RAPTURE DREAMS AND NIGHTMARES
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 24, 2023 – Imagine, for a second, being rejected by God.
For a born-again believer, this is not something we would consider imagining. We know our God and are strong in our faith.
But for those who are not genuinely born-again and who rely on people around them to prop them up and tell them what to believe, being rejected by God is a fear perpetually lurking in the back of their mind, a fear perpetually stoked by those spoon-feeding them their beliefs.
Now let’s take these same people who are weak in faith and present them with a strong delusion, something like a mass abduction or sudden unexplained disappearance of thousands of Christians. Make the disappearance headline news for weeks across all media so that it’s all everyone is talking about everywhere. Call it something like “the rapture”.
Then imagine the turmoil in the souls of the weak in faith who’ve been left behind. Imagine how they feel, believing they’ve been publicly rejected by God. Imagine the stages of grief they go through. Imagine that most of them stop at anger.
Imagine all those who don’t know why they’ve been left behind stewing in their anger and disbelief. Imagine them turning their anger on God. Imagine, as a result of their anger, millions upon millions of Christians falling away from God in response to his seeming rejection of them. Imagine the degree and extent of such a monumental outcry of outrage, followed by a monumental falling away happening all over the world all at once.
Imagine the falling away!
Now imagine the devil’s glee.
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I had a dream a few weeks ago about a false rapture. Instead of people rising to meet Jesus in the clouds, as foretold by Paul, people were abducted by very real flesh-and-blood abductors and spirited away to bunkers. Then there were those who were “in on it” – high-profile Christians who’d preached on the rapture and who’d agreed to disappear for a while. The ones spirited away to bunkers included people like us – spirit-filled, born-again believers who would likely be troublemakers in the beast system and would see through the false rapture. They held us for a while in the bunkers, where they tortured us to try to get us to turn from God, and then they killed us.
Those who were “in on it” and who’d agreed to disappear for a while, later reappeared after the beast system (the false kingdom) was up and running. They returned with great fanfare to take their place alongside the anti-Christ, ruling with him. But not all of them who were “in on it” were allowed to live. Many of the lower-level rapture fraudsters were killed along with the people in the bunker. Something about tying up loose ends….
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After the dream, I spent a few days watching videos and reading testimonies of people who claim to have had rapture dreams and/or visions. I found that the dreams and visions generally fall into two categories: scenes of being part of the rapture and scenes of being left behind. Many of those who’d seen themselves being left behind recounted their vision or dream in tears. Underneath the tears, their anger and disbelief were palpable as they tried to reason with themselves why they were left behind.
It’s heartbreaking to see how many people have been caught up in the lie of the false rapture under the slogan “Jesus is coming back soon!” If the devil wanted to manufacture a world-wide simultaneous falling away from faith, he could do no better than to get people to believe they’ve been rejected by God without cause, while others they consider “less worthy” than them are taken to Heaven.
I believe that Jesus will return some day in glory with his holy angels to take home his faithful, but that this will happen at the very end of time, just before the Judgement. This is what God teaches me in scripture. I do not believe in either a pre-tribulation or a mid-tribulation rapture. I do believe that such alleged raptures are doctrines of devils that have been created to be used as I outlined above – as a snare for those who are weak in faith. It will be a false rapture, but many will fall for it and many more will fall because of it.
This strong delusion, I believe, will trigger the great falling away foretold by Paul that must happen before the “son of perdition” rises to power.
The only way to avoid this snare and not be caught up in the devil’s lies is to stand strong in the faith of Jesus Christ, not in the faith of YouTube prophets and televangelists.
WILDFIRE
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 20, 2023 – It’s funny, the things we think we’ll need if we have to leave the house in an emergency – photos, passports, ID. Maybe a few mementoes. Cash. Bank cards. A bottle of water. Meds. In a mad dash we might forget something important, so the government encourages us to pack a “go-bag” in advance and leave it by the door.
Yet all those must-haves that top our emergency prep list have no place in Heaven. We don’t need any of those things there. There’s no such thing as a heavenly go-bag. We come into this world bearing only our sin and we leave bearing only the record of our choices. No photos, passports, bank cards or meds required.
Wildfires seem to be all around us everywhere this summer. Even if we don’t see the flames, we smell the smoke. When a wildfire roared through a densely forested subdivision in my hometown of Halifax a few months ago, devouring everything in its path, I started packing a go-bag even though I don’t live anywhere near Halifax anymore. I just thought it would be a good idea to put a few things into a bag and put the bag where I could grab it fast if I needed to leave the house fast. I kept the bag in my closet for a few weeks, putting more things into it every now and then and also occasionally taking things out.
Then I remembered Jesus telling us that when we get the signal to leave, we won’t have time to go back even to grab a coat. He also told us that God will provide for all our needs if we put his Kingdom and his righteousness first. My go-bag seemed to be in direct violation of Jesus’ directives, so I unpacked it and decided to go go-bag-free for the rest of my time on Earth, just like I decided a few months ago to go preps-free.
It’s funny how the core things we need to survive within society (money and ID) have no use in Paradise. It’s also funny that the beast regime that’s being set up in preparation for the anti-Christ ruler is aiming to implement a system that appears to function without money or ID. All your data (financial, healthcare, driver’s license, etc.) will either be implanted directly into your body or will work in tandem with your unique bio-signatures, like your irises and fingerprints, through an AI component. This is the infamous mark of the beast foretold in the book of Revelation. Once the beast system is up and running, those who sign onto it will no longer need to carry any money or ID with them. The aim, I’m guessing, is to make it seem as if we don’t need those things anymore, just like in Heaven.
But the world is clumsy at mimicking God’s heavenly realm and supernatural abilities. Look at how badly modern medicine allegedly cures the blind and the lame or how demonic presences (relabeled as mental illnesses) are dealt with or rather not dealt with, just muzzled with drugs or electroshocked into uneasy silence. Satan may be a lot of things, but he’s not God. And the beast system, however glitzy the pre-sales propaganda, will be a far cry from Heaven. Not to mention that all those souls who do sign onto it will be locked out of Heaven and separated from God forever.
Doesn’t sound like much of a deal to me.
I’m happy to bypass “heaven on Earth” and wait for the real thing.
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Amazon’s Whole Foods just came out with “palm pay” as a way to pay for items in their stores. Once you sign up for the program and submit your biometric data (in this case, your palm print) along with your credit or debit card information, you no longer have to whip out a card or fumble for cash to pay at the check-out counter. You just wave your way through. Congratulations! You’ve saved 6.66 seconds on that transaction!
The similarity between palm pay and the mark of the beast has not gone unnoticed by many Christian commentators, but palm pay is obviously not the MOTB. Palm pay will, however, get people used to paying just by waving their hand past a sensor. It’s a training of sorts, so that when the actual mark comes, it won’t be such a shock to the system: it will seem like a natural extension of something already in place and generally accepted by the public. This is how the devil has been accomplishing his most noteworthy achievements of late. For instance, he’s been turning whole regions into modern-day Sodoms not by sudden grand and jolting gestures, but by surreptitious changes to laws and customs over a period of time across several countries. In this way, what was once unthinkable becomes the norm because what was once unthinkable is now deeply entrenched seemingly everywhere.
Needless to say, I’ll never submit my biometric data to Amazon, so I guess I’ll be permanently locked out of the palm pay system. Someone asked me yesterday whether I’m making plans for when cash is outlawed, and my response was nope, no plans. Like shunning go-bags and preps, I’m going to rely on God to help me through the situation, should it arise during my lifetime. I don’t think you can plan for being an outlaw; you just become an outlaw when circumstances dictate. It’s thrust on you, like baptism by fire. No preplanning or prep-work required.
Living in the Kingdom is a day-by-day proposition whose circumstances change by the second. God doesn’t change, but circumstances do, which means we need not only to be flexible, adaptable, mobile, and spiritually “clean”, with our lamp oil constantly topped up, but we also need to be entirely dependent on God for direction and instruction. We can’t put down roots other than in the Kingdom. We can’t have obligations to people. We need to live like Jesus and his first followers, who had only temporary homes and traveled fast and light.
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Over 150 homes were burned to the ground in the Halifax wildfire. Among those homes that were obliterated, I’m wondering how many were stocked with preps, all lost. The fire sprang up so suddenly and moved so quickly in the high winds and abnormally dry conditions, many of the people living in those homes didn’t even have time to jump into their cars but had to flee on foot. Others weren’t at home when the fires started mid-morning on a Sunday. These people lost everything but the clothes on their back.
Scripture gives us a general idea of what’s coming, but it doesn’t tell us exactly when. Jesus tells us to watch and be ready to leave at a moment’s notice with just the clothes on our back. We’re to travel light through this world; if and when we do make it to Heaven, we’ll have a permanent home there, but we’re to expect nothing to be permanent here.
As we move closer and closer to the time of the MOTB, circumstances will only get worse for those who reject the beast system. These circumstances cannot be fought against but only worked around and then endured, the way Jesus endured being an outlaw for a few years until finally being arrested and executed. This is our lot as Jesus’ followers; as it was with Jesus, so will it be with us.
We can pray to be taken Home before the worst arrives – for a supernatural emergency exit – but we cannot demand to be taken Home and we cannot guarantee that we’ll escape what’s coming.
Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying.
WHY WORSHIP GOD?
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 18, 2023 – One of the many barbs commonly thrown at Christians is that God must be some kind of a self-centered egomaniac if he needs people to worship him.
Nothing could be farther from the truth.
Yes, God invites us to worship him, but it’s for our sake, not for his.
Allow me to explain.
God gives every human an inbuilt desire to worship. He doesn’t stipulate, in giving us that desire, that we have to worship him. He just gives us the desire and invites us to worship him but leaves the choice of who or what we worship to us.
In worshiping, we bow down to the object of our worship. We may not actually physically bow down, but we bow down in every other way. We elevate our object of worship. We focus on our object of worship. We want to know everything about our object of worship. We spend most of our time thinking about our object of worship. We long to be near our object of worship. We reflect and mirror our object of worship. Our worship makes us subject to the whims and wiles of the worshiped, but we accept these without grumbling. We humble ourselves and would do anything to gain or to please the object of our worship.
Again, we humble ourselves. We humble ourselves in bowing down to our object of worship.
Humility is a good thing. Perceiving someone or something as being quintessentially better and greater than us is good for our soul. It gives us a place of rest. It builds trust in something or someone other than ourselves. It promotes and enables dependence.
In understanding what worship is, it’s crucial to understand that God doesn’t need our worship. He is perfect within himself and would not diminish one iota if no-one worshiped him. He would still be the same: God would still be God. Even unworshipped, he would still be God Almighty, the All-Knowing, the All-Powerful, the All-Merciful, and the All-Good.
He would still be God the All-Good.
Jesus tells us that only God is good. David in one of his Holy Spirit-inspired psalms tells us that all good things come from God – not just some good things or most good things, but all good things. Every good thing in our life comes from God.
So when we take the desire to worship that God’s given us and invest it in him, we humble ourselves before the All-Good, we focus on the All-Good, we aim to please the All-Good. This is why God gave us the desire to worship and then advised and guided us to invest that desire in him – so that we would fix our focus on that which is good, not on that which is not good. We would strive to please that which is good and to embrace that which is good and to mirror that which is good. And in so doing, we would reflect and mirror to others that which is good, keeping us firmly on the straitened and narrow path that leads to Home.
Most people, unfortunately, have chosen to invest their worship desires elsewhere than in God, worshiping money, investments, power, status, fame, career, movie stars, sports icons, YouTube influencers, spouses, children, grandchildren, hobbies, trends, politics, obsessions, demons, Satan, even (sadly) themselves. In other words, they turn away from God; they turn every which way but to God. God permits them to do this because he honors their free will. He gave them their free will and lets them use it however they choose. If they don’t want to worship God, he won’t force them to. But he’ll keep extending the invitation to worship him as long as there’s still time.
Those of us who’ve chosen to worship God know intimately that God is the farthest thing from a self-centered egomaniac. Everything he does, he does for us, not for himself. Our worship of God doesn’t benefit God in any way; he remains exactly as he is even if no-one worships him: worshiping God only benefits us and those around us.
Again – our worship of God only benefits us and those around us.
And that, my friends, is why we worship God.
UNHOLY LAND
“And ye shall leave your name for a curse unto my chosen: for the Lord God shall slay thee, and call his servants by another name.”
Isaiah 65:15
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 13, 2023 – About 600 years before the birth of Jesus the Christ, when Zedekiah was King of Judah, Jerusalem was burned to the ground. God permitted Jerusalem to be rebuilt only after 70 years of exile and only after the returning remnant had sincerely repented. Their repentance was so extreme that they had to divorce their non-Jewish wives and desert their non-Jewish children before the temple elders and prophets considered the re-settlers sufficiently “purified” to enter and rebuild the city. This was some serious repenting going on, not just half-hearted mumbling of a few Hail Mary’s and then sliding back to business as usual.
Fast-forward to 2023. The depravity that characterizes Jerusalem today far outdoes that of Zedekiah’s Jerusalem just before its destruction. The majority of the population has vehemently turned from God and now identifies as “secular” or outright atheist. The city is well known for being the unofficial homosexual capitol of the Middle East. Added to these sins is a recent campaign to forcibly remove Christians from Jerusalem or at the very least to stop them from preaching God’s Word. Christians are now being mocked, spat on, and assaulted in the streets of Jerusalem, much like Jews were in the streets of Nazi Germany or like Jesus was at his crucifixion. None of this bodes well for the former Holy Land. It also doesn’t in any way point to God having a hand in bringing these people back from their nearly 2000-year exile, at least not as a blessing.
Scripture gives abundant examples of God blessing his people when they keep his Commandments and cursing them when they don’t. At no point does God reward the unrepentant with anything but the due reward of unrepentant sin, which is punishment. You cannot in all honesty look at Jerusalem today and say that God’s people have returned as prophesied in scripture. These are not God’s people; they are deeply sinful unrepentant agnostics and atheists who despise the Word of God and have vehemently rejected God’s Messiah and those who follow him. In other words, they’re no different from any other unbelievers anywhere else in the world.
But that doesn’t mean that these unbelievers, like other unbelievers, can’t while there’s still time become God’s people, if they sincerely repent. As things stand now, however, the majority of the population in Jerusalem and elsewhere in Israel in no way fulfills scripture.
The Kingdom of God on Earth, established by Jesus 2000 years ago, fulfills scripture. The Israel that was to come is a spiritual realm, not a geopolitical one, and only born-again Spirit-filled followers of Jesus live in it. This is the Zion foretold by the Old Testament prophets. This is the one and only; there will be no other.
It’s important to remember that God’s people are those who do the will of God, regardless of their genetics or cultural heritage. The lineage of the children of Israel since Jesus has been solely a spiritual lineage, not a genetic one. Even before Jesus’ resurrection, strangers (i.e., non-Hebrews) who joined themselves to Israel were considered God’s children if they followed the Law given by God through Moses. Again – those who do God’s will are God’s people. Cultural and genetic background has nothing to do with it.
After the razing of Zedekiah’s Jerusalem, those who resettled the city understood that their return hinged on the sincerity of their repentance both as individuals and as a nation. The returnees were hand-picked by elders, priests, and prophets; they couldn’t just decide one day to up and move to Jerusalem. They had to be chosen to go. A list of these hand-picked and chosen returnees is in the Bible. Had they not sincerely repented and turned back to God with all their heart and all their soul and demonstrated it by willingly doing whatever was required of them, they could not return.
Given the rigor of these pre-conditions, the remnant that made the trek back to the ravaged city did not take their return lightly or for granted. They didn’t demand it; they were humbly grateful for it. They understood the gravity of the situation. They understood the precariousness of their situation. They also understood that it would be their last chance to get right with God as a people.
No such pre-conditions of repentance and turning back to God were imposed on those who have resettled Palestine since the late 1940s. The demonically inspired excesses that have become the norm in today’s Jerusalem would have made even Zedekiah blush. The whole city has become one big seething abomination, a playground for legions of demons that have expanded their turf across the entire geopolitical state of Israel. There is nothing holy about that land anymore. God removed his Spirit from it millennia ago, and other than for the odd Witness or two, he won’t be sending it back.
“I will surely consume them, saith the Lord… and the things that I have given them shall pass away from them.”
Jeremiah 8:13
CANADA’S CHASTISEMENT AND CALL TO RIGHTEOUSNESS
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 11, 2023 – They wanted a godless nation, and now they’re getting one.
Canadians, I mean.
The majority of Canadians have kicked God to the curb, and God doesn’t stay where he’s not wanted.
But in his place, demons are pouring in, wreaking havoc wherever they roam.
And yet these same Canadians who kicked God to the curb and are now plagued by demons can’t figure out why their country and their lives have gone downhill so fast.
If you tell them it’s because of earned rewards for sin (which I tell them all the time), they laugh. They instead point to “climate change” causing the floods and fires and droughts and heat waves. They point to the surge in immigrants and refugees causing a host of worsening issues, from lack of affordable housing to problems getting a family doctor or even a seat on public transit. They claim that the recent uptick in urban violence is because of untreated mental illness and a lax justice system. When I tell them the worsening weather and surge in immigration and increasing violence is their reward for sin, they laugh at me again. They think if they can outlaw gas-powered vehicles, scale back the number of people pouring into the country, and hire more doctors and law enforcers, their problems will be solved.
But trying to stop the rewards of sin by looking the other way is like trying to heal a fatal disease by numbing its symptoms. The disease persists and worsens. As long as Canadians refuse to acknowledge and repent of their sin, the rewards of sin will continue.
When a nation is under chastisement, living conditions quickly and noticeably deteriorate. The currency devalues and the cost of food and housing doubles or triples while wages stay the same or even go down. Homelessness, drug abuse, disease, illness, and suicide increase exponentially. The air becomes unbreathable from wildfire smoke. Whole regions are flooded with “biblical” freak storms. Crops fail. Infrastructure fails. Marriages fail. Insect populations displaced by the fires move into populated areas they hadn’t been before. The populace suffers in every conceivable aspect of their lives – both public and private – with no relief in sight.
Scripture says that God chastises those whom he loves, to bring them to their spiritual senses. He does this by letting them feel the consequences of their actions. Scripture also warns that the reward of sin is death. When a population is under chastisement, the conditions they experience are a precursor to what is to come if they continue to refuse to turn back to God and double-down on their sin. ‘Once in a century’ floods, wildfires, drought, and crop failures become the norm rather than the exception. The flood of immigrants and refugees becomes an unstoppable deluge. Suffering increases exponentially, the way that cancer metastasizes and proliferates in a body, pressing on nerves.
The only way out of this dreadful situation is full national repentance, but we know that’s highly unlikely in a country that’s officially declared itself “secular” and “religiously pluralistic”. So it’s up to Canadian Christians to go all-in for God, to put God front and centre in their lives, like Jesus did. If enough Christians living in Canada did this, God would lessen the severity of the chastisement.
The decision to go “all-in” for God has to be made on an individual basis. We know that Abraham bargained with God to stop the destruction of Sodom if there were only 10 righteous souls in the city. I’m not sure how many righteous souls God would require in Canada to lessen the chastisement, but I’m guessing it would be in the hundreds.
Hundreds doesn’t sound like many in a population of 40 million, but keep in mind that Sodom couldn’t even cough up 10 righteous souls in their hour of direst need. God only knows how many Canada would be able to produce, given the fallen state of its denominational churches and the tolerance for sin that characterizes most Canadian Christians these days. God also only knows how much more time we have before chastisement turns into judgement.
Regardless, Canadian Christians need to put their shoulder to the wheel not just for the sake of their failing nation but for the sinners struggling in it. Our job isn’t just to live righteously before God, but to call sin sin and to show sinners the way out of sin.
Sadly, what’s happening to Canada is also happening to other former Christian nations. Even the United States, with is gargantuan Christian majority, is not escaping God’s chastisement. Not surprisingly, those states with the lowest percentage of declared Christians are suffering the most.
God’s chastisement is real, just as its mitigation through righteousness is real. We can’t stop people from sinning (even God can’t do that), but we can stop ourselves from sinning and we can show sinners the righteous way to live by living righteously – that is, by living openly more righteously than we’ve ever lived before. This is within our range of ability. This we can do with God’s help.
We can go all-in for God, like Jesus did.
Because going all-in for God is not an exception to the rule; it’s our calling.
PRAY! UNLEASHING THE MOST POWERFUL FORCE IN THE UNIVERSE
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 8, 2023 – The devil works hard to stop us from praying because he well knows the power of prayer.
When we pray, we connect directly with God and give him permission to intervene, which our free will dictates we need to do. We expressly need to give God permission or he will not intervene.
The devil tries to mess with this process so that we don’t go to God for help. He tells us that prayer is useless or that we need to pray what Jesus calls “vain repetitions” (e.g., Haily Mary, Our Father, etc.). But reciting pre-set verses is not prayer. Prayer is simply talking to God from our heart. No recitation is needed.
Prayer is so important that Paul says we need to do it without ceasing. That means we need to keep our personal prayer line to God always open and functioning. Our thoughts should never be far from God. We should defer to him and ask his advice in everything we do. Jesus did, which is why God stated he was “well pleased” with him. If you want God to be pleased with you, too, follow his advice in everything you do, even and especially when God’s advice clashes with that of the world.
I find it very sad when people say they don’t have time to pray. If you love God, you make time to pray. In fact, you pray all day; you’re always in God’s presence. Having your mind on God and the things of God is prayer. You don’t necessarily have to say anything, even in your heart. You just have to know that you’re with God and he’s with you. That’s praying, too.
I have found that the strongest and most effectual prayers come with the least number of words or even no words at all. Paul calls this groaning deep within your spirit. When you entirely throw yourself at God’s mercy or petition his help with complete submission to his will, that’s when God can work the most powerfully through you. I have also found that there are times when I need to get down on my face, not just on my knees – I need to get down on my face, fully prostrate before God. Like Job, we need to be reminded every now and then of our pathetic worminess and God’s utter magnificence. Even though he comes to us as a loving Father, he is the King of kings, Lord of lords, and God of gods. He is the ultimate and perfection of all things good and holy, and nothing happens anywhere without his knowledge and permission. We need to be reminded of this every now and then, so that we know our place in the grand scheme of things, so that we remain humble. God cannot (will not) work through pride.
Yes, the devil well knows the power of prayer. Stopping people from praying or from even wanting to pray is a big part of Satan’s ministry, and he’s been quite successful at it. He’s gotten whole denominations to recite vain repetitions to angels and dead people and to call those repetitions “prayer”, even though scripture warns us not to pray to angels or dead people and Jesus dismisses vain repetitions as useless. The more the devil can dissuade us from praying or get us to pray in ways that are ineffectual or downright blasphemous, the farther away we are from God. Prayer is how we maintain and grow our relationship with our Father. Without genuine prayer, there can be no relationship.
We need to pray all day, every day, like Paul taught us. Jesus was always connected to God through constant prayer, which is how he was able to perform so many miracles. In one of the few instances when he prayed publicly, Jesus said to God that he knows he always hears him and that he was only praying aloud for the benefit of the people around him.
We should also want God always to hear us, like he heard Jesus. He will if we make time to spend time with him every day and do what he advises. Prayer is just talking to God, out loud or silently, and consciously being in his presence. Note that talking also means listening.
The more time you spend with God in prayer, the closer you grow to God and the more you trust and lean on him. The more you trust and lean on him, the greater your faith. The greater your faith, the more God’s Spirit can work through you to move all kinds of mountains. This is the power the devil is trying to prevent you from having by stopping you from praying.
Never let anyone stop you from praying.
“MANY WILL COME IN MY NAME”: DISCERNING FALSE PREACHERS
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 7, 2023 – Jesus wasn’t very good-looking during his time on Earth. Neither was Paul or Peter or any of Jesus’ early followers. Some of the women were attractive, but they weren’t preachers. Preaching the Word was an exclusively male domain for nearly 2000 years. Women taught children and each other about the Kingdom, but public preaching was done by men, homely men, men without much (or any) charisma or physical appeal. Paul specifically mentioned that those in the Church were generally unaccomplished, came from humble backgrounds, and weren’t much to look at. He also mentioned that he was a poor public speaker. Moses admitted the same about himself.
The power of these humble homely men and what drew people to them was God’s Spirit speaking through them. It was God’s Spirit that gave their words authority. Truth is a magnet to those who love Truth.
I mention this because we’re in an age of great deception. God is permitting legions of false preachers to be unleashed, and they’re coming at us slick of word and smooth of face. It’s hard not be mesmerized by them. It’s hard not to fall under their spell, and a spell it is, have no doubt about that. These are deep state-trained, demonically inspired, designer drug-fueled preachers whose job it is to overwhelm us with their charisma and lead us into error.
Their ultimate goal is to turn us away from God.
Here’s how you’ll know them:
First and foremost, they’ll ask for money to preach. Not just an honorarium, a set fee. They’ll also ask for money for their ministry, books, videos, seminars, workshops, private counselling, projects, etc. They’ll be selling the Word not just figuratively but literally. The “DONATE” button will be prominent on their website.
Second, somewhere on their website you’ll see a triangle or pyramid symbol, either upright or inverted, either outright or stylized. Or you’ll see an outright or stylized symbol of a compass (an architect’s tool, not a way finder tool). Or you’ll see an outright or stylized eye. There are other symbols, but these are the main ones. They’re symbols of various deep state factions that signal who owns these preachers.
Third, they’ll be married with kids. It won’t just be one kid; they’ll have at least two. If male, they’ll have a devoted photogenic wife, if female, they’ll have a devoted photogenic husband, along with multiple children. None of these false preachers will be childless and unmarried (or separated from their spouse and children in the service of God), like Jesus and his early followers were.
Fourth, they’ll hit you over the head with scripture. They go for the wow factor when they preach, and part of that is throwing chapter and verse at you so fast your head spins. The intent is to amaze and impress you with the breadth of their knowledge, but the real impact is your confusion.
Fifth, they’ll push a “Jesus is coming back soon” and/or some form of rapture event. They’ll focus on end times and the apocalypse, and their sermons will be mostly fear-based. They’ll rarely, if ever, mention the Ten Commandments or the importance of keeping them, and they’ll never mention false prophets or false preachers. Some of them also still preach prosperity by stressing the “biblical principle” to tithe and “sow”.
Sixth, they’ll come across as physically attractive. Whether male or female, they’ll dye their hair to try to appear younger. They’ll dress in expensive clothes and accessorize with expensive jewelry and watches. Both males and females will have had cosmetic surgery or Botox injections and they’ll wear obvious make-up, which the males will dismiss as “stage make-up” (but they actually wear it to improve their appearance). Their appearance will be very, very important to their ministry. They’ll have gleaming teeth, most of which are capped, implanted, or otherwise false, and they’ll have an overly broad smile and piercing gaze that’s meant to disarm you. It’s worth noting that psychopaths have the same piercing gaze.
Seventh, they’ll refer to Jesus as “Christ”, not Jesus. They’ll occasionally say “Jesus”, but mostly they’ll say “Christ”. Certainly, Jesus is the Christ, but there’s power in the name of Jesus, not Christ.
Eighth, they’ll seem to have boundless energy. They never seem to get tired, regardless of their age or how busy their schedules are. That’s because they’re on a regime of designer drugs or other concoction I’d rather not know about. They’re also at times possessed when they preach. Their physical energy when they’re in public is greatly augmented. They radiate energy. That’s a big part of their appeal.
Churning our false preachers is a specialized industry within the deep state, which is Satan’s global government. As Jesus warned us, “many will come in my name… and deceive many”. Social media is enabling false preachers to have a wider reach than ever before, and they’re taking full advantage of it.
If you’ve been caught in the net of a slick-talking false preacher for a time, don’t be ashamed. We all have. It’s part of our learning process. What we take away from the experience is how to discern false preachers so that we’ll never get caught by them again.
ESCAPING GOD’S HOLY CHASTISEMENT AND FINAL JUDGEMENT
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 6, 2023 – When I was first born-again and started reading the Bible, I was shocked by how coolly the holy angels condoned God’s wholesale destruction of entire cities and nations. I remember thinking that the angels were cold-hearted and almost robotic in how they stated the suffering was deserved. I remember wondering where God’s mercy was in these cases.
But as I grew as God’s daughter, I came to understand the connection between sin and holy judgement, sin and holy chastisement, and holy chastisement and holy judgement. I came to understand that holy judgement is definitive and final, and that after it’s been decided there is no going back, whereas holy chastisement leaves room for repentance and renewal and only occurs after God’s repeated and increasingly urgent warnings have been ignored.
Holy chastisement is God’s last-ditch effort to get people to turn back to him. It may be delivered on an individual basis or spread across an entire region or nation, but it’s purpose is to stop sinners in their tracks so that they reevaluate their lives and turn back to God before it’s too late. When God is chastising individuals, they may experience extreme financial problems, relationship meltdowns, employment implosions, etc. Nothing will go well for them; they’ll feel that their lives are entirely out of control and there’s nowhere to turn for help. When God is chastising people collectively, he usually delivers it through natural disasters or plagues. But again, the impact of the event on each person within the collective is so extreme, they feel that everything is beyond their control and no-one can help.
Most of former Christendom is now under God’s holy chastisement. It’s mainly coming in the form of extreme weather events like floods and heatwaves that are being described as biblical in scope and intensity, but it also involves wars, wildfires, double-digit inflation, plunging standard of living, mass non-Christian immigration, insect invasions, widespread “turbo-charged” disease, family and societal breakdown, and rampant sexual deviancy. Climate change, of course, along with the usual suspects of racism and capitalism, have been fingered for blame for these events, but their real cause is widespread unrepented sin.
Some of us suspect that these plagues are contrived (manmade). But even if they are contrived, they’re still being permitted by God, which means they’re being allowed for a purpose. God needs people to feel the full consequences of their actions so that the shock of the pain will give them a chance to turn back to him before things get much, much worse. God is the only one who can help them once they’ve reached the chastisement stage. In other words, it’s either repent or suffer the inescapable and earned final consequences.
God’s holy judgement is the time of annihilation. When his holy chastisement is unsuccessful at getting either an individual or a collective to stop sinning, God has no choice but to render a final judgement of “guilty” against these people. His perfect justice demands that he do so. If God were not to condemn in these cases, he would be in violation of his own justice.
The full-scale destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (other than for Lot and his family) is probably the best-known instance of God’s condemnation of a collective, but the Flood was also a judgement against everyone except Noah and his family, as was the total annihilation of entire cities and towns by the armies of the children of Israel under the command of Moses and Joshua. God instructed his armies not only to burn these places to the ground, but to slaughter every man, woman, child, and animal in them, to spare none. Nothing was to be left but a smoldering heap. Their bloodlines were to be obliterated.
God renders a similar judgement of guilt on individuals, even among his own people. We see the same instruction to utterly destroy given to the angels in Ezekiel 9 and throughout the book of Revelation. In each case, God has warned his people of imminent destruction if they don’t turn back to him, but they double down on their sins, ignoring his warnings and cursing him for his holy chastisement. This leaves God no choice but to follow through with the intended annihilation of all unrepentant sinners.
Scripture says that God chastises those whom he loves. Chastisement leaves room and time for repentance, but there is an urgency about it that should never be dismissed. Even born-again believers can find themselves on the receiving end of God’s holy chastisement if they go astray. We should thank God when that happens to us – THANK God, not curse him, not grumble, and not blame the devil. We should thank God for his chastisement because it means he loves us and there’s still time to get right with him. We should thank God and do whatever he’s telling us to do or endure whatever he’s asking us to endure because ultimately, he has our best interests at heart – not his best interests, our best interests. God does everything he does for us.
As former Christian nations spiral ever downward in every conceivable way, we need to remind ourselves that we, as God’s children in right standing with our Father, don’t need to suffer the chastisements meant to bring sinners to repentance. God doesn’t want us to suffer those chastisements. He will always give us a way and means to avoid them and we should follow his guidance and avoid them. We don’t get spiritual brownie points for choosing to suffer what God doesn’t want us to suffer: We only get suffering that has no redeeming purpose. So if God tells you to leave a place because it’s under his chastisement, leave it. Again, you don’t gain any reward for choosing to suffer what you haven’t earned. The only one who gained a reward for suffering what he hadn’t earned was Jesus, and we’re not Jesus. If God advises us to leave, we need to leave.
God had Noah build the ark to escape the flood, and he sent angels to rescue Lot. God always looks after those who love him, even during times of chastisement and judgement. God knows his children and is known of them. He keeps us safe in his secret place, but it’s up to us to do what he says when he says to do it. We cannot defy God’s guidance and then expect to be rescued at the last minute. That may work once, when we do it out of ignorance, but it won’t work twice.
If you love God, stay in right-standing with him and do whatever he says, without complaining and without delay. That’s the only way you’ll escape his chastisement and final judgement.
THE ONLY WAY TO LEARN GOD’S WORD
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 6, 2023 – In one of the gospels, there’s a wonderful tableau of Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, learning from him. She’s not poring over a scroll with furrowed brow or dutifully taking notes on papyrus – she’s simply and humbly sitting on the floor, totally enraptured by what Jesus is teaching her. Martha, as we’re told, is fussing and harumphing in the background trying to catch their attention. When she fails to do so, she curtly interrupts them to ask Jesus if he could please remind Mary that she needs help with the meal preparations. But to Martha’s surprise, Jesus defends Mary’s choice to sit at his feet and learn from him rather than to help Martha with the chores. He says: “Mary has chosen the better part, and it won’t be taken from her.”
The Bible is not meant to be studied. It is not meant to be a work project or a chore that we somehow have to get through. It’s not meant to be “interpreted” by our own or someone else’s woefully inadequate intellect. It’s not meant to be quoted chapter and verse. Like Mary sitting at Jesus’ feet, we’re to approach the Bible by humbly opening ourselves to God’s Word and letting God teach us. We’re to be guided by God’s Holy Spirit when we’re learning scripture; we’re not to be misguided by our own understanding
The terms “Bible scholar” and “Bible study” should not exist.
We’re to read the Bible, not study it; we’re to learn from God what scripture means, not lean on our own understanding or that of someone else, however “learned” they claim to be.
When we read his Word, God opens to us what he wants us to learn, which is what we need to learn at any given time. And because God and God only is teaching us and because there’s only one God, there can be only one meaning – God’s – for every point of scripture. There’s no room for private interpretation or consensus model learning when it comes to God’s Word. Any interpretation that deviate’s from God’s is false.
The last Bible study I attended was early on a Sunday morning in downtown Toronto a few years ago. There were only a few people in attendance that day, all of them (except for me) over the age of retirement. I could tell by the way they interacted that they’d known each other for a long time. I was the outsider, having just wandered in off the street.
It was very much a consensus-model type of Bible study. The attendees’ Bibles were well-worn, with the yellow-, pink-, and blue-highlighted pages fluttery with sticky notes. They looked like recipe indexes rather than Holy Scripture. I hadn’t brought my Bible with me because I didn’t know I was going to be at a Bible study that morning. I’d just gone for a walk and happened upon the sign that read “Bible Study Sunday 9 – 10 am”, and in I went. Truth be told, I was looking for a public washroom, and I figured the church door would be open if there was a Bible study going on. And so it was. Mission accomplished. It was only after my very pressing mission was accomplished that I decided to stay for the Bible study.
Consensus model anything has never been my cup of tea. I don’t like it and I don’t agree with it, but I find it particularly annoying when it comes to learning God’s Word. Consensus model means no-one really knows what they’re talking about with regard to the topic at hand, but if enough people throw their ideas into the ring, something useful may emerge. Consensus model can also mean that the person who has the right idea is talked over and ignored by those who don’t have a clue, and that the ideas of the clueless reign by virtue of numbers rather than merit. The consensus model approach is essentially restrained bullying by the majority.
So I sat and listened while they presented their prepared speeches on what they thought John 12:1-11 meant, making reference throughout their presentations to other verses in the Bible and to the interpretations of various theologians. I felt like I was at a university seminar. They each thought the chapter meant something slightly different, but instead of challenging each other on how they could believe the same scripture could mean something different, they just nodded politely and smiled. It was a tight little smile they smiled, the type you give when you don’t really feel like smiling but social decorum calls for it.
As some of you may realize by now, I’m not big on decorum. I totally disagreed with all of their interpretations and told them so. I could see the shock on their faces and the silent harumphing in their eyes indicating they considered me out of line. Maybe I was out of line, according to the rules of their Bible Study game, but I can’t sit and let people get away with misreading God’s meaning and not speak up about it.
As I mentioned, there can be only one meaning for any given word or line or verse or chapter or book in the Bible because there’s only one God, and God is the one who assigns meaning to his Word. If your interpretation doesn’t align with God’s, then you’re wrong. There’s no other way to put it except that you’re wrong. God is right, and you’re wrong.
I ended up leaving early because I frankly couldn’t handle the fussiness of the attendees. I’d come into the study like Mary, hoping to sit at Jesus’ feet and learn, but instead I’d wandered into a room full of Marthas all eager to outfuss each other with their array of sticky notes and quotes from theologians. There was no love for learning there, just a desire to one-up each other with evidence of how much time and effort they’d invested in their interpretation. I felt sad and frustrated when I left, but I reminded myself it was my own fault and I should have known better. Churches these days are the last place you’ll find a Christian.
I remembered the ill-fated Bible study early this morning when I was reading the Bible. I’m not sure why it came back to me today, other than “how people learn” has been on my mind over the past few days after reading hundreds of comments by alleged Christians supporting and promoting the movie starring a demon. The people claimed they’d learned a lot about demons from the movie and they considered this learning source a good thing. I heartily disagree. There is only one way to learn God’s Word, and that’s to read God’s Word, not study it. Read it, and let God teach it to you, like Jesus taught Mary. You don’t go to other people and ask them to interpret God’s Word for you. You certainly don’t go to a fictional representation of a demon to learn God’s Word. You sit like Mary and let God teach you.
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My prayer for you is this: I hope that if you’re in a Bible study, you’ll stop going to it. I hope that if you’re hosting a Bible study, you’ll stop doing it. I hope that instead of “studying” the Bible, you’ll humbly sit down with God and the Bible and let him teach you his Word. I hope you don’t mar your Bible with highlighting or sticky notes. I hope you realize that God and God only has the final say on what the Bible means and that God and God only is the only one you should be going to if you want to learn his Word.
I hope that you receive this reminder today in the spirit it was intended – to guide rather than to admonish, to encourage rather than to discourage.
And here’s my blessing for you: May all your Bible-reading sessions be like Mary sitting at the feet of Jesus, oblivious to everything but learning God’s Word.
Amen.
HOOK
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 6, 2023 – God uses all manner of things to hook us; he baits the hook, we bite the bait, and he reels us in.
We have our own hooks, too. God made me a woman. He made me a woman for a reason, for his reason.
Jesus showed his love for women during his time on Earth. We don’t have go over again how he chose a woman (Mary Magdalene) to reveal his resurrection to. We don’t have to go over it again, but we will, because it’s important.
As a woman speaking up in God’s Church, I have experienced that the very fact of my being a woman is all it takes for some people to shut down and disregard me. I’ve even on occasion had people tell me to shut up, to not presume to be able to teach men, to know my place.
Oh, I know my place all right – it’s right here following behind Jesus, following his lead, just like everyone else who’s born-again, whether male or female.
In God’s Church, there is no male or female. We’re just his children. That’s our pedigree: children of God. In time and space, there’s male and female, Greek and Roman, rich and poor, Black and White, old and young. But in God’s Kingdom and in God’s economy none of those characteristics exist: We’re all the same.
It’s important to remember that Jesus chose a woman to reveal his resurrection to because the fact is that he did choose a woman. It’s also important to remember that whatever Jesus did, he did for a reason, he did because God guided him to do it. God guided Jesus to do everything he did. Now, I don’t think that Jesus chose a woman to reveal his resurrection to because he wanted to elevate women above men, as some people think – no, I don’t believe that at all. I think he chose a woman to reveal his resurrection to in order to elevate her to the stature of a man, which was unheard of in those days. He wanted to make the witness of a woman as credible and valued as that of a man.
He was also using her to test the disciples. She was the hook, and her sex was the bait.
Jesus had made a point of defending and elevating women throughout his ministry years. Where in some cases even his disciples wanted to condemn, Jesus defended. It was in fact Jesus’ defence of Mary’s anointing him with oil of nard that was the straw that broke Judas Iscariot and led directly to his betrayal of Jesus. This is how deeply entrenched the devaluation of women was, even within the disciples’ ranks. Jesus elevated Mary to the stature of a prophet, and this was too much for some of the men present. For some today, it still is
A hook is something that lures and entices. It’s meant to be bitten; you’re meant to be caught on it. It’s baited in God’s case with holy bait. If God is baiting you, whatever he’s baiting you with is holy, whatever he’s luring you with is holy, whatever he’s enticing you with is holy. His Bible is holy bait. Jesus is holy bait. All of God’s prophets are holy bait, all on their own unique hooks so that they not only lure but catch. The bait lures, the hook catches.
I am a woman. To anyone within the Kingdom, the fact of my being a woman shouldn’t matter, any more than my color or my wealth or my age or my nationality. All that should matter to someone in the Kingdom is that I’m a child of God and a follower of Jesus. That is my pedigree. Nothing else matters.
To the world, God uses the fact of my womanhood as bait.
I am the holy bait luring the unholy to God.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 