STAR
MCLEODS, New Brunswick, December 31, 2023 – You would have thought that Herod and the chief priests would have been overjoyed to hear about the star. You would have thought they’d have been eager to tag along with the wise men and outdo even the magi in the pomp and splendour of their gifts. You would have thought nothing would have stopped them from shouting the good news from the rooftops all across Jerusalem and beyond.
You would have thought.
But scripture relays an entirely different response to the revelation of the King’s birth. Instead of inspiring joy, the news “troubled” the political and religious elite. Instead of a giddy and mad rush to prepare a celebration, Herod huddled with his advisors, plotting what to do with the child. Surely the magi must have wondered at Herod’s strained inquiries and tight-lipped smile. Surely his odd behavior and that of the temple elders must have dominated discussion during the final leg of the wise men’s journey. A subdued reception to the wondrous news was the last thing the magi had expected, considering that they themselves had dropped everything to follow the star.
So when God warned them in a dream not to let Herod know they’d found Jesus and to return home another way, the magi were likely only too happy to give Herod the slip.
Jerusalem at the time of the star was under Roman occupation. The majority of the people in Israel and Judea languished under military rule, but the powers-that-be flourished. They had found it to their advantage to forge both official and unofficial alliances with the Romans, and a prophesied King thrown into the mix would have threatened their dealmaking. Herod had no qualms about killing the King of the Jews, if by killing him the status quo could be maintained.
Recall that the second temple had been lavishly expanded under the direction of Herod and even dubbed “Herod’s temple”, his input was so extensive. Yet the same man who had funnelled immense resources into the glorification of the temple was hellbent on destroying the very King that gave the temple its glory.
How could this be?
The cornerstone for the second temple had been laid around 500 B.C. under humbling circumstances. Only the faithful were permitted to return to Jerusalem after its near total destruction by the Babylonians 70 years earlier. Only the faithful were permitted to work on the construction of the temple, and only by free will, not by coercion or obligation. The second temple, at its inception, was a far cry in splendor from Solomon’s temple, but it rose from the ashes as a labour of love and penitence. All those who worked on it did so with God’s Spirit burning in their hearts and guiding their hands. They would have swiftly dealt with anyone who dared think of killing God’s prophesied Messiah.
What happened in those intervening 500 years to create such a sea-change in the children of Israel? What spiritual evolutionary process turned the godly builders of the second temple into the unholy forgers of a Judeo-Roman alliance? Is it perhaps the same evolutionary process that turned the early Protestant martyrs into today’s neo-Sodomites?
The heavenly light that guided the magi has since become known as the Star of Bethlehem. It has never been definitively identified and never will be, as it was a one-off phenomenon, a supernatural event. Its coming mirrored the supernatural coming of God’s Messiah, also a one-off supernatural event. These were miracles that will find no explanation in scientific inquiry, just as the parting of the Red Sea will find no explanation or the manna that appeared in the wilderness will find no explanation. Miracles are beyond human understanding for a reason.
The workings of evil in an individual soul or across an entire nation are not a miracle. Supernatural, yes; miraculous, no. There is no light in these dark workings, only a step-by-step descent into the lake of fire. When you ask how the saintly and the godly can become the evil and the depraved, the answer is the spiritual evolutionary process. It unfolds over generations as a matter of course, and the only way to stop it is divine intervention.
The Star of Bethlehem and the Messiah it heralded were divine intervention. Spiritual rebirth is also divine intervention. None of these phenomena can be explained by scientific inquiry. We who are genuinely reborn are like the Star of Bethlehem or the coming of the Messiah. And like them, we too need to shine in the darkness to guide whomsoever will to the Light.
Scripture tells us that Jesus’ second coming will be like lightning flashing from horizon to horizon. Not a supernatural star this time, but supernatural lightning. This is how we’ll know it’s Jesus returning in glory, when the miraculous light penetrates and exposes everything and everyone simultaneously. Like the Star and our rebirth, the lightning that appears at Jesus’ return will be beyond scientific explanation. It will illuminate everyone in every conceivable way, giving them instantaneous and certain knowledge of the state of their soul. No-one will be able to hide from its divine brilliance. It will find them out, no matter where they are.
The magi dropped everything to follow the Star and it led them to Jesus. Our rebirth likewise led us to Jesus and keeps us following him day by day. In so doing, we deepen our commitment day by day and avoid the spiritual evolutionary process that turned humble and godly temple builders into Herods and Judases. We dare not even for a second turn our back on the Light. We dare not make any deals with devils. We know our God and are known of him, and our labours in the name of Jesus are free-willing and without charge.
The Star was both a herald of the One True Light and a guide to it.
May we reborn believers be the same.
UNFORGIVEABLE
CHARLO, New Brunswick, December 21, 2023 – I know a minister who’s been a professional preacher of the Word for over 40 years and yet who’s terrified that he might have committed the unforgiveable sin without knowing it.
It’s impossible to have committed the unforgiveable sin without knowing it. You not only would know that you’ve done it when you’ve done it, you’d know well in advance before doing it, because God would warn you in no uncertain terms. There would be bright red warning signs frantically flashing all over your conscience, and God would personally confront you, one-on-one, in a last-ditch effort to stop you. There is no way you can stumble inadvertently into committing the unforgiveable sin. Let that spiritual fact sink in and comfort whomever it will.
It amuses me and at times exasperates me to read or hear statements by those who claim to have been Christians but who’ve since “left the faith” and lived to tell the tale. No genuine Christian would live to tell the tale once outside the protection of God’s Holy Spirit. Such a person would live about as long as Judas Iscariot lived or as long as Ananias and Sapphira lived, which is to say anywhere from less than a day to less than an hour after the betrayal. Anyone who claims to be a “former Christian” was never a Christian to begin with, unless he or she made a deal with the devil and has come under diabolical protection for a time. I’m not saying post-rebirth deals aren’t made, but they’re rare. And like committing the unforgiveable sin, you’d definitely know if you’d made a deal with the devil: Neither can be done without your full and conscious approval.
The process of spiritual rebirth is first the exorcism of demonic spirits from a soul, followed by the inrush of God’s Holy Spirit. God claims the newly reborn soul as his spiritual turf over which the devil has no authority. In the world, the devil has full authority over all souls not belonging to God (an authority given to him by God), but the devil has no authority over born-again believers any more than he had authority over Jesus during his time on Earth. Only from the time of Jesus’ arrest to his execution did God permit the devil to have limited authority over Jesus physically, and that only to fulfill prophecy and “pay the sin debt”, with Jesus’ full approval. Nothing was imposed on Jesus that Jesus didn’t first agree to, and the devil could only inflict the exact measure of torment as was permitted by God. Jesus stated during his trial that his executioners only had power over him because God gave them power; otherwise, in and of themselves they had nothing on him.
That the devil has no authority over born-again believers doesn’t mean he doesn’t have permission from God to tempt us. God permits him to tempt us in order to see where our loyalties lie. Just like the people who claim to be Christian but are not, many also claim to be God’s people. Martyrdom is the greatest of all tests to determine whether or not someone is indeed a child of God. The history of born-again believers is a history of martyrdom.
The unforgiveable sin is not something you can commit without first being warned by God himself. Certainly, you can commit the unforgiveable sin after God warns you (may you never do that), but you can’t accidentally commit the sin and only afterwards realize what you’ve done, any more than you can accidentally take the so-called mark of the beast and only afterwards realize what you’ve done. God would never permit that to happen. If God did permit such a situation, he would not be God. But we know that our God is God, and being God, he is perfectly just. He also loves us unconditionally and wants us to be with him forever in Paradise. And so, being perfectly just and loving us unconditionally, God would never trick us (or allow us to be tricked) into committing the unforgiveable sin or be remiss about warning us against committing it.
This spiritual fact should be a great comfort to you.
It is to me.
THE RADICAL AND THE LUKEWARM
CHARLO, New Brunswick, December 9, 2023 – The devil invented the term “radical Christian” as a derogatory label to denigrate anyone who’s all-in for God, like Jesus was. That’s because the devil wants you to be anything but all-in; he wants you afraid to be labeled a radical lest you catch the attention of the wrong people. But the term “radical Christian” is actually a tautology, like saying you’re a “Christian Christian” or a “radical radical”. You don’t need “radical” to describe “Christian”, if “Christian” is applied as God intends.
There is no such thing as “Christian-lite”.
A passage in Revelation describes a church that is so unpalatably lukewarm, God has no choice but to spew it out of his mouth. His gut reaction is not to swallow but to spew, to unceremoniously get it out of him as quickly as he can. That lukewarm spew of a church has expanded to encompass most of Christianity today. If this weren’t the case, our world would be entirely different from what it is, as Christians are the main conduits (not the only ones, but the main ones) of God’s blessings. If one-quarter of the world’s population really were Christian (as statistics claim), the blessings would be overwhelming; it would be almost like living in Paradise. But we live in a world that is nothing like Paradise and is daily growing worse and worse as genuine followers of Jesus are taken Home and more and more of the lukewarm grow farther and farther away from God.
I am not afraid to be called a radical, however misapplied I consider the term. If I’m not a radical in the eyes of the lukewarm, I’m not doing my job. Jesus was considered a radical for no other reason than he lived his beliefs: He didn’t just mouth them, he lived them. And his beliefs were not radical; they were and are the only beliefs worth holding in this life – put God first; keep the Commandments; love your neighbours and your enemies; preach the Word; and continue doing all this “to the end”. These beliefs are what made him a radical not to the heathens but to his own people. Like the majority of Christians today, most of the children of Israel in Jesus’ day were also lukewarm spew.
I was born-again from atheism, so the concept of “lukewarm” is alien to me. Being a believer, I can’t imagine not believing; and believing, I can’t imagine being lukewarm. How can you be a believer and at the same time lukewarm? By very definition, a believer can’t be lukewarm because a believer lives his or her beliefs. No-one can make unbelievers of believers, as Jesus says: “no-one is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand”. Believers can choose to be plucked out by choosing sin (that choice remains open even to believers), but they can’t be plucked out of God’s hand while they’re under God’s protective grace.
So the problem is not that people are choosing to be lukewarm but that they are lukewarm by default because they’re not genuine followers of Jesus. If they were, they wouldn’t be lukewarm: They’d be like Jesus – fiery and “radical”. The solution to this problem is making believers out of the lukewarm.
But how can this be done?
The same passage in Revelation that describes the lukewarm also describes what they must do to become believers before it’s too late for them: they must anoint their eyes with eyesalve so that they see, they must repent, and they must open their heart for God and Jesus to enter in. But first, they need to buy gold that has been tried in God’s fire and white clothing to cover their nakedness. In other words, they need to seek and embrace genuine righteousness and submit themselves entirely to God so that their pride will be broken. Their pride is the main obstacle preventing them from believing. If and when their pride does break, they’ll be able to see their need for God and their need to repent and will do so sincerely. Their cleansed and purified heart will then open wide for God and Jesus to enter in, and they’ll finally believe.
There is no such thing as a radical Christian – there are just believers who are all-in for God, like Jesus was during his time on Earth. These believers may appear radical in comparison to the lukewarm, but the flaw is in comparing believers to what are essentially unbelievers. Thank God there’s a remedy for the lukewarm if they choose to accept it. Pride not only comes before the fall; it blinds people and prevents them from genuinely following Jesus.
EYES OF FAITH
CHARLO, New Brunswick, December 8, 2023 – We have two sets of eyes as believers: the eyes of the world and the eyes of faith.
God wants us to look through the eyes of faith, but the devil wants us to look through the eyes of the world, because if we look through the eyes of the world, faith will be impossible. The world is ruled by fear, so the eyes of the world are the eyes of “I can’t do it” and “be afraid, be very afraid”.
But the eyes of faith are the eyes of “I can do all things through God who strengthens me”.
One year after the exodus, Moses sent twelve leaders, one from each of the houses of the children of Israel, to spy on the land of Canaan, the land stretching from the river to the sea that God had promised he’d give them when it was time. When the twelve men returned, ten were full of fear over what they’d seen, describing the impenetrable fortresses and the mighty warriors guarding them. The other two men – Joshua and Caleb – gave entirely different reports, claiming they were well able to break through the strongholds and overcome the inhabitants because God had promised them the land and God was with them. We can see from their reports how the ten fearful men were looking through the eyes of the world, while Joshua and Caleb were looking through the eyes of faith.
As believers, we cannot afford not to look through the eyes of faith. We can still look through the eyes of the world – we’ll have that capacity for the rest of our time on Earth – but we need to steadily focus through the eyes of faith or we’ll lose our way and maybe even (God forbid) lose our grace. The ten men who chose to view the promised land through the eyes of the world lost the promised land. They perished in the wilderness. Only Joshua and Caleb made it all the way.
David, as a young shepherd, spent a lot of time watching over his father’s sheep. I’m wagering that he spent a lot of that time shooting objects with his slingshot (he might even have used it to keep his sheep in line), and the rest of the hours he wiled away teaching himself how to play the harp and write songs. I’m wagering the sheep responded to his music, too, and that he used it to calm them. But amidst all the sling-shotting and music-making, David was doing something even more important – he was deepening his relationship with God. He was building his faith. And it was his strong faith that then enabled David to take the skills he’d learned during his shepherding years and use them to the glory of God, with God’s timing and guidance.
God’s timing and guidance are critical to the application of our learned skills. We can have faith great enough to move mountains, but if we try to move them at our whim, without God’s timing and guidance, we will fail. After Moses had upbraided the ten fearful men for their lack of faith, they resolved the next day to go to battle against the Canaanites. Moses pleaded with them not to go, but they insisted that because God had promised them the land, God would bring them victory.
But it wasn’t time for the children of Israel to fight the Canaanites, so God wasn’t with them and they lost the battle. Not only did they lose the battle but their defeat inspired fear in the rest of the children of Israel, who then resolved they should return to Egypt and put themselves back under the bondage of Pharoah. This is the fruit of misapplied faith, and we see it today in the many Christians who are falling into disbelief because their presumed miracles and prophecies didn’t come true, or their prayers weren’t answered in the way they wanted them to be answered.
Faith involves not just believing but waiting on God’s timing and guidance. God is not a genie in a bottle that you can command at whim; he tells his prophets the when, the where, and the what, and then it comes to pass with his blessings. Jesus said he always did that which pleased the Father; he didn’t say the Father always did that which pleased him.
We can live in fear, like the world does, or we can live in faith, like believers do. The choice is ours. But if we choose to view life through the eyes of faith, we also need to rely 100% on God, and in relying on God, we need to do everything according to his timing and with his guidance. We don’t direct God, he directs us. Moses well knew this, as did Joshua and Caleb, as did David and all believers throughout the ages.
Your faith might indeed be great enough to move mountains, but the only way that mountain’s going to move is when God says it’s time and then shows you how.
CLEAN
CHARLO, New Brunswick, December 8, 2023 – A few years ago, I rented a furnished condo for a month through airbnb. The pictures on the website showed what appeared to be a sparkling clean unit, neat and tidy, with good furniture and attractive décor. I was looking forward to my stay.
When I arrived, I was not prepared for the smell that greeted me. It was that smell that accumulates over time and is the telltale sign of unwashed floors and a dirty bathroom. You typically get that smell in gas station bathrooms, not in an Airbnb rental. But the best was yet to come.
As per the pics, the place was indeed neat and tidy, so neat and tidy I was afraid even to put down my luggage lest it disturb the neatness. My bedroom was neat and tidy, too, but upon closer inspection, I found that the comforter, which appeared clean in the photos, was covered in cat fur (ditto the pillows and sheets), and the mattress, when I went to change the bedding, looked like a crack-house reject, the kind of mattress that when you see it on the street, you alert public health authorities to remove as a biohazard. It was covered in what looked like blood stains from a series of axe murders but which my offended host shrilly insisted was spilled red wine. In either case, I had no intention of putting my body anywhere near those stains, so I went out and bought several drop sheets to encase the mattress and then covered it over with a new bedding set.
The bathroom I refused to use at all until it was cleaned from top to bottom, which the host, to his credit, immediately did, but which I immediately afterwards had to redo, since he clearly had no idea how to clean. He was very good at doing neat and tidy, but the underlying principle of cleanliness eluded him, probably because he’d never been taught how to clean.
The less said about the kitchen and the complimentary but expired (R.I.P.) contents of the fridge and cupboards, the better.
My purpose in mentioning this unfortunate Airbnb experience is to demonstrate that “neat and tidy” and “clean” are two different though sometimes related concepts. When something is genuinely clean, it shows its cleanliness by its neat and tidy appearance, but something can still be neat and tidy without being clean, as I’d experienced firsthand at that furnished rental.
Our souls can likewise appear to be clean without actually being clean. We can have the “neat and tidy” appearance of a soul in good order – attending church regularly, going to confession, giving to charities, being outwardly nice, wearing the Christian bling and speaking the Christian lingo – even heading a ministry. The majority of Christians are like this. I’m not saying it as a criticism but as a fact, just as it’s a fact that some people are very good at neat and tidy but have no idea how to clean. These “good Christians” have been taught that having a neat and tidy soul by doing “good Christian things” is the same as having a clean soul, though nothing could be farther from the truth.
As born-again believers, we know that our souls were cleaned by God himself during the process of our spiritual rebirth. Were this not true, we wouldn’t have God’s Holy Spirit with us, informing us and enabling us to have a relationship with God and Jesus, as God’s Spirit will not go into a soul that is not clean. We did not do the cleaning of our soul; God did. In fact, we can’t clean our own soul; we can only dirty it and then cover over the filth with neat and tidy “good Christian” deeds. It takes a supernatural act of God to clean a soul, which is done initially through spiritual rebirth and subsequently by sincere repentance. Note that our act of repentance doesn’t clean us; God cleans us when we come to him in sincere repentance.
So, how’s YOUR soul? Is it clean like Jesus said his disciples’ souls were, or is it the spiritual equivalent of a crack-house reject mattress, stained by the blood of a thousand axe wounds? If you’re reading this blog, I’m guessing your soul is clean, though a clean soul can still get dirty again, which is why we need to repent when God gives us the signal. We don’t want to put off repenting or we might end up like the poor man who was cleansed of a demon, only to be later invaded by the same demon, along with seven worse ones. This can happen to us as born-again believers; if it couldn’t, the scripture would be false.
I believe that most neat and tidy but unclean Christians have no idea of their state of uncleanliness or their need to sincerely repent and be genuinely born-again. I also believe that there are genuinely born-again Christians who are either unaware of their need to maintain their spiritual cleanliness through repentance, or are convinced that they are “once saved, always saved”. In all of these cases, the outward appearance may belie what’s underneath.
Followers of Jesus understand that if the soul is clean, the outward show will naturally be neat and tidy. It won’t be an affectation or something learned that we consciously have to put into practice; the neat and tidy will simply flow as a consequence of spiritual cleanliness. So, for instance, we’ll want to spend time with God and Jesus (not feel obligated to); we’ll want to read the Bible (not feel obligated to); we’ll want to follow the Commandments (not feel obligated to); we’ll want to help people (not feel obligated to); we’ll want to be kind to the unkind (not feel obligated to); and we’ll want to do “only that which pleases the Father” (not feel obligated to).
This is the state we should strive to be in at all times, as it is proof that our soul is not merely neat and tidy, but clean.
(Oh, and by the way, I gave the host of that airbnb rental an excellent review, because he honestly didn’t know the difference between “neat and tidy” and “clean”, and he did his best to rectify the problems when I pointed them out. You have to give someone credit for that. I can only hope, now that he knows “neat and tidy” is not necessarily “clean”, that he’ll genuinely clean his condo for his guests, not just tidy it. But that choice is his.)
FIRST CHURCH
CHARLO, New Brunswick, December 3, 2023 – We all know about the first church that was founded by Jesus nearly 2000 years ago. We know about the conversion of the disciples at Pentecost and how the church grew in leaps and bounds after that, even though it was being persecuted and its members imprisoned and in some cases martyred. We know about the first church because we read about it in scripture. What we might not take into consideration is that we are members of that first church.
The first church didn’t end at some point and then give birth to a second church and a third church, and so on. No. There is only that one church – the one founded by Jesus and written about in scripture. If you are genuinely born-again, you are a member of that church. It is the one and only and the same that is written about in scripture. That its early members are no longer walking the earth doesn’t mean that the church left with them. Born-again believers today are as much members of the first church as were Peter and John and Jesus’ mother and brother and Paul – we are no less members just because we happen to be born-again nearly 2000 years later. We are all members of that first church.
And being members of that church, we are not only expected but required to be as committed to God and to spreading the Gospel as the early members were. We are required to be as committed or we will lose our membership. The first church was written about so that we would know how we are to act as members of that church and would know what is acceptable and what is not. None of these requirements have been watered down over the centuries, any more than any of God’s Commandments have been watered down. The Big Ten still stand exactly as they were given, just as the first church still requires of us the same as it required of its early members.
What does it require? That we put God first. That we treat others as we want to be treated, whether neighbours or enemies. That we keep the Commandments. That we follow Jesus’ example in everything we do. In doing these things, we model to others the Gospel message so they can see how it plays out in real life, but we also have to actively teach and preach God’s Word. It’s not enough only to model the Gospel message, we need to preach and teach it; and it’s not enough only to preach and teach the Gospel message, we need to model it. We need to do both: We need to live the Gospel message and we need to share the Gospel message with others. This is what’s required of us as members of the first church. It was required of the early members, and it’s required of us.
Scripture gives us examples of early members who fulfilled their membership requirements, and it also gives us examples of early members who did not fulfill the requirements. Members in good standing with God (not necessarily with their synagogue or with greater society, but with God) were visibly blessed, and God was able through them to bless others. Think of Peter and Paul and their miraculous escapes and healings. Think of Philip and Barnabas, and the Johns and the Marys. But those members who reneged on the requirements were dealt with accordingly; think of Ananias and Sapphira, who sold their land and held back part of the proceeds, lying in the process. God struck them dead for their deceit. Or think of Simon the magician who claimed to be converted, only to show by his intent to buy the Holy Spirit that he was not. These examples of the actions of church members in good standing and those who are not were written down for our edification. We are meant to learn from them.
The book of Revelation provides further examples of membership requirements. The first part of the book describes the church in various locations. Note that the churches were described by their location, not as separate denominations with different beliefs. The churches in different locations were still part of the same church. There is only one church, and that is the first church, the one founded by Jesus.
We need to look very carefully at each of the messages to the seven churches in the book of Revelation because those messages are as much for us as they were for the early members of the first church. Many people who pore over the book of Revelation for its prophecies overlook the messages to the churches. But these messages are the most important part of the book: They are a direct teaching from God, delivered to us by Jesus and his angel, through John. We need to take the messages as much to heart as the early members did, as those messages are still as valid today as they were nearly 2000 years ago.
Note that every message begins with: “I know thy works.” Everything we do, say, and think is known to God. These are our works. God knows our works better than we do. Even the things that we’ve done, said, thought, and then mostly forgotten, God remembers in intimate detail. He knows it all, and if necessary, will refresh our memory at the Judgement. There is nothing you can hide from God and nowhere to hide from him. This is a great blessing, as it goads us always to do, say, and think only those things that are right in God’s eyes.
In saying “I know thy works” to the early members of the first church, God’s also saying it to us.
The first church is the one and only church, and we are members of that church. It has been ongoing for nearly 2000 years. How the early members were expected to live their lives, we are also expected to live ours. Nothing has changed in that regard. The Gospel message hasn’t changed, the messages to the churches in Revelation haven’t changed, the Ten Commandments haven’t changed. Our standard is the standard set by Jesus and written about in the New Testament.
This is the first church, there is no other, and we are members in it, together with Peter, Paul, John, Mary, Philip, and all the members throughout the ages whose names are written in the Book of Life.
If we truly understand and believe this, we will live our lives as if we do.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 