s made it so that the classes now can have this art shown on a large screen.

The Ancient of Days

The ones in the class can see what the Bible describes when it talks about “the four beasts” or “the Ancient of Days” or when when Daniel speaks with the angel Gabriel.

So if there are any of you in the greater Austin area who might be interested in coming to these classes, please get in touch with me . I’m open to other things like this developing if the Lord is leading and there are receptive people who want to dig deeper in the Word.

Gabriel speaks to Daniel

These are exciting times. Getting to know new friends, finding ones who really are hungry for the truth of the Bible, seeing what the Lord is doing and where things are going at this time is really thrilling. If any of this rings a bell with you, do get in touch with me and perhaps some new things in the way of live classes can be started up. God bless you!

Fascination for Evil

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Mark McMillion

I’ve realized that at times I have a fascination for evil. Not that I want to do evil but it’s like people say nowadays, “What were they thinking?” Like, “How could they think like that? How could someone be like that?”

I guess we all have an innate desire to understand. And for me, some things are just so weird, strange and crazy that it’s like I get tempted to wonder how someone could think like that? And I want to pursue it, I want to get into it and understand it. But I know from experience and also God’s Word that it’s not a great idea to really pursue that line of reasoning.

We want to relate to others, we want to understand the world around us, we don’t want to be judgmental, we really want to help others. But there are times where the best choice is just to step back and walk away, as difficult as that may seem to be. It’s a little like what I wrote about in the post about the old story called “The Tar Baby“. And this is taught a number of times in the Bible in verses that may not be really popular or politically correct.

How about this one. Jesus, in His most famous “Sermon on the Mount” said at one point, “Don’t give that which is holy to the dogs. Neither cast your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under their feet and turn again and rend you.” (Matthew 7:6) And of course He wasn’t talking about pets and farm animals. He was referring to some individuals, saying they were like dogs and pigs. At other times He called some people snakes, foxes, and wolves. This was Jesus, the most loving and kind Man that ever walked the earth. But He wasn’t naive; He called a spade a spade.

“But Jesus, don’t you want us to love everyone?! How could you be so cold and cruel, Jesus!?”

Because there’s evil in the world and there are people who at this time embrace and choose evil and the works of darkness.

“I thought we were supposed to keep turning the other cheek, let people walk all over us and just be little feeble pushovers like everyone says you were, Lord!”

Nope. Here are a few verses that are unpopular or virtually unknown but are really important. Solomon said, “Go from the presence of a foolish man when you don’t perceive in him the lips of knowledge.” (Proverbs 14:7). In other words, don’t hang around wasting your time with folks who just want to take your time and are not hungering for the truth of God you have to offer. Or this one, one of my favorites, “I will set no wicked thing before my eyes; I hate the work of them that turn aside, it shall not cleave unto me.” (Psalms 101:3).

Don’t set wicked things before your eyes, even the eyes of your mind. We need to hate the works of them that turn away from the Lord. Because those evil works will cleave to us if we don’t resist them. “Cleave” is an old word; think of what it’s like to have old ugly chewing gum stick to you or your clothes. That’s what “cleave” means. That’s what the sins and darkness want to do to your life and mind when you allow evil to fascinate you.

“Oh, Mark! Now you are preaching hate!”

King David said, “You who love the Lord, hate evil.” (Psalms 97:10) Paul said to the Ephesians “Have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them”, (Ephesians 5:11). Same idea again: just don’t “give place to the devil” (James 4:7). Don’t give time for the darkness and the evil to fascinate you and make you wonder what it’s all about. Isn’t that what happened to Eve? She saw the fruit was “good to the taste” and one that “made her wise” (Genesis 3:6); so she went for it. Big, big mistake. But it probably all seemed so “reasonable”.

“How could it be wrong?” “Let me just think about this for a minute; let me make sense of it all and figure it out.”

Nope. Walk away. “There is a way that seems right to a man, but the ends thereof are the ways of death.” (Proverbs 14:12) Like I wrote about Nehemiah, in “Can’t Come Down”, it must have really seemed narrow-minded and extreme that Nehemiah wouldn’t just come down from the wall and have a chat with those interesting folks who’d come to talk to him. But he didn’t. He had the grace of God to recognize that “God had not sent them” (Nehemiah 6:12) and he didn’t even want to hear what they had to say. Don’t get trapped, lured or lulled into a fascination for evil. “When the enemy shall come in like a flood, the Spirit of the Lord will lift up a standard against him.” (Isaiah 59:19)

Resetting to factory default

Posted on August 16, 2013 by Mark McMillion

In a recent post on my other web site, I wrote about “The Operating System”. Your computer probably runs Windows but maybe it’s a Mac or you run Linux. This is the basic system that operates your computer and is the platform on which all the software you use works from.

But often, everything means something. The same way there’s darkness and light, there’s Darkness and Light. There’s the sun but also there’s the Son and the Bible likens the sun to God’s Son. (Psalms 19:4-6)

So my “Operating System” is the regenerated heart and spirit that I received when I accepted Jesus into my life, as well as all the truth and power that flooded into my life at that time and continually since then. Today’s modern computers in some ways are a reflection of spiritual realities.

And the same way that Windows or Apple send out upgrades from time to time, God can and does sometime send us “new wine” (Luke 5:37) and tweaks and apps with the intention to improve our experience.

Here’s where it gets tricky. Most of us are pretty thankful for our computers as they help us do quite a lot we couldn’t do before. But every time there’s a new upgrade or a new package to install, do you always do it? In fact, not all of them are from the Manufacturer of your Operating System. Many are from vendors and software programs, promising you some great new boost to your experience if you’ll just download their program.

Maybe one time you did that and your computer jammed. There were viruses. It was a scam. Or maybe it was legitimate but so complicated or took so much Ram and hard drive space that it seemed like it just wasn’t worth it. It didn’t improve your experience, no matter what they said.

Maybe somebody liked it but your computer just ran slower and slower. You were confused, a little worried and you just really didn’t like this new thing that you were told was going to be so great. All kinds of things you could do before now didn’t work with the new upgrade.

Well, most computers come with an option that you can “reset to factory default”. You can go back to the original that was working pretty well when you first got it. You may lose some programs but your computer will work again. You may not have the latest and the greatest new thing. But you’ll be back to something that worked well and helped you to get the job done.

That can happen sometimes in your Christian life. You may have a time when you need to go back to the factory default. I’ve had to do that a few times, just to stay alive for the Lord. The latest and the greatest just didn’t work well for me.

I was at a seminar a few days ago and a couple admitted in public to a large audience that they were still using Windows XP. They were a little ashamed but probably everyone understood. XP was the operating system Windows released in 2001. It was perhaps the best since Windows 95. Most people found it just very rarely crashed.

But then the next one that was released was Windows Vista in 2006. Many people, myself included, found it to be difficult, slow, and a consumer of vast amounts of Ram and hard drive space. So those folks were still using what is considered a very old operating system. But it works well for them.

The main thing isn’t that you get the latest upgrade or program. The main thing is that you can use what you’ve got to interact with God and man and to serve God and man as well. Are you having trouble with your operating system? Have you had so many upgrades and packages installed that it hardly even works for you anymore? Maybe you need to reset to the factory default.

Was there a time when it really worked great and you were really getting something done with it? Maybe those settings are better for you, even if the company is telling you that you’re really behind the times. Old isn’t always bad and new isn’t always good. Or like Jesus said, “The operating system was made for man and not man for the operating system.” (Mark 2:27) That wasn’t quite the way He phrased it but I think the idea was similar.

Find what works for you within the packages of God. Upgrades are great. But some upgrades may be over your head, not totally essential or even from untrustworthy vendors. That’s why it says in Hebrews 13:9 “Don’t be carried about with different and strange doctrines, for it is good for the heart to be established with grace, not with foods, in which those who have walked in them were not helped.”

And don’t throw your computer out with the malware. Don’t through the baby out with the bathwater either. Hit “reset to factory default” and keep going for the Lord in a mode you find works for you and helps you to stay alive and fruitful for Him.

Redeeming the time

Posted on August 12, 2013 by Mark McMillion

There are so many fascinating, often obscure verses in the Bible that have had an effect on my life. Paul said that we should be “renewed in the spirit of our minds” (Ephesians 4:23). For me, it was reading, memorizing and embracing the words in the Bible that had so much to do with renewing my mind.

In one little known verse that Paul wrote to the Ephesians, he told them we should “redeem the time” (Ephesians 5:16), a fascinating idea. Does that mean we should stay real busy? You hear people say nowadays, “don’t waste time.” But why not? Why not just goof off as much as you can?

It comes back to what I wrote in “The Heavenly Vision” and “Is There Not A Cause?” For Christians and believers in God, our whole starting point for how we view life is different. If anyone should have a “purpose driven life”, it’s a Christian or believer in God. If Jesus was doing anything, He was giving us a vision for a life saturated with meaning, purpose, significance and even a sense of urgency to obey God and fulfill the calling and role that He communicates to us.

Besides our lives, our time is the next most important thing we have. Does that mean we should be rushing around all our lives, frantically trying to obey all that we know God wants us to do? No. In the story of Mary and Martha, Martha was busy doing housework and physical service while her sister was “just sitting there”, listening to Jesus. But when Martha complained to Jesus about it, He told her that “Mary has chosen the good part” (Luke 10:42), to sit at His feet and learn of Him. On the other hand, we can’t or shouldn’t just sit around all day in mediation and personal prayer.

So it comes back to our personal, living relationship with the Lord. Day by day, only God is way out there in front and knows what’s going to happen and is able to lead you and guide you and show you what to do. What did He show you to do today when you prayed about it? Should you take a day off to really pray about something? Did He show you to get busy and diligent with what He already showed you to do?

But in whatever you’re supposed to be doing, whatever He has showed you to do, we are to do it whole heartedly, with vigor and vision. That’s why all these things tie together so much. If you lose the vision, you probably can’t really “redeem the time” because you haven’t really found out what the Lord wants you to do.

And sadly that’s what so many believers succumb to: they loose the vision. “Where there is no vision the people perish” (Proverbs 29:18) and how many believers just end up “fainting in their minds” (Hebrews 12:3) and loosing the vision over the years. Jesus talked about the virgins who let their lights go out (Matthew 25); it’s pitiful how many people that happens to. They no longer have the ardor they originally felt for the Lord and have lost the desire to go forward in their walk with Him.

Some people I know think that means they lose their salvation, if they are in that condition. I don’t believe that. But Jesus said, “Every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give an account thereof in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36). If we’re going to give an account for every idle word, will we have to give an account of idle time, wasted on frivolous, worldly vanity that most of us are surrounded with in these times?

At the end of the day, I try to weigh up the books with my soul and ask myself, “What have I done today that I won’t have to do tomorrow? What have I done with this wonderful life that He’s allowed me to have? Have I spent it for myself? Have I been a blessing to Him and others? Have I “laid up treasures in heaven” (Matthew 6:20) or “wasted my substance in riotous living” (Luke 15:13) ? Has my vision today been for the world to come and to preach His Word in whatever way He has made for me? Or have I turned back to Egypt and settled in Babylon, like so many of the ancient Jews did?”

There’s a time to just take some time off. Read a book, go for a walk, have a glass of wine, go to a movie. But for so many, redeeming the time by staying full of the vision and active in the Lord’s service daily is either something they’ve almost never really gotten on board with or it’s something that they remember they did for a while years ago.

Even Jesus redeemed the time. He said, “I must work the works of Him that sent Me while it is day” (John 9:4) and “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to finish His work.” (John 4:34) God help all of us to keep the vision and to redeem the time daily for Him and others.