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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.
_____
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.
NEFARIOUS: PREACHING DOCTRINES OF DEVILS
CHARLO, New Brunswick, August 6, 2023 – Full disclosure here: I did not see the movie. I didn’t even make it all the way through the trailer. But I did skip through a few interviews given by the directors and read enough comments and reviews to get a good whiff of what the film was about. Let me put it another way – if I’m walking down the road and see a steaming pile of brown goop a few yards ahead, I don’t need to march right up to it and stick my face into it to know it’s poop. I can tell from a safe distance that it is what it is and detour around it. In the same way, I don’t need to watch even one minute of a movie headlined by a demon, starring a demon, to know it’s the spiritual equivalent of a steaming pile and therefore needs to be avoided. To do otherwise – to purposely kneel down and study it – would be the same as putting Jesus back up on the cross.
“Now the Spirit speaketh expressly, that in the latter times some shall depart from the faith, giving heed to seducing spirits, and doctrines of devils.”
The last time I checked, Christians are to be taught by God and his Word, not by demons (even fictional ones). We betray God and Jesus when we turn our back to them and go to the devil for knowledge.
I am appalled by the sheer volume of Christians who are not only cheering this film on, but are urging their family, friends, and strangers to go see it. Some even claim it should be mandatory viewing in seminaries and Bible schools.
I can only think that these people have been bewitched, somewhat along the lines of the “O foolish Galatians” that Paul chewed out for falling such easy prey to liars.
Because have no doubt – the devil and his demons (even and especially the fictional ones) are liars. That’s all they are. They mix in enough facts to gain your trust, but their arguments are based on lies and delivered through seduction and deception.
Seduction and deception.
Sound familiar?
O foolish Christians! You are Eve all over again. You have a Bible to learn God’s Truth from – you have a direct line to God in prayer, courtesy of Jesus – but you look instead to a fictional “dark gospel” dictated by a fictional emissary of hell. And it’s not enough that you yourself fall under the spell – you have to drag others down with you. You gush over the demon. You are in awe of the demon. You secretly admire the demon’s intellect. “Such a wise demon!”, you say to yourself. “If only everyone could learn from this demon!” And then you go and do the devil’s bidding and promote the film – even to children – as a Christian film, and you do it for free.
Hear that noise? That horrible sound? It’s the devil and his demons laughing at you.
Abominations come in all shapes and sizes. This film is an abomination. And like all abominations, it has no place in the heart, mind, home, or playlist of a follower of Jesus.
We are not to talk to demons. We are not to be curious about demons. We are not to “study” demons or take a course on them. We are to do as Jesus did when it comes to demons, which means we are to have no conversation with them at all other than to ask their name and then to state their name when we cast them out. That is the only interaction we’re to have with demons.
If you’ve been bewitched and beguiled by the movie, get down on your face and repent. Get down on your face right now and repent. You are loved by God and hated by the devil, and yet you’ve become a cheerleader for Satan. Give your head a shake, O foolish Christian! Open your eyes, O foolish Christian!
Get down on your face and repent, O foolish Christian, before it’s too late!
UNTITLED
CHARLO, New Brunswick, July 30, 2023 – We have so little time, and we use what little time we do have fussin’ and fightin’, which is just what the devil wants us to do. He sets up the conflicts – the traps – and then sits back and waits for us to walk into them….
And we nearly always do.
Meanwhile, God is over there waving at us, trying to get our attention and hold it long enough for us to make some kind of a commitment to him, any kind of a commitment, and follow through.
But I gotta be honest – it’s mostly a losing battle for him. He’s left with only a remnant, though it could have been worse, I guess, if Moses hadn’t intervened, if Joshua hadn’t intervened, if Joseph hadn’t intervened, if Elijah and Samuel and David and Jeremiah – if all those righteous men all down through the ages hadn’t intervened on our behalf, culminating in Jesus.
But ever since Jesus it’s just been us, a rag-tag group of mostly unknown followers that Paul rightly described as not very impressive, not much to look at. But God got our attention. We saw him waving and waving and waving and we finally waved back, moving closer to see what all the fuss was about.
So he got our attention and now he’s holding it. We’re the followers now. We’re the interveners. We’re up there with Moses and David and all the rest. We’re part of that team. Jesus called his Cousin John “Elijah” and knew how bizarre and downright dubious that sounded to his disciples. They were expecting something different, some grand gesture or sign that would confer a holy haze around the expected anointed, but it was only Cousin John, slightly oddball Cousin John who’d lived out in the desert most of his life and had now gotten himself landed in jail for speaking his piece.
Jesus himself was decidedly underwhelming, considering what people had in mind when they thought of Moses’ prophesied “Prophet”. They’d pictured David come back to life in a body the size of Goliath’s with the wealth of Solomon and the supernatural reach of a dozen Elijahs. They’d pictured something, well, anything other than this low-keyed soft-spoken son of a carpenter from Nazareth. And yet there Jesus was, the prophesied messiah, just as there John was, the prophesied Elijah, just as here we are now, the prophesied remnant, the saints of the Kingdom of Zion.
The more times you say it, the more real it becomes. When Jesus rose from the dead and appeared in a body that was on its way to becoming glorified, the disciples could finally see that what they’d suspected was real all along. Paul says we see God through a glass darkly, but if we make it Home, we’ll see him face to face; and that we know now only in part, but if we make it Home, we’ll know in full. Yet even here now we’re given flashes of facetime with God and flashes of full knowledge of him, courtesy of his Holy Spirit. So we know what we see is real and is becoming more real by the minute.
They never accepted Jesus because they were expecting something more, something maybe like what the devil was trying to entice Jesus with when he tempted him in the wilderness. They were looking for the devil’s grandiose notion of what a messiah should look like and so completely rejected the actual flesh and blood Messiah standing in front of them. People are still rejecting and dismissing God’s handiwork as inconsequential and not the real deal. The problem isn’t that God isn’t performing miracles like he used to; the problem is that people aren’t recognizing the miracles when they see them.
I’m a miracle, for instance. Everyone born of the Spirit is a walking, talking manifestation of God intervening in time and space. That’s a miracle. If I weren’t a miracle, these words wouldn’t be coming out of my fingertips and I wouldn’t be loving my enemies and praying for those who hate me. I can guarantee you that loving my enemies is the last thing I’d be doing if God weren’t working a miracle through me. You can’t love your enemies unless God’s working through you. Humans don’t love their enemies on their own steam.
Jesus says the Kingdom is within us. People are expecting some grand revelation on the scale of Ezekiel’s vision of God’s throne, but the Kingdom is within us. It will never be set up on Earth. That’s a job for the anti-Christ, who’ll be only too happy to answer to the name of Messiah and King and even God, when his time comes. The same kind of people who rejected Jesus for being too… well… carpenterish are now rejecting the Kingdom for being too invisible. They’re waiting for something more tangible, something they can stick their fingers into and bow down to. They wouldn’t be caught dead bowing down to a carpenter.
So here’s how I see it: it’s either that John was just Jesus’ crazy cousin, Jesus was just a poor carpenter from Nazareth, and I’m just a nobody from nowhere, or it’s that John was the prophesied Elijah, Jesus is the prophesied Messiah, and I’m part of the prophesied remnant, a saint living in God’s Kingdom.
It’s all how you look at it. God wants us to look at him, to fix our gaze on him so that we can see through his eyes. The devil wants to distract us, divert us, mislead and misinform us. He wants to blind us with false expectations, like he blinded nearly all of God’s people all those years ago.
Ultimately it’s up to you where you look. You can look at God or you can look the other way.
But I recommend you look at God and hold your gaze steady there.
ARE WE PRAYING THE WRONG WAY?
CHARLO, New Brunswick, July 28, 2023 – Jesus tells us: “Ye have not because ye ask not”. It’s his polite way of saying that we’re praying for the wrong things or not praying when we should be or perhaps not even praying at all.
And yet, my oh my, how some Christians love to pray! They’re like the Pharisees standing at the front of the temple or on the street corners, making sure that everyone sees and hears their holiness. That’s not to say there’s anything wrong with prayer – it’s the most powerful force in the universe and our direct line to God and Jesus. But many Christians, for all their prayers, might just as well not be praying because they pray the wrong way.
That is to say, they’re praying for the wrong things.
For instance, instead of praying for God to give them the strength to endure whatever God permits them to endure, they pray to find a way to avoid their tests and punishments. What they’re essentially doing is praying to God to counteract his own justice.
Now, that’s a strange thing for Christians to do – to pray against God’s perfect justice! I’m not sure why people do that, other than they don’t know that they’re doing it or they see others praying that way and simply follow their lead. Certainly, like Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, we can ask God if there’s some wriggle room in his Grand Scheme Of Things that would allow us not to suffer so much, but we also need to end our prayers with “not what I want, but what you want”, as Jesus famously did. Ultimately, we need to fully align our prayers with God’s will, so that instead of trying to avoid taking our knocks (whether as punishment or as tests), we head into battle fully armed with God’s Spirit.
And we should pray the same for others. When we pray for them to avoid their tests and punishments, we’re not helping them. These are not charitable prayers, to help people avoid what they need to go through. In fact, such prayers serve the devil’s purposes, not God’s. We need to pray that people have the strength to endure whatever God needs them to endure and to come out the other side victorious.
Every test and punishment that we overcome through patient endurance makes us spiritually stronger and better able to help ourselves and others. More importantly, everything we successfully endure brings us closer to God and Jesus and closer to Home. The only test that Jesus taught us to pray to avoid is the test of the Tribulation. This is something that we can with God’s full blessings pray to avoid.
So the next time someone asks you to pray for them, pray for what they’ve asked for, but also pray that God will give them the strength to endure whatever they have to endure and come out victorious and stronger in the end. And if you pray to God on your own behalf, pray the same thing – not to avoid the tests and punishments that are coming your way, but for the strength and grace to endure them.
This should always be our prayer – to align our will with God’s and to have his supernatural strength to “endure to the end”. If we make this our guiding prayer, I guarantee you that God will immediately answer it with a loud and resounding “DONE!”
SEEING THINGS: THE DOPPELGANGER PHENOMENON
CHARLO, New Brunswick, July 28, 2023 – We know that when we convert, we become a particular target of the devil.
He wants us back.
I’ve known this ever since I was reborn 24 years ago, but lately I’ve come to know it especially intimately.
A very strange phenomenon started occurring shortly after I was born-again. I didn’t really pay much attention to it at the time, as I thought it was just people “misremembering” or getting their dates and other facts wrong. But lately it’s been so in-my-face, I’ve had to consider where it’s coming from, and why.
Here’s the phenomenon – people swear they see me in places I haven’t been, saying and doing things I haven’t said or done. It goes something like this: I meet someone for the first time, and he (it’s almost always a “he”) tells me we’ve met before and names the place. I tell him I’ve never met him before and have never been to that place, but he insists that I must be wrong. He swears I must be wrong.
Now, having a look-alike is nothing new. Nearly everyone has at least one somewhere in the world. But the problem is that my “evil twin” is, well, evil. She does bad things and says bad things, and it gets the guys all riled up. Sometimes she’s incredibly rude, and sometimes she’s lascivious. So when I meet these guys for the first time, they’ve already informed a very strong opinion about me because they think I’m her. Their opinion depends on their interaction with my doppelganger.
For example, it led to a taxi driver becoming obsessed with me and following me around everywhere I went when I visited a city a few years ago. He would lurk outside my windows at night, leaving little clues that he’d been there. I was only able to shake him off my trail when I left town early one morning using a limo service instead of a cab (I figured he’d been monitoring the cab calls on his dispatch radio). The night before I left, he’d written my name using little pieces of wood, laid them on the ground in front of my door, and lit them on fire. I have no idea how he found me at that location. Then there was the guy who swore that I constantly swore at him one summer a few years back while we were staying at a university residence. The only problem is I had never stayed at that residence before and I was somewhere else that summer. When I met the guy for the first time last year at the residence, he flew into a rage and accused me of previously verbally abusing him. Based on this false recollection, the guy has since got me banned from all the residences at that university.
As I said, we become targets once we’re born-again. I’ve learned to take everything in stride and acknowledge that if God permits it, it’s either a punishment or a test. Whichever it is, I accept it, submit to God, and learn from it. I only mention my evil twin today because she’s made an appearance again, this time near a small town where I’ve been staying for the past few months. Her reappearance has finally put the phenomenon front and centre for me. I can’t ignore it anymore or just write it off as someone “misremembering”. I need to see it for what it is and accept that it’s part of my life now.
Another taxi driver I just met swears he talked to me last week at a nighttime event I never attended. He got very sullen when I insisted I hadn’t been anywhere near the event. I have no idea what my evil twin said to him, but he was definitely expecting something more from me than just the fare and a tip.
I talked to God about this phenomenon a few hours ago, wanting to clear everything with him before I publish it. He reminded me that Jesus was also falsely accused of things he didn’t do, and that his accusers contradicted each other with their claims. The same thing happened to Paul and other followers of Jesus, including the disciples. That part of scripture always kind of bothered me because I couldn’t tell whether the accusers were purposely lying or had simply “misremembered”.
Now I believe they were subject to the same spiritual phenomenon as all the people who swear they’ve met me before. Not being under God’s protection, they’re easy prey of the devil. What they’re seeing is not me (obviously) and not even a person: it’s a spiritual hallucination or vision. They think they’re seeing me, but it’s not me. It’s not anyone. Hallucinations and visions can seem very real to the person experiencing them and interacting with them, which is why the guys get so angry with me when I tell them I’ve never met them before. They think I’m playing them for fools.
This phenomenon occurs in every culture in the world and goes under various names like “doppelganger”, “evil twin”, “nemesis”, and “apparitions”. Unfortunately, the appearance of these visions will likely plague me, as a born-again believer, for the rest of my time on Earth. They’ll also likely get increasingly compromising: I have no idea what my evil twin will get up to next. Like I said, Jesus and others in the Bible had to deal with this same issue; it’s just part and parcel of being a child of God. Now that I know what it is, I’m aware of it and I fully trust God to protect me from it.
Again – if God permits it, he wants us to submit to it and learn to deal with it knowing that he’s always got our back.
So, if you happen to see me out and about, saying and doing things that are decidedly unchristian, it’s not me. It’s my evil twin.
Just ignore her. d:
NEFARIOUS: CHRISTIAN OR ANTI-CHRIST?
CHARLO, New Brunswick, July 27, 2023 – A trailer for the film Nefarious popped up in my YouTube feed the other day. I didn’t know anything about the movie, but the thumbnail looked interesting, so I clicked.
I’m not sure I’m glad that I did. It had the typical “horror” genre feel that feeds demons’ need to be feared. Horror films, as we well know, have been a gateway to the demonic for many a lost soul. This movie doesn’t look like it’s much different in that regard.
Jesus didn’t fear demons. He didn’t like them, but he didn’t fear them. In none of his teachings did he warn us to fear them. If you’re genuinely born-again (which you should be if you’re reading this) – if you’re genuinely born-again, you know there’s nothing to fear in the spirit realm except God, and demons are obviously not God.
So right off the bat, I’m wondering what’s “Christian” about a “horror” movie that features demonic possession? In fact, after watching the trailer and then reading several reviews and interviews about the movie, I was surprised that Nefarious is even being plugged as a Christian film. By their very premise, horror movies aren’t Christian. They’re the opposite: They make people fear what Jesus taught us we have no reason to fear. In other words, horror movies are textbook anti-Christ.
Another aspect that jumped out at me was how the movie (again, based on the trailer) was sensationalizing demonic activity. This is unfortunate because demonic activity is actually quite ubiquitous. There’s nothing sensational about it. Everyone who isn’t born-again (that is, everyone who doesn’t have God’s Holy Spirit in them) has the spirit of the world in them, which is of the demonic realm. So that’s a lot of people who have demons either infesting, oppressing, or possessing them (at last count, nearly 8 billion people) and we’re around those people all the time. Do they look like the character in the movie (or like Linda Blair’s character in The Exorcist)? No, of course not, because demonic activity is the world and the world is demonic activity. Jesus taught us that the world is under the authority of Satan, so everything that is of the world (including the movie industry) is demonic. The film sensationalizes and attempts to make us fear (and therefore give power to) something that is actually quite widespread and banal.
Jesus didn’t fear or sensationalize any of the demons he encountered; he just shut them up and cast them out. The major portion of Jesus’ healing ministry was casting out demons. He performed thousands of exorcisms during his three-year ministry. Nearly everyone he interacted with had some level of demonic activity in them or around them, including some of his followers. Again – people who are not born-again have the spirit of the world in them, and the spirit of the world is demonic. There’s no such thing as a spiritual vacuum, so everyone has either God’s Spirit or demonic spirits. You can’t have both and you can’t have neither. This is a spiritual fact of life.
Furthermore, based on the trailer, the movie appeared to want to incite the audience not only to fear the demonic but to be curious about it. This follows the trend nowadays of demons coming out of the anonymity closet, whereas for the past several decades they’ve been trying to hide behind diagnoses of mental disorders, flights of fancy, and artistic expression. For years, demons worked hard to be considered non-existent, as it gave them the opportunity to infiltrate people’s lives without those people knowing what they’d gotten themselves into. I guess it was easier for parents to claim that their child’s atrocious behavior is due to autism or ADHD rather than demons. But now the demons want everyone to know about them and be curious about them. They want to preach their “Dark Gospel”, as the movie informs us.
Not having seen Nefarious, I can’t offer a critique beyond saying that if it makes Christians fear demons or makes them curious about demons, it’s not a Christian movie. Christians are not to have anything to do with demons, other than to give them the command to leave a soul they’re tormenting. Like Jesus showed us, the only interaction we’re to have with demons is to ask their name and then to tell them to leave in Jesus’ name. No further interaction is advised. This is another major flaw in the movie, from what I saw in the trailer. I read later in some reviews that the demon is given the spotlight and holds the stage for most of the film. Contrast that with how quickly demons are dispatched in the Gospels and how little they’re permitted to say.
Considering the above, I don’t think anyone can honestly call this movie Christian.
Ultimately, I question the motivation of the people behind Nefarious. I’ve read some interviews given by the directors (Konzelman and Solomon), and not once did they mention the name of Jesus. They mention “the Lord”, but they don’t mention Jesus by name. It seems odd to me that the name of Jesus is absent from their interviews, if in fact this movie is supposed to be Christian.
Demons shouldn’t be headlining movies meant for a Christian audience. We’re to cast demons out and silence them, not give them a platform to preach their satanic agenda. Demons and demonic activities are not entertainment, not for Christians. Everything you need to know about demons you can learn from Jesus and God; anything beyond that is unholy curiosity that needs to be stopped in its tracks, as it will only lead you down a very dark path.
“Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
SNIPER PRAYER
CHARLO, New Brunswick, July 26, 2023 – For us born-again believers, prayer is second nature. Paul says to pray without ceasing, and that’s what we do.
“We pray; therefore, we are.”
But how we pray in large part affects the efficacy of our prayers. Jesus advised us to go into our closet when we want to talk to God. That could mean physically going into a small solitary space, or it could mean closeting ourselves wherever we happen to be. You don’t have to be alone to closet yourself; you just put yourself into the God-zone and away you pray!
PRO TIP: It’s best to pray silently. God hears those prayers better than spoken ones.
- We should keep in mind, too, that Jesus advised us to settle our differences before we pray. This could mean actually making peace with someone we’ve aggravated, but it more often means choosing to forgive someone. If we go before God with a grudge-hardened heart – however justified we think that grudge may be – our prayers won’t be as effective. In fact, God might choose not even to hear our prayers until we make our peace in our heart, which always involves choosing to forgive.
- It also goes without saying that if we have unrepentant sin on our soul, we should repent before going to God in prayer. An unrepentant soul is a hardened soul. Like a hard heart, a hard soul can act as a barrier between us and God. We need to keep our soul as soft and supple as our heart, which means always choosing to forgive and always being ready to repent if God indicates we need to.
When I’m in the God-zone with a softened heart and soul, my favourite prayer style is sniper prayer. I learned how to sniper pray from my grandmother. Sniper prayer is just like it sounds – the target (prayer recipient) has no idea you’re praying for them. They don’t see you, and they don’t see the prayers coming. That’s because you don’t tell them you’re praying for them; you don’t tell anyone you’re praying for them: You just do it out of nowhere and when they least expect it. Sniper prayer is most appropriate for people who hate you or hate God. They don’t want to know you’re praying for them, anyway, so it all works out.
Sniper prayer is the prayer style that Jesus recommended when he told us to go into our closets and pray secretly. Only God needs to know the content of our prayers or even that we’re praying, which is why it’s best to pray silently. If we pray aloud, in almost every case (with few exceptions) the devil will know what we’re up to, and then he’ll start trying to figure out a way to thwart us. When we pray silently and without telling anyone but God and Jesus, the devil will never know what we’re up to. Our prayers will be hidden from him. That’s how we stay one step ahead of the evil.
Sniper prayers by born-again believers (a.k.a. saints) in right standing with God are the most effective prayers in all creation. Scripture says that the holy angels take those prayers together with incense and send them directly to God’s throne. And since prayer is the most powerful force in the universe, no weapon on Earth is stronger than sniper prayer, as it’s engendered by God and powered by his Holy Spirit.
So the next time you pray, get into the God-zone, soften your heart and soul, and take silent aim….
PRAY FOR THEIR CONVERSION, NOT THEIR DEATH
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 25, 2023 – One of the more disheartening things I’ve read in a long time is an online comment by a self-identified Christian who was begging God to reinstate the death penalty for a certain crime.
God hears those prayers, but he answers them by holding them against whoever’s praying them.
God does not want us praying for the death of someone or cheering on those who are being executed. The death of those we think deserve execution is not the time to be pointing fingers and hurling insults, as was done to Jesus during his execution. God does not condone such displays of hatred, and he rewards them accordingly.
Our response to people who do things we believe are worthy of death is TO PRAY FOR THOSE PEOPLE, not ask God to kill them. As born-again believers, we haven’t received God’s Holy Spirit to pass judgement over others; we’ve received it to lead by example, in this case to lead by praying for those who do things worthy of death.
If we don’t pray for them, who will?
Praying for people who’ve committed atrocities doesn’t mean we condone what they did. When we pray for them, we acknowledge the separation between their horrible deed and their God-made immortal soul. We pray for the salvation of their soul. We pray for them to turn back to God while there’s still time. We pray for their conversion. That’s the job description of Christians.
The world may feel justified in stating “kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out”, but we know that every soul is precious to God (he made each one himself), so we pray for the soul even as we condemn the deed. We make a firm separation between the soul and the deed.
Making this separation is what helps us to pray for the soul. I might have trouble praying for a man who raped me, but I have no trouble at all praying for his soul lovingly made by God. If I consider the rapist not as a rapist but as someone with a God-made soul who turned from God and committed rape, I am better able to pray for that soul, as I see it fully separate from its atrocious deed. I see the soul as something precious and worth praying for.
At a state execution, it is the body that is condemned, not the soul. No authority on Earth can condemn a soul. Only God can pass judgement on a soul.
As difficult as it may be to see past a crime (particularly when committed against ourselves or our loved ones), we need to remember to separate the soul from the deed and to pray for the soul’s conversion and ultimate salvation. Some of God’s most courageous warriors are converts living on death row.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 