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LAST SECOND: ON THE WOMAN CAUGHT IN ADULTERY
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 9, 2026 – One of my favourite parts of John’s gospel is the section at the start of Chapter 8 about the woman caught in adultery. In those verses, we see how Jesus dealt with her compared to how the scribes and Pharisees wanted her dealt with. You can read the verses here.
First of all, you can tell by the triumphant tone of the scribes and Pharisees that they thought the whole issue was a slam-dunk. Not only was the Commandment rock-solid that adultery was forbidden, but Jewish law stated that those who committed that sin were to be stoned to death. The woman had been caught in the act, presumably by more than one witness, and had said nothing in her own defence, which indicated that she had acknowledged her guilt. Although the verses don’t describe the woman, you can imagine the disheveled state of her hair and clothing, her tear-streaked face that she tried unsuccessfully to hide as she was dragged (paraded) through the streets. You can imagine her agonizing shame at the jeers and leers that were thrown at her, possibly even by people who knew her and/or her family. You can imagine that for the woman caught “in the very act”, this was likely the very worst moment of her life.
Enter Jesus. As was his habit, he’d been teaching in the temple, using the loose dirt on the ground as a chalkboard and his finger as chalk. He likely heard the commotion caused by the vigilantes long before he saw them, and once he did see them, he knew exactly what they were up to: They had come to tempt him.
In response, Jesus immediately steeled himself to deal with his tempters by opening an emergency prayer line to God.
After the scribes and Pharisees had presented the woman to Jesus and described her sin, Jesus appeared to ignore them. Scripture states that he leaned down and continued to finger-write on the ground as if they weren’t even there. The verse literally states that he acted “as if he heard them not”, which indicates that he not only probably hadn’t said a word to them yet, but he hadn’t reacted to them in any way.
You can imagine the accusers’ barely suppressed outrage at Jesus’ unexpected silence. You can imagine the restless quiet of the mob that had followed the posse to the temple. Perhaps the only sounds for the better part of a minute were the woman’s muffled sobs punctured by the occasional “Stone her!”… until Jesus finally emerged from his deep huddle with God, rose to his feet, and stated calmly: “He that is without sin among you, let him cast the first stone at her.”
They hadn’t expected this. They hadn’t expected their “gotcha!” moment to be thrown back in their faces. By publicly presenting the woman to Jesus, they had publicly deferred to his authority, meaning that they had to accept whatever he decreed. And what he decreed was that whoever was sinless among them—and only whoever was sinless—should begin the stoning.
Now, the scribes and Pharisees were a lot of things, but ignorant of the law was not one of them. They knew that if they presented themselves as sinless, they’d be guilty of blasphemy. The tables had been turned; the hunters were now prey. Knowing this, they had no choice but to withdraw themselves, which they did, leaving Jesus more or less alone with the woman.
The magnitude of God’s mercy is evident in the few words Jesus then exchanged with her. Jesus knew (because he knew people’s hearts) that the woman was deeply remorseful for what she’d done. He also knew that she was grateful to him for rescuing her. But sin is sin, and even when it’s resolved through God’s mercy, a finger of warning must be raised. This Jesus did by telling her not to sin again.
If I were a betting person, I’d bet that Jesus stared the woman straight in the face when he gave her the warning. I’d bet that the look in his eyes and the timbre of his voice stayed with her for the rest of her days, so that if she for even a brief moment so much as entertained a sinful thought, she’d see those eyes again and hear that voice. He gave her a second – but only a second – chance. If she sinned again, there’d be no more chances and no more mercy.
Ironically, Jesus himself could have initiated the stoning of the woman caught in adultery, since he was in fact the only one among them who was sinless. But he chose instead, under God’s guidance, to give the woman a second chance underscored by a final warning. This was mercy, yes, but not limitless mercy, not the “tolerant of sin” type of pseudo mercy that has become characteristic of so-called Christian dealings with the world. We are never to be tolerant of sin – NEVER – but we should also always be ready to extend mercy to the genuinely penitent when God indicates we should do so. We’ll know who are genuinely penitent because God will let us know, like he let Jesus know when he was seemingly off in his own little world, writing in the dirt.
Spiritually, we have all been that woman caught in adultery, in the very act. Had we not been, we wouldn’t be born again. We’ve all been given our second chance—our rebirth is our second chance—along with the warning not to sin again. Many of us have unwittingly come close to that precipice, only to be hauled back at the last second.
May we always be hauled back.
GREATER THAN MONEY
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, August 31, 2026 – Prior to starting his ministry, Jesus worked as a carpenter. By “worked”, I mean he offered his services in exchange for payment. Jesus either accepted money or bartered for the amount he’d negotiated for his carpentry services. There’s nothing in scripture that would indicate he’d done otherwise.
But when he started his ministry, his payment terms changed drastically. He no longer negotiated or demanded any payment at all for the ministry services he offered, whether healing, teaching, preaching, or just performing random miracles along the way. He did everything for free. There’s nothing in scripture that would indicate he did otherwise.
Still, Jesus needed money for his daily needs. We all need money for our daily needs. But what we don’t need is to charge a fee in exchange for our ministry services.
I’ve already stated here in this blog and elsewhere that anyone who charges a fee to preach is not bornagain. Ditto for people who charge a fee for praying, healing, teaching about the Kingdom, or otherwise providing information on spiritual development, including counseling. “Pay for pray” is a worldly (i.e., unregenerated) church phenomenon, as is demanding and accepting payment for preaching. The worldly church gets paid for this kind of work and does so with God’s permission (as Jesus said, they have their reward).
But we, as bornagain believers, must never request payment for doing God’s work because it’s not us doing the work: it’s God, by his Spirit, working through us. We must never ask for donations. We must never ask for an honorarium. We must never ask for payment for preaching and teaching the Word. Never. Not once. Not under any circumstance.
Don’t you dare.
Because if you ask for money for doing what you’ve received from God for free, God will take it from you in other ways, and with interest. You’ll end up much poorer financially and spiritually than you would have been had you not demanded payment. The worldly church, yes, gets paid in worldly ways, but God arranges for his children to be paid in different ways, and always more than enough.
You won’t have to ask; it will be offered.
Consider Jesus. He never charged anything for his ministry services, and yet he always had more than enough for his needs. People donated their money and resources without him having to ask. And on the rare occasion when his needs unexpectedly exceeded the norm and it appeared that he was going to come up short, God would provide a timely miracle, like placing the gold coin in the fish’s mouth so that Jesus could pay the tribute tax (with money to spare), or multiplying a handful of loaves and fishes so that Jesus could feed a multitude (with basketsful to spare).
I know, without your having to tell me, that God has provided you with more than one timely miracle since your rebirth. I know, because he’s done it for me, too. He does it for all his children, even without them having to ask him for help. In fact, the most substantial financial and other gifts I’ve received since my rebirth came out of the blue from sources I either didn’t previously know or didn’t suspect would want to help me. This is how God works, and it is an enormous blessing for us but even more so for the people who provide for us at God’s (usually anonymous) prompting.
Money is a worldly construct. As such, it has no place in God’s Kingdom. No genuine bornagain believers will accept payment for preaching and teaching the Word. If they did so in error, they’ll still suffer for it and will hopefully learn from their suffering not to do it again, knowing that the worst kind of suffering is separation from God. If you’re genuinely bornagain, demanding payment for doing God’s work will very swiftly separate you from God in the same way as purposely sinning will, and none of us want that. None of us want to be even a handsbreadth away from our heavenly Father. For us, separation from God is the worst state imaginable, much worse than an empty purse or a gnawing stomach. And if after doing God’s work we still end up broke and starving, it will only be to test us and will soon pass.
We know from the example set by Jesus that God provides for his children. From the start of his ministry, Jesus did his Father’s work diligently and for free, and so must we. No exceptions. As Jesus reminds us, you cannot serve God and mammon. The God we serve is greater than money. We don’t honor him by refusing to accept unsolicited donations (we must always accept those; never let pride stop you, as unsolicited donations are God-prompted and will bless the donor more than us). We honor God by refusing to demand payment for ministry services. In this as in all things, Jesus—not the worldly church—is our example.
The God we serve is greater than money.
The Good Lord provides.
BILL C-9 AND THE WINDING DOWN
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, July 20, 2026 – Bill C-9 is now law in Canada. If I were to shout from the rooftops certain Bible passages, I’d be arrested, fined, and imprisoned for “hate”. I can still (for the time being, at least) read those passages to myself or whisper them to others in private, but the minute I take my show on the road (or to the rooftops), I could potentially be accused of a hate crime. How did Canada, once a staunch Christian nation, fall so far, so hard, and so fast? By turning away from God. By opening the floodgates to demon-worshipers. By choosing evil rather than good.
A nation is safe from demon-inspired laws like bill C-9 as long as it maintains a certain quota of God-fearing souls. Once that quota has slipped below the threshold (and only God knows that threshold), demons take over. So, you see, it’s not the fault of the politicians (a.k.a. lawmakers) who propose, craft, and pass the laws. It’s easy to blame politicians because their corruption and almost comical levels of incompetence make them easy to blame, but it’s not their fault. All they do is take orders from the demons that rule over them. They earned those demons when they took the oath and sold their souls for their ambitions, but if they hadn’t done that, they wouldn’t “win” elections and be in the position of authority to make laws in the first place. So, no, it’s not the fault of the politicians that we have poisonous laws like bill C-9. It’s the fault of the people they pass the laws for.
Being under the thumb of worldly powers, politicians can only do what Satan permits. Satan himself is under God’s thumb and can only do what God permits. If God, through his perfect justice, permits laws like bill C-9 to exist, then those laws have been earned – not imposed, earned: Spiritually earned. This is a hard truth that even those who call themselves Christians have a difficult time accepting. God has permitted his Word to become illegal in Canada because the demons have won that spiritual turf here fair and square, thanks to the godlessness that now reigns in the souls of most Canadians.
This would never have happened in earlier iterations of this nation. Up to and including the time of my grandparents’ generation, most Canadians were God-fearing and lived their lives accordingly. But one by one, as each God-fearing soul went to his or her reward, Canada began to spiritually slip and slide, slowly at first and then precipitously, until finally landing where it is now with a whump. This ain’t Kansas anymore. This ain’t even (not to my mind) Canada anymore. It’s the devil’s turf, and we’re to play by the devil’s rules or pay the devil’s price.
Knowing this is the devil’s turf doesn’t make me any less a child of God. Living in Canada under laws like bill C-9 doesn’t make me any less a child of God. The whole world (as Jesus told us) is under the authority of Satan, but the Kingdom isn’t. The Kingdom will never be under Satan. I may be in the world physically, but spiritually I’m in the Kingdom. Satan has no hold on me here.
While I am yet in Canada, I will pick and choose my words carefully, taking my cues from God. The early Church also had to pick and choose their words when out in the world. In this, we’ve come not full circle but full spiral, with the peak of the bell curve behind us, not before us. Our numbers are dwindling, not growing. The world grows darker, not brighter. We are the winding down of the Church, not the beginning.
But still we’re here. Jesus promised us he’d be with us until the end of time, and so he is. To the great chagrin of those who hate and vilify God’s Truth, Jesus is still here and his Church is still here. And no matter how much they loathe us—no matter how much our presence torments them—we will remain here to the end.
No law on Earth can change that.
ELDAD AND MEDAD, AND US
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, April 11, 2026 – Eldad and Medad have their 15 milliseconds of Biblical fame buried deep within Numbers. If you rush through the book, you might miss it. Still, Eldad and Medad rank as prophets, because scripture tells us that God’s Spirit spoke through them. They are a prototype of us bornagain believers, a forerunner of what God had in store for his people, so long as they are God’s people.
Eldad and Medad were not among the 70 elders officially designated by Moses to receive a share of God’s Spirit. They had remained behind in the camp when the summoned chosen dutifully filed into the tabernacle to be tapped. And yet God chose the two men to receive his Spirit outside the tabernacle, having seen something in those two that Moses initially missed.
However, as soon as the Spirit fell upon Eldad and Medad and they started prophesying, a boy who heard them ran to tell Joshua, who then rushed to tell Moses, expecting him to immediately silence them. To Joshua’s way of thinking, because Eldad and Medad were not of the 70 chosen elders, their prophesying was undercutting Moses’ authority.
But Moses didn’t see it that way. He knew the two men were prophesying by God’s Holy Spirit, by direct appointment of God. And so instead of commending Joshua for his loyalty, Moses reprimanded him, saying:
Enviest thou for my sake? would God that all the Lord’s people were prophets, and that the Lord would put his spirit upon them!
(Numbers 11:29)
As Moses’ protégé, Joshua got schooled and schooled hard in that exchange. But he obviously also learned from it, because later he himself would be guided and emboldened by God’s Holy Spirit, becoming not only a great leader but also one of only two of the original 600,000+ men who left Egypt who ultimately made it to the promised land.
Moses and Joshua’s exchange reminds me of the New Testament passage where the people are shouting “Hosanna in the highest!” during Jesus’ procession into Jerusalem. The Pharisees command Jesus to silence them, to which Jesus replies that if he did silence them, the very rocks beneath their feet would cry out instead. The lesson here is that you can’t interfere with Spirit-led prophesying, as it comes directly from God. Attempting to do so only makes disciples and prophets even of rocks and mountains and trees, which will then proclaim the glory of God everywhere and unfettered.
Moses’ wish that “all the Lord’s people were prophets” finally came true when Jesus founded his Church nearly a millennium and a half later. Everyone in that Church is born again, each with a unique measure of God’s Spirit according to God’s grace. Like Eldad and Medad, all of us bornagain believers are God’s prophets, whether we are recognized by the world (and the worldly church) as such or not. You cannot have God’s Spirit in you and not be a prophet of God, as having God’s Spirit is the very definition of a prophet: “The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy”.
We all remember the instant when God first put his Spirit in us – how suddenly we “saw” and how easily we prophesied! Nothing could have silenced us in those early days of our rebirth any more than the disciples could have been silenced at Pentecost: The force of God’s Spirit was overwhelming. I can imagine that Eldad and Medad experienced much the same thing, though with them it wasn’t spiritual rebirth: It was more a visitation of God’s Spirit, like it was for all prophets of God prior to Jesus founding his Church. Still, like us at our rebirth, Eldad and Medad were unstoppable in their prophesying, which Moses in his God-given wisdom recognized for what it was. There was a place and a purpose for Eldad and Medad, just as there was a place and a purpose for Moses and his 70 chosen elders, just as there’s a place and a purpose for us, God’s saints, during the prophesied falling away.
And yet despite the force of God’s Spirit when it first enters us, none of us are fully spiritually formed at that time, not even Jesus. We begin with a bang at our rebirth and grow from there. Jesus had a head start on all of us, being conceived of the Holy Spirit, but he still had to go through his paces, he still had to make his mistakes and learn from them, he still had to bide his time and patiently wait. Part of the waiting was for his sake and part for the sake of others, so that God could strengthen Jesus for his appointed tasks while also getting all his ducks in a row. God likewise has us wait at times. When that happens, it may seem like we’re spinning our spiritual wheels, going nowhere, but that’s just God’s way of preparing us by letting us steep, like tea: the longer we steep, the stronger we get.
We just need to be careful not to grow cold and bitter while we steep.
“AS THE DAYS OF NOAH”: NO MORE CONVERSIONS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, April 2, 2026 – In describing the final stages of the end times, Jesus likened them to “the days of Noah”. But what did he mean by that? The book of Genesis tells us that those days were unimaginably evil, and that the evil was not just confined to people but had manifested in all the animals as well. We also know from the Gospels that the people in Noah’s age appeared to be blissfully unaware of the horror that was about to be unleashed on them and that they went about their daily lives as if God and his judgement didn’t exist.
Sound familiar? Jesus could well have been describing our own age.
Noah, as we know from scripture, was the only one who “found grace” in God’s eyes. Not his wife, not his three sons or their wives, only Noah. Still, Noah’s grace was sufficient to spiritually cover his family and a certain number of animals, and so they, too, were spared from the watery grave that would claim everyone and and everything else. But it was only Noah who was righteous and had found grace in God’s eyes. This point is important.
When God commanded Noah to build the ark, giving him the exact design specifications as well as the reason for building it, Noah obeyed God to the letter. He didn’t argue with God about the seemingly impossible construction timeline (according to the book of Jubilees, just over one year) or about excluding everyone but his immediate family from the ark. He didn’t beg God to spare his village or at least the children in it. He didn’t rail at God for not giving anyone else a chance. He simply put his head down, nose to the grindstone, and did as God commanded.
There were no more conversions to God’s way of righteousness after Noah received his instructions. We know there were no more conversions because God implicitly states in scripture that only Noah found grace in his eyes. Once God had decided enough was enough and that judgement was due, the line was drawn separating Noah from everyone else. No-one else squeaked through even at the eleventh hour because no-one else was given the chance to squeak through.
As a bornagain believer, you are likely well acquainted with the anguish of praying for people who are deep in sin, only to have God gently chide you not to pray for them anymore. I remember the first time that happened to me; I witnessed a different side of God’s mercy. Paul describes it as God giving people over to their sins: If they choose evil, God lets them have evil. He positions us as witnesses (silent or otherwise) to his Truth, but he lets the sinners be, and he tells us likewise to let them be.
I believe that Noah was tunnel-visioned after he received his ark-building instructions from God. I don’t believe, as some Bible commentators have proposed, that Noah frantically preached to his unrepentant evil generation. I believe that he just let them be in their sins and focused instead on doing God’s will, which in this case was to build the ark and prepare for the flood. I believe this because over and over again, scripture informs us that after a certain point, God washes his hands of sinners. He no longer tries to correct them or to send anyone to try to correct them; he just lets them be.
We see this in the days of Noah, we see this in the days leading up to the destruction of Sodom, and we see this in the days leading up to the fall of Jerusalem prior to the Babylonian exile. Conversions to righteousness don’t happen, not after a certain point. We read in Ezekiel 9 how none are spared but those who are already righteous in God’s eyes. Even little children are not spared. We need to stare this fact directly in the face and see it for what it is. We dare not look away; we dare not pretend it isn’t so; else, we’ll waste precious time doing what we shouldn’t be doing by praying and preaching to the already lost, and in so doing disobeying God.
And still the sinners will sneer: “Where then is your precious God’s mercy?”, to which the only reply can be: “In letting you live the life you choose, in letting you sin freely, since you’ve shown that’s all you want. In allowing you to reject God—to disbelieve he even exists—while still giving you what you want: That’s God’s mercy.”
When Jesus says the final stages of the end times will be like the days of Noah, he means, among other things, there’ll be no more conversions. He means the line will already have been drawn separating the righteous from the unrighteous, from those who have found grace in God’s eyes and those who have not. The book of Revelation underscores this truth in showing that, after the sealings that take place prior to the opening of the seventh seal, there are no more conversions. Not a one.
In the past, I have stupidly—that is, without God’s guidance— prayed for people who were already lost. When God finally intervened and told me not to pray for them anymore, he explained that he doesn’t want them to be hounded. He loves them even though they’ve rejected him, and he wants them to have whatever little bit of happiness they can eke out from whatever time they have left. He tells me: “This is all they have. This time here, now – this is all they have. Let them be.”
And so I let them be. I put my nose to the spiritual grindstone, and I let them be.
You must do the same.
He that is unjust, let him be unjust still: and he which is filthy, let him be filthy still….
Revelation 22:11
NEVER SILENCED: ON BILL C-9 AND OTHER SIGNS OF THE COMING GREAT TRIBULATION
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, March 29, 2026 – One of the most definitive signs that we’ve entered the Great Tribulation will be the death of the worldly church. That means no more casual Christians, no more denominational Christians, and no more Christians-of-convenience (i.e., people who claim to be fleeing persecution as Christians in order to gain the generous asylum benefits of Western nations). During the Great Tribulation, the only people openly professing belief in God and claiming to be followers of Jesus will be genuine bornagain believers – that is, those who would rather be killed than deny who they are, because killed they will be, and brutally.
We can see from the ongoing presence of the worldly church that we’re not yet—thank God—in the Great Tribulation. We’ve been in the end times now for nearly 2000 years, but we haven’t entered the final stage. We’ll know when we do because, as I’ve mentioned, every vestige of Christianity will have been wiped from the earth, other than for the very rare and increasingly rarer saints, all of whom will have a bounty on their heads.
The end will be very much like it was in the beginning. Public preaching will be outlawed, and we’ll be forced into hiding and hounded from place to place until finally being arrested, imprisoned, tortured, and executed. Once the worldly church has been universally banned—like it is already in North Korea—only genuine believers will remain. No-one else will want to suffer for The Name.
The Canadian government is in the process of enshrining into law a bill (C-9) that removes the “good faith” protection from Canadians when they openly express what they sincerely believe, if what is being expressed is considered “hate speech”. Canadians were granted carte blanche permission by law to openly express what they sincerely believe back in 1970, but when “hate” laws were later thrown into the mix, stating your beliefs and using scripture to back them up started to come under scrutiny, especially when those beliefs concerned the “alphabetization” of Western society or the mass arrival in the West of demon worshipers claiming to worship God. That scrutiny has now turned into a clawing back of the permissions that I and most Canadians once took for granted. When this bill is passed into law within a month or two, much of what I’ve written here in this blog may be cause for me to be fined and/or thrown into jail for promoting so-called hate (otherwise known as God’s Truth).
The push-back to this looming law started as soon as the bill was introduced in Canada’s parliament last fall, but none of it will be successful because the bill has God’s permission. In other words, God himself – not parliamentarians and not even the devil – has deigned that Canadians have forfeited their “good faith” protection. As a nation, Canada has, in its “words and doings”, fallen so far away from God that it’s no longer recognized spiritually or geopolitically as a Christian nation. When a people remove themselves from God, God removes himself from them, and the demons rush in to claim the vacated spiritual turf.
We know that the world is under the authority of Satan, but Satan can only do what God permits him to do, and God will only permit him to do what has been earned either as a reward or a test. God is all-knowing and his justice is perfect; the Canadian parliamentarians aren’t pulling the wool over God’s eyes by sneaking through a law that targets his Word. Jesus reminded Pontius Pilate that he had power over Jesus only because God gave it to him, that God permitted Pontius Pilate to have power over Jesus for a time and for a reason because “all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose”. The power referenced by Jesus didn’t come from from Pontius Pilate but from God, just as the removal of the “good faith” protection under Canadian law doesn’t come from Canadian parliamentarians but from God.
The imminent passing of bill C-9 into law is yet another sign that we are nearing the start of the Great Tribulation. Other nations formerly known as Christian have passed (or are in the process of passing) similar bills into law. With their passage, the threat of fines and/or imprisonment will so constrain the application of God’s Word to everyday life—will so water down what can be shared publicly—that preaching will soon become little more than a feel-good pep talk made agreeable even to unbelievers. This reward, sadly, has been earned. The worldly church will persist for a while, but in such an increasingly emaciated and bloodless form to be nearly inconsequential. When the church is finally outlawed in the name of cultural diversity or some other doctrine of devils, it will be a mercy killing, as the late-stage worldly church will be Christian in name only.
We, however, the Church founded by Jesus Christ and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit, will continue until Jesus comes back to take the last of us Home. We in the Kingdom cannot be silenced, any more than the two anointed witnesses prophesied to preach during the Great Tribulation will be silenced. We may be banned, yes; fined, yes; outlawed, yes; hounded, yes; imprisoned, yes; and killed, yes, but never silenced, because even in our death, the Word God spoke through us will resound.
No law on Earth can stop that.
“Heaven and Earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.”
Matthew 24:35
LET THERE BE ART!
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 18, 2026 – That moment when you realize that Jesus was an actor and God’s Word his script…. All prophets of God are actors. They don’t speak their own words; if they did, they wouldn’t be God’s prophets.
This is actually good news within the Good News, because if prophets are actors and actors are artists, preaching venue options are almost limitless. Even better, since artists are getting a free pass these days when it comes to offending audiences, we wouldn’t have to worry about being shut down for being offensive. The more provocative the art, the more “edgy” and “artistic” it is (allegedly). So let’s provoke with God’s Word! Let’s offend with the Truth! Let’s get our audiences howling with rage over prophecy! We are, after all, highly dedicated artists. It’s our duty to push the artistic envelope.
Imagine if art galleries and performance spaces were secretly reimagined as pop-up pulpits. Imagine if in between the “To be or not to be” and a Harold Pinter monologue we sprinkled in a few verses from Matthew or slipped in a psalm. And if we offended anyone by doing so – so much the better! Art, remember, is meant to be provocative. It’s meant to spark debate.
Imagine if an art installation were nothing but words from the Bible, presented and arranged “artistically”. Imagine God’s Word in every language of the world, stylized in 8 to 800-point multicolor multi-type font and filling an entire exhibition space from floor to ceiling (including the floors and ceilings [and doors!]). But we don’t only have to imagine it – we can do it, if we call it “art” (and maybe even get a government grant to fund it lol ;D).
Artists have been co-opting God’s Word into their art for millennia. Think Michelangelo. Think the German passion plays. Think the highly theatrical stations of the cross. Only in the most recent of instances has God’s Word suffered mainly derogatory inclusions and adaptations. But I say what’s good for the goose is good for the gander: If it’s fair game nowadays to co-opt God’s Word in a negative way, then let’s re-imagine Hamlet as a prophet of God. Let’s script Snow White as a persecuted Mary Magdalene and the dwarves as new converts. And if anyone’s offended by the adaptations – so much the better! Art, remember, is meant to offend.
The best part of all this (besides the possibility of reaching a massive new audience) is that artists are rarely arrested for being offensive. Art exhibitions are rarely shut down because someone’s nose is out of joint. Preachers, however, can be shut down, can be limited in where they preach, can be arrested for “hate speech” and being offensive. So let’s rebrand our preachers as artists (not “Christian artists”, just artists) and let our artists ply their trade wheresoever they will.
It was trendy a while back to “Christianize” the lyrics of popular tunes. Let’s Christianize public and private spaces again under the guise of art.
WE NEED A PANDEMIC
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 17, 2026 – We pray wrong. We see a drought and pray for rain. We see a broken nation and pray for healing. We see ungodly people doing ungodly things, and we pray for God to forgive them. But what we should be praying for is an outbreak of righteousness, an epidemic of doing good, a pandemic of people choosing what’s right in God’s eyes, even when it flies in the face of what the world thinks is right. At the same time, we need to pray for God to strengthen us to levels he hasn’t strengthened us before, so that we can persistently and under every circumstance model godliness, model godliness, model godliness, until it spreads like a holy contagion to everyone around us.
We need a pandemic of godliness.
You can’t change God’s justice. You can’t call for a review of God’s terms just because you don’t like them. God sent Jonah to warn the Ninevites that their city would be destroyed in 40 days. When the King of Nineveh heard Jonah, he didn’t ignore him or mock him. He didn’t try to silence him. He didn’t threaten to arrest him for hate speech or for creating a public disturbance. No, the King responded by instituting a nation-wide emergency. All Ninevites were to drop whatever they were doing and immediately sit in sackcloth and ashes, including their animals. And they were to fast until the king told them to stop. No arguments and no exceptions. They couldn’t even drink water. The King believed that if Nineveh did this, God might change his mind about destroying them.
Note that the King didn’t simply pray to God to forgive the Ninevites’ sins. Nor did he curse God for the threatened destruction. He instead took the most drastic godly action possible and used his authority to make sure that everyone else did. “But, Charlotte”, you might be thinking, “People today aren’t going to this. They’re not going to stop whatever they’re doing and go along with whatever the government or other authority tells them to do.” You might be surprised. During the last “pandemic”, whole populations stopped whatever they were doing and donned masks. Whole populations obediently stood six feet apart. Entire industries were shut down, schools and businesses were shuttered, people self-isolated at home – some welded in from the outside – until they were given permission to leave. Whole populations complied with the most drastic of decrees without question. And they did all this for months – even years – because they were afraid to catch a cold. You’d be surprised at what people can be persuaded to do under the right authority.
When God saw the Ninevites’ collective show of repentance, he called off the planned destruction. Note that God’s justice didn’t change; the Ninevites changed, and in changing their behavior, they changed their due reward.
All nations today are on the fast-track to destruction. We need a pandemic of godly behavior to stop the destruction or at the very least to delay it. Praying for God to forgive us and save us is not going to cut it this time. Like Nineveh, it’s too late and we’re too far gone. We need instead to pray for people to make godly choices – to choose what’s right in God’s eyes. And we need to pray this prayer while making godly choices ourselves, every day, all day, without exception. Our prayers will only have authority if we ourselves model what we’re praying for.
We urgently need a pandemic of godliness. It begins with localized outbreaks of making good choices.
Let’s get that pandemic started now!
So the people of Nineveh believed God, and proclaimed a fast, and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them even to the least of them. For word came unto the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, and he laid his robe from him, and covered him with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. And he caused it to be proclaimed and published through Nineveh by the decree of the king and his nobles, saying, Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste any thing: let them not feed, nor drink water: But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not? And God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way; and God repented of the evil, that he had said that he would do unto them; and he did it not.
(Jonah 3:5-10)
GOOD BONES
By landing the quad axel, [Ilia] Malinin may have maxed out the boundaries of human performance. Most sports scientists agree that the speed and amplitude necessary for five-revolution jumps truly is impossible…. 1
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 16, 2026 – I loved figure skating when I was a kid. I was no “contender” (as Marlon Brando famously put it2), but I loved skating nonetheless. I took it up again briefly a few years ago as an enthusiastic adult. Still no contender, but men would occasionally follow me around the arena and ask me to teach their kids (lol).
I finally had to give up skating altogether following an unrelated knee injury. Resigned to being sidelined at arenas for the rest of my time on Earth, I still love to watch figure skaters and to dream about when I’ll be skating again in Heaven. Really skating. Contender-level skating.
I was watching a video of Ilia Malinin a few weeks ago, marveling at his jumps (especially his trademark quadruple axel), when God told me I’ll be able to do that and more – at least ten revolutions – in Heaven. Surprised at his comment, I asked God if that’s because it’s Heaven and everything’s possible in Heaven. And he said no, there are still limits in Heaven and I’d still have to learn how to skate properly; I wouldn’t arrive in Heaven already knowing how to do jumps and spins. I’d have to learn things in Heaven just like I do on Earth. The difference is that Heaven has different “natural laws”, which means that our bodies are different, especially the bones.
“The bones?”
“Yes. Your bones in Heaven will be more like birds’ bones – hollow and light. Only unlike earthly birds’ bones, your heavenly bones will be unbreakable.” He went on to explain further that the birdlike lightness of my heavenly bones, combined with my heavenly body’s zero fat and infinitely flexible joints and strong muscles, will enable me to propel myself high up into the air, completing a dozen revolutions or more and covering a vast distance. It will almost be like flying.
“Good bones”, God repeated. “It’ll be in your good bones. You’ll see.”
Meanwhile, back on Earth, scientists report that
[a]n ideal quadruple jump spans around 0.6 seconds, wherein the skaters have to first take off, then spin four and a half times…. Studies estimate that for an ideal quintuple jump, the athlete has to have a jump duration of around 0.8 seconds…. This requires humongous heights and distances which can only be achieved by ‘pencil’ thin bodies and about 90% rotation efficiency, meaning that only 10% of the total airtime should be used for take-off and landing while also starting off with greater forces to increase angular momentum.3
And yet according to God, our jumping ability is not just in the “speed and amplitude”1 or in having a “pencil-thin” body or maxed-out angular momentum3 – it’s in the lightness of the bones. Our human bones are heavy and solid and also depend on fragile ligaments and joints that are prone to stiffness. None of these issues will be a factor in Heaven. If scientists can figure out a way to hollow out skaters’ bones (and do away with ligaments and joints), they might just make it past the current quadruple human limit.
I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to test-run my new body on my local skating surface in Heaven. It’ll be one of the first things I do when (and if) I get Home.
So move over, Ilia (and Marlon)! There’s gonna be a new contender in town….
1 Led by Fairfax’s Ilia Malinin, figure skaters push limits of human performance | FFXnow
2 I Coulda Been a Contender – On the Waterfront (6/8) Movie CLIP (1954) HD
LIKE A THIEF – LET NO MAN DECEIVE YOU: ON JESUS’ RETURN
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, September 8, 2025 – When Jesus said he’d be coming back like “a thief in the night”, he meant just that. He meant it for us (his followers), and he meant it for everyone else, too. Jesus will come back as unexpectedly as a thief in the night for us all, no exceptions. The difference between his followers and those who don’t follow him is that his followers will be spiritually prepared for his coming, whereas everyone else will be spiritually unprepared. But Jesus will still come back at a time that even he doesn’t yet know. That is scriptural.
And scripture, as Jesus reminded us, cannot be undone.
The reason Jesus warned us about the style of his return is that he wanted us to be prepared when it does happen—to expect the unexpected—so that we’ll be doing whatever task we’ve been set to do and won’t be caught side-tracked and back-sliding, and with our spiritual pants down. But the “thief in the night” style of return is how it’s going to be because that’s what’s Jesus said it would be. In other words, we can’t know exactly when he’ll return; all we can know is that he will return and that it will be during a time of great upheaval and spiritual darkness, as he described in the gospels. But Jesus’ return will still be as unexpected as a thief in the night, and that unexpectedness will be for us all, not just for unbelievers.
When Paul mentioned that Jesus’ return won’t come on us like a thief, he meant that we’d be spiritually prepared for when the thief does come. Paul in no way implied that Jesus will only come back like a thief for unbelievers. If Paul had meant that or implied that, he’d be contradicting Jesus, which Paul did not and would not do. Like Jesus, Paul meant that if you’re prepared, you won’t be overcome by the thief when he shows up unexpectedly because you’ve prepared yourself in advance for just such an event. The thief-in-the-night aspect of Jesus’ return was upheld by Paul, not modified to mean that it only applied to unbelievers. Paul very clearly states that although Jesus will come back like a thief in the night, his true followers, being always prepared, will be prepared for that, too. By being prepared, Paul meant they’ll be doing whatever it is God set them to do. Paul’s explanation of Jesus’ return is exactly like Jesus’ explanation
It’s worth noting that Paul also warned us not to be deceived by anyone who claims to know when Jesus is coming back. He explained that Jesus will return only after the “man of sin” has first been revealed, which will only take place after a mass falling away. In Revelation, the man of sin is revealed well into the great tribulation, not before it and not in the early stages, but well into it. This aligns with what Jesus said about his return coming at a time of great upheaval and great spiritual darkness. As bad as things are now, they can’t really be described as a time of great spiritual darkness, as we can still openly worship as Christians in a large part of the world. We’re in a time of increasing spiritual darkness, yes, but not of great spiritual darkness. And the man of sin has yet to be revealed.
Our job as followers of Jesus is to continue to do whatever God has set us to do. This doesn’t change regardless of what’s going on around us. So when the “thief” comes unexpectedly (and come unexpectedly he will), he’ll find us doing what we’ve be tasked with doing, which means we’ll be ever-ready and ever-prepared for his return.
[B]e ye not soon shaken in mind, or be troubled,
neither by spirit, nor by word, nor by letter as from us,
as that the day of Christ is at hand.
Let no man deceive you by any means:
for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first,
and that man of sin be revealed….
(2 Thessalonians 2:2-3)
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 