TO MY AMERICAN READERS: I’M SORRY
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 18, 2025 – As a Canadian, I apologize on behalf of all Canadians everywhere who are currently exhibiting abominable behavior towards you, towards your fellow Americans, towards your president, and towards your country in general. Far too many of us have lost the plot. Our behavior is unCanadian in the extreme, and I have nothing to say except: I’m sorry.
Although our voices have been all but silenced by Canadian government-controlled media and online bullies like reddit, many Canadians do appreciate all that you’ve done for our country over the years, and we value all that you continue to do SIMPLY BY BEING OUR NEIGHBOR. We’re better as a nation because you live next door to us.
And if you still want to become more than a neighbor, you might be surprised at how many of us are open to having that discussion.
God bless you for reading this. Please take it to heart.
Sorry again.
And God bless America!
DRILL SERGEANT JESUS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 18, 2025 – When it starts, it will happen so suddenly, you won’t realize it’s started until after you catch your breath. You won’t want to be caught then with your spiritual pants down around your ankles, because the odds will not be in your favor if that happens. Which is why Jesus warned us always to watch and always to keep our loins girded. He means we should always be spiritually ready. If we’re spiritually ready, we won’t be caught with our pants down.
And we’ve all had that, as a teaser, as a tester, being caught unawares, in a moment of slackness, resting on our lees, taking our ease with our pants down around our ankles, and it wasn’t pretty. God puts us through our paces so we can experience how horrible that feels and learn to do whatever it takes not to let that happen again. Some of us had to go through those paces a few times and then a few times again before we finally learned what we needed to learn to God’s satisfaction. Because I guarantee you, you will not know when it starts that it has actually started, but you’ll still, by default – by training – need to respond at the top of your game.
When Jesus began his ministry work, he was like a kindergarten teacher corralling wayward children and trying his best to hold their attention with miracles and breathless stories. He handed out cures like lollipops and exorcisms like gold stars, and everyone who wanted one, got one. As his ministry progressed, he became more like a high school teacher, entrusting his best students with a small portion of his duties, sending them out two by two with strict instructions, all while keeping a close eye on the slackers lounging at the back cracking jokes. By the end of his ministry, Jesus had morphed into a full-blown drill sergeant. Even his finest recruits didn’t escape his wrath when it was called for. He needed them to fully internalize the blunt brutal seriousness of the work they were called to do, that it was an all-or-nothing situation, and that if they weren’t willing to give it their all, they had no place in his Kingdom.
We are now in the age of drill sergeant Jesus. The time for kindergarten Jesus and high school teacher Jesus is over. This is war we’re preparing for. We’ve already endured a few initial skirmishes, but the trumpet has yet to blow. We can still pray not to be here when the trumpet blows. But if it does and we’re here, we need to be ready, not just somewhat ready or good-enough ready or (my personal favorite) Jesus-will-take-care-of-everything ready, but special-ops-trained and loins-girded ready. Anything less, and we won’t make it.
You can’t run with your pants down around your ankles, and you’ll be doing lots of running in this war. You’ll be running towards the enemy as much as you’ll be running away, but there will be running. So you might as well settle in your mind now to be ready to run not at a moment’s notice, but at a millisecond’s.
ATTENNNNNN-CHUNN!
Chin up!
Chest out!
Gut in!
I said GUT IN!
Weapons ready!
Loins girded!
WATCH!
THE SILENCE OF JESUS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 14, 2025 – Jesus spent the three-plus years of his ministry preaching and teaching non-stop, nearly all of which was done by speaking. Even before that, when he was just 12 years old, he was eager to debate the temple elders. He wasn’t shy to speak in public, and in fact he was very good at it, perhaps the best there ever was. Keeping quiet didn’t come naturally to Jesus.
Which is why his silence before Pontius Pilate is that much more remarkable. Why didn’t he speak up for himself when given the chance? Why didn’t he explain what was going on, not necessarily to plead for his release, but to plead for the souls of those in attendance? Would that not have been a golden opportunity to preach God’s Word, given that the proceedings were being recorded for posterity?
We know from scripture that the Messiah had to remain silent before his accusers. His silence was non-negotiable because it was prophesied. This is the main reason why Jesus didn’t defend himself before Pilate. But at the same time, Jesus understood there was nothing he could have said to these people to make them understand what was going on. Even his own disciples had deserted him at that point, terrified that what was happening to him would also happen to them. Jesus well knew this was the hour of Satan’s power and that God had given that hour to Satan. So in addition to remaining silent to comply with scripture, Jesus remained silent in acknowledgement of the power of Satan, a power that God had given into his hands for a short time and a short time only.
Just before the world enters the tribulation years, there will be silence in Heaven. Like Jesus choosing to remain silent before his accusers, any believers who are still on Earth will likewise fall silent before the deaf ears of an unbelieving world. The time to plead for lost souls will have been passed and there will be no more conversions. This will be the official start of Satan’s short but brutal worldwide reign.
We’ve all had a foretaste of this phenomenon already, this need to remain silent in the face of resolute unbelief. Having thrown enough pearls before swine, we’ve learned not to do that anymore. We’ve learned to be eloquent in our silence, even as the voices of the world grow shriller and more intrusive. The more deafening the world’s din, the more silent we become in response. This, too, has been prophesied.
But we’ll continue to speak to each other and to God and Jesus. Even in the darkest hour of Satan’s power, communication between us and Heaven will not stop, just as it didn’t stop for Jesus when he was on the cross. I believe that Jesus was closer to his Father during his crucifixion than at any other time during his earthly years, and we’ll be closest to our Father during the tribulation, if we’re still here (though we should pray hard that we won’t be). The silence of Jesus will become our silence, in accordance with scripture, allowing us to turn away from Satan’s realm and focus fully on God.
SHELTERING UNDER NEW BABYLON
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 13, 2025 – God may, on occasion, have us go under the authority of ungodly people, not as a punishment but as a form of protection. Joseph under the Egyptians and Jeremiah under the Chaldeans are some examples that immediately spring to mind, but scripture also tells us how David sought refuge among his enemies for a time, and how Mary and Joseph fled with baby Jesus to Egypt. The Bible is full of examples of God’s people seeking sanctuary among heathens, having been sent there by God and so being fully protected by God while there.
Today, with spiritual conditions growing worse and worse across former Christendom, we may well one day soon be directed by God to seek shelter among unbelievers and remain under their authority for a time. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon, was not an Israelite, but God used him not only to mete out the punishment due to the Israelites but also to shelter those who followed the prophet Jeremiah’s directives. In following those directives and putting themselves under the authority of the man who’d slaughtered their leaders and demolished their temple, they were actually putting themselves under God’s authority.
Our worldly leaders are not by any measure godly people, but God still uses them for his purposes, and some of them appear to be very much aware of that. In this regard, they’re not unlike Nebuchadnezzar, who saw himself as a ruler not of a country, but of an empire. Understanding the expansive role they’re playing on the world stage has made some leaders magnanimous towards those who support their vision or are at least not antagonistic towards them. Recall how Nebuchadnezzar was especially kind to Daniel, and how the Chaldeans, at the king’s orders, looked after Jeremiah and the rag-tag remnant that followed him out of besieged Jerusalem. The Israelites who humbled themselves under their victors were treated better by the heathens than by their own people. This is God’s doing and proof positive that he’ll never leave or betray us, as long as we do his will.
While I don’t anticipate that believers will flourish in the years to come, I do know they’ll be protected under certain leaders and even welcomed, particularly in places where leaders have stated publicly that religion is the only way to achieve happiness. Elsewhere in the world, however, including here in Canada, believers are being threatened into silence either by vaguely worded hate speech laws against religious expression or by pending legislation that outright prohibits the use of scripture as a justification for publicly stated opinions. For instance, if I state in this blog that a man can’t be woman or that a man can’t marry a man, I could in some not-too-distant future be imprisoned for publishing my scripture-based beliefs.
As born-again believers, we are first and foremost to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God. In some cases, this might also include humbling ourselves even under the king of New Babylon for a time to take advantage of his God-designated protection and sanctuary. If God guides us there, God will protect us, as long as we continue to do his will.
HIDDEN
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 13, 2025 – From the gospels, we know a little bit about Jesus’ time on Earth, particularly the years around his birth and ministry. But we know next to nothing about Jesus after his resurrection and before his ascension. He was still here on Earth during those 40 days and nights, so what was he doing? Where did he go when he wasn’t manifesting to his disciples in his new, not-yet-glorified body?
This, to me, is a fascinating period in Jesus’ time on Earth, but very little is spoken or written about it, perhaps because it truly is Jesus’ “hidden” time. Theologians love to wax hypothetical over what they call Jesus’ hidden years between age 12 and 30 (“oh, he was in India”, “oh, he was in Egypt”), but there’s little to no speculation about Jesus in the days leading up to his ascension. What do we know from scripture about that time, and what can we know from inference or otherwise?
First of all, we know that Jesus’ post-resurrection pre-ascension body didn’t look like Jesus. In fact, Jesus looked so different, even his closest disciples didn’t recognize him. His changed physiognomy would have given Jesus the advantage of appearing anywhere to anyone at any time without them knowing it was him, much like God’s holy angels. Scripture also tells us that Jesus could appear and disappear seemingly at will, leading his disciples to believe initially that he was a ghost. And yet he was also physically solid and able to eat and drink, again much like God’s holy angels.
Not looking like a dead man and being able to appear and disappear at will would have allowed Jesus to go wherever he wanted during those 40 days and nights. He could have moved among the disciples in his invisible (to the human eye) form or he could have (and I hesitate to use the term) lurked even among his enemies, either visibly or invisibly.
We know that he knew where the disciples would be at any given time, since he met with some of them on the road to Emmaus and then later appeared at their meals and their fishing trip. Did Jesus know where they were because he was there with them in “hidden” form the whole time? He knew Thomas’s exact words of doubt and quoted them back to him during one of his physical manifestations. In scripture, Jesus tells us that wherever two or more are gathered in his name, there he is among us. We know this is God’s Truth, and being God’s Truth, does it explain where Jesus was during those final 40 days and nights?
I believe it does. I believe Jesus was exactly where he said he would be – wherever two or more were gathered in his name. Sometimes they saw him and sometimes they didn’t, but he was there.
Just as he’s here now, wherever we gather in his name.
So we shouldn’t wonder when Jesus is coming back, because he never really left. He’s been with his church since his resurrection. And while he no longer appears in physical form and won’t again until he comes in glory, we can be assured that he’s still here among us.
Why?
Because he said he would be.
THE SONG OF THE JEREMIAHS
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 12, 2025 – They wanted to frame him as a turncoat and traitor. This is important, so listen up here. They wanted to frame him as a turncoat and traitor so that he’d change his tune and sing the song they were blaring over the loudspeaker for everyone to sing. But he couldn’t change his tune. He couldn’t stay true to himself and his God if he sang the song they wanted him to sing. And they wanted him to sing that song so bad, they beat him and put him in chains, and when that didn’t work and he still refused to sing, they dumped him into a slime pit and left him to die.
Of all people, an Ethiopian had pity on him and arranged a rescue party. Still, even as they hauled him up by the armpits, starving and covered in slime, he adamantly refused to sing any song but that of himself and his God. And so they just gave up on him and fed him a little bread and let him sing his song until what he sang came to pass, and they all died except for him and those who’d listened to him.
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There are a handful Jeremiahs in Canada now, refusing to sing the song being blared over the loudspeaker. Their refusal to sing is framing them as turncoats and traitors. This is important, so listen up here. They’re being framed as turncoats and traitors, but the king of Babylon’s back, baby, and he wants his pound of flesh. God has put that pound of flesh into his hands, so you might even say he’s earned it fair and square.
If God says it’s to be done, it’s to be done. If God says it’s been earned, it’s been earned. This is the song the Jeremiahs are singing: “God’s will be done (What you have coming, you have coming)”. They can’t but sing that song, the song of God’s will being done. You can’t not sing that song, not if you’re a Jeremiah.
This is important, so listen up here. Nebuchadnezzar’s back, with a bad spray tan and a wicked combover, but he means business and he’s got God’s backing. This is my song. This is the song of the Jeremiahs.
God’s will be done.
What you have coming, you have coming.
FEARMONGERING FROM THE PULPIT OF HELL
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 11, 2025 – As born-again believers, we’re to fear God, but we’re not to be afraid of him. We’re not to be afraid of anything, though we’re also not to be foolhardy in our lack of fear. We’re not to test the Lord by standing at the edge of a cliff, boasting that God would never let us fall. No. But we can be confident that we’re constantly under God’s protection as long as we choose to do God’s will.
Trying to make people afraid of God and afraid of what the future holds is a schtick that’s growing in popularity with certain preachers. Without question, those preachers are not born-again and therefore don’t know God as their Father, which is why they default to preaching fear as a mechanism to hold people’s attention while separating them from their money. YouTube is full of preachers trying to get their audience to subscribe, donate, and be afraid – be very afraid – of what God has in store for them. What these preachers are selling is not the Gospel, which is at heart a message of hope, but rather the anti-Gospel, as sanctioned and approved by the devil.
The reason we’re to fear God and God only is firstly because scripture tells us to and secondly because there is none greater than God: Everything and everyone is under his authority. At the same time, fearing God is another way of acknowledging his absolute magnificent perfection and therefore, by logical extension, trusting him. So, we can take to the bank that God protects us from harm and wants only the best for his children. Our Father would never turn on a dime and yell “GOTCHA!” while plunging a dagger into our heart and laughing as we splutter our last breath. That is not the God we serve. We know for a fact that is not the God we serve.
And yet, the fearmongering preachers would have us believe that is exactly the God we serve, and that God will at some point suddenly become our worst enemy. What Father would turn on his children who love him, let alone a perfect Father? These preachers point to the book of Revelation as proof we should be afraid of the coming horrors, without taking into consideration that God’s children will be fully under God’s protection even during the tribulation, until it’s their time, and that we can only reap what we sow. If we’ve earned the prophesied horrors, we’ll get them, just as sure as we’ll get whatever we’ve earned at any other time. But if you’re genuinely born-again, the promise of reaping what you sow shouldn’t make you afraid of God; it should instead prompt you to want to hold onto God’s hand even tighter and follow ever closer behind Jesus.
We should fear the Lord because scripture tells us to and because none is greater than the Lord. But we should never be afraid of our heavenly Father or fear that he’ll hurt us on a whim. The horrors unleashed during the tribulation are not meant for us; we might be there to witness them, but we’ll remain fully under God’s protection until it’s our time.
And then we get to go Home.
THE FUNNY THING ABOUT SUFFERING
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 10, 2025 – The funny thing about suffering is that you can’t avoid it. Get rid of one ache, and another follows on its heels. What we have coming we have coming, and what we have coming we can’t avoid. We can delay, but we can’t avoid. If we truly accepted this, we’d use our time and energy more wisely.
I’m not saying you should seek out and embrace pain. I’m not counseling you to be a masochist. The self-flagellators of the Middle Ages had it all wrong. But I’m also not saying to disobey God if he directs you to do this or that to alleviate your pain. There’s no martyrdom in suffering if God has given you an out. You don’t get spiritual brownie points for enduring what you don’t need to endure. All I’m saying is that whatever God puts on your plate you might as well go ahead and eat, because you’re not leaving the table until God says you’re finished.
When it comes to suffering, our job as born-again believers is to patiently endure. We’re to suffer in silence not because we’re aspiring martyrs, but because we know that God has everything well in hand, including our suffering, and he won’t allow us to suffer more than we can handle. But he’ll also not let us avoid pain that we’ve either brought on ourselves or need to endure as a test. In this, as in everything God does, his judgement and measurements are perfect.
When David conducted a census that God had warned him not to conduct, he set himself and his people up for punishment. Diplomatically, God offered David three punishment options: three days of pestilence, or three months of being destroyed by an enemy, or three years of famine. David chose the first option because, as he put it, he’d rather fall into the hands of God than the hands of man. And so, the pestilence came as per their agreement, killing 70 thousand men before God told his avenging angel that was enough.
In everything we do, we need to put ourselves into God’s hands. He measures our suffering to the iota, just like he measures every other aspect of our lives. If we allow God free reign to give us our due rewards, whether for good or evil, we benefit in the end, not only because we get over with what needs to be gotten over with, but because God may choose to have mercy on us and shorten our suffering. Being permanently pain-free will not happen here and is not something we should strive for, as being permanently pain-free will only happen in Heaven. Still, Jesus promises that God will shorten the time (and thus shorten the suffering) of those who’ll be on Earth during the tribulation, just like he shortened the time and suffering that David and his people had to endure for the census sin, and shortened Jesus’ time on the cross. We can’t demand God’s mercy, but we can hope for it.
Ultimately, putting ourselves fully and firmly into God’s hands and agreeing to suffer whatever God knows we need to suffer is the wisest, fastest, and best way Home.
EXODUS 14:14
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 9, 2025 – I love it when God yells at us and puts us in our place. He doesn’t do it often, but when it needs to be done, he does it handily and mightily as only God can.
Jesus had the same knack for unleashing God’s fury when it was needed. We see it when he turned on Peter and called him Satan, and again when he overturned the tables in the temple and whipped the moneychangers to the curb, and again when he railed at the scribes and Pharisees for being, well, scribes and Pharisees. Sometimes these things need to be done.
Exodus 14:14 is another one of those times. The verse follows a whiny lament by the children of Israel, freshly sprung from slavery in Egypt. Peevish, petulant, and worst of all ungrateful, they sorely needed to be put in their place, and fast.
But that’s not the reason for this article. This article is a response to how the worldly church has mistranslated Exodus 14:14, removing God’s fury and replacing it with a mild-mannered request. In modern translations like the NIV, the Israelites are told to “stand firm”, “be calm”, “be silent”, or my personal favourite, “you won’t need to lift a finger”. The implication is that they are just to stand there passively and wait for God to do his thing. But in the KJV, Moses thunders at the restless rabble to “hold your peace”, which is a veiled threat for them to shut their yaps if they know what’s good for them.
The castration of God’s Word by the worldly church makes me furious. The modern translations have Moses addressing the Israelites like a kindergarten teacher afraid to hurt someone’s feelings. Meanwhile, the force and context of the scripture are completely lost. God is not telling people to “be calm” in this verse. He’s not even telling them to “be silent”, respectfully or otherwise. He’s thundering at them to “SHUT THE [bleep] UP AND GET THE [bleep] OUT OF MY WAY!”
When they see the Egyptian army hot on their heels and believe they stand no chance against them, the Israelites immediately turn on God and Moses. Even after witnessing miracle after miracle in Egypt, they still default to fearing the Egyptians rather than fearing God. Moses needed to remind them who to fear, and he does so by simultaneously stamping on their toes and slapping them in the face, hard. It’s very effective. They immediately shut up and submit.
The moral of this story is to shun translations that deball God’s Word. If you’re not occasionally cowed into submission while reading scripture, you’re not reading the right version.
LINT
HALIFAX, Nova Scotia, February 8, 2025 – It can cling to you like lint – a careless word spoken in haste or a quick sideways glance that’s just as quickly forgotten, but not by you. Not by some part of you that noted it, recorded it, catalogued it, and filed it away for later ruminating in a moment of uneasy solitude or weakness.
We’re not immune to these moments as born-again believers. They can sneak up on us as much as they can sneak up on anyone else, but the difference is that we have an obligation to see them for what they are and to disperse them with a silent “I choose to forgive”, even if we don’t feel like forgiving.
Because being born-again is much like being in the army. It’s not option for us not to forgive, any more than it’s not an option for a soldier to disobey an order. We forgive not because we feel like it but because we’ve been ordered to forgive.
What a wonderful thing, to have been ordered to forgive, since the root of nearly all human suffering is unforgiveness. It starts as a grudge, or resentment, or a simmering hostility that grows into self-pity, hatred, false memories, depression, and a whole range of emotional disorders that for some may even lead to suicidal ideation. I know this progression from a careless word to slit wrists, because I lived it as an unforgiving atheist. And the more burdened by unforgiveness I was, the shorter the time span between the perceived slight and the slitting.
As born-again believers, we have no grounds to have so much as a spiritual bad-hair day. That’s because we’re not merely advised to forgive, we’re ordered to forgive, and in forgiving we instantly unburden what could have weighed us down and compromised us. This is a profound blessing, to be ordered to forgive. We bless ourselves and others when we choose to forgive and in return are blessed and forgiven by God.
However small the slight, choose to forgive. However careless the words, choose to forgive. Even if the slight and the words were calculated to hurt you, choose to forgive. Never let your hurt progress to a grudge or a tit-for-tat. Never let the devil get his claws in you that way, because he will, if you let him. He’s always looking for a way in.
Resentment can accumulate like lint on your soul, so light that you don’t even know it’s there. Don’t let it. Blow it off. Always choose to forgive.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 