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SUNDAY SERMON
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 11, 2021 – Jesus tells us that the time of his second coming will be much like the days of Noah, that is, people going about their daily lives, buying, selling, marrying, and giving in marriage. Most people will be caught unawares by the destruction, if you can call repeatedly being warned to repent and constantly ignoring those warnings being caught unawares. Maybe it’s better to say that most people will claim to be caught unawares.
We know that God is patient. But there is a certain measure of evil, the threshold of which God will not permit to be surpassed. It’s like an hourglass that has only a certain number of sand grains. When all the grains pass through the conduit, there are no more grains left to pass through. Time is up. No matter how much you wish there were more grains, there are none. The hourglass must be turned upside down for the grains to pass through again.
The exact measure and threshold of evil in a person’s soul is known only to God. But we can still know two general things about it: 1) The measure and threshold are perfect in their formulation, and 2) the measure and threshold are mitigated by God’s mercy. There is room for God’s mercy as long as there is time. But when time is up, mercy is no longer an option. You can no longer appeal to God’s mercy.
I mention all this not to teach you anything that you don’t already know, but simply to remind you about it. We all need reminding every now and then. God’s mercy is available to anyone who asks sincerely, but it is a time-limited offer. The people in Noah’s day found that out when they were drowning in the tsunamis, and the people in Sodom found that out when they were incinerating in brimstone.
There is an expectation (even among some of God’s own people) that God should fix everything for everyone all the time, without limit, but scripture is very clear that there are provisos and time limits to God’s help and mercy. Scripture tells us over and over again that you must seek the good to get the good. You can’t live a sinful life, purposely breaking Commandments and refusing to repent, and then demand that God heal all your wounds and prevent all calamities. It doesn’t work that way. Even those who love God and follow Jesus are still subject to pain and suffering. Their pain and suffering are, however, mitigated by the presence of God’s Spirit, a blessed balm that is not available to those who reject God.
Destruction comes in an instant, but it never comes without warning. God doesn’t just one day get up on the wrong side of the throne and decide to mess up people’s life on a whim: He gives them fair warning. In fact, he gives them more than fair warning, until the threshold of evil is reached, and there is no more sand in the hourglass.
When the end comes, it will seemingly come without warning to those who defy God, though those of us who love God and keep his Commandments will know somewhat in advance, the way Jesus during his ministry years always knew somewhat in advance what was coming. We will know because God will tell us, just as he told Noah, and just as he told Lot.
The old and new Testaments are full of warnings about what happens to people who defy God and his Commandments, and the world is full of old and new Testaments and of people teaching from them. No-one can say they weren’t warned. Even if people claim they don’t have access to an old or a new Testament or to hearing people teaching from them, God has put his Commandments in everyone’s heart, so they know right from wrong even without someone teaching it to them. If they are old enough to know how to defy the right, they are old enough to know right from wrong.
I guess you could say this Sunday sermon is in defence of God and his Way. I get tired sometimes of hearing people asking why God permits evil and destruction, as if God were some kind of spiritual anti-virus whose whole purpose is to prevent and eradicate all evil all the time. But God invented evil. He uses it as a testing tool and as a reward for wrong behavior.
The world is fallen and cannot be fixed. Only individual souls, one by one, if they embrace Truth and choose the good, can be fixed. Otherwise, the world is the valley of shadow and death, and was made to be such.
I get tired of people who openly and purposely and consistently defy God and then petulantly demand that he help them when they need help, all the while refusing to repent or in any way change their evil ways. Knowing what they do is evil, consistently choosing the evil, and then demanding that God help them even when they remain defiantly unrepentant – this is the worst kind of human behavior and deserves the worst kind of punishment.
God shows mercy to the merciful. That is scriptural. But mercy has to come first from the merciful before God imparts his mercy. We are always to take the first step. God will not override our free will. We are always to take the first step and make the first gesture, like the prodigal son who realizes he would be better off living as his father’s servant and so makes the long journey home to his father to tell him that. The son makes the first gesture, and then his father joyfully races out to meet him and shower him with gifts. God is ever-ready to shower everyone with gifts, but they must take the first step, make the first gesture, and it must be sincere.
Even so, there is an expiration to God’s mercy. When the time of mercy expires, those who love God will know, but those who hate him won’t know what’s going on. For me, some of the most poignant words in scripture are those describing people crying out for God’s help and mercy too late. They left it too late. And God could no longer help them.
What do you say to those people? They will only curse you and God all the more, blame you and God all the more. So when people ask you “Why does God permit evil?” or “Why has he done this to me?”, tell them what Jesus said during his ministry: “Repent and believe the Gospel!” If they don’t want to repent and believe the Gospel, then they don’t want to know the Truth or to be set free from lies, so nothing you say will make any sense or any difference to them. They are blind and deaf and going the way of all blind and deaf. You must let them be. As hard as it is, you must respect their free will right to choose evil and to earn the rewards of that choice. You must let them be.
But if they do choose to repent and believe the Gospel, you have won a friend.
One spirit unites all true believers – there are different talents, different opinions, different likes and dislikes, different hair and skin colors, but the same Spirit of God unites us all, and so we share the same values and are all friends. You cannot but be friends with those who sincerely love God and follow Jesus. I have yet to meet a true believer I haven’t felt an instant and overwhelming connection with, even if I don’t know anything about them, and even if our contact is just for a few minutes. There’s something about the presence of a true believer that makes me respond like John the Baptist jumping for joy in his mother’s womb when he hears Mary’s voice, knowing Jesus is right there beside him.
The time of the end of God’s mercy will come, and we as true believers will know that time has come, but until and even after then we must continue to treat everyone as we want to be treated. As long as there is time, we need to be like Jesus and point the way home. When time is up, we still need to be kind, even to the condemned, and even amidst the unleashing of Hell on Earth.
And that, my friends, will be our greatest test of all.
THE BEST THING ABOUT BEING BORN-AGAIN
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 9, 2021 – When Jesus was asked what was the greatest of all Commandments, he didn’t hesitate in answering that it was to love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength. This directive was so ingrained in Jesus that is was, for him, self-explanatory. He didn’t have to think about it: He lived it.
If someone asked me what’s the best thing about being born-again, I would say that it was the inbuilt desire to love God with all my heart, with all my soul, with all my mind, and with all my strength. You see, when you’re born-again, you don’t have to be commanded to love God. You just love him. It’s part of the state of being born-again.
If you’re not born-again, you have to consciously work at putting God at the center of your life. It doesn’t come naturally. It takes effort and time to form that habit, but form it you must. That’s why God made it a Commandment.
But when you’re born-again, you just love God. You can’t help it. It’s like Jeremiah lamenting about preaching the Word – if you try to stop yourself from doing it because of all the problems it causes you, it burns you up like a fire on the inside. You can’t contain it. You have to love God and speak his Word because it is who you are. It’s become the core of your being. It’s more you than you.
Loving God is part and parcel of being a born-again believer. It’s not something you can turn on and off: it’s perpetually on as long as you’re in the state of grace. And with it comes the enormous rewards of God’s ferocious love and protection, joy under every circumstance, and the sure hope (not yet a guarantee, but a sure hope) of Heaven when your time on Earth is up. While hope does leave some wiggle-room for failure, being born-again ups the ante of the hope into nearly a sure thing. At the very least, you can know that you’re firmly on the road that leads to Heaven. This is your sure hope and the best guarantee that God can give you for the time being.
So go ahead – ask me. Ask me what’s the best thing about being born-again. Ask me again and again and again, because I love talking about God and I love being born-again and I love talking about all the things God does for me as a born-again believer. It’s the best thing that ever happened to me and remains the best thing, no matter what’s going on in my life. No matter what stupid thing I do to bring crap on myself, God hauls me through it by the seat of my pants and sets me upright on the other side with a hug and a kind word and a tissue for my sniffles. And then he gives me a gentle push to keep me going in the right direction.
Being born-again is the greatest state of being on Earth. There is nothing greater. How do I know this? Because Jesus, during his temptation in the desert, turned down the devil’s offer to control the world and all its resources if Jesus would just worship him. Jesus instead chose loving God and the rewards that come with loving God as being greater than the rewards that come with having all the wealth and power in the world. That’s how I know that being born-again is the greatest state of being on Earth.
We need to thank God every day, all day, for this very great gift that no amount of money can buy.
So what’s the greatest of all Commandments? To love God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.
And what’s the best thing about being born-again? Loving God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength, and all the rewards that come with it.
“ARE WE THERE YET?” The Seemingly Endless Journey to the End of Time
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 6, 2021 – Jesus tells us that the end of time is unknown to everyone but God. Nonetheless, an entire field of theology called eschatology (“ess-ke-TOL-ogy”) is devoted to it, and countless self-professed prophets have been trying to pinpoint the end date for millennia, to no avail.
There are two problems with trying to find out the end date: 1) God won’t tell you, and 2) God still won’t tell you.
If all the angels in Heaven don’t know, and even Jesus seated at the right hand of the Father doesn’t know, why would people on Earth think they can know? Even more puzzling, why would other people believe them?
Yes, we can know the “season”, but the predictors that indicate the season are quite general (war and rumors of war, earthquakes, famines, etc.). Was there ever an age when we didn’t have wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines? Jesus also mentioned that the Gospel must be preached in all the world before the end can come, but with hundreds of babies being born every minute, the preaching will go on for a while yet.
The beings with probably the biggest stake in wanting to pinpoint the end date are the fallen angels and demons, because they have a strong motivation for wanting to delay it, namely forestalling eternity in the lake of fire. And it appears that delaying is exactly what they’re doing. As mentioned, Jesus says that the Gospel first has to be preached in all the world before the end can come, so one of the two main ways that the dark spirits are trying to delay the end is to prevent the Gospel from being preached.
And how are they doing that?
By outlawing it, changing it, and bringing it into disrepute (“it’s out-dated”, “it’s irrelevant”, “it’s racist”, “it’s homophobic”, “it’s hate speech”, etc.). Their plan seems to be working. Even in places where the Gospel isn’t outright banned, it’s been removed from public spaces and hounded off public and private Internet forums. To our dire detriment, God and Jesus are no longer welcome in formerly Christian nations.
Along with getting rid of the Bible and stifling or perverting the Gospel, another way that the times of the gentiles are being dragged out is preventing souls from coming into the world. And how is that being accomplished? Through birth control, abortion, vaccines, and sterilizing chemicals in the food, water, air, and everyday household products. At the same time, non-stop propaganda informs us that having children is not only selfish but also bad for the environment, and families are a thing of the past.
I’m not entirely convinced that these stalling tactics will be successful, however. Remember how the legion of demons begged Jesus to let them go into a herd of swine rather than to be cast back into Hell? Jesus gave them their wish, but then drove the herd over the cliff and into a lake, drowning them. No matter how clever the devil and his hordes think they are, God and Jesus are always one step ahead.
The takeaway from all this is that the end will come when God says it will. He’s in the driver’s seat. We can know the signs of the season, but seasons themselves can be fickle. Yes, eschatology has a place in the life of believers, but it’s better to focus on doing God’s will both in and out of season than on constantly looking for and trying to interpret the signs of the end.
“Are we there yet?”
Nope, not yet.
We’ll get there when we get there.
FROM HORROR TO LOVE: The Story of King Manasseh
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 4, 2021 – Being under the power of Satan can lead you to do some horrible things.
I knew this intimately before I was born-again because I did horrible things myself, and now, since my rebirth, I see those horrible things being done by others.
But some take the horror to extremes, like Manasseh, King of Judah.
We know from scripture that Manasseh was the son of Hezekiah. He co-reigned with his dad from the age of 12, and then became king upon Hezekiah’s death. We also know from scripture that Hezekiah did that which was right in the eyes of the Lord, but that Manasseh did that which was evil, overturning, for a time, all of Hezekiah’s reforms.
If you don’t know the story of King Hezekiah and his son Manasseh, please take a few moments to read through 2 Chronicles 29-33:20.
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God is patient. Even in the face of extreme evil, God gives people time to repent of the horror they inflict on others. God has also promised to look after the children and children’s children and children’s children’s children of those who love him and keep his Commandments.
The prophet Isaiah was related to Manasseh on his mother’s side. Some sources claim that Isaiah was Manasseh’s maternal grandfather. Isaiah was a very great prophet in the eyes of the Lord and also greatly beloved by Jesus. In fact, Jesus quoted a passage from Isaiah when he publicly came out as the Messiah in his home synagogue in Nazareth. Isaiah’s prophecies speak intimately and personally of Jesus.
And yet Manasseh, while under the spell of evil, had the prophet Isaiah, his grandfather, sawed in half with a wood saw.
Let that sink in for a moment.
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God is patient. He was with me and still is with me. But God was also patient with Manasseh, even despite all the horror he unleashed on his people, including his grandfather. As a reward for his evil, Manasseh was captured by the Assyrians and imprisoned.
While in prison, weighed down by heavy chains and the full horror of his sins, Manasseh cried out to God, and God heard him. Manasseh then repented of his evil, and God forgave him.
As a token of his forgiveness, God released Manasseh from the Assyrian prison and reinstated him as King of Judah. Manasseh then spent the remainder of his reign undoing all the evil he had done, faithfully keeping his promise to God and showing the sincerity of his repentance.
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The story of King Manasseh is intertwined with the story of the prophet Isaiah, his grandfather, and the story of King Hezekiah, his father. It starts out as a horror story, but then turns into a love story showing God’s great mercy and forgiveness. We don’t hear much about Manasseh’s conversion from evil to good, but we should. It’s a reminder that God looks after the children and children’s children and children’s children’s children, and so on, of those who do God’s will and die in God’s grace. It is also a reminder of God’s great mercy even to those who do profound evil to those who die in God’s grace.
As a final gesture of humility, King Manasseh requested that he be buried in the grounds of his own house rather than in the City of David, where kings traditionally were buried.
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I know that if I make it home to Heaven, I will find Manasseh there among the living, and that all the horror he did before his conversion will have been forgotten by everyone there, including God, just as what I did will be forgotten. Here on Earth, we still read about the horrors inflicted by Manasseh before his conversion because we need to learn from his mistakes, just as we need to learn from the mistakes of others and (hopefully) from our own. At the same time, we need to take hope in how Manasseh found forgiveness through sincere repentance, and how he made good on that repentance for the rest of his life.
Manasseh’s is a horror story that turned into a love story with a happily-ever-after ending. I pray that our stories – however they started out – will end the same.
SPIRITUAL REAL ESTATE
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, July 2, 2021 – There’s no such thing as a spiritual vacuum.
If someone refuses to have God and Jesus in their life (remember, God and Jesus are a two-fer, you can’t just get one or the other) – if someone refuses to have God and Jesus in their life, some other spiritual entity will take over that spiritual real estate, and it won’t be a good entity.
The same happens with nations.
When a certain percentage of people in a country turn against God, the blessings and protections that God brings to that nation are removed. We see that over and over again in scripture. God doesn’t even spare his own people, if they continuously choose evil and refuse to repent. Born-agains, too, can fall away, if they choose to.
What we are witnessing now is the spiritual, economic, and cultural implosion of formerly Christian nations under the guise of a “pandemic”, all leading to a global revolution that is at heart demonically inspired. None of this could have happened if the people in those nations had chosen the good rather than the evil. When evil is chosen, it is welcomed, and when it is welcomed, it comes in and makes itself at home.
Over the short term, evil may have the appearance of good, calling itself “equity” and “justice” and “inclusion” as a rallying cry. But at some point, the rallying becomes bullying and the suggestions for “fair treatment” become doctrines of man enshrined into laws, replacing God’s Law. And suddenly we are threatened with arrest for calling a man a man instead of the woman he prefers to be called.
Evil always reveals itself eventually, though at first it usually comes masked. This is why Paul says to test the spirits, so you can see what is underneath the mask. We well know that Satan appears as an angel of light to non-believers and believers alike.
Spiritual real estate is the most precious commodity on Earth. It’s not bought or sold on any stock exchange, but there is not one soul that is not under some form of speculation. Born-again souls are of especially high value in this market. We are fully protected by God’s Spirit, yes, but that doesn’t mean we won’t be tested, that doesn’t mean that our souls aren’t coveted by evil spirits. Remember how Jesus said to Peter that Satan desired to have him. Satan desires to have us all. Just as there is more joy in Heaven over one sinner who repents, there is a similar celebration among the evil spirits when the righteous fall.
So you can imagine the celebration going on now as church buildings and the Bibles in them burn and the children and grandchildren of God’s faithful turn their backs on God – whole nations turn their backs on God – and choose evil.
There is no such thing as a spiritual vacuum. When God’s Spirit and protection leave a place, devils rush in to claim it, and its end is death. As Jesus said, it would have been better for that spiritual real estate never to have existed at all.
DEMONIC SPIRITUAL STRONGHOLDS AND THE POWER OF GOD’S HOLY SPIRIT
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, June 16, 2021 – I know a thing or two about spiritual strongholds from personal experience. Before I was born again over 20 years ago, I was under several strongholds, none of them good. You know you’re under a bad spiritual stronghold when no matter how hard you try to get away from something or someone, you cannot, you keep going back despite your best intentions. It has control over you in a way that defies logic. It’s way too strong for you and it holds you. That’s why it’s called a stronghold.
For example, I was in what some people would call a “toxic” relationship. There was nothing good in it besides the physical aspect. The relationship was built on lies and deceit and abuse on both sides, but I could not tear myself away from it. Even with the help of family and friends and law enforcement, I still went back to the relationship time and time again. This went on for nearly five years, until I was reborn. After that, I could not tolerate the physical aspect of the relationship anymore and I felt a different kind of affection for the person. The stronghold had been broken, and I was able to leave on good terms, and permanently.
When I was reborn, all of the demonic strongholds over me were broken in an instant. Spiritual rebirth is actually an exorcism of the spirits that have dominion over unbelievers. It’s the breaking of what used to be called a spell. Some unbelievers have only one or two of these spirits holding sway over them, while others have dozens. I had at least dozens, and some were exceedingly strong, like the one that made me desire alcohol. But rebirth broke the hold of them all and in one fell swoop and placed me under the power and protection of God’s Holy Spirit.
No spiritual stronghold is stronger than God’s Holy Spirit. Even all the demon spirits combined cannot overpower God’s Holy Spirit. This is the stronghold under which I now live and breathe and move. This is God’s Kingdom on Earth.
I mention the existence of spiritual strongholds because most of the world is currently under a particularly insidious one. People are being ruled by fear and are incapable of processing information in a logical or reasoned way. Jesus called this being blind and deaf. They are spiritually blind and deaf because of the power of the stronghold over them. You cannot break this stronghold (or in fact any stronghold) using reason or logical arguments. Facts are also useless against the spell. Only God has the power to break the stronghold, and he’ll only do that if people cry out for help.
God gave us free will as a gift; it’s all that we can really call our own. Our body is not our own, our soul is not our own, even our earthly possessions are not our own. They all belong to God. All we can claim as our own is our free will. And because we own it free and clear, our free will is respected by God and he will not override it without our consent. Bad spiritual strongholds will remain in place as long as people make choices that keep them in place. But the minute they cry out for help, God will swoop in to help them. Whether they choose to accept his help is up to them.
When I cried out for help on the day I was reborn, God heard me before the words had even left my lips. He then showed me my options (which in my case were to choose to forgive or not to forgive someone who had done me grave wrong [this is not the same person I was in the mutually toxic relationship with]). God also showed me the consequences of each of those two choices. I chose to forgive solely based on the consequence of the choice to forgive, which was that the pain would stop. In choosing to forgive, God then forgave me, and the demons that had hold of me were exorcised. They were banished, and with them went the pain. In their place, God’s Holy Spirit rushed in and has remained with me for over 20 years. Saying yes to choosing to forgive was the best decision I ever made in my life, and the good repercussions of that decision resonate to this day.
Demonic spiritual strongholds can only be broken by God’s Holy Spirit, and only if the person under the stronghold first of all wants out and second of all accepts God’s rescue terms. If instead of choosing to forgive I had chosen not to forgive, the demonic strongholds imprisoning me would not have been broken, and more would have been added. I don’t think about that option because I know it ends in the lake of fire. There is no other way for it to end. God would not have given me another chance to break free of the strongholds. That was my moment; that was my visitation; that was my one and only opportunity. Thank God I chose freedom under God’s Holy Spirit rather than continued and worsening imprisonment under demonic spirits. Thank God that God showed me the right choice to make. He didn’t coerce me; he didn’t force me; he just shone a bright light on the right choice, and I chose it.
Jesus tells us in scripture that the world is under Satan. The world’s people will remain under the authority of Satan and his demons as long as they choose to remain under it. You cannot break that stronghold; only God can, and only if you want him to.
“WHERE IS YOUR FAITH?”
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, June 15, 2021 – We live in an age of widespread and constant fear that is continuously being stoked by politicians, “experts”, and various forms of media. In formerly Christian (that is, free) countries, physical safety has replaced freedom as the highest value. To achieve this safety, most people are willingly giving up their hard-won individual freedoms without a fight, putting their faith in lock-downs and injections while parroting the communist slogan “for the greater good”. Not surprisingly, the more freedom they give up to gain this promised safety, the more elusive it becomes, and the less safe they feel.
The Age of Fear has arrived.
Jesus lived his life fearlessly. Yes, he had a healthy fear of God, but that didn’t mean he was afraid of God; it meant he respected the power that God had over him. As a sign of his respect, Jesus did everything to please God so as not to fall on the wrong side of the power.
As followers of Jesus, we also have the same capacity to live as fearlessly as Jesus did while on Earth. But what made Jesus so fearless? What enabled him to live his life without fear of anyone or anything?
The answer is rooted in Jesus’ complete faith and trust in God, and in his understanding of God’s Kingdom on Earth. As soon as Jesus came out as the Messiah – the king of the Jews – the Kingdom was established. Jesus knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was under the protection of God’s Holy Spirit and holy angels while he was in the Kingdom. This was the safe place promised by God to his people: No physical or spiritual harm can come to those who live in the spiritual Promised Land. The physical protection lasts until it’s time to go home (when it’s removed to enable physical death), but the spiritual protection remains as long as the person being protected is in right-standing with God.
Imagine a private security firm made up of billions of expertly trained and well-armed guards surrounding you at all times, and then you have a bit of an idea of the protection afforded you by God’s Kingdom on Earth. When you’re in the Kingdom, your spiritual enemies can’t get anywhere near you. And even if they do, they have no power over you, not until it’s your time.
Jesus knew the protection afforded by the Kingdom and deeply understood it. In fact, it formed the cornerstone of his faith, which is why his response to his disciples’ fears and failures was typically “WHERE IS YOUR FAITH?” Faith is the opposite of fear. If you have faith in God, then you know God’s Kingdom has been established on Earth, with Jesus as King. If you know the Kingdom has been established and that Jesus is your king, then you know you are protected both physically and spiritually. This should give you the same level of fearlessness that Jesus had while on Earth.
So, if you find yourself being afraid of anyone or anything in this Age of Fear, ask yourself “WHERE IS YOUR FAITH?” Then do everything you can to deepen your faith and trust in God and get a better understanding of his Kingdom.
LIVING LIFE FEARLESSLY
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, June 14, 2021 – We are all made in God’s image.
No-one is made to be evil. We are all made to do good and want the good. That’s what it means to be made in God’s image.
However, with our free will, we make either good choices or bad choices, right ones or wrong ones. We then live the consequences of those choices, and they define us.
We are not born children of God; we are born creatures of God. We become children of God through spiritual rebirth.
Nor are any born children of Satan; they become children of Satan by their choices.
Scripture tells us that Jesus was raised in Nazareth and grew in favour there with God and man. He was popular in Nazareth as a boy and a young man. The Nazarenes liked him. When he was invited to read in the synagogue in Nazareth, it was because the rabbi and the elders liked him. Everyone in Nazareth liked him. He had no seeming enemies there.
And yet those same people, the ones he grew up with and grew in favor with, the ones who graciously invited him to read scripture in the synagogue, the ones who all liked him, turned on him in an instant and tried to kill him by running him off a cliff. How is this possible?
There are only two sides in the spiritual battle: you are either with God, in which case you have God’s Holy Spirit guiding you, or you are not with God, in which case you have the unholy spirits guiding you. There is no third side.
The day that Jesus came out as the Messiah in Nazareth and was then run out of town in an attempt to kill him, the masks slipped from the faces of the Nazarenes. The “I am virtuous” masks slipped, and the ugly reality of whose children the Nazarenes actually were became all too apparent. They may have been born God’s creatures, they may have had the appearance of being godly, but by their actions they showed themselves to be children of Satan.
The “I am virtuous” mask-wearers are all around the children of God all the time. There is no place on Earth where the children of Satan are not. As born-again believers, we live with that reality. We live with the reality not only that the children of Satan are all around us but that they can be guided and prompted by the unholy spirits to run us off a cliff at any time. This is not a comfortable reality for us to live with, but it is what it is.
Even so, Jesus said we are spiritually and physically protected within God’s Kingdom on Earth by God’s Holy Spirit. Just as Jesus easily passed through the Nazarene mob trying to kill him, we can easily pass through the “I am virtuous” ungodly mob that can turn at any time and tear us to pieces. As long as we remain within God’s Kingdom, we are protected. Only when it is time for us to go home will the physical protection be removed, as it was for Jesus, as it was for Stephen, as it was for Peter and James and Paul and for every other child of God throughout history, whether known to us or not. We are protected spiritually and physically within God’s Kingdom until it’s time to go home, and then the physical protection is removed.
This should be a comfort to us, to know that as children of God we’re fully protected by God’s Holy Spirit during our time on Earth. We need to live conscious of that reality and not let the children of Satan intimidate us. Jesus walked fearless throughout his ministry years, even with a bounty on his head. There wasn’t one time when he was afraid. His fearlessness was rooted in his trust in God and in the knowledge that he lived and moved within God’s Kingdom and so was protected spiritually and physically by God’s Holy Spirit. We likewise need to unconditionally trust God and his perfect protection so that we, too, can move fearlessly through the world until it’s time for us to go home.
OUT WITH THE OLD!
GREENVILLE STATION, Nova Scotia, June 14, 2021 – I had a curt online exchange recently with someone who disagreed with my stand against protesting. The person stated that protesting was a biblical precedent (rule or guide) and so was a permitted Christian response to the world.
I disagreed, and I also based my argument on a biblical precedent.
Christians are to follow Jesus in everything they do. The New Testament is an amendment to the Old Testament. As with most amendments, the foundational document remains valid unless directly addressed and modified in the newer one.
And here’s my point – if Jesus told us a new way to respond that in some way opposes the Old Testament way, we are to follow Jesus. In other words, Jesus’ directives take precedence over Old Testament directives, so Jesus’ directives are our new biblical precedent.
So, for instance, we are no longer to exact an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth from our enemies, but to love them, and to bless and pray for them. Yes, an eye for an eye served as the biblical precedent up to the time of Jesus, but it is no longer valid. It has been amended.
The same goes for prepping. I put a few noses out of joint a few months ago when I questioned people’s prepping efforts. The only prepping we born-again believers should be do is girding our loins, reading our Bible, keeping our lamps well-oiled, and hanging with God. That should be the sole extent of our prepping. In this, we follow Jesus’ example.
From the start of his ministry, Jesus essentially lived on the run with his followers. He didn’t stockpile goods and weapons and hunker down until the worst had passed. He knew that would make him a sitting duck. So he was constantly on the move, working (preaching, teaching, and healing) as he went. Yes, Joseph in the Old Testament did what you might call prepping by stockpiling food and other supplies in Egypt against the coming famine, but that is Old Testament. In the New Testament, Jesus tells us that the guy who prepped and stockpiled and then sat back on his heels, congratulating himself for his efforts, was dead the next day. All his prepping was for nothing.
Prepping in New Testament times (that is, today) is a way of saying to God: “I don’t have faith that you’ll look after my needs, so I’m going to do what I think should be done without consulting you first. I’m going to buy enough food to last me for a long time, just like that guy in the New Testament who stockpiled his food and then died the next day”. That’s what food and supplies prepping says to God if you’re a born-again believer. It’s essentially coveting. And if you don’t want to stop coveting preps, you’re like the rich guy who got depressed when Jesus directed him to sell all his goods, give to the poor, and follow him. That is the New Testament precedent.
What it all comes down to is this: As born-again believers, we are to heed Jesus’ directives, which are New Testament amendments to the Old Testament. So if anything in the Old Testament conflicts with what Jesus did or told us to do, we do what Jesus did or told us to do. It’s as simple as that.
A REMINDER TO HONOR YOUR PARENTS
DARTMOUTH, Nova Scotia, June 11, 2021 – Why did God command us to love him but not to love our parents? Why are we instead commanded to honor them?
God made us in such a way that we would naturally want to love him. In other words, we have an inbuilt desire to love him. However, through misapplying our free will, we sometimes give the love that’s meant for God to people and things. This is why God included the Commandment to love him specifically, and to do so with all our heart and all our soul and all our might. If we keep this Commandment, we won’t stray off the “love path” (lol) and mistakenly give the love that we’ve been made to give to God to someone or something else.
Our parents are not God. No matter how hard they try to be good parents, they are all too human and all too prone to the flaws and faults of humans. While God does put into our parents’ hearts a certain measure of his love for us at our birth, that love is conditional and can fade with time. Many things can happen to negatively affect the love. God invites and enables parents to love their children and vice-versa, but his Commandment is for us to love him.
Rather than commanding us to love our parents, God commands us to honor them instead. In simplistic terms, we honor our parents by not speaking badly of them. If we have a grievance with them, we take it to God. We take it ONLY to God. In Genesis, one of Noah’s three sons exposed his father’s nakedness to his brothers, but Noah’s two other sons honored their father by walking backwards towards him as he lay drunk and asleep and covered his nakedness with a garment. They covered their father; they didn’t gawk at him or expose him or ridicule him or blame him for his mistake: They covered him. And for so doing, they were later blessed by Noah and by God. The son who exposed Noah was cursed.
While it seems relatively straight-forward, honoring our parents is one of the most frequently broken Commandments among Christians. I have heard countless professional preachers present themselves as survivors of child abuse and go into gory detail about their alcoholic mother and/or physically abusive father. Then they make things worse by inviting their listeners to share their own abuse experiences.
Most of us born-agains love our parents and have no problem keeping the Commandment to honor them. But for those who do have a difficult relationship with their mother and/or their father, honoring can still be done even in the absence of affection. All that is required is a respect for the role played by the parents (not respect for how well the role is played; respect for the role itself). And at the same time, we should always speak kindly of our parents, covering their mistakes like Noah’s two respectful sons covered his. Do this, and you’ll be blessed. Don’t do it, and you’ll be cursed, because you’ll be breaking a Commandment, and nothing good ever comes from willfully breaking God’s Commandments.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 