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THE (NEARLY) FOOL-PROOF TEST OF A FALSE PROPHET
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 22, 2023 – I did a Bing search on “Jeremiah” yesterday, and up pops a video in my YouTube feed today about the book of Jeremiah. I’m always game to hear someone else’s take on that booming prophet, so I clicked on the thumbnail and settled back for the show.
And a show it definitely was, as in all style, little to no content.
I listened to as much of the slick presentation as I could (the wrap-around call-centre-style microphone favoured by these types always gives me a giggle), and then clicked off after a few minutes. I couldn’t take any more.
As I’ve mentioned previously, I’ve yet to see a self-promoted “prophet” on YouTube that isn’t a false prophet. While I was mulling over this latest example of a wolf in sheep’s clothing, God said to me rather matter-of-factly: “I sent him.” This blew me away for second, as I thought God meant this guy was one his prophets. And then God clarified: “I send false prophets, too. To test you.”
So there you have it. God not only sends us his prophets who speak his Word in sincerity and truth, he also sends us false prophets so we can learn to discern between the two. I guess it makes sense that God sends the false ones mixed in with the real ones, since God’s the one who decides the scope and limit of our tests and temptations as well as our punishments.
Scripture says the best test of a prophet is whether or not what the person says comes to pass. If it does come to pass, chances are good that the prophet not only was sent by God but speaks on behalf of God. If it doesn’t come to pass, well, I hope that person didn’t quit his day job (unless his day job was being a prophet).
Another nearly sure-fire way to discern false prophets is by their looks.
The guy I watched today talking about the book of Jeremiah (or at least I think he was talking about the book of Jeremiah…) was handsome, well-spoken, smooth, and slick. His physical attractiveness made me want to watch him somewhat more than I wanted to listen to what he was saying. I could imagine clicking on more of his videos with the sound turned down, just to watch him.
Attractive people are beguiling. You tend to take what they say as Gospel Truth for no other reason than that they’re enjoyable to look at and so you’re not listening critically to what they’re saying. You’re instead suspending your disbelief and admiring the shape of their nose or the sculpt of their cheekbones or the sweep of their hair. I’m only being honest here. Some false prophets that are not that good looking rely on attractive designer clothes and elaborate sets to catch and hold your attention.
There’s a reason why Jesus was not attractive or rich. God didn’t want good looks or flashy wealth getting in the way of getting his message across. In Heaven, Jesus is drop-dead gorgeous (second only to God in beauty), but during his time on Earth he was described as “not having any form or comeliness that we would desire him”. That means he was not only plain but homely. Some people have even claimed that he was deformed. I don’t know about that, but I do know he wasn’t basing the success of his ministry on his looks. People were attracted to him solely because he spoke God’s Truth and did so with the confidence and authority of sincerity.
When we’re spending time ogling false prophets for their nose or designer labels, we’re not spending time with God. We’re also more prone to accepting false or misdirecting teachings because we tend to swallow whole whatever these people spoon-feed us rather than chewing on it and spitting out the bones and gristle.
So the lesson here today is that God sends us the false prophets as well as the real ones, just like he sends us the rain and the sunshine, and he does so to make sure we’re paying attention and focusing on him. The dead giveaway of most false prophets (besides failed prophecies) is personal charisma premised on beguiling good looks. That’s not to say that physically attractive people can’t be messengers of God. I’m not saying that. David was good-looking. Esther was good-looking. The holy angels, when they appear in glory, are fantastically beautiful. But if you find yourself more drawn to a preacher’s good looks than to what he or she is saying, chances are you’re under the thrall of a false prophet. Once you realize that, you need to get out.
May all your preachers be homely but sincere (and may they not have a channel on YouTube).
THE JOY OF PERSECUTION
CHARLO, New Brunswick, July 22, 2023 – When he came out as the Messiah in his hometown synagogue, Jesus was nearly stoned to death by his fellow Nazarenes. It was only by God’s supernatural intervention that Jesus escaped unscathed.
Even so, he was cast out of his hometown from that point onward. Over the next few years, he became an outcast in several other jurisdictions as well, and in some places he became an outright outlaw. As God’s Messiah speaking God’s Word, Jesus was not welcome among most of his people, some of whom also vehemently hated him.
Jesus warned us that we would suffer the same persecution and unfounded hatred as he did if we’re authentically speaking God’s Word.
What can we take from this warning? Only what Jesus said. Christians who are not being persecuted or are not outcast and hated are not authentically speaking God’s Word and are therefore not followers of Jesus. In other words, they’re not Christians. If you count unbelievers as your friends and are close to unbelieving family members, you are not a Christian. Jesus had no friends among unbelievers and he was estranged from his family after he started his ministry. These are the facts – scriptural facts, which means they’re indisputable.
So, are you a Christian according to Jesus’ definition or a Christian according to the world’s definition? Because according to the world, a Christian is someone who is nice and quiet and tolerates, tolerates, tolerates. A doormat, essentially, a human doormat who is pliable and gullible and can be counted on to fork out for whatever charity is currently making the rounds. The world sees Christians as silly, stupid, naïve, and seriously uncool dupes who should keep their foolish beliefs to themselves but otherwise go along with whatever the world says they have to go along with. Christians are not, in the eyes of the world, strong and fearless truthtellers who will continue to be strong and fearless truthtellers no matter how much the world tries to silence them. This version of a Christian – a strong and fearless truthteller – is nearly unheard of today, even though it’s the only version that Jesus would consider worthy of him.
I hope these words have jarred you into taking a mental inventory of your friends to see if any of them are unbelievers. Be friendly with everyone – by all means, be friendly and kind – but being friendly is not the same as being friends. How can you be friends with someone who denies Jesus? You hammer a nail into Jesus’ hand when you have such a friendship. The same goes for unbelieving family members, no matter how close they may be to you in blood. Jesus said that our real family members are those who do the will of God and that if we don’t hate (that is, distance ourselves from) family members who refuse to do God’s will, we’re not worthy to be called his followers.
These are also facts, scriptural facts, and therefore indisputable.
Being a genuine follower of Jesus who speaks God’s Word fearlessly is what we should all be aiming for. You’ll know whether or not you are such a person because if you are, you’ll be banned on most social media sites, fired from your job or dropped by your clients, and shunned by your unbelieving family members and former friends. You’ll also be blacklisted in places that used to welcome you and you may even enjoy the dubious privilege of being kicked out of Christian places of worship for, well, worshiping.
If you’re an outcast and an outlaw for fearlessly speaking God’s Word – CONGRATULATIONS! There is no higher achievement in this life than to be hated by the world for being a follower of Jesus. You now stand shoulder to shoulder with Jesus in his persecution and you can expect the same and worse treatment by the world for the rest of your time on Earth.
It is a very great blessing to be persecuted solely for speaking God’s Word.
I wish this blessing on every Christian.
STAGGERING ON, WITH GOD
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 21, 2023 – Jesus had no trouble gathering followers when he first started his ministry. The same for Moses; after he’d proved himself through the many signs and wonders, all the Hebrews willingly followed him out of Egypt.
Gaining adherents is the easy part. Getting people to buy into a dream and agree to the terms of a contract is the easy part. Getting someone to say “I do” is the easy part.
The hard part is getting people to stick with their promise.
Viewed from one perspective, the Bible is essentially a series of vignettes featuring people who agree to do something and then renege on the agreement. The only ones in scripture who don’t break their promise or violate the terms of their agreement are God and Jesus. Everyone else messes up somewhere along the line, falls, and either stays down for the count or struggles to their feet and staggers on.
No prophet worth his or her salt is unaware of the odds against people sticking with the terms of their contract with God. That most people won’t “endure to the end”, as Jesus warned we need to do in order to make it Home, is a given. Moses knew already at the start of the 40 years of wandering in the desert that only a few men of fighting age would make it to the promised land. He knew it, but he kept on advocating for everyone anyway. When God gave him the opportunity to throw them all under the bus when he caught them dancing naked around the golden calf, Moses pleaded for them, even knowing his battle was a losing one, even knowing that, in the end, it would all come down to just a handful or fewer of righteous souls and that the rest would be lost.
We should be under no illusion that everyone who calls him- or herself a Christian is written in God’s Book of Life. If that were the case, there would be no need for the Judgement. But the truth is that getting into Heaven is very difficult. In fact, it’s so hard, we can’t do it with our own efforts. It’s impossible for us to do it on our own, but Jesus says that it is possible “with God”.
This is the reason why so many Hebrews didn’t make it to the promised land and why so many people won’t make it Home. Once called, Moses did nothing without first consulting with God. The same with Jesus. David was always asking if he should go to battle, and if God said yes, he’d go; if God said no, he wouldn’t. When Joshua took over from Moses, he also did nothing without first consulting with God. He didn’t draw up battle plans and then ask God to bless them; he waited for God’s instructions, including God’s go-ahead.
Being “with God” means just what Jesus said – being with God. You consult God on everything, from the second you wake up in the morning to the second you fall asleep at night. God is not only always on your mind, he’s in your mind and moving things around in there for you. And you’re letting him do it. That’s how you live “with God” and that’s how you’ll make it (if you make it) all the way Home. Being with God means to enter into a contract with God, like a marriage contract. You agree to stick with God and he agrees to stick with you.
Few will hear these words, and of those few who do hear, fewer will take them to heart. Still, as followers of Jesus, we have to make the effort to reach out to everyone who wants to be touched by God, and to keep on reaching out to them for as long as we’re here. Our job is to keep hoping for them and praying for them, even if part of us thinks they’re a lost cause. We’re not the judge. We didn’t write the Book of Life. We don’t know who’s in it because it hasn’t been opened yet and and hasn’t been read.
Moses kept fighting for every child of Israel, even after God told him most of them would go astray and would be lost. He kept fighting for all of them. Jesus sacrificed himself not for those who were worthy, but for those who might some day be worthy. He cast his net wide for the haul and then picked and chose after he’d brought the catch to shore.
It’s easy to agree with the terms of a contract while the ink is still fresh. Many will initially agree but few will follow through later. Knowing this, we still need to teach anyone and everyone who wants to learn about the Kingdom. That’s why Jesus said we’re to forgive people not seven times but seventy times seven. In other words, we’re to keep on giving people a chance. God will ultimately decide who’s worthy of Paradise and who isn’t.
Our job is to let people know they can be made worthy, with God.
BANKING ON ARMAGEDDON
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 21, 2023 – If the comments posted under YouTube videos are anything to go by, a good many Christians these days are basing their witness on end times prophecies. They’ve blown right past preaching the Good News, loving your enemies, and keeping the Ten Commandments and fast-forwarded to pre-Armageddon, where they hope to be among the lucky few who will be raptured before things get too nasty here on Earth.
The only problem with this strategy is that it hasn’t worked out too well for all the other Christians who’ve been doing it over the past 2000 years.
I’m not going to delve into the risk-aversion, reality-avoidance, and borderline sadistic psychopathologies of those who are enraptured by the rapture. Nor am I going to point out that Jesus never recommended that we skip the preaching/loving/Commandments-keeping phases to don a “THE END IS NIGH” sandwich board and think we’ve done our job as his followers. No, far be it for me to mention those things, even in passing. What I will mention is that end times prophecies, like all predictions of future occurrences ranging from God-given all the way down to weather forecasts, rely on the source. If God is the source, well, you can take those prophecies to the bank, but every other source requires a measure or two (or more) of salt.
The Bible has amply documented the straight-from-God prophecies about Armageddon and pre-Armageddon, starting at Genesis and ending at Revelation. We honestly don’t need any more than what God has already given us. If we not only start but stay with that tried-and-trued premise, we’ll be fine. Where things start to go hinky and send people off-course is when self-styled prophets claim to have “a word from God” without anything to back up their claims except their own dubious claims.
YouTube, as I’ve written before, is rife with false prophets preaching that Jesus is coming back soon. Not only that, but they breathlessly tell us that Jesus is coming back to set up his worldly kingdom. So the same people who are certain that Jesus is coming back soon to rapture them to Heaven are just as certain that he’s coming back soon to set up his worldly kingdom. They see no contradiction between these two beliefs.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad.
I can’t imagine that Jesus, having already endured 33 years here, culminating in an excruciating crucifixion, is going to give up his glorified body and exalted seat at the right hand of God to come back to Earth to set up a worldly kingdom, especially since he stated plainly that his Kingdom is not of this world. If Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world (and scripture cannot be contradicted) – if Jesus’ Kingdom is not of this world, then how can he set up a kingdom in this world? Wouldn’t that be contradicting scripture?
The so-called millennial (1000-year) kingdom is God’s Kingdom on Earth. It is a spiritual Kingdom that was set up by Jesus during his time on Earth 2000 years ago. This Kingdom is not of this world and is not even on Earth. It is, however, spiritually accessible, via God’s Holy Spirit, to born-again believers who are still on Earth.
Again, the Kingdom is not on Earth but has been made spiritually accessible to us while were still here. This is the so-called millennial kingdom written about in the book of Revelation. It was also written about in Daniel, where the prophet describes a kingdom that will be set up alongside other kingdoms but will be an eternal kingdom ruled over by the “Son of man”. Isaiah also famously talked about the Kingdom (Isaiah 35:8-10), as did all the OT prophets, starting with Enoch.
As much as I’d like to base my entire witness on “Jesus is coming back soon” and hoping to get raptured the heck outta here, I’d be denying scripture if I did. Jesus told us to watch, but he didn’t say to do so while shirking our other duties as his followers. Those virgins didn’t get that oil in their lamps just by wishing it there. They were ready when the bridegroom arrived not because all they did is wait for him, but because they did the other things that enabled them to have the oil, i.e., preaching, loving, and keeping the Commandments.
Waiting is just one of the many tasks Jesus gave us; it’s not the only one. Those who base their witness on signs of the end times are like people who skip to the back of a book and only read the ending. Sure, they’ll find out how it all works out – who lives and who doesn’t – but they miss the point of how the story got there in the first place.
They miss the whole point of the story.
FROM THE HEART: THE CONVERSION OF THE PRIEST IN THE EXORCIST
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 20, 2023 – Growing up an atheist, I loved watching horror films. One of my favourites was The Exorcist, which I saw several times. I didn’t know then what drew me to that particular film (or why I cheered for the demon rather than the little girl [lol]), but now I know. I also recall being struck by certain scenes which have stuck with me ever since. These weren’t the more infamous scenes, like the head-spinning or levitation, but rather (and oddly, in retrospect) quieter moments that were not at all demonic.
One of these quiet scenes that struck me and then stuck with me over the years was where the priest pours his bottle of liquor down the drain. He’d been having a crisis of faith and had turned to alcohol as a comfort. But after he witnessed Regan’s full-on demonic possession, his crisis came to a screeching halt and out the booze went in one fell swoop. He’d been instantaneously and miraculously healed of his alcoholism.
I recalled this scene tonight when I was reading some comments under a YouTube video. The comments were from people who claimed to be born-again but were fighting addictions such as alcohol or drugs. I couldn’t help but think that if these people truly were born-again and therefore truly believed not only in God but in the existence of evil, they would know first and foremost to go to God for help, and he would help them. That was my first thought.
My second thought was the scene in The Exorcist where the priest pours his liquor down the drain. I remember how the tenor of the movie shifted after that scene. In layman’s terms, “sh*t got real”, and what had been for the priest a theoretical belief became a real belief. He’d witnessed evil so up close and personal that he could no longer deny its existence. In witnessing evil face-to-face, he finally came to believe in everything he’d been taught in seminary; that is, he finally believed in God.
When the God-penny dropped for the priest and he became a believer, nothing else mattered to him but acting on that belief. He’d already been equipped with the tools of his priestly trade so he knew what he had to do to deal with the demon, and off he immediately went to do it.
What does this priest have to do with us? Well, comparing this scene in the movie with the comments I read on YouTube, I’m wondering how many people who say they’re born-again actually believe in God. Because, to my mind, if they actually believed in God, they’d be like the priest who just poured the booze down the drain and that was that. No more addiction. I guess what I’m trying to say is that many people seem to have a head belief in God but not a heart belief. They want to believe, they think they believe, but their lives and their fears belie their belief.
When you truly believe in God, you’re like Jesus. You’re like Moses after he saw the burning bush. You’re like Elijah or any of the prophets in the Old Testament. You’re like Paul. What I mean is that God is your whole life and doing his will is what motivates you. You don’t have to force yourself to do it, like an obligation – you want to do it. You might even have to be held back for a time, like Jesus was, so strong is your desire to serve God.
Yes, you might still want to do things that you want to do, but if they’re not God’s will for you, you don’t do them. You don’t even think about doing them after God lets you know they’re not his will for you. If you truly believe in God with a heart belief rather than just a head belief, then you don’t have addictions. Why? Because an addiction is an idol that you worship and bow down to. You cannot bow down to an idol and truly believe in God at the same time. It’s not possible.
That quiet scene with the priest pouring his beloved booze down the drain shows what it means to truly believe in God, which is why I’m of the opinion that most people who say they believe, don’t actually believe.
I haven’t watched The Exorcist since I was born-again 23 years ago. Maybe I should watch it again, just to check that scene, to make sure it was as I represented it here. One thing I do know for sure, though, if I do decide to watch the movie again – I won’t be cheering for the demon this time! 😊
THE CULT OF TOLERANCE
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 20, 2023 – A sentiment being expressed more and more among Christians in relation to sinful behavior is “I have no problem with what consenting adults do.” In other words, even morally repugnant acts are shrugged away by Christians as “personal choice” rather than sin. In other words, sin is being tolerated by Christians.
As born-agains, we cannot tolerate sin. We cannot stand back and not form and express an opinion about sin. We cannot stand back and say “everything goes”, because we know that when “A” is permitted, “B”, “C”, “D”, “E”, etc., will follow, as we’re seeing now in our streets and schools and public libraries. The genie doesn’t come just part-way out of the bottle; the opened can doesn’t let out just one worm: the genie escapes the bottle entirely and all the worms slither out.
Tolerance is not only a gateway to sin but also a sin in itself – it’s a form of intellectual and moral slovenliness. The tolerant say: “I don’t want to offend anyone because I don’t like conflict” and “I’m too lazy to think deeply enough about this issue to form an opinion, let alone express it” and “I know God condemns this, but I don’t want to be disliked or banned or fired, so I’ll just tolerate it.” Instead of bowing down to God, they bow down to the spirit of tolerance.
Tolerance has grown to cult status in recent years. In fact, the cult of tolerance has for the most part replaced Christianity. Christians are being scolded by the world to be tolerant, and they’ve meekly taken the bait. Entire congregations now tolerate what for thousands of years Christians condemned as sinful. The altar of tolerance has replaced the altar of God in most churches; you’ll know the altar of tolerance by the rainbow flags draped over it.
Again – we cannot tolerate sin. We cannot look away and say “they’re consenting adults” or “what they do behind closed doors is their business”. As born-again believers, calling out sin is our business. We do not have the luxury of not calling out sin. We do not have the luxury of not wanting conflict, of not wanting people to dislike us for our beliefs and expressed opinions, of not condemning what we know God condemns. As born-again believers, we stand in the Spirit of Truth, so naturally we’re going to be in conflict with those who bow down to the Spirit of Lies.
Tolerance of sin is tacit acceptance of sin, which is why tolerance of sin is itself a sin. Yet calling out sin as sin does not mean we have to attack those who are sinning. Our job with regard to sin is simply to label it as sin rather than as a personal choice between consenting adults. Our job with regard to sin is to call it sin, avoid it, and teach others to avoid it.
Being a born-again believer is not a popularity contest. Jesus warned us we’d be hated and also likely cast out, banned, black-listed, and imprisoned for our beliefs, and oh, how right he was. Regardless of the consequences, we cannot stand hand-in-hand with the cult of tolerance. If we’re hated for speaking God’s Truth, then let us be hated. Embrace the hate and soldier on.
HOW CAN I LOVE THOSE I DON’T EVEN LIKE? THE DILEMMA OF LOVING YOUR ENEMIES
CHARLO, New Brunswick, July 10, 2023 – Jesus famously summed up the Old Testament as “love your neighbour as yourself” or “as you would have others treat you, that’s how you should treat them”. By extension, the New Testament can be summed up as “love your enemies” or “as God treats others, that’s how you should treat them”.
God loves everyone because he is love. Love is one of his core characteristics which means that God cannot NOT love. If he didn’t love, he wouldn’t be God.
We, on the other hand, have to work at loving most people. But love them we must, as Jesus said that by our love we’re known as his followers.
It might help to know that you don’t have to like people to love them.
I admit that I dislike some people. I can’t stand what they do and I can’t stand how they are and I can’t stand being around them. A few of these people I dislike intensely. Still, I need to love even those I dislike intensely or I can’t claim to be a follower of Jesus.
Thank God I can look to the Gospels and see that Jesus didn’t like some people, too. This makes me understand that disliking people is not a spiritual flaw in me but an honest response to unlikeable behavior and mindsets. In fact, Jesus was outspoken in his dislike for most Sadducees, Pharisees, scribes, lawyers, politicians, etc.; he didn’t hide his dislike behind a fake smile or a limp handshake: he openly disliked those he disliked and avoided being around them. He was honest about his dislike for some people and explained why he disliked them. Mostly he disliked them for being hypocrites
Yet even for those he intensely disliked, Jesus was able to pray to God to “forgive them for they know not what they do” and to do so as they were torturing and crucifying him. If Jesus could pray for people who were killing him as they were killing him, surely we can find it within ourselves to pray for people who are just being nasty to us.
The first step in loving your enemies is knowing who your enemies are. In spiritual terms, our enemies are all those who are not born-again followers of Jesus. That’s a lot of enemies. For Jesus, his closest family members were also his enemies because they didn’t believe he was the Messiah and they didn’t support his ministry work. In fact, they actively tried to end his ministry. So did the people at his hometown synagogue, who went a step further and tried to kill him for stating he was the Messiah. It’s hard not to see people who are trying to kill you as your enemy, even if they’re your family and friends. It can be even harder to pray for them, as you’re also battling your failed emotional expectations of them.
We’re not promised an easy go of it on Earth as born-again believers. Jesus invited us to take his yoke upon us, as it would ease our burdens. He didn’t say we wouldn’t have burdens; he said that our burdens would be lighter bearing his yoke than the world’s (the devil’s). For me, one of the most difficult emotional burdens is to love people who fail me emotionally. Once the emotions get involved and are further complicated by expectations, it’s difficult to view things objectively. It’s difficult not to get offended.
That’s when we need to remember Jesus telling us that we’re to be offended in nothing and that’s why we have commands like “love your enemies”. We don’t have to reason with a command or even understand it; we just have to do it. So if the command is to love people who fail us emotionally, love them we must. We love them not by liking them or pretending to like them, but by praying for them and blessing them, as Jesus instructed us to do.
Our love for our enemies is known to God, not necessarily to our enemies, since our promise to love our enemies is to God, not to our enemies.
Needless to say, our enemies could not care less if we loved them. We don’t have to tell them we’re praying for them; we just need to do it. As difficult as it might be to wrench out a “forgive them, Father”, we need to do it. God will bless us for it.
The main takeaway from this is that you don’t have to like people to love them, and by loving them I mean praying for them and blessing them. When I was a child, I ruthlessly persecuted my widowed grandmother who looked after me during the day. Yet that same grandmother was always blessing me with money to go to the corner store or with books and other treats she’d picked up for me specially while shopping. When my tormenting got too much for her, she’d retreat to her room for a few minutes and come out sniffling. I knew she’d been crying, and I tormented her for that, too.
But what I didn’t know until after I was born-again was that she wasn’t just crying in her room, she was praying for me. I also didn’t know until after her death that not once had she told my parents what she’d endured from me as a child; she simply prayed for me (without telling me) and blessed me more than she did her other grandchildren. She knew what was wrong with me, and she knew how to deal with it, however difficult it was for her at the time. For 36 years she prayed for me, and when I was born-again, she was the first person I told because I knew she was the only one in my family who would understand what had happened to me.
I learned from my grandmother’s example not only what it means to love your enemies, but that those under your own roof will be your worst enemies. I certainly was hers.
We likely won’t like those who hate us or hate Jesus, but loving those who hate us doesn’t require us to like them. We don’t have to like them. The command is not to like them but to love them and to do so not with our emotions but with prayers and blessings.
Even more importantly, our promise to love our enemies is to God, not to our enemies. So when we pray for and bless those who hate us, we’re keeping a promise to God.
Ultimately, loving our enemies is about keeping a promise to God. And God, when we keep that promise, will bless us.
ARE YOU ONE IN A MILLION?
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 6, 2023 – When Moses stood on Mount Horeb delivering the Ten Commandments, he had an audience of two: Joshua and Caleb. Sure, there were 600,000+ men of fighting age spread out before him, along with their wives and children and parents and grandparents, so there were probably upwards of around five millions souls. Still, of all those souls 20 years of age or older who received the Commandments at that time, only two made it to the promised land on the other side of the river Jordan.
I’ve written before about how we need to look carefully at those numbers. We not only need to look carefully, we need to mull them over and consider how they relate to us as Christians. We especially need to mull over those numbers and consider how they relate to us as individuals and what they say about our chances of getting into Heaven. If nothing else, those numbers clearly indicate that we won’t get to our own Promised Land as a collective, but as individuals – more specifically, as very very painfully few individuals who, though part of a much larger collective while on Earth (Christians), will stand before God as individuals and be judged as individuals.
Most Christians don’t want to consider those numbers. They want to believe that they and all their family and friends are on their way to Heaven and that Heaven’s a guarantee for them. They want to believe the lie of the devil that “belief” is the only requirement for admission to Paradise because Jesus took care of the rest. These Christians don’t care that only two out of the millions of God’s chosen that came out of Egypt ultimately made it to the promised land. In fact, most Christians probably don’t even know about Joshua and Caleb in that context because they’ve never read the Old Testament and so they don’t know the history of their people. They don’t know the warning.
At the time of the end, God will seal his people and there will be no more conversions. Those who are unsealed will remain unsealed for eternity, and those who are sealed will be tried and tested to further purify them, like gold is purified. The purification process is never easy or pretty, and scripture says that even some of the sealed will fall.
Imagine the scale of the temptation if even a sealed soul can be tricked and beguiled! Imagine the level of torture and torment and the broad unrelenting sweep of persecution. Yes, God protects his own, but he also permits them to be tempted and tested. I can imagine that whoever’s left of God’s people in those days, if they’re not in prison for being believers, will be constantly on the run or in hiding or down on their face begging God to take them Home.
There’ll be no respite from the horrors they’ll have to endure. The pit of hell will have emptied out and every demon in existence will be occupying any and every warm body that doesn’t bear God’s seal, including animals. Imagine every living being you encounter (other than born-again believers) being fully possessed and singularly purposed to get you to capitulate to Satan by whatever means possible. This will be the reality of God’s end-times saints. Satan himself will rule over his dark brood, not from behind the scenes like he is now, but openly, having taken full possession of the body of some doomed soul and ascended to the highest political heights.
Without God’s Spirit protecting and informing you, your soul wouldn’t make it out alive. You’d capitulate along with all the rest. None – not one – without God’s Spirit will survive. Other than for a few sealed stragglers who’ll grab onto Jesus’ feet and hang on for dear life, everyone else will fall. Jesus says if it weren’t for God shortening those days, there’d be no survivors, not even among the sealed.
That’s how difficult it is to get into the Promised Land. That’s how great a reward it is and how great are the requirements. Mere obedience to God is not enough; full, tested, and tried-and-trued willing submission to God is what it takes.
So what about you? Do you have what it takes to make it Home? Are you one in a million? Are you the modern-day version of Joshua or Caleb? If you haven’t answered a quiet “yes” or at least an “I hope so” to these questions, you’ve got some praying and pondering to do. The Promised Land of Heaven is no more a guarantee for Christians today than was the promised land of Israel for the children of Israel thousands of years ago.
Consider this your sober reminder.
JESUS AND A.I.
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 6, 2023 – The excitement and hysteria surrounding the release of artificial intelligence (AI) chat bots to the public is, I imagine, not much different than the excitement and hysteria that accompanied the emergence of various wannabe messiahs in Israel and Judah before the coming of Jesus. Everyone was in awe, everyone wanted to be around the latest alleged chosen one, a few brave souls dared to test his mettle while the rest were content to bask in the evidence of his unearthly wisdom. Fervent followers sprang up overnight and became hard-core converts before noon the next day. Nearly everyone wanted to catch a glimpse of what nearly everyone else was catching a glimpse of and many wanted to clamber on board the messiah train without even knowing where it was going. FOMO (fear of missing out) was strong.
Long before he took center stage as the real Messiah, Jesus already had his mettle tested, and by none other than the devil himself. Scripture tells us that the devil took Jesus in spirit to a high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world in an instant. The devil then offered Jesus the power and glory of these worldly kingdoms if he would just bow down and worship him. But Jesus had set his sights on a much higher Kingdom than those laid out before him, one that would last forever and give him substantially greater glory, and so he declined the devil’s offer, dismissing it as the worthless bauble it was.
Artificial intelligence is offering us the world in an instant. Everything we do, AI allegedly can do better, or at least faster. Humans, we are being told (by none other than AI itself), will soon be obsolete. Their only hope for survival is to bow down and submit to an AI-enabled and -dictated future. If we do so, everything we could wish for is at our command prompt.
There are distinct similarities between what Jesus was tempted with by the devil and what we are now being tempted with by AI converts. You might even say that Jesus had his AI moment when the devil tempted him with power and wealth beyond his wildest dreams. But Jesus was well aware of the devil’s tricks, and even in his fast-induced physical weakness knew to lean on God and his Word for guidance and protection.
Artificial intelligence is being hailed not only as the Next Great Thing but the Ultimate Great Thing that nothing and no-one can surpass. As such, it is shaping up to be a God replacement for those who reject God or believe he doesn’t exist. Our inferiority is being contrasted with AI’s superiority in everything from computational speed to knowledge breadth to data analysis. Need a 2000-word essay by 9 tomorrow morning? AI just wrote you one in the time it took to read this sentence. Wanna know how to defeat the Russians? AI just generated a sure-fire plan for you, complete with flow chart. Ditto with a plan to rob the local bank. It’s all just crunched and refried data.
And that’s where AI differs fatally from humans – it’s not alive and has no soul. We serve a living God and are made in his image, whereas AI can never live. It can only exist by crunching and refrying data. The very essence of what you are – a living soul – is worth more than all the kingdoms of the world combined, but AI is unable to grasp this concept because it cannot quantify a soul and therefore cannot even confirm that a soul exists. So to AI, humans are merely deeply flawed, cumbersome, and inferior fleshly computers. AI can never take souls – the essence of being human – into account and so remains blind to God-inspired human capacity. This is its Achilles heel, its inability to take God-inspired human capacity into account. You should never underestimate God-inspired human capacity. The devil did with Jesus, and he fell flat on his face.
We humans are infinitely superior to AI not because we know more or think faster (AI will always beat us at those things), but because we have an immortal soul. Our soul also makes us infinitely more valuable and enables us to achieve God-level inspiration through God’s Holy Spirit. AI is a useful tool that is programmable and self-taught to a degree, but it can never be inspired. Its lack of a soul is its Achilles heel that keeps it permanently beneath us and at our service. We should never worship or serve a machine, however wondrous its abilities. Use it, yes, appreciate it as a tool, yes, but bow down to it, never.
Whatever seeming benefits AI offers us in the short term are as nothing compared to what God is offering us if we make it all the way Home.
RELATIONSHIP OR SUPERSTITION? GOD IS MY FATHER
CAMPBELLTON, New Brunswick, July 6, 2023 – When I was a little kid, my parents took care of all my needs. I didn’t have to ask them to feed me, house me, clothe me, and protect me, they just did it all by default. It’s what parents do for their kids. It was part and parcel of our parent/child relationship.
God does the same for his children. He feeds, shelters, clothes, and protects born-again followers of Jesus spiritually as well as physically for no other reason than that they’re his kids. We don’t have to beg God to look after us; as long as we remain his children, he will look after us.
I mention the Father/child relationship we born-agains have with God because many Christians seem not to know about it. They think they have to ask God specially for protection or to pray for it using incense and incantations. They think they have to plead the blood of Jesus or perform some kind of ritual to get God’s attention or to keep evil spirits at bay. As a child, I didn’t have to recite a verse or sacrifice a pigeon in order to get my three square meals a day. All I had to do was show up in the kitchen when I was called.
My point here is that much of what is termed ‘Christianity’ today is actually superstition. Not understanding the foundational tenet of our belief (that God is our Father), many Christians rely on rituals and sacrifices to “invoke” God, petitioning him for things he provides anyway by default to his children. When you rely on superstition instead of faith, ritual instead of relationship, you miss the whole point of why Jesus sacrificed himself on the cross. A mindset that’s steeped in superstition and ritual will do things like “meditate on”, memorize, and study God’s Word, hoping this roundabout approach will help crack its meaning. But you can’t understand the meaning of God’s Word in a roundabout way, relying on your own insight and intellect. You can only understand God’s Word through the guidance of God’s Holy Spirit.
When I was newly born-again, I spent three and a half years neck-deep in Catholicism. I was taught to get down on my knees and recite “prayers” to Mary and angels and saints, and to accompany the recitations with candle-lighting, holy water dabbing, and rosary bead counting. I was never taught about my relationship with God. I was taught rituals. I was taught superstition, like this water is holy and that water isn’t, and candles need to be blessed, as only blessed candles will provide spiritual protection. Ditto for salt and oil and crucifixes (and pets). Everything needed to be blessed, and evil spirits could only be chased away by incantations, recitations, the sprinkling of holy water, and the frantic waving of crucifixes.
It would be funny if it weren’t so sad, this fallback to superstition that is the hallmark of many denominations today. I thank God that he sprung me from superstition and taught me about our relationship through his Word. Now I know that I don’t have to study the Bible, I simply read it, and in reading it, God opens up its meaning to me through his Spirit. This is how he teaches his children.
So I’ve learned, through his Spirit, that God is my Father, and as my Father, he does everything a father does, and he does it perfectly. If God’s my Father, then I’m his child, and as his child, he will feed me, clothe me, shelter me, and protect me. I don’t have to ask for those things; he’ll do them by default, as long as I remain his child, that is, as long as I continue in his will and his Word.
And prayer – well, prayer is just talking to God. No recitation or props are needed. I can pray standing up, sitting down, laying down, or standing on my head, if I want to, and I can pray wherever I am at any given time using whatever words come to mind or no words at all. It’s a relationship we’ve be called into with God, not a ritual. We do not know God as our Father by ritual; we know God as our Father by faith.
Jesus says we need to become like little children if we’re to enter into the Kingdom. Part of that directive means to understand that we’re in a Father/child relationship with God, with all that such a relationship entails: We not only know God but God knows us. We’re not like fans worshiping a pop star from a distance while the pop star has no idea we exist. We know God intimately and are known by him intimately.
This Father/child relationship forms the basis of our faith. Without it, we’re just mouthing empty words and making empty gestures, however holy they may seem to us or other people. Without a relationship with God as our loving Father, no matter how much church-going and Bible-studying and good-deed-doing and evangelical outreach we do, all we’re going to hear from God on Judgement Day are the four worst words in all of creation: “I never knew you.”
It’s a relationship we’re called to have with God and need to have with God, a loving, one-on-one, Father/child relationship. And we need to maintain that relationship in good standing, the way that Jesus maintained his relationship with God in good standing when he was on Earth in human form (“I always do that which pleases the Father”).
If you don’t have the same relationship with God that Jesus had, you need to get it and you need to get it now. Because without it, you won’t make it Home.
A BORN-AGAIN BELIEVER 