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THE UNPARDONABLE SIN
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – The thought of committing the unpardonable sin scares the you-know-what out of some people.
And so it should.
If it doesn’t scare the you-know-what out of you, you’re not paying close enough attention. You don’t fully understand the consequences of committing it.
So just what is the unpardonable sin?
It differs for everyone, which is why it’s not fully defined in scripture. The unpardonable nature of the sin depends on the circumstances in which its committed and on the individual committing it. But for us born-again believers, the common features of the circumstances around the unpardonable sin are the same, which are:
1) having a close relationship with God through genuine spiritual rebirth, which means you have God’s Holy Spirit with you 24/7.
2) sinning (or constantly thinking about sinning).
3) refusing to back down from the sin or from thinking about committing the sin, even after God warns you about what will happen if you refuse to back down.
God loves us unconditionally, which is why he gives us plenty of warning and time to repent. But if even after his clear and unmistakable warnings you still choose not to repent, he has no choice but to follow through. “Following through” means he removes his grace and his Holy Spirit leaves you. You become from that point onward prey for demons and other unholy beings. You no longer have any godly protection – not from your guardian angels, who watched over you prior to your conversion, nor from God’s Holy Spirit, who was with you night and day from the instant of your rebirth. There is no chance, once you lose God’s grace, to get it back: It’s a one-time deal, and once it’s gone, that’s the end of it for you spiritually and physically.
This is what happened to all the fallen entities who were removed from Heaven permanently. No matter how much they petitioned God for mercy after the fact, there was no going back to Heaven for them. This is also what happened to Judas Iscariot, who, as a disciple of Jesus, had been protected by God’s Holy Spirit and enabled to preach the Word and perform miracles. Judas’s betrayal of Jesus was his unpardonable sin. There was no second chance at redemption for Judas, no matter how hard he repented or prayed to God after the fact.
Those who once claim to know God but then turn from him to sign on with the devil or other fallen entities also commit the unpardonable sin. These contracts, sadly, are very real and are made every day all over the world. Once the contract is enacted, there is no coming back from it. The person is under Satan’s protection for the rest of their time on Earth, but after death, he/she ends up first in Hell and then in the lake of fire, like Satan and all the fallen beings.
Some sign on with the devil thinking it’s a joke; these people are still salvageable. Signing on with the devil isn’t the unpardonable sin for these people because they don’t (yet) know God and so they sign on with the devil without having full knowledge of the consequences. God knows the difference between those who consciously and with full intent turn against him and throw their lot in with Satan, and those who don’t really believe in anything and just sign the devil’s contract for a lark. By “salvageable”, I mean that these people, even after signing the devil’s contract, still have a chance at rebirth and salvation. But if they are eventually reborn, they will lose everything (except their soul) in the process. That is, they will lose whatever Satan had given them, which is usually power, wealth, fame, and fortune.
The book of Revelation mentions the mark of the beast and plainly states that those who receive it are beyond redemption. In other words, bearing the beast’s mark is a sign that you have committed the unforgiveable sin and are under the protection of the devil.
In the Gospel, Jesus tells the parable of the man who was “swept clean” of demons, but who then starts to sin again and so all his former demons and then some come back to torment him. Jesus tells us that this man’s end was worse than his beginning, meaning he has no chance of being swept clean again. To die after losing God’s grace is far worse than to die never having received it. The eternal punishment for such a backslider is much more severe.
You can see from the above that the unpardonable sin differs according to circumstances and to individuals. Even so, the common element is ignoring God’s warnings before willingly and with full intent choosing sin.
There’s a common belief among some Christians that God, being “all-merciful”, will ultimately forgive Judas and those like him, including the fallen angels. We must never allow ourselves to believe such a diabolical lie. Yes, God is all-merciful, but he’s also all-just. What Judas did to Jesus was the worst possible thing he could have done as his disciple, short of hammering the nails into Jesus himself.
Judas ignored the very pointed, very clear, and unmistakeable warning given to him by Jesus during the Passover meal. Jesus stated that his betrayer was among them, and that it would be better for his betrayer if he had not been born. When Judas asked Jesus if he (Judas) was the betrayer, Jesus responded with “thou has said”. It’s like they were speaking between the lines, sub rosa, having a private conversation that only they two could understand. Again, Jesus couldn’t have made his warning more explicit to Judas, but Judas still went on to betray him. Consciously, and with full knowledge of the consequences, Judas chose to sin. Even after being pointedly and repeatedly warned, he chose sin.
So again, the unforgivable sin is as varied as there are sinners, but the core of the sin is willful, intentional, and conscious disobedience to God by someone in a state of grace, even after being pointedly and repeatedly warned of the unavoidable consequence of eternal damnation that is the reward for such disobedience. This is the unforgiveable and unpardonable sin that no sacrifice can atone for and that blasphemes the Holy Spirit that is protecting the reborn soul.
I know this from personal experience, because I received such a warning from God years ago, when I was a relatively young believer (young in spiritual age, not earthly years). I was about to do something I actually thought was a good thing, not a sin at all. (Just like, I suspect, Judas thought that what he was doing was a good thing for the Jewish religion.) God’s warning stopped me in my tracks and I backed off from doing what I’d planned. Thank God for God’s warning. I would be in hell now without it.
Scripture says that God wants us all to come to knowledge of him and of his salvation. He doesn’t want to lose any of us. But he also wants us to come to him of our own free will and to stay with him of our own free will. He doesn’t want slaves or robots; he wants loving children. So if we wander too close to the edge of a spiritual cliff, God will warn us loud and clear. And he won’t just warn us once, he’ll warn us repeatedly, ever louder and more urgently, until we either retreat to spiritual safety, or unequivocally with full intent and knowing the consequences choose sin.
May you never choose sin. May you always, upon first warning, immediately and with open arms run straight back to God.
WALKING OUT YOUR FAITH
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – Christians love to talk about their faith – oh, how they love to talk! But it’s quite another thing when it comes to walking out their faith. They cherry-pick scriptures that assure them all they have to do is “believe” and “have faith” and their eternal reward is guaranteed. Meanwhile, they conveniently overlook the verses about how they’ll be judged by every word they utter, every thought they think, and every deed they do.
They confuse the works of the law (don’t eat this, don’t touch that) with walking out their faith. Those kinds of works have nothing to do with walking out your faith. But works are required, have no doubt about that. God himself requires them of you. In fact, everything that God asks you do to is required of you. Willful submission to God is non-negotiable for continued membership in God’s Kingdom on Earth. Not what you say but what you do shows God your faith. Words without actions to back them up have zero value in God’s economy.
When you walk out your faith, you’re like the son who initially said he wasn’t going to work in the field, but later changed his mind and went. Or you’re like the person who heard the Word and did it, meaning that you built your house on a rock, whereas the person who heard the Word and didn’t do it built his house on sand.
We need to be very careful to distinguish between doing the dead works of the law (don’t eat this, don’t touch that) and walking out our faith. If we don’t walk out our faith, all our declarations of love for God and Jesus are just so much hot air. We’re like the hypocrites who say but do not do.
Don’t be like the hypocrites.
Just before I was born again, I made a choice to forgive someone. God knew that in my heart I’d made that choice. He also knew that even as I made that choice, I didn’t feel forgiveness in my heart for the person I was choosing to forgive; for me, it was a decision of the will, not an emotional response.
But in choosing to forgive that person and subsequently being born-again, I also had to walk out my forgiveness. I had to do certain things the next day to show that my decision was sincere, if not (yet) heartfelt. It wasn’t enough for me simply to agree to forgive that person; I had to walk out the forgiveness in real time. Walking out the forgiveness required me not just to say I was going to do it or to intend to do it, but actually to do it.
And the funny thing was, after I’d done the few things that God asked me to do the next day – when I’d walked out my faith in real time – I finally FELT forgiveness for the person. I felt compassion and love. That was 24 years ago, and the feeling of forgiveness for that poor soul has never left me.
There’s an intellectual and spiritual laziness that’s taken hold of many Christians. So, for instance, instead of reading the Bible for themselves, they rely on being spoon-fed God’s Word by someone else. The problem with being spoon-fed God’s Word is that you have to take everything that person says as Gospel truth. You have to swallow it whole. But not everyone is honest in relaying God’s Word.
Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness are a good example of this. The devil quoted scripture during his temptation (oh, how the devil loves to quote scripture!), but he purposely misapplied it and took it out of context. Jesus was able to refute the devil because he not only knew scripture, he knew it in context and how it should be applied. So when the devil told Jesus he should throw himself off a building because God’s angels are always there protecting him, Jesus responded with the scriptural warning not to tempt God. Yes, the devil was correct in saying that God protects his people through his holy angels, but he was incorrect in saying that God will protect his people if they purposely do something to hurt themselves while relying on God to save them.
Our faith needs to be more than just empty words and recitations of our alleged beliefs. If we don’t back up what we claim to believe with actions – that is, if we don’t walk out our faith – then our claim has no validity. God’s a heart-reader, not a lip-reader. He knows who intends to follow through by walking out their faith and who’s just mouthing words for public approval.
We need to walk out our faith in God’s timing and under God’s direction. That’s how we make our faith real.
CANADIAN TRAINS AND WAITING ON THE LORD
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – So here’s the thing about God – there’s nothing you can do or say that he doesn’t already know. In fact, he knows about it before you do it or say it, even those secret thoughts that you almost keep hidden from yourself, the ones that you push down and turn away from. He knows those, too.
And he still loves you.
And here’s the thing about God’s love – it surpasses our understanding. We can know about God’s love, but we can’t know it. We can observe it, but we can’t feel it, not in its full strength. If we genuinely felt the full force of God’s love, it would kill us, like too much voltage passing through a weak wire. We know God’s love indirectly, through his Spirit, who amps it down so it doesn’t overwhelm us. But the full force of God’s love? We’ll have to wait until we get Home to feel that.
Even so, God’s love – however much amped down – is still the most powerful love we’ll ever experience during our time on Earth. Because God’s love is not just an emotion, a mere emotion, it’s a physical force delivered supernaturally as well as naturally. God loves us in everything he does for us, both seen and unseen, both known and unknown. That is genuine love.
God loves us in the same way as Jesus tells us we’re to give alms, not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing. We’re to give our alms secretly, anonymously, so that our reward comes from God, not from people. That’s how God loves us, so that we don’t know it’s his love that’s loving us. He hides it behind people’s kindnesses and blessings, behind circumstances that seemingly randomly work in our favour. He also hides it behind people’s punishments that seemingly randomly work against us, so that we learn right from wrong – God’s right from wrong – to our eternal benefit.
But nothing is random. There’s no such thing as a random coincidence or ‘luck’, good or bad. There’s only people getting back what they put out, tests and temptations, and divine intervention. Divine intervention happens a lot more frequently than we realize. In fact, it happens every day.
So do the tests.
It is much better to be blessed by God as our reward than to be blessed by people.
And here’s the thing about God’s blessings. They are, like everything God does, perfectly timed and executed. That’s why David tells us to “wait on the Lord”, to rest assured in our heart (“be of good courage”) that God will come through for us so that we have nothing to fear. We should always be waiting expectantly for God to come through for us. Coming through for us is God’s job, his specialty, but he does it in his time and in his way. Our job is to wait for him, and to do so expectantly, with no doubt and no fear. This is how we’re to spend the rest of our time on Earth.
Easier said than done, that. To wait patiently and expectantly, with no doubts or fears. I’ve been traveling a lot by trains lately. Canadian trains. They arrive when they feel like it and wander off when something up ahead catches their eye. German and Swiss trains blush to think of all the train etiquette violations committed by Canadian trains, the worst of which is nonchalance towards The Schedule. Even boarding times on Canadian trains are done by pulling numbers out of a hat, or so it seems. A scheduled boarding time of 18:25 for a 19:00 departure really means you’ll start boarding at around 18:50ish and leave at around 19:30ish. And if you question the gross violation of scheduling, the train just stares at you blankly as if to say: “So waddya gonna do about it?” Arriving 24 hours late is the norm for ultra-long-distance trains in Canada (from Toronto to Vancouver), and anything less than 6 hours behind schedule means the train is early.
I wish I were joking.
But taking Canadian trains, especially the ultra-long-distance ones, is good practice for learning to wait on God. That’s not to say that God doesn’t keep to The Schedule; he certainly does. Everything God does he does perfectly, and that includes timing. It’s just that we aren’t privy to God’s Schedule. Even Jesus and the holy angels aren’t privy to it. Canadian trains may well work the same way – they have a publicly announced schedule and a Real Schedule that only the Canadian trains know. (And they ain’t tellin’!)
So we trust in Canadian trains the same way we trust in God (or vice-versa), knowing that while their timing may be mysterious, they’ll come through in the end.
Our job is to wait patiently and expectantly.
Our job is to wait.
Wait on the Lord
Be of good courage and he will strengthen thine heart.
Wait, I say, on the Lord.
Psalm 27
ON SLEAZY TELEVANGELISTS AND CHEESY CHRISTIAN MOVIES
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – Why are televangelists so sleazy and Christian movies so cheesy?
This should be a great mystery, but it isn’t really.
The Gospel message needs to be relayed in spirit and in truth. That means, only people who truly believe the Gospel message can relay it without the cheese factor, as it’s not the people doing the relaying, it’s God’s Spirit working through their willing and submissive heart. So no matter how good an actor you are, if you’re not a genuine believer who is genuinely born-again, and if you’re not speaking as the Spirit moves you in real time, you’re going to fail in the sincerity factor. That’s a guarantee and it explains why televangelists are always sleazy and Christian movies are always cheesy.
Remember how people listening to Jesus were in awe at how he spoke with such authority? The people were overwhelmed by the force of his words, since they were used to the lacklustre delivery of the Pharisees and Sadducees and scribes. Their delivery was lacklustre and lacked authority because they didn’t really believe what they were preaching. They just dialed it in and collected their paycheck, the same way as televangelists don’t really believe what they’re preaching and actors in Christian movies don’t really believe what they’re portraying. It’s all just words to them, not the Word.
Years ago, when I was atheist, I played Mary Magdalene in the musical Godspell. The guy who played Jesus was also an atheist (he’s a preacher now). Godspell is based on Matthew’s Gospel, but it takes generous liberties with scripture. To me, at the time, it was all just words that had to be memorized and spoken on cue. It was a script, like any other script. Nothing special.
Did our performance have the cheese factor? You betcha! But Godspell was meant to be cheesy. I mean, the Jesus character is written as a clown. Everything is over-the-top and tongue-in-cheek. The innate cheesiness of the musical served to hide the normal cheesiness of a Christian performance. It was double-cheesy, which made it almost palatable. Also, no-one in our cast was pretending to be a Christian. We were all just pretending to be goofy clownlike characters. That’s how the play was written.
I hate to knock Christian movies because I know that, in most cases, the people who make them and the people who act in them have a sincere desire to spread God’s Word. You can’t fault them for that, I guess. They mean well. But you know what they say about good intentions….
Our God is a living God. His Word is as alive as he is. Remember how Jesus says that when we’re hauled before a judge, we shouldn’t plan our defence in advance? He says we should let God’s Holy Spirit speak through us when the time comes for us to speak. I think that whenever we preach or teach the Word, the same principle applies. We can read scripture aloud any time because it has God’s seal of approval, but reciting some other kind of script, even if it’s based on God’s Word, is not going to have the same impact as the Word spoken by genuine believers who are letting God’s Spirit speak through them in real time.
This is how you avoid the sleaze and the cheese factor – by letting God and Jesus do the talking through you, by God’s Spirit. But televangelists and Christian movie actors fail right out of the gate in that regard, because they push God and Jesus out of the way and hog the stage. Essentially all they’re doing is reading a script. And no matter how clever or well-written the script is, if God and Jesus aren’t speaking through the actors in real time, it won’t have any authority.
Jesus was accused of being a lot of things during his ministry years, but he was never accused of being sleazy or cheesy. Blasphemous, yes, radical, of course, an outlaw, you betcha, but never a phony. People were drawn to him because of the power and authority of his words. Even those who hated him had to grudgingly concede he was sincere in his beliefs.
If televangelists and Christian movies are not delivering the same level of sincerity as Jesus, they’re doing the Kingdom a disservice. It would be better if they didn’t say anything at all and simply disappeared off the stage. Their only saving grace is that God may be able to use them in some way for his purposes, but they’ll still be held responsible for their lukewarm delivery or bald-faced hypocrisy.
When you take on the responsibility of speaking on God’s behalf, you’d better be sure that God sent you and that God’s Holy Spirit is informing you. Otherwise, it’s best to stay silent.
TIME’S UP
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – There comes a point when mainstream society has gone so far off the rails, there’s no hauling it back through civil discourse or other means.
You can only proceed in a parallel world, or you end up suffering the same deserved fate as those who throw their lot in with the devil. You can only proceed in a parallel world based on God’s Truth, not the devil’s lies.
This is what Jesus did. From the start of his ministry years to his final days as a human, he lived and moved in the parallel realm he called the Kingdom of God. Spiritually he was in the Kingdom, but physically his body was still in the world. So he used the world to satisfy his physical needs, as a resource tool. Otherwise, he invested himself only in the Kingdom.
Jesus didn’t teach his followers to separate themselves from the world. He taught them instead to use the world’s resources to benefit the Kingdom, without becoming part of the world. Their separation from the world was to be spiritual, not physical.
Judaism was an open running sore in those days, much like Christianity is today. And like Judaism in Jesus’ day, Christianity today is also beyond saving. It’s a dead thing that has already breathed its last. Its revivals are nothing more than reanimation of a corpse hooked up to machines. There is no Truth in the worldly church because there is no Spirit of Truth in it. Certainly, the worldly church has lots of spirits – legions of them.
It just doesn’t have the only Spirit that matters: God’s.
LIFE AMONG THE HEATHEN
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – There are two types of unbelievers in the world.
The first type either believes that God doesn’t exist, or that if he does exist, he’s either nothing like the “god” depicted in the Bible or he’s long left the world to its own devices and doesn’t intervene anymore. These unbelievers live by their own rules, doing what they want.
The second type of unbeliever says they believe that God exists, but they live as if he doesn’t. Some of these unbelievers believe in some other “god”, but not the Father of Jesus. Of those who say they believe in the Father of Jesus, they claim to rely 100% on his mercy. They live the life of the world, knowing they should repent, but delay it. They delay it and delay it and delay it. Even as they delay doing what they know they should do, they claim to be relying on God’s mercy it get into Heaven. This is the second type of unbeliever. I call them unbelievers, because they obviously don’t believe. They only say they believe. If they truly believed, they would be on their face repenting, not talking about some hazy future repentance. Those who know they should repent but choose to delay repenting are unbelievers. There’s no other word for them but unbelievers.
God doesn’t want us to scare people into believing. He wants people to come to him because they want what he has to offer. He wants them to come to him of their own free will, not under the compulsion of fear. Dictators demand your loyalty under the compulsion of fear. God is no dictator. Dictators demand your obedience on fear of punishment, but again, God is no dictator. In God’s economy, you don’t get punished because of disobedience; your punishment is your own deeds repackaged and sent back to you.
*****
Every day, our world sinks deeper and deeper into godlessness. As believer after believer dies, the world gets a little darker. We are not replacing ourselves as believers. More of us are dying than are being reborn.
I have, for the most part, removed myself from mainstream society. I live out in the boonies in rural New Brunswick. It’s beautiful country here, covered in “snow trees” whose bark has turned white as a form of camouflage. There’s snow on the ground for more days of the year than not, so the tree bark has turned white in solidarity with the snow. Even the twigs right to the tips are white. I’ve asked God if I could have a forest of these snow trees at my place in Heaven, and he’s agreed. They’ll be waiting for me if/when I get Home.
I wish it were that easy to get people to believe.
*****
I saw a video earlier today of a group Canadian male politicians in one of the houses of Parliament prancing around in pink high heels. The prancing was supposed to be a gesture on the males’ part (after seeing that video, I can’t call these people “men”) – it was supposed to be a gesture of solidarity with women, or more specifically solidarity with women against violence against women. But all I saw were a bunch of middle-aged and older males teetering around a conference table in hot pink stilettos. It looked like some kind of hazing or initiation ritual, and I was humiliated for them. But even more so, I was humiliated for Canada, for what has become of our “diverse, inclusive, and equitable” alphabet-people-dictated godless post-nation. In case you’re wondering what such a country looks like, check out this video. These are our elected “leaders”. And remember – you don’t get the leaders you want; you get the leaders you deserve. Canada has fallen so far that it now deserves these pink-stilettoed humiliated buffoons. Let that sink in, fellow Canadians. We’ve earned this.
*****
I wrote a while back about neighbourhoods and what makes them good or bad. The same principle of what makes a neighbourhood good or bad also applies to countries or families or apartment buildings or any group setting where people live.
Let’s suppose we have a gated community with ten homes. Some of the homes are family-occupied, some are couple-occupied, and some are single-occupied. All the people living in the neighbourhood love God and follow Jesus. All adhere to the Ten Commandments. This kind of neighbourhood is the closest you’ll ever get to Heaven on Earth. You don’t even have to lock your doors at night, since you can trust all your neighbours and the gate keeps out the riffraff. You can leave you bicycle outside unlocked and not worry about it being stolen. You can leave the keys in your car’s ignition overnight, with your car’s doors unlocked, and your car will still be there the next morning, just as you left it. All the lawns are tidy and well cared for. The flower beds are weeded and cheerful. The houses are attractive and in a good state of repair. No-one disturbs anyone else after-hours or on Sundays, and there is a peaceful calm about the place. It truly is a godsend, such a community.
Then one of the families decides to move to a bigger house in another neighbourhood, and a new family moves in. This family does not love God or follow Jesus or keep the Commandments. Things start to go missing, so the other nine neighbours start to lock their doors at night, including their car doors. The new family doesn’t mow their lawn or tend their gardens, so weed spores start to spread to neighbouring properties. (Sloth is a contagion in more ways than one.) All things considered, the neighbourhood is still OK, but not as good as it was before.
Then two of the couples decide to leave, and two new families move in. Like the other newcomers, these new families don’t love God or follow Jesus, and they have no time for the Ten Commandments. They somewhat tend their properties, but they have parties late at night, and their visitors are loud and disrespectful to the other neighbours. The kids of the newcomers pick fights with their neighbours’ kids. More things disappear, even from inside people’s garages. Police cars show up every now and then in response to noise and theft complaints. Litter starts to accumulate along the curbs in front of the newcomers’ houses. It’s definitely no longer “Heaven on Earth”, this neighbourhood, but it’s still better than most others.
Then both singles decide to leave and two new couples move in. These newcomers are also not God-fearing. (They aren’t even married.) So now in the neighbourhood there are five houses of God-fearing people and five houses of unbelievers. Weeds in the lawns and gardens have become a constant battle on every property, as has trash and litter. A few of the newcomers have dogs, big dogs, that spend most of their time out in the backyard. The dogs bark all day and all night, and when their owners take them for a walk, unleashed, the dogs poop and pee wherever they want. Barbecues and lawn furniture now need to be chained or they’re stolen. Garden hoses need to be taken indoors at night, along with potted plants or anything else than can be carted away under cover of darkness. Graffiti and tags have appeared on neighbourhood fences. The raucous weekend parties have spilled into weeknights. The five original God-fearing neighbours have had security systems installed indoors and out, as the community is no longer gated due to a law being passed banning gated communities. They talk among themselves, these five neighbours, about how much things have changed for the worse, but they’re powerless to do anything about it.
Then one of the five last God-fearing families decides to move to the country, and another family of unbelievers takes their place. The community descends into lawlessness. Trash and litter, including used needles, are everywhere. Lawns are unkempt and dotted with piles of garbage and dog poop. The sidewalks smell of urine. Many of the neighbours don’t work and so spend the day drinking or doing drugs or fighting with other neighbours. Their kids run wild. The four remaining God-fearing neighbours now keep entirely to themselves and rarely go outdoors. There is no longer a sense of community, but rather a sense of siege. Police have stopped responding to theft and noise complaints, since they’ve been defunded and more serious crimes take priority of their limited resources. The unbeliever neighbours know this, and so no longer make any attempt to keep the noise down after hours. They also steal with impunity from their neighbours’ properties, knowing there’ll be no legal repercussions.
*****
Of course, this is all just fiction. It bears no resemblance to reality. It’s not a metaphor for where we are now in our families or communities or countries. It’s just made up. Godlessness doesn’t lead to lousy living environments any more than godliness leads to good ones. Right?
Wrong.
There’s a reason why, during his ministry years, Jesus hung his hat only with believers at night. During the day, he mingled with everyone, but at night, he battened down the hatches with his disciples. It’s important that we, like Jesus, take care to live and sleep among those we trust. Yes, Judas Iscariot was also among the disciples, but Jesus knew who and what he was and watched him carefully. He knew his every move and every thought (God informed him).
We may not be able to know every move and every thought of our neighbours, but we can at least get the big picture about them. God doesn’t want his children living among drug addicts and prostitutes. Reformed drug addicts and reformed prostitutes, yes, but not those still deep in their sins and proud of it. We can visit those deep in their sins and spend time with those deep in their sins and minister to those deep in their sins, but we shouldn’t live and sleep among them, any more than we should live or sleep among wild animals.
God gives us a sense of self-preservation for a reason.
We need to heed it.
BY THEIR FRUIT
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – As the cost of living soars and the quality of life plummets for most people in former Christian nations, few of the affected people are willing to identify the real source of these phenomena. They instead blame high prices on ‘greedy oligarchs’, ‘greedy landlords’, ‘greedy baby boomers’, etc., while pointing the rest of their fingers of blame at the flood of “gimmegrants” and refugees from third-world countries. At the same time, they bemoan government inaction on all these fronts, dismissing politicians as ‘stupid’, ‘incompetent’, and unable to foresee the damage their policies are causing.
Very few know that their afflictions were described in detail by Moses over 3000 years ago, and that the oligarchs, landlords, baby boomers, immigrants, etc., are not the cause of their problems, but the fruit of it. In other words, something else other than those factors is causing the consequence of soaring cost of living and plummeting quality of life.
That something else is described in detail in Deuteronomy 28.
As I’ve mentioned here before, I’m a big fan of Deuteronomy 28. I think it perfectly describes our time, just as it perfectly described the time of the children of Israel before the destruction of their nation in 586 B.C., just as it perfectly described the time of the Israelites and Judeans before the destruction of their nation in 70 A.D.
And now it’s our turn.
Our churches have been given over to idols and desecration, as were the synagogues during the pre-destruction times of our spiritual forefathers. Our so-called Christian belief system has been so compromised, that even practicing witches incorporate portions of it into their belief system. But again, this is the fruit – not the cause – of our current situation.
Jesus was very clear that the measure we mete is the measure we get in return. At no time does he indicate we’re punished for something we didn’t do (he’s the only one who was punished for that). If our cost of living is soaring and our quality of life is plummeting, it’s because we’ve brought it on ourselves. If our streets, schools, malls, churches, grocery stores, and public transit systems are rife with random violence, it’s because we’ve brought it on ourselves. If greed is the defining characteristic of our people, from the top to the bottom of the socioeconomic scale, it’s because we’ve brought it on ourselves. If foreigners rule over us, it’s because we’ve brought it on ourselves.
See a pattern there?
Reread Jeremiah and the other books in the Old Testament that describe the years leading up to the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of Solomon’s temple. The corruption of the powers-that-be was off the charts. But here again, the corruption wasn’t a cause of the bad times, but the fruit of it. All the chronicled kings who did what was “evil in the eyes of God”, including colluding with pagan rulers, were the reward earned by the people they ruled over. The children of Israel, by their evil ways, had earned their evil kings, just as their spiritual descendants — Christians – have earned their corrupt leaders and fast deteriorating quality of life.
The same situation occurred during the time of Jesus’ ministry, shortly before the destruction of the second temple and Judaism’s final deathblow in 70 A.D. Israel and Judea were under Roman occupation, and the religious powers-that-be were willingly colluding with Rome. The Gospels leave no doubt as to how those powers-that-be, including the kings, treated their Messiah. They were so blinded and deafened as a result of their evil choices, they not only couldn’t see Jesus for who and what he was, they demanded his execution.
Fast-forward to today and the deep state that rules over all nations from behind the scenes. Ours is a world under Satan, as Jesus taught us. The only thing limiting Satan’s worldly power is godly people, that is, people who live according to God’s Ten Commandments and Jesus’ gospel teachings. “Spiritual warfare” prayers do not limit Satan’s power; the careful placement of so-called holy relics do not limit Satan’s power; removing politicians who do the bidding of the deep state does not limit Satan’s power. The only thing that limits Satan’s power is people making godly choices and living godly lives. The fruit of godliness is a better home, a better neighbourhood, a better community, a better city, a better nation, and a better world.
Jesus doesn’t want his followers to live sequestered in monasteries or nunneries. He wants us to live in the world, showing the way to those who are lost but are open to being found. Living in the world, we can’t help but see the worst of it. We know how bad things are because we experience it up close and personal every day. We see how the Ten Commandments are mocked and ignored and how Jesus and his teachings are mocked and ignored, and we see the fruit of the mockery and ignorance. That is, we see broken people, broken homes, broken communities, broken lives. We see band-aid solutions like rent control, welfare and EBT only making things worse. We see people openly worshiping rainbow demons in our neighbourhood churches. We see all mention of Jesus and God removed from public spaces, and people who defy their removal being arrested and imprisoned.
I personally was removed from a chapel at Toronto’s Pearson Airport a few months ago and threatened with arrest if I didn’t leave. I’d only been in the chapel for about 20 minutes and was reading the Bible and praying when the two police officers arrived to remove me. They said I was trespassing. For those who don’t know, the chapel at Pearson Airport’s Terminal 1 is open to the public, as is the airport, which means you don’t need a plane ticket either to enter the chapel or to enter the airport, and there is no limit to how long you can stay in either place. The chapel was consecrated many decades ago, upon its opening, which means it was set apart from the world and from worldly authorities.
When I took this up with God, asking him if I should pursue my removal from the chapel from a legal standpoint, he told me the chapel was deconsecrated years ago when it was changed to a “worship room” and welcomed people of all faiths to worship there. Because it was deconsecrated, the chapel was no longer his jurisdiction. In other words, the world and its worldly authorities now had jurisdiction over the chapel, as they have over most if not all chapels and churches in the world, and so the worldly authorities were in their right to handle me as they saw fit, including removing me. I was hounded out of the chapel in the same way Jesus was hounded out of the synagogue in Nazareth, where God by that point no longer had jurisdiction (“See, your house is left to you desolate”).
It’s a real eye-opener when you realize that houses ostensibly set aside for the worship of God are no longer under his jurisdiction. Jesus told us that the time would come (and in fact had already come during his ministry years) when we would no longer worship God in specific places set aside for that purpose, with set rituals and timeframes, but would instead worship God in spirit and in truth, and that God craved such worshipers.
That means we can worship God wherever we are and at any given time and without external paraphernalia, the way Jesus worshiped him.
That means that while there are no longer any designated worship places under God’s jurisdiction (as the world is under Satan), we born-again Spirit-filled believers are ourselves the perambulating church, as Jesus was. Where we are – and only where we are – is holy ground.
NOT YOUR BODY
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – The problem with the argument “my body, my choice” is that it’s not your body.
When it comes to a baby in your womb, the baby’s body is distinct from yours. Whole different DNA. The baby’s body is not your body, which means the argument that you can do as you please to the baby because it’s part of your body is false from the get-go. Abortion is the murder of a being who is distinct from you. That the distinct being is temporarily inside you is irrelevant.
In cases where people insist they can do whatever they want to their body, including maiming it through surgery or killing it by suicide – these people need to be reminded that it’s not their body – it’s God’s. Their body is on loan from God. He’s agreed they can use it for a time, to house their soul, but the body ultimately belongs to God. Not believing in God doesn’t negate the fact that God owns the body.
How you treat the body God gave you on loan will be part of your soul’s judgement.
So ultimately, the argument “my body, my choice” has no validity whatsoever.
STRANGE HAPPINESS
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – I had a dream last night about a green sky. Everyone around me was ignoring it as if it weren’t there, but I knew it meant something bad was coming, so I ran to take shelter underground. I tried to convince others to follow me, but they either laughed at me or ignored me, just as they’d ignored the green sky.
I entered the shelter alone.
That’s when the dream ended, and I woke up in a sweat.
*****
I am an alien among my own people. I hear them talking, but their concerns are not my concerns, any more than their needs are mine or their desires are mine. Being a believer in an unbelieving world can put you at odds with nearly everyone around you. It can take a toll on you, living as an outsider, but if Jesus could do it, so can we. With God and his Word as our comfort and refuge, no matter what happens to our body, our soul is safe in God’s hands.
The dream of the green sky is my everyday reality. Look, I tell people around me, look at what’s coming! But they carry on with whatever is obsessing them for the moment, blissfully or willfully ignorant of the danger on the horizon. To them, I am the fool, the one they whisper about and talk about behind my back. I’m the one with “problems”, the failure, the one who had so much potential and threw it all away on religion. A bad investment at best and an embarrassment at worst.
I imagine Jesus heard the same whispers during his ministry years. I imagine he saw the same averted gazes or worse the blank smiling faces hiding a twisted pity tinged with loathing. To be a follower of Jesus in an unbelieving world is to know what it means to be loathed, both openly and secretly. In most cases, I’m loathed without people even knowing why they loathe me. They just do. Oh, they look to find reasons, like “she dresses funny” or “she’s too old to have long hair”, things that wouldn’t even garner a second thought in their fellow unbelievers, but in me, loathsome me, it justifies their revulsion.
I understand the revulsion. I once felt it myself as an unbeliever. I loathed believers without any grounds for loathing them. I just loathed them. I know now it was a spiritual loathing, not an emotional one. The emotions conveyed the spiritual revulsion. It was the demons in me and around me that loathed the presence of God’s Holy Spirit in the believer.
I am now on the receiving end of that undeserved revulsion, and as much as it should disturb me, it instead makes me strangely happy. I don’t hate those who loathe me. I know the reason for their ungrounded hatred and I love them. The more they loathe me, the more I love them. It’s a strange kind of happiness based on a strange kind of love that can only come from God, through his Spirit.
To love those who hate you and mock you and reject you and sideline you and overlook you and talk about you behind your back is liberating. It’s like a trained boxer coming up to you and saying “Hit me”, and you hit him hard, but he just keeps standing there inviting you to hit him again. So you hit him in the head, you hit him in the gut, you hit him in the balls, you hit him in the knees, but he just keeps standing there, waiting for you to hit him again. He takes all the hits and he keeps on standing there, smiling.
Strangely, smiling.
And never once does he curse you.
*****
Holy love is as much a spiritual phenomenon as unholy loathing. These are not human feelings, holy love and unholy loathing. They come from the spiritual realm. We humans are just the delivery vehicles. But we can only deliver what we choose. None of it is ever forced on us.
We open ourselves to it, and it flows through.
ON BEING POLITE TO DEMONS
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, May 1, 2023 – Jesus’ success rate with exorcising demons was, according to scriptural accounts, 100%. When he was tasked with getting rid of unholy spirits, he did the job with no fuss and no muss; just a decisive command, and out they went.
The disciples’ success rate was somewhat less than that of Jesus, but still impressive. They apparently were able to exorcise all but the ones that required the exorcist to first pray and fast. Jewish exorcists, on the other hand, failed spectacularly, according to scripture, which brings to mind today’s so-called exorcism experts from the Catholic organization. They have phenomenally poor results in dealing with demons, as they base their exorcisms on the convoluted, ritual-heavy, hierarchy-of-spirits model inherited from Jewish exorcists, not on Jesus’ straight-forward approach. Catholic exorcists even go so far as to hold conversations with the demons they’re attempting to exorcise. Polite conversations, no less.
Oy, vey!…
If Jesus spoke to the demons at all, it was solely to demand to know their name and then to use that name to loudly command them to leave the body they were inhabiting.
Which leads us to the only question that matters here: Why was Jesus so good at exorcising demons?
The answer, of course, is that Jesus exorcised demons under the power and authority of God, through God’s Holy Spirit. He did not operate under any other power or authority. All demons are entirely and without exception submissive to God through his Holy Spirit. They cannot disobey a command originating from God; it is not possible for them to do so.
But here’s the catch – not everyone can operate in the power and authority of God through his Holy Spirit. It is not something you can simply subscribe to or refer to at will. In other words, you cannot command God or his Holy Spirit to work for you. Jesus says the Spirit goes where it wills and that he cast out demons by “the finger of God”. He did not say he cast them out by his own power.
If you exorcise under the power and authority and permission of God, as Jesus did, you will have a 100% success rate. Why? Because YOU are not commanding the demons, God is commanding them through you, by his Spirit. It’s not enough to speak in Jesus’ name, whether as a believer or an unbeliever; Jewish exorcists tried that approach and failed dismally and almost comically (though there’s nothing comical in being hounded by a demon you’ve just attempted to exorcise). It’s not enough to speak Jesus’ name over demonic entities ON YOUR OWN VOLITION and expect them to comply to YOUR command. Jesus’ name has no authority when spoken for your own purposes and under your own volition. The power in the name of Jesus comes from God through his Holy Spirit, in the same way that Jesus’ power, during his time on Earth, also came from God.
True believers who speak in Jesus’ name while exorcising demons on God’s permission and under his direction will be speaking under the power of God and through his Spirit. This is the source of their authority over the demons and the reason for their success in exorcising them. Do not for one minute – no matter how fervent a believer you consider yourself to be – think that you have the power to exorcise demons on your own volition. You have no such power. It’s God working through you that performs the exorcism. You’re just the delivery vehicle, as was Jesus. Never attempt an exorcism without God first prompting you to do so, empowering you to do so, and guiding you through it.
We cannot deal politely with demons or we will fail. When God commands through us, by his Spirit, the command is delivered forcefully, in few words, and in an instant, not weakly and in several words over several days. Any exorcism model that is not based on the Holy Ghost-enabled model demonstrated by Jesus is doomed to fail not because the demon won’t leave the body it’s possessing or oppressing, but because if it does leave, it will simply enter into another one. A good example of that particular type of failure is the Jewish exorcists mentioned in Acts.
The failed exorcism is also shown in the movie The Exorcist (which, yes, I know is just a movie, but the utter failure of the word- and paraphernalia-heavy exorcism ritual was bang-on in its presentation). Also note that, in the movie, the demon only leaves the girl after the priest gives it permission to enter into him, which is not a wise thing to do on the part of the priest, even a semi-fictional one. The actual exorcism ritual involving trinkets and props and the recitation of vain repetitions is a complete failure; yes, the demon leaves the possessed girl, but it enters the priest, who is then, by the demon, thrown down a steep flight of stairs and killed. This cannot by any metric be considered a successful exorcism.
You cannot be polite to demons because you’re not the ones talking to them; God is doing the talking, through his Spirit, and God has no reason to be polite to them. Firm, yes, polite, no. Demons, like all fallen spirits, are God’s slaves. In speaking to demons, you’re just the delivery vehicle for God’s command, a position that is granted to you by virtue of your state of grace, give to you at your rebirth. As Jesus showed us, you don’t converse with unholy spirits – God commands them through you, and they have no choice but to obey those commands. Again, they’re not your commands, they’re God’s.
Exorcists who exorcise by some other power than God’s may well succeed in removing the evil spirit from the afflicted, but the spirit will simply enter into another body, not leave this realm altogether. When exorcised by God through his Holy Spirit, evil spirits are forced to leave this realm unless given stated permission to do otherwise. Recall how the demons being exorcised from the “legion man” asked Jesus if they could enter into a nearby herd of pigs, to which Jesus agreed, only to have the pigs run off the cliff and drown in the sea, forcing the demons back into the realm of the condemned. I like how this shows that Jesus, through the power of God’s Spirit, was always one step ahead of the wicked, even when playing by their rules.
Do not fool around with exorcism. It’s not a parlour game and it’s definitely not something to do for money, fame, or clicks. If God prompts and guides you to exorcise, do exactly as he says, knowing it is not by your power the spirits are commanded, but by his. Simply praying Jesus’ name over an afflicted soul is not enough to get the unholy spirit to leave. Unless God has directed you to exorcise a demon, do not attempt an exorcism. You will fail. These spirits are much, much stronger than you are, and God has put the world under the authority of Satan, which means the demons you encounter are on their own turf and playing by their own rules, as granted them by God.
When it comes to demonic spirits, do nothing that is not instigated and powered by God through his Holy Spirit. Do not even think about doing anything demon-related unless you’re instigated and powered by God through his Holy Spirit and are a genuinely reborn follower of Jesus. Remember how giddy the disciples were when they discovered they could cast out evil spirits? Jesus redirected their joy to the more important fact that their names were written in Heaven, which meant they were under the grace of God and protected by his Spirit. That is the only reason to rejoice, not in the display of power that seemingly comes from you.
Rejoice in the Lord and rejoice in your heavenly reward!
Being under God’s grace and protected by God’s Spirit gives you phenomenal abilities and privileges. Don’t abuse them and don’t ascribe them to something that’s innate in you rather than something given to you by God. As Jesus informed his arresting authorities, they only have power over him because God gave them the power temporarily. Otherwise, they have no power or authority on their own. The same holds true even for born-again believers: All our power and authority over fallen entities comes from God, through his Holy Spirit, as followers of Jesus in good standing.
“Humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, resist the devil, and he will flee”. Attempting to resist the devil without first humbling yourself under God’s mighty hand and letting his Holy Spirit take control will only lead to your failure in all spiritual matters, including exorcism. More and more unbelievers and believers are falling prey to evil spirits, but we still need to remember to wait for God’s signal before exorcising them. Jesus did not go out looking for spirits to exorcise; the possessed and oppressed were brought to him for healing or in some cases flung themselves at him in obvious need of deliverance. God will make it just as obvious to you when an exorcism is required.
When he does, remember there is no reason to be polite to the demons or to hold a conversation with them, other than to ask their name. Give them no opportunity to interact with you beyond providing their name. Do not be curious about them. Do not give them an opening to exploit. God, by his Holy Spirit working through you, will command them to leave, and they will have no choice but to leave. No other recitations, trinkets, rituals, or paraphernalia are required.
This is how Jesus exorcised and this is how we, as his followers, are to do so.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 