Saturday, February 06, 2010

[#’s 217-420] TEACHINGS PART 2

(217) There are a few different dynamics at work with us at this season. The Lord has given the ‘words’ going out from us ‘free course’. Scripture speaks of Gods word ‘running swiftly’ Jesus ‘sent his word and healed them’ and many other symbols like this. These things speak of God supernaturally promoting the words that are coming forth from you for his purpose [Chris Tucker tells Jackie Chan ‘do you understand the words comin out of my mouth’]. A common mistake that people make at this stage of God ‘exalting you’ is thinking that ‘its all about you!’ When God does these things, be assured IT’S ALL ABOUT HIM also many ministries and ministry leaders who are affected by the ‘corrective word’ become offended. Some fall into the snare of wanting the down fall and defeat of the ‘vessel’ bringing forth the word. Sometimes they cant understand why the vessel hasn’t ‘broken’ yet. They seem to not understand that It is not the ‘spirituality or holiness’ of the vessel that God is using. It is simply the providence of God. God wants people to put his concerns first, and theirs second. Too many ministries are trying to create a ‘public’ ‘national personsa’. God is simply not going to facilitate this desire. He will give great favor to those who are not seeking these things, but he won’t facilitate the desire in man ‘to make a name for himself’. I just felt like we are at a stage where God is giving influence thru the things he is saying thru ‘US’ at this season. I see all you guys as part of the US in the sense that many of you are sharing and spreading the things you have learned from the ministry this year. I want to encourage you guys to avoid the competitive spirit that the enemy wants to use to hinder Gods voice. Don’t tell people ‘look what God is doing with brother so and so’ or ‘look at the great access that God has given us’. Simply allow the word to go forth without a lot of fanfare and self-promotion. Sure we want this door to remain open, but our goal is not recognition, its effectiveness!

(218)Let me remind you guys of a few things. Often we want the results without paying the price ‘everyone wants to go to heaven, but nobody is willing to die’. I shared how ‘the Lord’ woke me up at midnight the other day. I really do not enjoy getting up and praying and writing all night. Sometimes it’s enjoyable to get up at 3 or 4am and sense Gods presence. But many times it’s a feeling of ‘O, I guess I will be praying tonight’. It’s more of a ‘count the cost’ type thing. Many people want the open doors that we are currently experiencing, but they really don’t want to do stuff like ‘all night prayer’. That’s fine, just count the cost. You eventually decide the amount of influence you will have. I want to encourage you guys to be radical for the cause. Don’t be attention seekers, but be sensitive to the avenues God is opening up to you.

(217)Let me give a small example of Gods truth versus an exasperated clergy. One small area of truth that we deal with is the second coming. We teach the historical majority view. There is only ONE second coming spoken about in the New Testament. The scriptures commonly used to teach the ‘rapture’ as a different event are really talking about the 2nd coming. Now this one area [not to mention all the other stuff!] is enough to make us permanent enemies to some renown preachers in this area. Some churches call us heretics for this alone! I know this and really don’t care to be honest. It’s funny, because all the railing that they would do against us in this one area is wasted time. God’s truth is Gods truth. No matter how much time is wasted defending a so-called ‘fundamental’ of the faith, it’s wasted time for the defenders if they are defending something that is basically wrong. It’s hard for preachers to admit their wrong in any area. I know this is true with me too. I just find it funny that those who go to great lengths to defend a thing will eventually find out the truth. No big deal, just make sure your spending your time and energy on stuff that will make a real difference. Don’t waste it on stuff that’s fake!

(218)Let me talk a little on radical speech. I know many people believe I am a little too harsh in my teaching. There are some sites that make us look pretty ‘dovish’. I want to mention a strange phenomena. In the writings of Paul [in the bible!] Paul uses terms like ‘castration’ in speaking against enemies of the Gospel. The bible uses ‘dung’ [crap] in certain scenarios. Yet Paul also speaks on using good speech and not letting corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth. If you read the writings of Martin Luther and other reformers you will find it shocking to see some of the language they used. I feel there are times where people are so off track that when he raises up ‘reformers’ its hard for them to separate the spirit of radical reform from the ‘lovey’ language of the clergy. It’s almost like the prophetic takes on a ‘vulgar’ aggressiveness in order to uproot the deep seated error of the time. I don’t want to make excuses for bad language; I just wanted you to see the theme of this being a reality all thru the church age.

(219)DON’T QUIT! I have noticed over the years that one of the key elements of successful ministry is refusing to quit. I have met ‘ministry’ leaders who had a poor track record of employment thru out their lives. Yet they are trying to raise support for ‘their’ ministry. Most times it doesn’t work. Why? Because they never mastered the simple requirement to ‘not quit’. They have learned ‘how to quit’ time and time again in the job market, and they are comfortable with it. Does this mean they will never be used? No. But they usually wont be. Why? Because God is still trying to teach them the importance of being faithful to a job, and they don’t want to hear this. I have heard good people on radio over the years. Some that were not ‘quitters’ in their lives. But they were on radio, off radio, back on again, and well you get it! They learned to ‘quit’ in this one area. Will God forgive them? Sure. The point is God wants to entrust important tasks to us. He wants us to follow thru on the task. If you quit before, God will forgive you. His mercy is new every morning. Maybe the thing holding your ministry back is something as basic as this. Don’t look for the extravagant ‘missing ingredient’. I haven’t confessed right, I will meditate more. Usually you have confessed too much [all talk and no ACTION] the missing ingredient is learning dependability and responsibility. All great men of faith have spent many years ‘plugging away in obscurity!’

(220)Been up since 3 AM praying for you guys as well as a few other things. Was thinking about a conversation I had a few years ago with a ministry leader in our city. He was trying to raise money for his ministry. He attends a great church that I used to attend. The Pastor is a good friend of mine. The ministry leader was asking where I attend church. I told him the church. He then criticized the church for spending money on certain things he thought could be used for other things. I just ignored it. This leader wanted to raise money to build a prayer center building. I guess it’s a worthy cause? Without boasting too much, I have been praying from 2-3 am [sometimes midnight] till around 7- 8 am for more than a few years now. I really didn’t need some ministry building to do this! In my mind the money for so many of our projects is a waste! It seems like we are too often building things to satisfy men’s egos more than anything else. God’s people are called ‘A HOUSE OF PRAYER’. God sees the corporate community of saints [all Christians, Catholics, Protestants, etc.] as a ‘building’ of prayer. Once again there might be a scenario or two where God is calling people to build these types of prayer centers, but most times he simply calls his people to prayer. He wakes you up and you pray! Where? Wherever you happen to be at the time. Religion has ‘secular’ and ‘religious’ divisions that say this is the place to perform ‘religious activity’ and this is the place for ‘secular stuff’. These divisions are contrary to the Kingdom that Jesus preached [I am not advocating a theocracy!] Jesus simply taught that the true worshipers of God would worship [pray] in ‘SPIRIT AND TRUTH’. There is this tremendous liberating aspect to the Kingdom of God that allows it to function everywhere. The church is always looking to start some 501 c 3 that can be the ‘Christian enterprise’ that takes all our time and money when God is simply looking for people to PRAY!

(221)Let me use the above example to show you a few things. As I was talking to this ministry leader we did have a fairly good fellowship. During this day of fellowship I shared many of the thoughts on the church as community versus ‘a church building’. He seemed a ‘little’ familiar with this. He said ‘O I know people who believe that way’. Which showed me the Lord has tried to show him this before! He had difficulty grasping many of the concepts, though they were true! It was later on where he got offended and actually yelled at me. He basically said to me ‘your wrong!’ I nicely told him, well I understand you think I am wrong, but I believe I am right. [I know it’s hard to believe I was calm during this exchange, but I was]. It shows how his later frustration of not being able to raise money for ‘the ministry center’ and things of this nature were an outgrowth of seeing ministry as ‘this thing I need to raise money for so I can run it’. If this person learned the lesson of not seeing it in this limited way, he would not have been so frustrated. It’s like the answer wasn’t ‘a transference of wealth’ in as much as a ‘change of thought’. He needed to see the new ‘wineskin/paradigm’ that God is trying to bring forth. These truths are being seen and practiced on a worldwide basis as I write this! Wolfgang Simpson says ‘God is not trying to start lecture halls across the world’ This seems to be the current understanding of ‘planting churches’. We seem to think ‘setting up buildings where people come and listen to bible words being spoken’ is the local church! We really need to be delivered from this mindset!

(222)Being I have been speaking on ‘prayer centers’ and stuff, let me share some stuff on prayer. A lot of the ‘prayer centers’ focus on a type of prayer that I feel is really not biblically based. If you read the New Testament you see stories of casting out demons and stuff. You also see where the disciples are praying to God on many occasions. You NEVER see any person casting ‘demons’ or ‘territorial spirits’ out of the sky. There are certain passages of scripture where modern advocates of ‘spiritual warfare’ use to justify this practice, I just feel based upon what I just showed you that prayer is fundamentally focused on God. You do find Jesus rebuking the devil, and like I said you see the Apostles casting out demons. It’s just the demons are IN PEOPLE, there not taking up residence in the sky! I know this is another one of those hotly debated subjects, but if we can just stay focused on God we can make much headway. James said a lot of times we are not receiving because we are not asking in faith, or we are asking selfishly. It’s not so much that we haven’t mastered certain elements of spiritual warfare, it’s that we haven’t mastered UNSELFISH PRAYER!

(223)ALL THAT WAR WITH YOU SHALL COME TO NOTHING/ I WILL GIVE THEM AS STUBBLE TO YOUR BOW I was reading this in Isaiah and felt like I should share this. When I first moved to Corpus and went on the radio I knew there were prosperity preachers that were offended at us. I liked a particular prosperity ministry and even attended their events [Valentine Banquet]. I regularly encouraged my wife to attend a women’s fellowship that they held monthly in our city [Women by Design]. I tried to not allow the strong word coming from us to become personal. I was very familiar with this church and even visited when they had a national Minister come [Jerry Savelle]. I never desire the failure of another brother in the Lord. If God gives you a mandate to speak a certain word, and you don’t, then your are in trouble! This church obviously eventually knew that there was a preacher on the radio going ‘against’ the main tenets of their church. This was never my intent. Though this church was a fairly well known regional ministry in our area, with very influential connections with national ministers, they eventually folded and left town. I did not rejoice over this. I liked going to the banquets and never threw out the invitations they sent regularly to my wife. I think I even sent the women’s thing a small offering of support? When God chooses to speak a prophetic word at a certain season, it’s not a matter of individuals or personalities. It’s a matter of truth. As much as I love Bro. Hagin and others, there were just too many obvious things that couldn’t go unchecked. Blatant visions and dreams that were highly offensive to Christ’s image. Portraying Jesus as saying things that he wasn’t saying. Many of the advocates of these national leaders simply defended these things irregardless of any spiritual discernment. When any one [even me!] begins to defend the images of people over the image of Christ, God ultimately reduces your voice. I pray this ministry is doing well today. They did move to Houston, but I wanted you to see that these issues go much deeper than personalities and loyalties to friends and culture. God will speak a word and sometimes its like ‘STUBBLE AGAINST A BOW’. Eventually the stubble will come to nothing! [I WILL BEND JUDAH LIKE A BOW the prophetic isn’t always fun, God often ‘bends’ you so you can deliver the word with pinpoint accuracy! Bowstrings are under great pressure all the time. Divine tension!]

(224)WHERE ARE WE GOING WITH THIS? those of you who have read all our stuff will remember that the first book I wrote [which you will find on this blog] dealt with Jesus and the moneychangers. I felt his making the whip and ‘cleansing the temple’ spoke prophetically to a time period in the church where he would once again ‘cleanse the temple from mammon’. The simple fact that all of this stuff we have dealt with was so engrained into the leadership of our day, was in and of itself a tremendous hindrance to the work of the Spirit. Many leaders [Prophets included] refused to deal with these issues out of pride. They truly felt that the ‘preaching against mammon’ was a traditional deception of the ‘orthodox’ church that was hindering the gospel. They saw any attempt to ‘cleanse the temple from the moneychangers’ as a traditional push back against the new move of God. We are at a point where God is simply radically re organizing our mindsets. You [Christian] do not exist for the purpose of being told what is right or wrong by some man. The Spirit of God in you will bear witness to truth. Many of you are doing well on this journey. You will be used as a witness of what it means to ‘take up your cross and follow Jesus’. There needs to be a radical re focusing on the basic elements of the gospel. We need to overhaul all the ‘dung’ [I’ll be nice!] and get back to scripture. If leadership is so ‘self consumed’ where they cant see beyond their own desires to be happy and have a successful career, then God will by pass them and work directly thru his body. Many are still defending a ‘rich Jesus’ who gives them dreams that deny scripture. I urge you to be faithful to the Jesus of the New Testament. You will know him in Spirit and truth, but he is the same historical person who MADE A WHIP AND DROVE OUT THE MONEY CHANGERS!

(225)IS THIS ACCUSING THE BRETHREN? Paul the Apostle dealt harshly with the Judaizers of the 1st century. He said very strong things against them. He said ‘whose mouths MUST be stopped’. The Judaizers did believe in Jesus! But they added other unbiblical doctrines that were contrary to the gospel. One of the definitions of satan is ‘the accuser of the brethren’. Scripture says ‘God casts him down’. I want you to see a subtle thing. satan is very ‘subtle’. Many of the doctrines that we have exposed actually ‘accused the brethren’ unwittingly. Many poor and struggling saints have been told ‘surely God doesn’t want his kids to suffer’ ‘how can a father not give good gifts to his kids’ and in the more extreme cases I have even heard it taught that the parents of children who have died did something wrong in applying their faith, that the ‘fault’ was on the side of the parents, not God. These forms of doctrine are the most extreme cases of accusation that can ever occur. Especially the last one! What we are actually doing thru our teaching is ‘casting down the accuser of the saints’. God defends THE POOR and needy. Both Jesus and the Apostles were very hard on the religious leaders, yet very merciful on people who were struggling. I simply wanted to show you that one of the functions of the prophetic is to ‘open eyes’ I hope you see what I just told you. NOTE: by the way we do believe in spiritual warfare, I think what I just showed you about ‘casting down’ the accuser is a good example of it. We accomplish it thru prophetic teaching and preaching, not thru yelling into the sky!

(226)In Isaiah 41 it speaks of ‘God raising up the righteous man from the east and giving nations to him, coming upon princes like mortar, the coastlands shall wait for his law’ [paraphrasing from memory]. Then it says ‘the islands feared and every man strengthened themselves and propped up each others idols’. There have been other significant seasons in the Body of Christ where the Lord dealt with many of these issues. The natural response was for the larger national ministries who propagate these doctrines to ‘prop each other up’. To simply use the tremendous financial store [which they do have!] to defend each other. This was not only a wrong defense of people out of ‘self preservation’ but much of the money that was used to ‘push back’ the reproof actually came from Christians who give sacrificially to these ministries. I couldn’t give in clear conscience to a ministry whose main leaders are making around $500,000 to a million a year from the offerings of many low-income people. But the point is there is a natural response to ‘join hands and strengthen each others idols’ because you know you are all ‘in the same boat’. This response is unfortunate, but it does happen!

(227)Let me try and do this. I just kind of had an ‘overview’ of old testament history and the ‘history of the church’ run thru my mind in a few minutes. A lot of the stuff I am going to share is from many years of memory. So bear with me with the little details! In the Old Testament Gods people were represented by the nation of Israel. During the journey of Israel from captivity in Egypt to the Promised Land God deposited certain ‘sacred/religious’ rituals into their society for the ultimate purpose of revealing the gospel and reality of Christ’s sacrifice for all people. During this journey Israel ‘divides’ over certain issues. Israel has a northern tribe [Israel] and southern one [Judah] The northern part develops a separate priesthood under Jeroboam, and the southern keeps the original priesthood under Reheboam. The inheritance being divided during the possessing of the Promised Land becomes a theological issue for Jewish orthodoxy. The ‘jeroboam’ group identifies with the altar of worship deemed ‘unorthodox’ while the southern group has the ‘true’ place of worship. By the way this was the issue seen in the gospel of John chapter 4, when Jesus speaks to the woman at the well. She was a Samaritan, part of the ‘unorthodox group’ and was asking this exact question! So the history of natural Israel is one of division and ‘who has the real priesthood’ [sound familiar?] It is interesting to note, that though theologically the southern tribes are more ‘correct’ God later reproves them for their ‘correctness’. The prophets will eventually address Judah and say ‘thus saith the Lord, you pride yourself on being more faithful than your sister [northern tribe] and yet you are worse!’ So already God is dealing with the aspect of pride that comes along with theological correctness. Today the church historically is divided. Most evangelicals think of the 16th century reformation as the ‘dividing point’ but historically it’s the division of the 11th century between our Catholic and Orthodox brothers that is seen as the ‘great schism’. Either way you have the Catholics/Orthodox representing historic orthodoxy and the protestants/evangelicals on the others side. The debate rages on who has the more pure form of orthodoxy. We are like the woman at the well, we are asking Jesus ‘who’s right?’ and Jesus simply tells the woman ‘I am not here to take sides in your theological arguments, I am here to call you to repentance and lead you into true worship with God’. So we find ourselves in a place in history where truth does matter [at least to me!] but where Gods prophetic voice is calling all of his people back to true worship. Sort of like the Sienfeld episode where George is going to convert to the Orthodox religion so he can date some girl. The orthodox priests are questioning George on his reason for conversion and George replies ‘I like the hats’ to the dismay of the priests who were wearing these religious looking hats! We try to come up with reasons to why we associate in our divided groups, and sometimes it’s as silly as the hats! Well I know I got a little theological with you guys today, but I felt the Lord wanted to get you to thinking on these things. God wants unity, and all sides have to display ‘humility of mind’ in the process!

(228)Just got this thought, it must be for you! I talked about not quitting a few entries ago, I got the sense that some of you are under condemnation for quitting. When a person ‘fails’ [Peter] it is often a precursor to great things. During the failure you learn the inadequacy of yourself and others. You see the shallowness of mans glory. You learn that living for the approval of men is a vain enterprise. You also learn the reality of ‘doing ministry’ for God alone. Everybody remembered great Peter’s denial of Christ, even in the midst of Peters ‘ministry’ of raising the dead! At that stage you realize what your in it for. If raising the dead cant ‘overcome’ the denials [in the minds of people] then you might as well give up on impressing people! God takes ‘quitters’ and restores them to usefulness. It’s true that the areas of ‘quitting’ are not Gods purpose, but God has this strange way of ‘working all things for good to them who love him and are called according to his purpose’ [I think I read this somewhere?][Just kidding, it’s in Romans]

(229)Xxx


(230)THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH. REALLY! Over the years of preaching and being involved in ministry, you notice the ‘stages’ and fads that the church goes thru. I feel the Lord often has a purpose for these ‘fads’ even though they sometimes are unbalanced. One of these areas is spiritual warfare. I was recently looking at an Apostolic website out of San Antonio, I couldn’t help but notice the teachings on ‘we are warriors’ ‘destroying strongholds’ and stuff like that [hey, I’m just trying to get thru to God!] I also saw a conference being held somewhere that was called ‘a gathering of champions’. I remember seeing one years ago called ‘a gathering of strong and mighty men’. All these images are biblical to a degree. The New Testament does speak of us being children of God and overcomers and stuff like that. The biblical witness ‘couches’ these truths to be contained in humble broken people. Jesus taught us to be radical, but warned the disciples to not glory in their ability to cast out demons [spiritual warfare] but rather to glory in the fact that their names were written in heaven. I just thought it was worth reminding you that the MEEK INHERIT THE EARTH not the strong and mighty warriors!

(231)I thought I saw an ad for a pre season football game last night, it seems early? The other day I watched ‘invincible’ the true story of Vince Pappale, who played for the Eagles in the 70’s. The new coach of the eagles had open tryouts for anyone who wanted to try out. Out of 70 or so people, Pappale made the team! He was a bartender in South Philly and never played college ball, just ‘sandlot’. I loved playing street football in Jersey. Full tackle without gear. The problem was we liked to ‘hurt’ the other team. Well the movie is a great movie. Pappale plays a few seasons with the Eagles and does make history. The scenes of the street games remind me a lot of my youth days. Even the scenery of south Philly looks like Jersey. Pappale lives in Jersey today. There are times when you run with the ball, and times when you pass it. When running with it you become the focus of attention. Everyone wants to get you. At that time your only goal is to ‘not lose the ball’ and either run, pass or hand off. You are at certain seasons required to run with it! A lot of people will be coming after you, don’t take it personal, it’s not you their looking for, they want that ball [the thing of value]! NOTE; I do remember another time playing a game, someone on the opposing team did something [?] and the next chance I got, during the game, I ‘jabbed him’ about 5 times in a row with a ‘left jab’. Which means a direct punch in the face without gloves on. We played the type of street ball that incorporated many sports at once!

(232)EMBRACING A RADICAL PROPHET Most of us today are not willing to hear and see on the university level [spiritually speaking] we seem to forget the radical departure that the early followers of Christ had to make in order to embrace him. The concept of Jesus being Gods son, making himself equal to God was a drastic step of heresy for the 1st century Jew. Even today most people don’t realize that many Messianic congregations are not comfortable with the historic language of the Trinity. To embrace Jesus was a very radical theological departure from the norm! Now I am not advocating that we ‘depart from the norm’ today. In the sense that we have been handed down the historic faith that scripture says ‘has once been delivered to the saints’. But we often mistake our own peculiar convictions for ‘the historic faith’. God is calling us today to radical revolution. We live in a day where Christians are being killed for the faith! Most western believers don’t seem to understand this. We need to at least be radical enough to forsake the world and its creature comforts for the gospel. I am not advocating ‘self martyrdom’ but can we at least be willing to walk in a way that might seem contrary to the norm!

(233)A few months back a prominent prophet, who I have tried to ‘correct’ in some ways, gave a dream he had. Part of the dream spoke of a creature with a ‘TV’ as a head. He said how he felt the ‘creature’ was trying to ‘suck him in’. Though this strange creature was pathetic [made you want to stay out of sympathy] yet he knew it was something to be avoided at all costs. I forget the interpretation he gave. I like this one; many of the abuses I have dealt with are prominent in much of today’s Christian TV circles. Many of the proponents have advanced their cause thru this means. Many ‘have been seduced/sucked in’ thru sympathetic pleas and figures. A key strategy of the enemy is to get you to embrace deception out of a ‘soul felt’ friendship or actually ‘feeling sympathy for someone’. While sympathy is a God given quality, true sympathy loves someone enough to speak the truth. I do find it interesting that this brother has in some ways been influenced, sympathetically, to embrace these ‘TV’ type personalities. I feel the Lord was telling him thru this dream to ‘run from the creature!’

(234)Just reading Isaiah 42, it says God anointed Jesus [and the Body of Christ] to bring forth judgment. He shall not cry nor cause his voice to be heard [self promotion]. He shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He will open blind eyes and show people aspects of truth that they have never seen before. The ‘coastlands’ shall wait to hear the word the Lord will speak. They will be ‘fascinated’ by the Spirits ministry. The Lord will go forth ‘like a mighty man, he will shout like a woman in labor’. For a long time he held his peace, but finally said ‘it is enough, I cant sit by silently and let this go on’. Those that trust in graven images [idolatry- the old testament equal to covetousness] will be greatly ashamed and distressed. They will see themselves being reproved and corrected like never before. God’s people are like prey, they were ‘preyed upon’ and used as guinea pigs in the laboratories of men’s doctrines. None delivered, none said RESTORE! God will dry up their pools [the polluted sources that were making them sick. The ministries and avenues of ministry that were hurting them] God does all these things with the purpose of restoring and bringing us back to the Cross. God says I will not give my glory to graven images [men’s hearts rejoicing in materialism] but thru this whole process you will feel disoriented. Many of the leaders and sources of the past ‘will dry up’. God will begin to feed you again like the early days. You will hear his voice again, like at the beginning! NOTE: This chapter also says the Lord will roar like a Lion. I have spoken a lot on this blog about the imagery of the ‘Lion of Judah’ there are prophecies I have read this last year that spoke of the Lord roaring, disintegrating obstacles. I feel the ‘roar of the Lion’ can be the prophetic ‘roar’ coming forth from the prophets at this season in the Church.

(235)While reviewing my mission statement I came across a dream that I forgot to mention. In 8-06 I had a dream that I was in a ‘composite’ type city. I wrote ‘Houston/San Antonio/Dallas’ as the cities that I saw. I also saw many friends from different areas and times in life. I saw Navy buddies, New Jersey friends and friends from Texas. I felt this spoke to God giving us open doors to many different people groups. God calls his people ‘the New Jerusalem’ we are called ‘the City of God’ we are the City [that is the people of God] whose builder and maker is God. I thought it was important to share this. I had no idea we would have such an open door to many of you in these cities. The Lord ‘shows you what’s going to happen before it happens’.

(236)A while back I mentioned how the prophet Jeremiah [and others] spoke about ‘tearing down, removing obstacles and building up’. I have been in the ‘demolition stage’ for a while and want to do some ‘building up’. I spoke on the extreme forms of ‘renewing the mind’, things like focusing all your thoughts on money verses, quoting scriptures that seem to focus on what you want out of life. These types of ‘mind renewing’ are not primarily what the New Testament is talking about when it speaks of renewing your mind. Paul the Apostle, who most frequently uses this image, had a basic thrust to his theology JUSTIFICATION BY FAITH Paul was a radical Apostle with a message of God accepting us freely as we believe in his son. Paul knew the terror of legalism and trying to keep Gods commands in order to be saved. The entire Old Testament Jewish law was a complete drain on the human psyche. Man over and over again would attempt to ‘live up to the standard’ to no avail. God allowed the sacrificial system of animals to temporarily ‘cover’ their sins as a future sign of the one sacrifice that would pay for all of mans sin. The Apostle Paul lived under this condemnation for most of his professional life. Paul was a Pharisee who taught Jewish law and was enmeshed deeply into this system. The revelation of being ‘saved’ thru simply believing in the single sacrifice of Christ was a tremendous ‘paradigm’ shift from legalism to grace. It was hard for someone of the Jewish faith to make this transition. It was almost as in if it were too good to be true! This is why Paul says things like ‘If there were a law given that good have made us right with God, then we would be made right by it. But being there is no such law, God has chosen to justify us by faith’. You find this singular theme repeated over and over again in Paul’s writings. Faith in Jesus is not only the way we get into the Kingdom, but it’s also the way we grow and mature once we get in! ‘HAVING BEGUN IN THE SPIRIT ARE WE NOW MADE PERFECT BY THE FLESH [LAW]?’ Galatians. Now with this underlying theme of grace, always warring against the mindset of law, Paul speaks of ‘renewing the mind’. It was a battle to keep at the forefront of the early believers this central reality of the gospel. Paul was continually warring against other religious leaders [Judaizers] who did not walk in grace. This is primarily what the New Testament is speaking about in the area of renewing the mind. Some actually teach the renewing of the mind in a legalistic way. They make you think that you have to change your circumstances and ‘world around you’ by some type of mental gymnastics. You fall into this type of ‘mind renewing’ that puts the pressure on you to change things. This is not the biblical image of renewing the mind! The biblical image is seeing all the great things that God has done for us thru the Cross, and living our lives out of this radical gratitude that causes us to lay down all of our agendas for Gods agenda! The fact that this legalistic mindset of trying to live up to some religious standard is now over, this releases us into a radical way of life that makes Gods Kingdom the priority. As Paul teaches this radical good news, he clearly says ‘you are not saved or accepted with God based on your performance. You are accepted because Christ died for you’. Many people in society today don’t know this! They see the ‘church’ as a bunch of ‘moral hypocrites’. They don’t realize that God is not holding things against them. The account has been paid. God is not requiring them to join some church, or convert to some religion. He is simply trying to get this message to them. Why isn’t it getting to them? O that’s right, when they tune in to our TV shows they see us talking about money! [I forgot, I wasn’t going to tear down today]. You see, the thing that should be compelling us to go into all the world with an urgency to preach Christ is a gratitude for what he’s done for us. We don’t have the right anymore to live for ourselves; we have been bought with a price THEREFORE GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY AND IN YOUR SPIRIT, WHICH BELONG TO GOD.

(237)I want to share a few more ‘funny’ stories, but I also have a lot of serious stuff to get to. The last entry is the heart of the gospel message. The radical ‘reconciliation’ of man back to God thru the Cross is the message. The reality of knowing that you, personally, are forgiven and totally accepted is radical. I have friends who read this site who are not Christian. Some are offended at me because of the strong Christian message that we proclaim. We openly say ‘you can only be saved thru Jesus’. I teach that all Jewish people, all Muslim people, all people every where can only be saved thru Christ. This does offend the modern liberal mind, to which some of our blog reader’s posses. The message is as simple as ‘all men need the sun to live’. Well how could you be so arrogant John. There are many opinions on this. Who do you think you are in making such a statement. How could a so called ‘just’ God require all humans to receive ‘sunlight’ to live. Be open-minded! The fact is God has made his sun [Son] available to all humanity. Some live their whole lives under it’s benefits, without ever giving it a second thought. It is not ‘bigoted’ or close-minded to accept the fact that Jesus Christ is the savior of all mankind. God has reconciled the world back to himself thru his Son. This central message is available for all men to receive. There are things in life that all people need to survive [food water, etc.] the simple fact is all men need Jesus. Don’t get mad over this. You don’t have to become a religious conservative [I’m not!]. You can even look like a radical hippie from the 70’s [I do!]. It’s just a matter of truth that you have been forgiven, why wont you accept this!

(238)Now to the funny stories THE CRACK PIPE AND THE LAPTOP I have my office set up like those basements in the 70’s where teens would hang out and get high. A bunch of ‘doors’ and Beatles posters. Lava lamps [in the living room] a throwback to the 70’s [sort of like the afro looking guy with the leisure suit in ‘that 70’s show’ I crack up just seeing him]. One day I saw one of those corncob pipes they used to sell in the candy stores up north, I thought ‘I need to get one for the study’. Sure enough I am driving my daughter home and I see this head shop [place where you buy bongs and stuff to get high] I thought I will stop real quick and make this Christian purchase. I go in and innocently ask this high school kid working the counter if they had this pipe. He’s sitting there studying for school, trying to make a buck by servicing all the local crack heads needs. He looks at me with disgust and points to the jar filled with pipes on the counter. In ignorant joy I am happy to have located this addition to my office. I do have long hair, look raggedy and am sometimes mistaken for a homeless guy. As I make the purchase I tell the kid ‘I am not going to smoke crack or anything, I just want it for my room’ to which he simply gives me the look ‘yea right’. I went to buy a laptop a while back. While looking at the different ones the young salesmen [another kid looking like he’s working his way thru school] is helping me choose one. I finally get one and am asking him if it’s ready to go online and all. He asks me what kind of Internet connection I use. I reply ‘wal mart’, which was true. We used a service for 10 bucks a month that came from wal mart. The kid asks again in dismay thinking ‘surely this guy doesn’t use wal mart’ I re assured him that it was true, wal mart does carry this. He kind of had a look on his face like ‘wait till I tell my buddies this one’. After the purchase this innocent kid goes thru the whole sales pitch to sell me a case and all the other accessories and stuff, he wants commission! I then simply tell him ‘kid, your looking at someone who uses wal mart dial up, what are your chances your gonna sell me all this others stuff’ to which he replied ‘yea, your right’ with a look of resignation on his face.

(239)I heard a couple of sermons [TV] from good Pastors who were actually teaching some stuff like I teach. One has received from our ministry and I think his teaching it was a direct result of hearing us. In these scenarios the message was focused on the limited perspective of ‘church’ and Christians thinking that ‘going to church’ was their only responsibility. One of the preachers [national guy] is a good Baptist preacher out of Houston. His message contained many good elements, and after ‘raking’ the people over the coals for thinking ‘coming to church’ is what God wants from them, he then dismissed the congregation and all things return back to the present system. The people are still required to work secular jobs and tithe. The Pastor and staff will spend the week running the church, and after all is said and done, nothing really changes. It’s difficult to ‘change the system’ from the inside out. Many reformers in church history found this out. It does take time to truly reform things, especially on a large scale. I don’t advocate total ‘destruction’ of the present system, and I am glad to see some stable Pastors teach along these lines, it’s just that we [Pastors/Leaders] have to realize that most people are still too dependant on us to make the break on their own. Leaders have to lead by example, some are called to radically change the way they function and operate. To simply preach reform from the present system/pulpit is not really adequate. Leaders themselves have to change.

(240)Let me share something, a few months back I took a ride to one of the fishing piers where I live. Brought the paper, tuned in to the radio. I was able to pick up a San Antonio church that I like [Eagles Nest/ Rick Godwin]. Some of the things from the message kind of stirred me up [got me a little angry]. I shared this earlier on this blog. A few weeks later some of the things I wrote about it on the blog became widely available to the entire city of San Antonio on a huge scale. At the time of writing the entry I had no desire or inclination of reaching so many people with the blog, it just happened. It was like the ‘prophetic Spirit’ rises up at set times to speak into the church, if you are faithful to a few [small area] God will then launch you to a lot [large area]. At the time of me responding to what I heard from San Antonio, I wasn’t mad at Rick. I was angry at the limited perspective of church that he was embracing in the sermon. Nothing personal, just God wants change. Don’t look for a national voice; be faithful in the small things. If God desires he will promote you, don’t do it yourself!

(241)Now a little overview. The idea of ‘church’ as the place where we ‘put all the believers’. I mentioned how in the New Testament, no matter how many people were coming to the Lord, the Apostles never thought along these lines. ‘O my God, all Galatia is turning to Christ, where will we put them all?’ NOWHERE! I am thinking of the verse ‘THE SEED IS YET IN THE BARN’ Gods people are the seed. We are always trying to build bigger barns to ‘put them in’. We need to understand it is not the responsibility of leadership to ‘find places to put all the people’ it is the responsibility of leadership to FIND A PLACE TO ‘PUT GOD’ [that is to win people to Christ and these people become the HABITATION OF GOD]

(242)Doing THE FOOTBALL THING again [in the yard praying, walking around with the football]. Got the image of ‘screen pass’. A while back I read a prophecy from Patricia King [extreme prophetic] about the image of water balloons, or some type of ‘bomb’ landing in areas. An image of words and ministries ‘hitting’ areas and having great influence. I had already seen this myself. One of the ‘prayer’ images I use is ‘throwing the football’. I kind of see the Lord ‘launching’ the radio/blog into large regional areas and ‘hitting the ground’ with great influence. I ‘see’ the ball landing in large influential cities and having a wide impact. But I just got the sense of the ‘screen pass’ as well. Sometimes you get so caught up in the ‘hail Mary pass’ [our Catholic friends will like this one!] that you forget to throw the short screen pass. Sometimes you have done all you can do in launching the ‘bomb’ and as you wait for the results you might as well gain a few yards here and there!

(243) A lot of the stuff on this site is ‘prophetic’. That means if you go back and re read you will continue to find new and relevant things that didn’t make sense the first time around. I have quoted the verse THE MAN WHOSE NAME IS THE BRANCH, HE WILL BRANCH OUT OF HIS PLACE [small area of influence] AND BUILD THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD These verses speak of ‘building Gods temple’, literally ‘a place where God can dwell’. In the book of Acts it says ‘God doesn’t dwell in temples made with hands’ [I believe Stephen said this in Acts: 7?] This is a quote from King David in the book of Psalms. David is prophesying the heart of the Father to ‘dwell in humans as the temple’ as opposed to man made ones. The early church had the underlying theme of NOT BUILDING HUMAN TEMPLES This is why you don’t see any ‘church building projects’ until the 4th century of church history. Knowledge can be dangerous, some enlightened people who have seen these truths then used it in a wrong way to condemn all Christians who meet in ‘church buildings’. Buildings are neutral, they are simply tools. You are not deceived to meet in or build a ‘church building’. It’s just that we need a radical re organization in thought and function at this time in church history!

(244)I remember many years ago I was in a large church service; the Pastor is a friend of mine. At the end of the service he asked me and some elders of the church to come up and pray for peoples needs. I was about 29 years old at the time. Well any way the guy I was going to pray for was around 50. He was a smart ‘alec’ [cant curse!] I guess he thought it was beneath him to have some ‘rookie kid’ pray for him. So when I asked what he would like to pray for, he said ‘I want you to pray that I will have a million dollars and become 6 feet tall’. I felt like ‘slaying him in the spirit’ right there! Well I began praying ‘father, bless this man and let him know that he is valuable in your eyes, worth more than a million dollars. Teach him that he has great stature in your Kingdom, that which cannot be measured in physical height’. I went on for a few minutes. I did feel the anointing. When I was done he looked shaken and pale. I guess the Lord shook him up for me!

(245)Being I mentioned Eagles Nest in San Antonio, let me say a few things about another worldwide ministry out of San Antonio. I wont say the church, but they are one of the biggest in the City. This church is a good old time Pentecostal gospel preaching church. Every now and than you can catch the Pastor on his TV show teaching on Armageddon being right around the corner [hey, how many times can it be right around the corner?]. This brother thinks its heresy to not believe the rapture as being a separate event from the second coming [even though most Christians thru out history have not believed the rapture, and the majority of believers today do not hold to this view!]. The whole end time scenario of ‘scare tactics’ that this church preaches is not my cup of tea. Is Jesus coming again? Yes! Will there be an end of the world some day? Yes! Do I know when? No. But neither do you! The whole point is when we become isolated in our understanding from the rest of the historic church, we are then in danger of missing the ‘whole counsel of God’. It amazes me to hear preachers who are just beginning to reject the rapture publicly. Some who have heard me speak it are now becoming more comfortable about ‘coming out of the closet’ with their own doubts about this doctrine. But when they come out with it, they sound as if they are going against the world. I feel like saying ‘brother, most Christians today know how silly the doctrine is, it’s only the isolated camps that are not aware of the doubtfulness of this doctrine’. Now I am not saying all Christians who believe the rapture are isolated or ignorant. They certainly are not! But some believers think that the probability of ‘the rapture’ as being fake is a secret that only a few know about. Hey, most Christians and theologians worldwide are familiar with the majority of believers not embracing this doctrine. But if all of your education is coming from a good Pastor, who does preach the gospel, but holds to less than ideal views of the end time. Then you are in danger of believing things out of a lack of getting ‘the whole counsel of God’. You cannot access the ‘whole counsel of God’ unless you know what the ‘whole church believes, and has believed for the last 2 thousand years’. God expressly manifests his mind thru the church. We are the ‘Body of Christ’ we possess the mind of Christ as his representatives on earth. Is the majority report always right? No. But if you don’t even realize that there exists a ‘majority report’ then you will be in danger of living your whole Christian experience with the small perspective of some preachers ‘end time charts’. NOTE: I have tried to explain in a lot of our teaching why I don’t believe in the rapture [that is that Jesus comes back in the air to secretly take us to heaven, then comes back later, 7 years for most, 3.5 for others, in another event called the 2nd coming] without getting to technical let me leave you with this thought. In the gospel of John, chapter 17 Jesus says ‘FATHER, I AM NOT PRAYING FOR YOU TO TAKE THEM OUT OF THE WORLD [rapture!] BUT FOR YOU TO KEEP THEM FROM THE EVIL THAT IS IN THE WORLD This one statement alone shows you the purpose of God for the church. We are salt and light to the world. The salt does no good if it’s not on the table!

(246)Woke up this morning and was thinking of a verse YOU HAVE NOT CHOSEN ME, BUT I HAVE CHOSEN YOU AND ORDAINED YOU TO BE A PROPHET TO THE NATIONS [the ‘prophetic voice’ applies to all of us] Then got into the bath tub and put the Christian music station on the radio. Sure enough that was the verse ‘for the day’ [the verse on the radio was from Johns gospel ‘you have not chosen me, but I have chosen you’ the verse I heard was a composite of John and Jeremiah]. I want to share some stuff that might be hard to explain? This year 2006/2007 brought together a 10-12-and 14 year ‘set’ of times for me and the ministry [a ‘set’ time has come, Kairos]. I moved to C.C. in 1992-14 yrs. The 10 and 12 represent trials and things we went thru during the process of ‘being in the desert’ [I literally live on a sand bluff, right off an Island!] The past few years I would notice the number 8:44 a lot. I kind of didn’t like this sign. Without even reading it I knew John 8:44 said ‘you are of your father the devil’. Its kind of one of those signs that you try to avoid! I heard a prophet in 2006 share how the Lord had said ‘14 years is enough’ and another who said God brought him out of a 12 year wilderness. Luke 8:44 says that a woman who had an infirmity of bleeding was healed by Jesus, she was sick 12 years. Felt like this was the 8:44 significance. The angel appeared to the Virgin Mary and told her words that caused her to ‘birth a Divine Son’. Some scholars believe Mary was around 14 yrs old at the time [some as young as 12!] Well if you put all of it together it’s like the Lord was saying a ‘set time has come’ [literally a set of times all meeting at once] That the Lord has chosen you for special things. His word to you is causing a ceasing of the ‘hemorrhaging’ that has been going on for quite some time. He is ‘closing up the breach’. His word to you is going to cause you to ‘birth a divine thing at this season’. You simply must believe his Word! NOTE: Yesterday I was going to mow my yard and first had to drop my daughter off at school. On the way the sky was turning real dark and you can see a strong storm moving in. I didn’t think I would get to cut the yard. I hurried and managed to cut it. The sky was black and stormy both to the north and south. It rained very little at my house. While watching the news that night it flooded Houston and Kingsville [our ‘perimeter’ cities] The rain collapsed a roof on one of the buildings we use for the Fire Dept. The ‘recycling center’. Felt like the Lord was saying he is going to pour out on these areas and the ‘structures of men’ will be unable to contain what he is going to do. His ‘rain’ will break thru ‘ceilings’ [limits] that men have put on my people and they will ‘flow out of the buildings and flood the streets!’ He is going to ‘recycle’ [restore and put back into service] many of you.

(247)Let me give a little example. The fact that the Lord has permitted us [me] to actually have a ‘footprint’ [spiritually speaking] in a large area has baffled some ‘clergy’. Some sincere men have spent many thousands of dollars to try and create a ‘presence’ in other areas. I just want to share something to help you guys. I try not to think of ministry as holding a church meeting and getting as many people to come and support the growth of ‘the church’. I feel this mindset is limited. If you see ‘blog sites’ or ‘radio’ or any other means of communication as simply a forum to advertise ‘church meetings’ then you are cutting your influence off without realizing it. I have gone to ministry web sites that I wanted to read and study from. Some are simply set up to offer products for sale, or to invite you to attend ‘church’. Say if the primary means of communicating the gospel in the 1st century were taking this approach. The letters of Paul and the oral preaching were used to directly get the word out to groups of people. Say if you received a letter from Paul, or got the New Testament canon in the 4th century and opened it up to find an ad from some Apostle inviting you to a service. Or you read the 1st chapter of Romans and then it said ‘to read the rest of this article send 15 dollars to Apostle Paul outreach ministries in Rome’. Now I am not trying to be critical, I am trying to show you how we limit our own effectiveness by seeing ‘church’ as the Christian business that we run. I have gone to some web sites of old Baptist friends to see what’s going on. Some have the ad for their church, a picture of the building [maybe can hold 200 people?] and an invitation to ‘come to church’. Now these sites have the potential of reaching the entire world. Why would you make such a limited invitation? Utilize the thing to get the gospel out brother! Well I just wanted to help my ‘fellow ministers’ to see how its possible to have a large regional influence. Don’t use the tools to simply invite people to your church meeting, use the tools to start a revolution! NOTE; another ingredient in having a ‘large footprint’ is not desiring to have a ‘large footprint’.

(248)I was just thinking about this, even though I haven’t read these books in a while. If you go to the ‘restoration’ books of the Old Testament [Nehemiah, Ezra] and the Prophets who prophesied during this period [Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Daniel] you will find the interesting story of Israel and Gods judgment on them, the destruction and desecration of the temple, and finally the restoration of Israel back to their land and the rebuilt temple. The rebuilding of the city walls and the temple are a beautiful picture of Gods restoration. In the New Testament the Church is called ‘the city of God’ and ‘the Temple of God’. In the Old Testament temple you had the ‘cornerstone’ as the part of the foundation that the whole building was measured on, and you had the ‘capstone/headstone’ that was the finishing stone at the top of the building. Jesus is called the ‘cornerstone’ in the New Testament; he is also the ‘headstone’ the head of the Church who derives authority thru his death for us. A ‘headstone’ is the marker showing that one has truly died. All the New Testament Church are measured and built from the cornerstone Jesus. He is the foundation of the Church. Jesus is also the head stone, finishing stone. He is not only the ‘beginning’ of our faith, but also the ‘finisher’ [Hebrews calls Jesus the author and finisher of the faith]. This shows us that Gods ultimate purpose is to have a mature completed Temple that shows the fullness of Christ to all the universe [Ephesians]. As we develop and grow in [to] him, we don’t grow ‘away from him’ [as some teach when they speak of moving on from the Cross] but we grow more ‘into him’ that is becoming more fully developed as the Body of Christ in the earth. Our headstone derived his authority thru his death and resurrection, so like wise the whole building will derive its authority as we die to ourselves and become more alive unto him and his purposes in the earth.

(249)I, EVEN I, AM HE THAT BLOTTETH OUT THY TRANSGRESSIONS FOR MY OWN SAKE, AND WILL NOT REMEMBER THY SINS The Lord says there are past faults that are holding you back, he forgives you and will not remember these. Not as some favor to you, BUT FOR HIS OWN SAKE! He has created you with a purpose in mind, and he needs you to fulfill it!

(250)Just woke up, I am at work. It’s real early and I felt like we should overview some things. In the old days when I pastored I would get a thought/idea and then research it and develop it over a 2-4 day period and then preach it on a Sunday [OK]. To just wake up and start writing from scratch allows me to cover a lot of territory, but also risk missing a fact or two. Nothing major, just maybe a side detail. So to my critics, hunt and you will find. To my friends I hope we are breaking thru. A few days ago I spoke on Paul and the underlying theme of our acceptance with God by faith. As a religious teacher of the Jews, Paul was well instructed on the life of Abraham. The Jewish people looked to him as ‘the father of the faith’. In Genesis chapters 12 and 15 you find stories that become the basis of Paul’s theological argument for Justification by faith. Even though Paul and the other Pharisees knew about these stories, it never ‘dawned’ on them until the Spirit of God revealed it to them. Paul will go to these time and again. The books of Romans [4] Galatians [2-3] and to the surprise of some, even Hebrews [11] are actually ‘justification by faith’ arguments. [I will develop the Hebrews argument at another time, but it ‘dawned’ on me one day that this was Paul’s ‘open letter’ to the Jews of his day. This is why it’s unsigned. The Jews would not read something from Paul after all the slander he received by the Judaizers. Hebrews ‘theologically’ bridges the gap between the book of James and Paul’s epistles, a lot can be taught right here] Paul lays out for the Jews the simple fact that God counted Abraham righteous [accepted and just] when Abraham ‘believed in God’. It was AFTER he believed in God that he then was circumcised. The law of Moses [10 commandments] weren’t even around yet! This simple truth showed the religious community of the 1st century that acceptance with God was not a cultural [circumcision] or religious/legalistic [10 commandments] thing. God was already receiving people based on their belief in Him years earlier. Now Paul does some tremendous ‘brainwork’ on revealing things from The Old Testament and showing how they were ‘precursors’ to Christ. But I want you to see this simple truth today. One of the main teachings of the New Testament is that God accepts you when you believe in his Son. This is no excuse to go out and sin, but your living different is a result of your free acceptance with God. It is not the CAUSE of it. I find it interesting that the bible actually says that no person can ever be saved by trying to live good, go to church, obey the commandments and all the other things we put on people. Paul actually makes the statement [Galatians] IF A PERSON CAN BE MADE RIGHT WITH GOD BY DOING SOMETHING, THEN CHRIST DIED IN VAIN. Think about that. If there were some other way to ‘get saved’ and go to heaven [now God wants a lot more than this!]Then why would he have given his Son to die? If you owed 100 dollars on some debt and the creditors were calling. Would you say ‘well I guess I will go and die for the payment’. Not if you could get out of it by paying the 100 dollars! So this is one of the arguments that Paul uses. He then goes on to explain ‘why did God give us the 10 commandments’. He teaches that God gave us the law to REVEAL MANS SIN TO HIMSELF. Some believers are not as clear as they should be on this. Even if we could get all the 10 commandments posted in all the schools of the world, this still would not fundamentally change the way kids act. I would rather post John 3:16! I am being a little sarcastic. The point is God gave man the law [10 commandments] so after a few thousand years of ‘trying to be good’ he would come to a point of utter failure. The law did its job; it showed man his need for a savior. This is the New Testament argument. Today I want all my readers that are not really Christian to see this. I can argue all the merits of Gods existence and all the proofs from natural law and every other angle there is. But I want you to see that Christ died for you. God is not telling you to become a religious conservative. He is telling you you’re forgiven and accepted, IF YOU WILL ONLY BELIEVE. [Read Hebrews: 11 commentary on this site!]

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(252)LOYAL TO WHAT? I remember hearing Brother Roloff say that you had all these preachers being faithful to this thing or some cause. He said it in a way like ‘we are trying to be faithful to all these things, and God wants us to be faithful to him’. I want to share this for practical reasons. We are beginning to re connect with many friends and brothers from the past. God says I WILL BRING YOUR SEED FROM THE EAST, I WILL GATHER YOU FROM THE WEST. I WILL SAY TO THE NORTH GIVE UP, CALL YOUR SONS FROM THE SOUTH. As the Lord brings people ‘our way’ we are not seeking to get them to ‘commit to us’. If God is hooking you up to us relationally, great! Maybe you will sponsor a home group? Maybe you will start a local jail outreach? We [I] will try to get together with you on a monthly/bi monthly or annual basis. I am not trying to recruit people! We want to start a revolution in the Church [Body of Christ]. God has called all of you to much more than living vicariously thru your Pastor[s]. As a believer you are to experience this adventure with God, and Christian leadership exists to help you get on course. The leaders give you ‘kayaking instructions’ but you are not to spend the rest of your life taking the instruction course, you are supposed to eventually launch! I look forward to meeting those of you who are being ‘revolutionized’. I want to be open to those who desire to sponsor home groups in your cities/states [NATIONS]. Most of all I want you to be loyal to the call of Christian growth and responsibility that you are learning at this time. I am not asking you to support me, I am asking you to ‘imitate me as I imitate Christ’. Join the revolution!

(253)THE HIGHLY MOTIVATED LEADER IS NOT THE PATTERN I was reading from a church site [you can learn a lot by just reading the actual teaching catalog, at least from ours you can!] and the majority of the messages were on ‘overcoming obstacles’ ‘taking your mountain’ ‘destroying obstacles’ ‘crushing the devil’ and stuff like that. We too often present a model of Christian leadership that would be next to impossible for everyone to live up to. I know we don’t mean this, but it happens. In today’s highly motivated mega church environment we often present the highly motivated Pastor in a way that most average believers could never attain too. I think of the grandma who attends the ‘composite’ church that I referenced above [a group of all the highly motivated preachers all rolled into one]. After going thru all the devil crushing, mountain moving, unceasing unrelenting sermons from the above average high achieving mega church Pastors. I think grandma would be ready for the nursing home! Now, I believe and know there are great mega churches out there, doing great things for God. We also need to be aware of that part of the gospel that says ‘my yoke is easy and my burden is light’. I too fall into the category of ‘non stop’ at times. I am just as guilty as the rest! We need to re evaluate the picture that we are painting for the disciple of Christ. The revolution that I want you to join is the simple reality that we can all effectively live the journey. Not just a few exceptional leaders, but all of us!

(254)BRINGING MANY SONS UNTO GLORY The intent of the ministry of Jesus is to bring many sons to a place of interdependence and maturity. The language Jesus uses in the gospel of John is striking. He tells the disciples ‘I don’t call you servants, but friends, brothers’ ‘you have come to me, but now you can go directly to the Father yourself and ask him’. The present development of the role of Pastor has been understood to not be the ideal in Christian community. It is becoming common knowledge among a broad base of believers that the role of Pastor, as the singular voice of the congregation who is looked at as the hired minister, is not found in the New Testament. Does this mean we are all in rebellion? No. Does this mean that all churches must now close and start from scratch? No. But it does mean that as fellow believers we begin to maturely address these issues of form and function as God directs. The fact that the word ‘Pastor’ is found one time in the New Testament [Ephesians] but yet other words are found a lot [Apostle, Elder, Brethren, etc.] shows us that somewhere along the line we introduced a role that wasn’t the original intent of God. We have a tendency to take biblical words and attach our own definitions to them [Bishop, Pastor, etc.] As we see the progression of language in the New Testament itself, we begin to grasp the heart of God. John’s letters are some of the latest written in the New Testament. In John’s epistles you find the language of children and brothers more than elders and Leaders. This showing that as the early church matured she moved away from authoritarian titles, and moved closer to family terms. In Gods desire to ‘bring many sons unto glory’ there is a necessity of top-heavy leadership models to come down. Jesus washing the disciple’s feet and images like this. Blatantly telling the disciples that in the world leadership is based on being in charge, but in the church it is based on not being in charge. Being a servant who grasps the admonition of John the Baptist HE MUST INCREASE AND I MUST DECREASE. As the church progresses down this path the natural result will be for the ‘many sons to come to maturity’. I am sure it felt strange for Jesus to tell the disciples ‘you came to me before, but now you go to the Father yourself’. This is a true act of biblical leadership. People in the beginning depend on leaders a lot; it is incumbent on Godly leadership to let them come directly to the Father.

(255)Lets go back to an original thought. I want to throw this out to our intellectual readers. The whole idea that Paul wrote Hebrews, and specifically chapter 11 as a way to bring the truth of Justification by faith to the Jewish church is what I want to propose. If you read Romans and Galatians you see Paul’s entire argument for justification by faith as seen in the Genesis 12, 15 story of Abraham. When James teaches Abraham in the book of James, he is primarily seeing the view from the story of Abraham offering Isaac on the altar [Gen 22?] James is seeing ‘actual, experiential justification’ Paul is seeing ‘judicial, declarative justification’. Paul says ‘God declares you righteous at the moment of faith, before you ever see it actually working out in the life of the person.’ James doesn’t contradict this, but James says ‘look at Abraham, when God declared him righteous [Gen 15] he eventually became what God declared! [Gen 22 Actually doing right things, offering up his son]. Now where most Christians [including theologians] miss it is when they try to bring these 2 truths together. They usually say ‘what James is saying is active faith saves you, not works’ If you read James carefully he is not saying that! He actually says ‘see how a man is saved by works, not only faith’. I believe the truth is James is seeing God declaring a person righteous when he actually does a righteous thing. Now this can get hard, but in Paul’s view Abraham became justified in Gen 15, true. And in James view when Abraham actually did the work of obedience, God also said ‘well done, you did good!’ In essence God has the sovereignty to declare you ‘right’ whenever he wants. Now we know the only reason a person can ever get to the point of ‘doing right’ is because he already passed the point of ‘being declared right’ [Gen:15 versus Gen:22]. It’s just that the Jewish church was emphasizing the ‘actually righteous’ part, where as the gentile churches were focusing on the ‘believing and being justified’ part. No contradiction, just seeing at a different timeline. This is also one of the main areas of division between the Protestants and Catholics. Luther was seeing the Gentile view [Romans/Galatians] the Catholics were seeing the ‘actual’ view [James]. The Catholics actually called Luther’s [and Paul’s!] view ‘a legal fiction’ they said Luther taught a man can be legally Justified without ever showing it. Luther really didn’t teach that, but he did say once God justifies you, it’s not up to your works to save you. Many don’t realize that Luther also strongly believed in predestination. All the major reformers did as well! Now you read Hebrews 11 with this in mind. All thru the chapter Paul is saying ‘look, all these heroes of faith acted by faith. They actually did works of righteousness by faith. They ALL obtained a GOOD REPORT [declared right!] by faith’. Read this chapter with this in mind and you will now see the whole point of the chapter. It’s Paul’s treatise of ‘justification by faith’ written anonymously to the Jewish nation. Here my friends is the solution to the problem. This view bridges for the first time [I believe] the whole problem of the book of James and the epistles of Paul. It also helps bridge one of the major divisions in the church today. Take this and run with it! NOTE; Luther called the book of James ‘a straw letter’ and at one point thought it should not have been added to the canon, though later he did include it in his bible versions! Also Paul includes Rahab the harlot as someone that was justified by faith, showing it didn’t matter how many sins you have committed in the past, if you believe you too will be justified. [see Hebrews 11 on this site]

(256)I am up early at my daughters ranch, walking outside and praying/prophesying. I do realize if someone hears me they will think I am crazy, it wont be the first time! It’s the Saturday right after Good Friday. I will celebrate Easter today. I am working tomorrow. Just remembered something, the religious leaders were always condemning Jesus for ‘working on the Sabbath’. In death he finally shut them up. Can you imagine what they would have said if he rose on the Sabbath day! Well I wanted to share this. There are at this season many Apostles and Prophets who are thoroughly mad at me. I realize why, let me explain. Over the years there have been many ‘cessationists’ that later on saw the truth of the gifts of the Spirit and the ‘5 fold’ ministry. A lot of these brothers cant grasp the fact that even though the Lord has used them to prophesy and even do great miracles [by the Spirit] that he is also tremendously ‘jealous’ for the gospel. God will even allow ‘cessationists’ [I am not one myself] to reprove the more extreme elements of the Charismatic/word of faith movements. It’s like the Prophets feel like ‘hey, I have spoken great words. The Lord has used me to do mighty deeds. Who do you think you are in bringing correction to me’? I don’t care who you are, to be frank about it. Neither does God! Don’t mean to be mean, God is no respecter of persons. When anyone permits really off the wall stuff to slip in to the church, and then not only refuses to ‘prophesy’ against it, but actually defends it. Then at this point God will raise up anybody who is willing to come against it. Listen to the radical contemporary Christian rock of our day. They say things like ‘don’t live for the stuff of this world’ ‘don’t fall for the American dream’. God is using these young kids to prophesy what I have been preaching. Look at the ‘emerging church’ today. The same thing. God is not concerned about defending your Apostolic/Prophetic ministry. If you guys refuse to speak truth, then it will come from another direction. I just wanted to speak this. The Prophetic/Apostolic pride is preventing the Word of the Lord to have free course.

(257)Now that I’m getting into it, let me discuss the role of Apostles and Prophets and how they fit into the Church. During the restoration of Apostles/Prophets in the last quarter of the 20th century there were a lot of mistakes made in the area of ‘function’. It was common for Apostles to see the list of ‘5 fold’ that Paul gives ‘first Apostles, then Prophets, etc’ and to read it in an authoritarian way. Apostles would try to form ‘relationships’ with various Pastors and teach a submission that was not biblical. It kind of went like ‘I am now the Apostle who ‘covers’ your Pastor, Your Pastor covers you and the people are under all these levels of ‘covering’ and the view to God was getting ‘cloudy’. Paul wrote the list of Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists Pastors and teachers. Paul did say ‘first Apostles, secondarily Prophets’ some feel this is simply stating the order in which they appeared. First God brought in Apostles, Then Prophets [New Testament ones!] etc. This view has truth to it. But even if you took it the other way, Paul later says God has counted the Apostles last. He tells the Corinthians this. Well how can they be first and last! Surely Jesus never taught any thing like this? Here we go again. Lets just say in general all Gods gifted 5 fold ministers exist to bring you to maturity as Gods people. Any view that has all these authority structures is really not the intent. Some of these brothers don’t even realize the ‘Pastors’ who they think they are covering are not even a biblical position in the way they function today. So Apostles and Prophets and all these gifts do exist [at least in my mind!] but they exist to release you into your full inheritance in Christ [Not talking money here!] As these gifts are restored and recognized, lets keep in mind that Jesus taught the first would be last and the last first!

(258)THESE ARE THE PEOPLE IN THE SYSTEM, WE ARE HERE TO FREE THEM FROM THE SYSTEM. THEY ARE UNAWARE THAT THEY ARE IN THE SYSTEM, THEY ARE SO DEPENDANT ON THE SYSTEM THAT THEY WILL EVEN FIGHT TO DEFEND IT Morpheus said this to Neo in the movie the Matrix. Good Stuff! This applies to the lost as well as to the saved [even the Leaders!]

(259)Recently a good preacher died. Bishop Patterson, he was a real good black preacher. I liked him. I remember when I wrote the first book against the prosperity gospel [HOUSE OF PRAYER OR DEN OF THIEVES which you can read in its entirety on this site] I used an example of another black preacher [who I don’t like, but have to love as a brother!] Leroy Thompson. The example was he started preaching for Christians to say ‘MONEY COMING TO ME’ and I remember hearing friends of mine from a local Assembly of God church going around doing this [at least I remember they were confessing money a lot] I don’t know if the Pastor fell for it or what? But when I wrote the book I had to deal with it because it was such an obvious abuse of the Word. Well anyway I later heard Bishop Patterson say the same thing that I said. He had the guts to publicly say ‘you have all these Christians going around saying ‘money coming to me’ and this is wrong’. Kudos to brother Patterson for breaking cultural lines in order to be faithful to the Lord! NOTE: To ‘not like’ bro. Thompson means I do not like the way he distorts the gospel, our confession is supposed to be JESUS not MONEY!

(260)It’s Easter morning, it’s early and I will be driving to work in a little while. Felt like I needed to say some stuff. First: I thought I heard the Lord say to you A JUST MAN FALLS SEVEN TIMES AND GETS UP AGAIN, A WICKED PERSON FALLS ONCE AND STAYS THERE The word to you is “you have experienced a ‘perfect’ [7 times] season of ‘falling’ [failure]”. It was in my plan to allow you to “be in the grave [yesterday was the Sabbath before Easter]. I am now going to ‘perfect’ [7] that which I have destined you for”. Scripture says MANY WITH UNDERSTANDING, WHO INSTRUCT MANY, SHALL FALL FOR MANY DAYS [Daniel?] The amount of ‘down time’ that you have experienced is directly related to the amount [area] of people you will instruct [many]. There was a season where you were alone [one] and when one is alone, if he falls he has no one to help him up. You have been there many times and have learned to get up on your own, though it was difficult. Where 2 are, one can help the other up and a 3-fold cord is not easily broken, be open to the ‘3 fold cords’ godly connections in ministry and relationships that I am bringing your way. Just as it was difficult to ‘break’ ungodly alliances, so will it be difficult to break the thing I am going to do thru you. The Divine 3 fold cords are not easily broken.

(261)I want to be careful in sharing this. I had a friend who was either ordained or sponsored by a large regional church [Houston]. Over a period of years I taught this person some of the things I have shown you guys thru this blog. It was difficult for this person to choose scripture over the strong word of faith background that they had. This person even told me ‘well you and Paul [Apostle] can believe your way, I’LL believe mine’. They said this after I simply read 1st Timothy chapter 6 and showed them how the mindset of the New Testament was directly opposed to the peculiar style of belief they were taught. At one point this person began to forsake many of the doctrines they previously held. Then I could tell they went back to their old beliefs and were telling others that I was a false prophet. I do find it strange that someone who preaches a radical message of forsaking all for Christ is a false prophet, but many of the teachers this person listened to routinely distorted the image of Jesus and taught that Jesus and the disciples were some of the wealthiest people of the first century. A total and complete distortion of the New Testament record. Well I am sad to say this person died soon after this. They were in there 40’s and I was not glad to have heard this. I am not saying they died as a direct result of calling me a false prophet. I do believe God allows certain abuses to go on for so long [like the teachings of this movement] before he says ‘enough is enough’ [FOR A LONG TIME I HAVE HELD MY PEACE AND BEEN SILENT, NOW I WILL ROAR LIKE A WOMAN IN TRAVAIL-Isaiah] There was a time where the Lord ‘overlooked men’s ignorance’ and then says ‘I cant let this go on any longer’. I felt the Lord wanted me to share this. The primary job for the preacher of the gospel is to present Jesus, when you blatantly present ‘another Jesus’ [Galatians] God will eventually deal with you. NOTE: I find it amazing that one of these preachers used to regularly come on T.B.N. wearing very expensive jewelry and teach how Jesus was just like this. You can’t be so obviously wrong and spread this stuff to hundreds of thousands of young believers. It’s the devastating effect that these guys have on the new believers that is tragic. This brother eventually tried to start a branch ‘church’ in Corpus Christi. I actually called him out publicly, by name, on radio. I know this was strong, but the amount of blatant heresy had to be confronted. Their church, as far as I know, never made it. NOTE: In the early days I had Pastor friends who heard the stuff we were preaching and without fully realizing the heresy these guys were spreading, would defend them from the pulpit. This directly limited the intended growth of their churches. God is much more concerned with the accurate preaching of his Son, than with the size of a church. Many of these brothers would directly reject our message because they were believing for lots of money at the time. It’s OK to trust God for great resources, the problem was they were believing for the resources and defending the false teachers at the same time. You can believe God for money without defending heretics! NOTE: I remember showing some of these truths to a Pastor in Corpus. He then said ‘the bible speaks of God blessing us financially’ which of course is true. The inability of this leader to be able to distinguish between being blessed and ‘those that teach gain is godliness have swerved from the faith, avoid them’ is a problem in leadership today. The level of discernment is severely lacking.

(262)I saw a good message from Rick Warren, he was speaking at a Hillsong conference in Australia. He basically preached what I preach on money [of course not as strong!] He was quoting Jesus on ‘A MANS LIFE CONSISTS NOT IN THE ABUNDANCE OF THE THINGS THAT HE POSSESSES ’ It was interesting, as they panned thru the front row they showed a major prosperity preacher listening. The message was a great message, but you can tell it didn’t fit in with the usual fare. It’s like you could see that the prosperity crowd would not really ‘draw’ from this message. You kind of get ‘programmed’ to want to ‘receive stuff’ when your in the movement. When someone comes along and preaches the real gospel, it’s ‘strange’ to the prosperity brothers.

(263)PETER CAST THE NET AT JESUS WORD AND BROUGHT IN MORE IN ONE CAST THAN THE ENTIRE NIGHT I haven’t read this story in a while, but I remember that in the King James Version Jesus tells Peter to let down the nets, and Peter only lets down ‘the net’. You get the sense that Peter was up all night trying to catch fish, he cleaned the nets already and he figured ‘poor Jesus means well, but he just didn’t understand that fishing is poor right now’. Well old Peter didn’t understand the difference between fishing in the flesh and fishing in the Spirit! It was his patronizing attitude that caused him to let down ‘one net’. Jesus said ‘put them all out son’. When the Lord tells you to cast, CAST! You will bring in more in one shot than all the nights you spent in your own efforts!

(264)A few years ago I did a radio series on the book of Exodus. One of the things we brought out was the story of the children of Israel giving freely of their riches and wealth in order to make the calf. The calf represents idolatry/covetousness. I was trying to show how certain forms of ‘giving’ are actually idolatry! For years giving was taught in a way that focused on ‘the act of giving’ as opposed to the ‘actual need being met’. People were only excited about giving, like being excited about investing in a stock or 401 K. The motive for giving was covetousness. There are many people today who ‘give’ willingly to an investment. The excitement is watching it grow. This is not New Testament giving. This is investing. It’s not wrong per se, but it’s not giving out of love. Even though the children of Israel ‘gave’ it wasn’t glorifying God! I remember many years ago being in a restaurant with some friends, preachers and stuff. One of the brothers was a prosperity preacher, he had just finished preaching and we were out fellowshipping. He was so excited about ‘giving’ that at one point he took off an expensive watch and ‘gave’ it to my friend [a prophet]. My friend accepted it, but you could tell the preacher then started regretting that he did it. This is a type of ‘giving’ that glorifies the ‘giving’ part, without actually meeting the true need of a person out of compassion. The New Testament model of giving is based on compassion for your fellow man, not on some investment scheme! NOTE: Just felt like I heard someone say ‘so what’s the point’? The point is when Gods people get free from idolatry [covetousness] we can then move on from our ‘golden calves’ to the true worship of God! NOTE: The prophet friend was one of those types who would ‘butt heads’ with Pastors and leaders. I was challenged this night by him in some way [?] I remember responding, like not letting it get to me and answering whatever challenge he gave me with wisdom. He was familiar with ‘pushing the buttons’ of Pastors and making them feel uneasy and stuff. By this time I had already been thru so much stuff, his little ‘attack’ didn’t produce the desired results. He kind of looked at me and said ‘you’ve been thru this before’ which was correct. NOTE: the ‘calf’ was made out of GOLD and they worshipped it as a god. This is the heart of idolatry, to ‘re fashion’ the image of God into the image of what men desire [Romans 1-2]. Eventually if a person insists on ‘seeing’ the ‘Jesus’ of his own imagination [rich, etc.] then God will ‘give them over’ to that image. In essence their ‘god’ will become a ‘golden calf’ an image of wealth that does disgrace to the true image of Christ! [OUCH!]

(265)A few months back I had a dream. I dreamt I was leaving a church service and met the Pastor in the parking lot. He asked where I was going and invited me to go with him to the new church building they were constructing at the time. He asked if I needed some wood for ‘my structure’ and he told me they had extra to give me. As I was getting in his car there wasn’t enough room so he said ‘take your truck’. Vehicles represent ‘ministries’ in prophetic imagery. They ‘carry’ you to the place of destiny. Wood represents the ‘people’ you build. Scripture says ‘go up to the mountain [intercession] and bring down wood for my building’ [the church made up of people]. The significance of the Pastor telling me he had plenty of ‘wood’ and to get it in my ‘vehicle’ shows me that the Lord has given us an open door to build many of his people in our [your] city. These people don’t have to hear me speak in some church building [the Pastors vehicle] it would be ‘too small’ any way. But these people will be freely built thru the open course the Lord has given us thru Radio, Blog, etc. THE WORD OF THE LORD HAS FREE COURSE. I was listening on line to an old Pastor friend who Pastors a great church in our city. I haven’t heard him in a while. The last 2-3 sermons I heard him give focused on the Kingdom of God and how it was not about material wealth at all. I cant help but believe that some of his people [wood] have been listening/reading our stuff and it has influenced him in a good way.

(266)I remember hearing a famous prosperity preacher say how he was overseas [England?] and he was approached by many believers who sincerely told him ‘your preaching on money is so extreme, you have fallen into the category where Jesus warned ‘the love/lust of the things of this world would prevent the seed from growing’ [this by the way is the correct reading of the parable of the sower]. I heard this preacher, on T.B.N. tell the story. He then went on to explain how these Christians who were warning him were the one’s who were deceived. He went thru some tortured explanation of the parable of the sower and when he was finished he had the parable talking all about money. The hosts of T.B.N. were all awed and in agreement with this ‘new revelation’ and it was communicated to the worldwide audience who tuned in. The deception was so obvious it wasn’t funny. The fact that all these believers from another country, with one voice [which I call ‘the whole counsel of God’] were sincerely telling this man that he was absolutely twisting Jesus words was a rebuke from the Body of Christ to that which is not of Christ. It’s natural for the ‘Body’ to ‘expel’ harmful agents. The fact that this man in his rebellion would not receive this correction, and the fact that the worldwide audience of T.B.N. were also fed this lie is appalling. God is going to ‘dry up’ the resources of major Christian networks if they do not deal with stuff like this! [YES, THIS IS A PROPHETIC WORD!]

(267)Let me exhort you guys to become a student of the bible. “Brother I read the bible” that’s not what I said. Jesus often rebuked the religious leaders for knowing the words of scripture, without understanding the intent! In many of the things you guys are learning from this blog, you ‘knew’ these verses, it’s just you are seeing them in a different way, the CORRECT way. To be a student demands that you know the history and context of scripture. Read good books on church history. Read the classics. Don’t waste all your time reading much of the popular motivational stuff of our day. Some is OK, but a lot isn’t. I have a prophetic way I learn; before I go to bed I find a great book from my study. I put it under my pillow, and when I wake up in the morning I have absorbed all of its contents. NOT! It takes work brothers STUDY TO SHOW THYSELF APPROVED, A WORKMAN THAT DOESN’T NEED TO BE ASHAMED if you do this you wont make some of the ‘shameful’ interpretations of scripture like the last few entries exposed.

(268)To my Pastor friends who read this site, I know I have been rough on you guys. I felt the Lord had a word for you right now BEHOLD MY SERVANT WHOM I UPHOLD, MINE ELECT IN WHOM MY SOUL DELIGHTS God delights in you. If you have a church of 500 members and wanted 1000, God delights in you. If you have a church of 10,000 and were only expecting 8,000, God delights in you. God simply delights in you. It’s not about the numbers! I HAVE KNOWN YOUR SOUL IN ADVERSITY, I HAVE SEEN YOU IN THE DESERT. I WILL MAKE A WAY IN THE WILDERNESS AND RIVERS IN THE DESERT, I WILL NOT LEAVE YOUR SOUL IN HELL, NOR SUFFER MY HOLY ONE TO SEE CORRUPTION don’t despise your desert; I have called my Son out of it! [Jesus came out of the desert in the POWER of the Spirit. You now have POWER that comes from God. A SPECIAL WORD TO ALL OUR Corpus Christi leaders, guys we live right off an island [desert conditions] God brought forth great revelation from John when he was on the ‘island’ of Patmos. God is putting Corpus Christi on the ‘map’ rejoice! NOTE: The island we live off of is ‘Padre [Father] Island’, that’s more prophetic than Patmos!

(269)Xxx


(270)I forgot to mention that during the restoration of the walls and the Temple, Nehemiah was a type of an Apostle. He had great organizational wisdom The Prophets Haggai and Zechariah prophesied strength into the hands of the builders. This is a great picture of all the 5-fold working together to build the ‘City of God’. The book of Acts says ‘the heavens must hold Jesus until the times of the restoration of all things spoken by the Prophets’. The job of Prophets is to speak the word of the Lord.

(271)Another thing from the movie the Matrix. Morpheus tells Neo ‘you have been looking for me for a few years, I have been searching for you my whole life’. It says of John the Baptist ‘he was filled with the Spirit from his mothers womb’ Prophetic people have a destiny from birth. God picked you, knowing full well all the stuff you were going to go thru. Don’t ‘reject’ yourself because of failure and sin; God picked you knowing all this stuff from the start!

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(273)Let me speak on abortion. I mentioned earlier on this blog about the Catholic and Protestant divide in the 16th century. One of the fears the Catholic Church had was the fear of the divine right of Kings. That if nation states ‘broke away’ from Rome that eventually the states would do whatever they wanted. Some look at the atrocities of Hitler and point to this as a proof. I personally don’t hold to this view, but I do find it interesting that Hitler came along after Darwin and Eugenics. Eugenics is the science that teaches certain races are more ‘pure’ and others are less pure. It taught a type of ethics that said if you get rid of the weaker ones in society that eventually you would have a healthier, purer race. You saw this mindset in Hitler’s attempt to have an ‘Aryan race’. The man who came up with this ‘science’ was a relative of Charles Darwin. Charles Darwin was the ‘popularizer’ of Evolution. If someone truly believes that all Humans are simply an accident of evolution; there is really no moral grounds to value life. If we are all simply blobs on this experimental earth, then why not eliminate the weaker ones for the benefit of the whole race? After all we know this to be true, science teaches it! There you have it, a slippery slope down a course that ultimately leads to a time in our country where we actually allow, by law, a woman to come to a clinic/hospital. Walk in at 7 months of pregnancy, get an appointment with a Doctor and get a ‘partial birth’ abortion. This procedure allows for the actual baby, living and feeling safe in the mother’s womb to be ‘partially’ delivered, leaving ‘part’ of the baby inside the mother. The other ‘part’ sticking out and the Doctor kills the baby. By law it’s not murder, the baby still has a ‘part’ in the mom. The only difference between this child, and others who are born and live a wonderful life, is a few inches. The procedure is defended by politicians who say ‘I personally am against abortion, but I am for a woman’s right’ What about the right of that beautiful little baby girl who you just destroyed in a manner equal to Hitler’s holocaust? This little girl has rights too. Some of our Politicians couldn’t care less about the ‘right’ of the woman; they allow murder for the political expediency of their constituents! Thank you Pontius Pilate. I recently saw on the news a state that is trying to pass a law that would require the mother to see a sonogram of her baby before she gets the abortion, they are persuaded that if a woman ‘looks at the baby’ that she will of her own free will decide to not kill it. They then had the opponents/proponents give both sides. Those against it said things like ‘ we don’t require a person to look at a tumor before its removed’ babies are not ‘tumors’ or any other type of ‘matter’ that you dispose of at will. I once had actual pictures of ‘buckets full of babies’ that were taken outside of some abortion clinic back in the 70’s. These buckets were filled to overflow with burned, chopped up, mutilated little babies. Just sitting there waiting for some dump truck to haul them to the local incinerator. Now we have cleaned up our act, we ‘burn’ them before they get a chance to be spotted by the public eye. God forbid that we would force society to look at ‘these tumors’. May God help us all. NOTE; a few years back there was an abortion doctor who took an actual sonogram of an abortion procedure. They later made a video. The picture was front page on one of the national magazines of our country. It was called ‘silent scream’ it showed the baby actually grasping hold of the instrument that was inserted into the mother’s womb, and the baby was trying to keep it from stabbing it. The babies face could clearly be seen screaming bloody murder. This doctor, who was not a Christian, could not continue performing this procedure no matter how many politicians call this ‘a woman’s right to choose’! UPDATE ON PARTIAL BIRTH ABORTION # 305

(274)As believers we need to look at our role in society as it relates to abortion. Paul Hill, a protestant Minster, became infamous for his killing of an abortion doctor. Paul saw himself as a modern day deliverer who would give his life for something equal to the attempt to assassinate Hitler. As I watched the trial and group of radical Christians who were a part of this group, there was a real sense of seeing the abortion doctors as murderers. Just like seeing someone kill a baby. Well most preachers, and others who gave commentary on this program, divided between how much civil disobedience was warranted to stop abortion. Operation Rescue with Terry Randall practiced a form of it that other believer’s thought was wrong. No one defended the killing of the doctors involved, and some preachers actually said no civil disobedience was warranted at all because abortion is the law of the land. I do want to submit this, if the killing of 1 hour old new borns was the ‘law of the land’ would we do nothing? Then 6 month olds, or all the way to 5 yr olds being taken right out of a pre school and being executed in public? If these were really the law of the land, what would you do? I certainly am not advocating the murder of Doctors or anyone else, but if these preachers who were being interviewed for the story really believed that abortion was murder, equal to all other types of murder, then I think civil disobedience would be warranted. The people surrounding Paul Hill came to their extreme positions as logical deductions based on these facts. They did wrong in killing for sure, but if you yourself were standing by as someone was discriminately killing babies from a hospital nursery, then I would wonder about the sincerity of your belief system.

(275)In scripture there are 2 recorded ‘mass killings’ of babies. The first is the story of Moses in Egypt. The children of Israel were multiplying so rapidly that Pharaoh decided to wipe out all the little baby boys in order to slow down the rate of Israel’s growth. It was a demonically inspired attack, legitimized through law, to kill a whole generation of people. God knew that there was a Moses in this group, a great man of destiny who would come forth and be a great deliverer of Gods people. The enemy knew this as well. Also in the New Testament during the time of Christ you had the mass killing of young children, once again ordained by law [King] in order to wipe out the Messiah. In this instance as well it was a demonically inspired political expediency that allowed it to happen. The King was feeling his position and authority were threatened by this ‘King of the Jews’ so he simply decided to wipe them all out. Our generation has seen the ‘blood lust’ attack to go out and destroy with abandon a whole generation of youth. God has a tremendous destiny for this generation, the enemy knows this and he’s trying to wipe them out, it’s a shame that once again political expediency is giving cover to one of the greatest ‘genocides’ on the history of the planet! NOTE: Scripture speaks of the blood of innocent murdered people ‘crying out from the ground’ [Cain and Abel] God ‘hears’ the cries of innocent people who were wrongfully killed. God judges nations and societies based on their treatment of the widows and children. The present state of ‘politics’ today [2007] is unbelievably childish and irresponsible. You have national leaders of one party going to do their own diplomacy, with terrorist nations like Syria, over the objections of the President in order to show their own political weight, even at the expense of national policy. Sorry, I don’t care if it’s a Democrat or Republican. When you get to the point of your party leaders deciding they will have their own shadow presidency, that’s bad. Now I say this for a reason, the BLOOD of innocent children cries out from the ground. A society will not continue to exist as it ‘builds a foundation’ upon the blood of innocents. The political division that is leading to real trouble for this nation is a judgment of God upon the same political system that time and again gave it’s voice to allow for the murder of innocent babies. This system cannot continue to stand with all the ‘blood’ that it has spilled on the ground! NOTE; you must see that we are not simply speaking about a woman’s right to choose or some medical procedure. We are dealing with an entire generation of little children that we are wiping out at a tremendous rate. More minorities than whites. What more of a racist act can occur than the systematic destruction of your culture and heritage by the wholesale murder of your babies? Whenever you had a time in history where a whole group of people were being killed or enslaved by another group, you eventually had enough voices ‘from the other groups’ of society that would hear the atrocities from the victims themselves. The Holocaust survivors and the slave trade of this nation. The ‘voices’ of desperate pleas for help would eventually leak out into society and humanity would come to the defense of the oppressed. In the case of abortion it is the inability of the child to speak that has allowed this genocide to continue for so long. It is incumbent upon humanity [not just the church!] to see this atrocity and to speak for those who have no voice. We speak out on the murder of seals and animals, we even show the endangered eggs and embryos of animals, but yet the actual ‘embryos’ of humans are treated like trash. Atrocious acts of violence need explicit language to fully show the horror of it all. NOTE: during the debate on the floor of congress a few years ago, they were debating the ban on partial birth abortion. During the debate someone had a baby in the building. In the midst of the debate you could hear the baby crying. The floor went silent for a second. This was the one time where the ‘voice’ of a potential victim was heard!

(276)The last 3 entries on abortion [275-277] were just written from 2:30 am to now, 5:40 am. I woke up this morning with no thought of any subject. As far as I knew I was not going to write anything today. I will be going to work in about an hour and had no plans to speak. I did ask the Lord during prayer and waking up if he had anything to say today, and I wrote the last 3 entries off the top of my head. God wants us to speak when he tells us to. He is not concerned with simply giving us a voice and forum so people can ‘hear us speak’. To a great degree the church has made the ‘public speaker’ a position of performance to titillate the audience. We ‘worship’ preachers like the world worships rock stars. God simply wants to have people give voice to his concerns; he is not looking for ‘superstars’. NOTE: I just walked back outside to finish praying and saw the sky a strange color of red/orange. I don’t remember seeing it quite like this before. I immediately thought of the verse ‘the moon shall turn to blood before the judgment of the Lord’ and others like this. Couldn’t help but see this as a sign of the things I have been writing the last few hours. Sort of like God was saying ‘these things are reaching a ‘full cup’ stage and my judgment is near’ don’t want to sound melodramatic, but thought I should tell you this. NOTE; the violence of this act is unbelievable. The deception of those Senators and supreme court justices who allow for the actual dismembering of 5-8 month old babies in the womb under the guise of a ‘woman’s right’ is appalling. The infamous Dredd Scott decision by the Supreme Court was a wrong decision that allowed for the discrimination of our black brothers. The decision of Roe V Wade allows for the mass extermination, by tortuous dismemberment, of an entire generation of babies. Surely every Politician and Jurist that has given voice to this atrocity will give an account to God. NOTE: Let me show you how deception works. The political landscape of our country has the ‘right wing conservatives’ with their patriarchal suits and ties defending the unborn. The political left has the ‘open minded, right for a woman to choose’ defending the freedoms of all people as they hunt down these babies in the womb with abandon. Many of the women fight for years for this so called right, only to arrive at the day where they are on the operating table destroying their beautiful baby. This whole process must have satan laughing with all his heart. There have also been proponents of abortion who will testify that after they had aborted their first child, no matter how many people aligned with them politically, they could never forget or escape the maternal love and guilt over what they did. They were told over and again ‘don’t let that conservative bunch make you feel guilty’ finally coming to the place where they were alone in some apartment and simply realized that they allowed the framing of this whole argument lead to the atrocious murder of her little baby. They realized that ‘winning’ was not really defined as a woman’s right to choose, but it was defined as actually killing the baby. The mindset of the so-called ‘right to choose’ crowd was really looking for the kill. Most women who were counseled by the Planned Parenthood counselors really felt an environment that made you feel inferior if you didn’t ‘choose to abort’. If you were thinking of actually having the child, the mindset of the right to choose people would turn against you. This showing that its more of a political game of which side will win, its just a shame that the way they keep score is by counting the dead bodies of babies!

(277)A while back I sent a packet of books and stuff to a fairly major prophet in the U.S. I have done this a lot over the years. Many of you wouldn’t recognize the name, some might. In ‘prophetic circles’ he is widely known and has a worldwide ministry. I later found out that he and his wife were battling cancer, I didn’t know this when I sent the stuff, but sent another note and have prayed for them to be healed. This particular prophet never wrote me back [that’s OK] but others have, thanking me for the books and stuff. [Now that I think about it Eagles Nest sent me a nice thank you note a while back after I sent them some stuff] But anyway I felt like sharing something from this. As this brother and his wife battle cancer, I have gone to their site from time to time to see how they are doing. The brother is a good man; they are really fighting hard, lots of warfare imagery. Confessions that this could never be Gods will and sincere things to get healed. I kind of feel bad that this brother has been warring and ‘not believing’ the bad reports and all sorts of strenuous warfare to get healed. I don’t mean to be critical; I love the brother and have prayed for them on more than a few occasions. I simply felt there was a type of ‘spiritual warfare legalism’ that causes us to lose our rest in Christ. The healings of Jesus in the New Testament were primarily gracious acts of healing that the Lord ‘carried the burden for’. A sense of God taking the warfare himself. I know there is credence to confessing scripture and claiming the healing verses, I have done this myself and it does work. I just felt sometimes our battle is simply learning to rest and trust in God, without a whole bunch of ‘spiritual energy’ being displayed on our part. I remember reading the stories of other believers who might not be as charismatic or ‘prophetically’ inclined as this brother. They seemed to live their final days simply writing and speaking of Gods grace and simply recognizing the shortness of life. I am not saying we should accept with resignation our mortality and die before our days. I am just showing you there is an overall theme of the shortness of our days spoken about in scripture, sometimes it is a tremendous testimony to watch a believer ‘finish his days’ with grace and rest. Sometimes God miraculously heals. I don’t fault anyone for doing all they can to see them or their loved ones healed. It’s just sometimes we don’t see all that we want, and to finish gracefully can be a ‘seed’ that will go on and produce fruit for many years after we are gone.

(278)Scripture actually speaks of ‘speaking out on behalf of the poor and oppressed’. There is a fundamental principle of speaking up for social justice issues and defending the innocent. This is why it was a prophetic ministry when Martin Luther King led the civil rights movement. There were many ‘southern denominations’ that did not grasp this reality. The church doesn’t just exist to ‘get people saved’ she exists also as a voice for justice in the earth. Today one of the ‘unseen’ forms of institutional racism is economic oppression. For various reasons you have entire groups of people that have been ‘left behind’ as society around them progressed. This is also why you have certain black preachers who honestly preach the prosperity message, thinking they are speaking economic justice into the black community. They mean well, but preaching materialism isn’t the answer, preaching biblical responsibility and racial equality is. Today you have some black leaders, like Bill Cosby, who are taking a real stand by coming against the ‘victim mentality’ that certain leaders embrace. Cosby says it’s time to teach responsibility and ethics to the young generation of black kids coming up. I do agree. I believe it fundamentally hurts racial reconciliation to teach affirmative action. To simply look at 2 black kids, and one white. And to flat out say ‘these 2 get 5 points on their application for their gene pool, and you, the white kid do not get the points because you are white’ is racist at it’s core. I do understand the tortured reasoning that leads people to do this. They feel this is the answer to undoing the years of institutional racism that has locked the door to many blacks in the past. Some feel that the opportunities were closed for so long, that to be neutral now still doesn’t open the door. The main problem is to give anyone ‘extra points based on genes’ is racist. Even if you think it is for a good cause. Racism is racism no matter what. Doing ‘reverse racism’ leads to the growth of white supremacists and others. They see the obvious racism of what I just told you. They see the politicians unwilling to admit it, and this leads to an extreme response. You have ‘the black congressional caucus’ in congress. You would never get away with a white one. All representatives should represent all people. If a white guy said I am elected to look out for the rights of white people, this would be wrong. In the fire service you have the ‘Hispanic firefighters union’ of course you couldn’t have a white one. These things are unequal. Some believe we should be ‘unequal’ in order to even the playing field, but this simply discriminates against one race for the benefit of another, which my friend is what I call ‘racism’. NOTE: I also am aware of the black leaders who teach it is impossible for a black person to be racist because he doesn’t have the institutional superiority to affect it. All you have to do is listen to a Farrakhan or many of the past comments of Al Sharpton to see that racism isn’t a sin evident only in the white community.

(279)Lets jump out of character a little. During a discussion I had with a ministry leader in our City, I shared the function of the church at Corinth and showed him how during their gatherings they all shared and functioned. I showed him this to explain that I felt the Lord is changing the practice of church from an environment of people who come and listen to a Pastor preach, to an environment of all Gods people sharing together. This doesn’t mean there will never be an instructional time where a Pastor or Apostle or another gifted person can share or preach a sermon, but it shows that the original intent of God for the church was one of interactive involvement of all it’s members. My ministry friend disagreed and said that Paul was just dealing with the ‘home group’ here, and the ‘regular church’ was another thing/place. The mistake my friend made was ‘seeing’ scripture thru the paradigm of church as we practice it today. He sincerely took scripture that addressed the ‘church at Corinth’ [all the believers at Corinth] and read his own mindset into it. The scriptures in Corinthians that deal with how the believers were meeting IS THE CHURCH AT CORINTH. There was not ‘the home groups’ and ‘the main sanctuary meetings’ now if your church has this distinction, fine. The point I was making to my friend was Paul was addressing THE CHURCH when he gave them instructions on how to meet practically. When believers meet anywhere and share the love of Christ and mutually build each other up, that is church in its most simple form. To read Corinthians and ‘see’ another sanctuary service ‘down the road’ is a good example of how we read scripture thru the lens of our own understanding. Let me also say it’s a common mistake among modern cell church movements to read the meetings of the Church at Jerusalem at the Temple [actually they ‘held’ services in Solomon’s Porch, which was an outside courtyard!] and to read into this that the early Christians had ‘sanctuary’ services and ‘home meetings’. This isn’t so. The only Christians that had ‘temple’ services were those at Jerusalem. All the gentile churches [Ephesians, Corinth, etc.] met in homes. This is a fact that doesn’t change. Does this mean all gentiles must only meet in homes? No. I am just showing you there was no pattern of ‘temple’ and ‘home’ groups. Also some advocates of radical reform see Paul’s warning to the Ephesian elders in the book of acts as a warning against the modern clergy system. Paul told the Ephesus church that AFTER MY DEPARTURE, WOLVES WILL RISE UP FROM AMONG YOU [from the believers] and will draw away disciples after themselves. Some see the rise of the ‘singular Pastor’ as a fulfillment of this scripture [I don’t necessarily hold to this view, but I do see some credence to this speaking of the strong personality worship that exists in the church today] Others also use 3rd John and the example of Diotrophes as one who ‘loved to have the preeminence’ and would not receive the brothers. Some see in these examples a strong warning from the early Apostles to avoid strong singular authorities who are looked to as the authority of a local church. I do believe there is some truth to these insights. My goal today is to simply challenge your present understanding of ‘going to church on Sunday’ to seeing yourself as the actual ‘temple of God’ that moves and interacts in the world around them. God brought his presence out of a Temple made with hands and put it in his people, we must not lose sight of this great reality! NOTE: In the book of revelation it says the ‘City of God’ is ‘as a bride adorned for her husband’. We also know that the New Testament calls us ‘the New Jerusalem, the Zion of God’ basically John is writing prophetic imagery in Revelation. It also says ‘there was no temple in it, God himself and the Lamb are the temple’ [we dwell in God] but it also says the Lamb is the light of the City. The only logical way to fit all these images without contradicting is to see the City/Temple being the Church of the living God. As the ‘body of Christ’ we are a real extension of ‘the Lamb’ so the Lamb can be the City, the Temple or the Light of the Temple. Jesus is the light of the Church, he illuminates us by the Spirit. It’s important to grasp this major change of thought from the earthly Jewish Temple, to the heavenly spiritual one. If you don’t rightly see this you will not interpret scripture properly! [By the way I do believe in a literal heaven!] NOTE: A common mistake amongst Apostolic ministries is thinking that it is a biblical mandate to have ‘a spiritual Father’ [and Mother]. I was reading from an apostles site and it gave some testimonies from Pastors Who said the reason they now have a spiritual Father and Mother [speaking of the Apostle and his wife] was because the bible teaches we have natural ones, therefore we should have spiritual ones. The ‘spiritual’ father is God and the mother is the ‘church’ according to Paul. He says ‘THE NEW JERUSALEM IS THE MOTHER OF US ALL’. Paul does tell the Corinthians that he is their spiritual father. But he is basically saying ‘I birthed you guys into the Kingdom; you are the fruit of my Apostolic ministry. Listen to me for correction, not all these others who are trying to bring you under their authority’. Paul was not advocating for people to go out and find Apostles and make them and their wives their ‘spiritual father and mother’.

(280)Reading Isaiah 44. The Lord says the people made idols out of that which God provided for their sustenance, that is Gods resource to them [trees in Isaiah, money and Gods provision now]. They ‘deck it with gold’ [in Jeremiah?] they worship that which God gave as provision and made it their God. They ‘prayed to it’ and saw it as the answer to their dilemma [if we just had this transference of wealth we could accomplish our mission!] They became just like that which they worshipped. Their idols were blind and deaf and dumb. They became blind [unable to perceive] deaf [unable to hear reproof] and dumb [God took away their voice from society, the church at large]. Because of their worship of the idols they ‘became foolish in their understanding and were ashamed’ their foolishness was seen by all [many even from the secular media have said ‘how can you think Jesus was this money focused mega star, he was a carpenters son!’ Even Larry King, a Jewish talk show host said this about the modern money preachers] HE FEEDETH ON ASHES, A DECIEVED HEART HATH TURNED HIM ASIDE The fact that they ‘fed’ off of their own shallow belief system, caused them to become shallow in their understanding of scripture, unable to see the most obvious things! GOD FRUSTRATED THOSE WHO WERE LYING AND TURNED THESE WISE MEN BACKWARD AND MADE THEIR KNOWLEDGE FOOLISH and at the end God forgave those who were willing to repent and he restored them. First comes strong rebuke, but then a true restoration to the original purpose of God. NOTE: It says they fell down and worshipped THE STOCK OF A TREE paper money is made from the ‘stock of a tree’ the way you worship something is by seeing that thing as your goal, confession, desire. Just thinking about it gives you great satisfaction. You spend a great amount of your thought life strategizing and dreaming about making more of it. It’s a deadly pursuit. Jesus says you don’t have time for God and mammon, the worship of mammon consumes too much time! NOTE It also says that a judgment on those who are held captive by idolatry/covetousness is they are unable to see the most obvious things in scripture. One of the strangest things I have seen from the more extreme prosperity brothers is the inability to read the passages of scripture that PLAINLY deal with covetousness and to SEE what these passages are saying. I heard a brother teach on 1st Timothy 6 [both a local brother and 2 national ones] I guess they were getting some heat from guys like me who tell people that 1st Timothy 6 totally deconstructs the modern prosperity gospel. When they were done trying to teach the chapter they were making it say the exact opposite of the plain meaning of Paul’s words. Paul in Timothy warns Timothy about a ‘coming’ group of preachers who will teach that gain is godliness. At one point Paul says FLEE THESE THINGS AND INSTEAD LAY HOLD ON ETERNAL LIFE. The context of this passage was explained by a prosperity guy to mean Paul was telling Timothy to ‘lay hold of abundant material wealth’ he exegetes the word ‘eternal life’ and showed that one of the definitions speaks of ‘wealth in every area’ he then made the conclusion that Paul told Timothy to ‘lay hold of wealth’ This brother didn’t see that when you exegete [study the meaning] of a word you can find many different definitions that apply at different times [Jesus says ‘save a sheep’ or a coin in his parables. This is the same word for ‘save a soul’ in salvation. The text shows you that Jesus isn’t saying ‘save’ in the same way when he talks about sheep and humans] this basic mistake caused the prosperity guy to take the actual warnings in scripture that deal with covetousness and made it teach covetousness. I have seen this twisted interpretation over and over again from many of these guys. This is a judgment from God on those who choose to preach a wealthy Jesus. God says those who distort his Sons image are committing idolatry. One of the judgments on those who commit idolatry is that there wisdom becomes foolishness; they are held captive by their own distorted views. I do pray that these brothers would repent from this stuff. I have personally sent them books and things over the years. It’s just it got to a point where they refuse reproof and we are now at a stage where we are trying to keep a whole new generation of believers from going down this path.

(281)Lets overview a few things. We have covered verses that said ‘the people go out and cut down a tree a make it into the form of a man, they also cover the tree/idol with gold, they worship the image of their mind’ idolatry is forming a ‘man’ into the image that you desire, and blatantly ‘decking him with wealth’ OUCH! [Remember we mentioned in Galatians Paul said some were preaching another Jesus, this ‘other’ Jesus that some preach today is ‘an image of a man’ that is adorned/decked with expensive jewelry and wealth!] Also the image in my mind this morning [its 2:37 am at the fire house] is that of dismembered baby parts all thru out this country. Understand many of these dismemberings took place on the ‘altar of convenience’ i.e.: ‘we can’t AFFORD this child right now’ God have mercy on us as a people. A few scriptures that are coming to mind. I WILL POUR WATER UPON HIM THAT IS THIRSTY [you Pastors and leaders specifically] AND FLOODS UPON THE DRY GROUND. I WILL POUR MY SPIRIT ON YOUR SEED AND MY BLESSING UPON YOUR OFFSRPING Some of our readers have known us forever, and you guys are still getting ‘poured on’ Great! But I want you to start POURING ON OTHERS. God is going to ‘pour’ on key Pastors/Leaders and allow for you to attain great influence and open doors in the nations. Many of the things these teachings are going to rapidly advance thru the land. GOD IS GOING TO FLOOD THE DRY GROUND There is an individual ‘pouring’ on ‘him’ that is thirsty. You thirsty leaders are drinking much from this place/site, but God is also ‘pouring’ regionally. Some who have heard us in the past have thought ‘thank God this brother doesn’t have a lot of influence’ well the Lord seems to have changed that. Not for personalities sake, for his purpose. Be a part of pouring the stuff out that he has poured into you! God pours on individuals that are thirsty, so they can be rejuvenated to help pour out on the seed [corporate community] God pours ‘buckets of water’ on the dry ground. One person can only haul so many buckets. 2 can haul more, but a 3-fold cord is not easily broken. Once a ‘grouping’ of Prophetic/Apostolic brothers start disseminating new/fresh revelation, it becomes very hard to stop it at that point THY SEED AND THY NAME SHALL REMAIN. THIS IS THE COVENANT THAT I WILL MAKE WITH YOU, MY WORDS THAT I HAVE PUT IN THY MOUTH SHALL NOT DEPART OUT OF THY MOUTH, NOR OUT OF THE MOUTH OF THY SEED FROM THIS TIME FORTH AND FOREVER MORE. Many of our leader friends and ‘regular’ friends for many years, run with the things the Lord has showed you. I have been running myself for a long time with these things, take the baton! BE STRONG AND OF A GOOD COURAGE, BE NOT AFRAID, NIETHER BE THOU DISMAYED, FOR THE LORD THY GOD IS WITH THEE WITHERSOEVER THOU GOEST Go somewhere! GET OUT OF THE CITY AND DWELL IN THE FIELDS, EVEN BABYLON. THERE I WILL BE WITH YOU AND THERE I WILL DELIVER YOU FROM THE HAND OF THE ENEMY you have to be in enemy territory to be delivered from enemies! THE GATES OF HELL SHALL NOT PREVAIL AGAINST THE CHURCH [ecclesia]. We too often read church as the stagnant place. But read it as ecclesia, the mobile force and community of God. When we ‘mobilize’ and ‘set up camp’ in enemy territory it becomes an outpost for God. We are the ambassadors representing the Kingdom in that place. Before too long the inhabitants of ‘that place’ become citizens of the Kingdom we represent and we have taken ground for the kingdom. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERETH VIOLENCE AND THE VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE The concept of one nation taking up residence in another land and then influencing that society for God is seen strongly in the Old Testament nation of Israel. God allowed for ‘proselytes’ and foreigners to come in and be part of Gods society. This is voiced in Ephesians by Paul. Speaking of us being strangers to the covenant, and now thru Christ being adopted in. Also in the book of Acts it speaks of ‘God Fearers’ this wasn’t a reference to people who just ‘feared God’ it was speaking of outsiders who were embracing Judaism but were not fully converted yet. So we see the intent of God to first reveal himself to a group/nation of people. But that nation is not supposed to ‘contain’ him, but reveal him to all the surrounding nations. The light under a bushel and not being on the candlestick were images that Jesus used to reprove the Jews of the 1st century. They took Gods glory that was specifically given to them to share, and they became ‘self righteous’. They chose to ‘separate’ from society in a legalistic way that said ‘we are better than you, stay away’. Jesus would rebuke this mindset over and over again in the parables. Many Christians today, in certain isolated forms of church, practice this kind of legalism. They view ‘church’ as a place to go and stay clean from the world. They miss the original intent of God, which was to influence the world. Get that light out from under the cover; get that salt out into society. It wasn’t given to us so we could ‘dig a whole and bury it in the ground’ [I think I heard a popular speaker say this once?]

(282)I remember being at work one day and a friend of mine was on the phone with his bank. I could hear him arguing about the fact that they messed up his account balance. He was supposed to have around $20.00 dollars, instead it was showing his normal balance of $1.oo. After he hung up I told him I also had problems with this bank before. I threatened to take my money and do business with another bank. I told him I would have advised you to make the same threat, but I don’t know if it would have much clout, considering the average balance you run in your account! Yesterday they fired the radio guy [Don Imus] that I mentioned the other day. One of the reasons is Al Sharpton and others convinced the sponsors to pull the ads from the show. I said earlier [before others were saying it!] that I thought he should be fired because of his racist remarks. Well now you have both sides [black and white] arguing over race. I do believe Sharpton is a major hypocrite as trying to be the voice in this. He, till this day, oppresses innocent people publicly over the Tawanna Brawley case. Not only did a grand jury clear these white men who he accused of raping a black girl, but the jury said it was all made up. There’s a big difference between being found not guilty, and a jury saying the charges are proved to be false. Not only does Sharpton not apologize for ruining these white guys lives who he racially accused, he still says he believes one of the guys is guilty. This isn’t an O.J. Simpson ‘not guilty’ verdict. This is a real obvious persecution of this white guy. Jesse Jackson refused to get involved in this case at the beginning because all the local ‘in the know’ leaders, even the black ones, knew this was a fake charge made by a scared girl who spent the night out with a boyfriend and made the story up. I really don’t blame the girl; I blame Sharpton for building a civil rights persona at the expense of falsely accusing a white guy. He is obviously a racist. Now, to admit that there are racists on both sides allows there to be reconciliation. To deny it perpetuates the problem. The money story about my friend shows how if you can effect an organization, because you have the money to do it, then they will listen. If you don’t, then they will not [most times]. These organizations [C.B.S. and N.B.C.] who only fired someone because of the money are certainly not moral authorities, don’t fool yourself.

(283)A few years ago I read the autobiography of Bob Dylan ‘Chronicles’. It got great reviews and I am an old rock and roll fan. I love going to the rock stores in the malls and checking out the stuff. Recently Brad Delp committed suicide; he was the lead singer for ‘Boston’. I read a statement from a family member. It said ‘he gave all he could give and was tired’. Others said he was the nicest guy in rock and roll. He was one of the few who didn’t party or drink. He was health conscious, his lyrics were uplifting, a lot of old rockers wont admit that the group was good, it’s sort of being wimpy to like a group who isn’t radical. Its like ozzy Osborne said to his wife when he walked in to the auditorium where they were giving the concert that night. His wife Sharon had fixed up the special effects where some machine was blowing out bubbles. Ozzy says ‘I cant have this Sharon, I’m supposed to be the ‘bleep, bleep’ prince of darkness, and you have bubbles blowing out’ [I saw this on their reality show on MTV]. I have a John Lennon poster hanging on my wall. I read an article on Lennon how in the 70’s he was watching a famous T.V. evangelist and accepted the Lord. He was actually going around for a few months witnessing for Jesus. His wife Yoko, who isn’t Christian, revolted against this. She convinced him of all the ‘horrors’ of Christianity and he eventually walked away [thanks again Yoko!] He even wrote a song about this, how his wife ‘opened his eyes’ to the wrong path he was going down. Dylan also accepted the Lord and even made a Christian album, Slow Train Coming [you know I like train imagery!] I found it interesting to know that Lennon was actually preaching for the Lord in 1977 in New York City, while I was getting stoned about a half mile away on the other side of the Hudson River listening to his music! In the Dylan book he talks about coming to New York and having some friends who he would just ‘crash’ at their houses and live this nomadic existence as he was learning about life. A lot of the underground music scene was thriving in the City at the time. One of his buddies had a great collection of all sorts of philosophers and historical books. Dylan spent hours reading all these ideas and concepts and reasons for society. It was like having a ‘Google’ in written form. I have spent years reading and buying books. Accessing the Library and becoming a student this way. The last 3 years I have done a ton of research on line. You can’t beat Google for an exhaustive search on any subject being right at your fingertips. But the many years of manual study adds a depth to your understanding that doesn’t come with a Google search. I felt like the death of Delp [Boston] was prophetic for me. I used to play an old Boston C.D. when I first moved to Corpus. I hadn’t played it in a long time and just recently started listening to it. Then Delp died. This is 2007, a year where I felt the Lord said we would ‘die’ to many old things and familiar surroundings [things that we rely on] and we would ‘come alive’ to other things. I still love ‘More Than a Feeling, Long Time’ and a few other Boston hits. Sorry Ozzy.

(284)When God wants to do a reform/revolution he does it at many levels at the same time. The difficult thing for the reformer[s] is you get those ‘being challenged’ all mad at you at one time! It does take ‘guts’ to be a pioneer. One time when Jesus was rebuking one group, the other group said ‘don’t you know you are offending us too’ [Pharisees and Lawyers] Jesus said he didn’t care. Let them get offended. Every plant that the Father didn’t plant will be uprooted. It’s funny because we have a lot of Apostles/Prophets upset with us. Though we all believe and function in these gifts together. Then we have the whole crowd of old time churches who simply think we are heretics because we believe in Apostles! It can be funny at times [or if you don’t have boldness you could describe it like the Governor of California says ‘girly men’ it wont be ‘funny’ you will be scared! I would attempt to spell Arnolds name but I don’t have time to spell it right!] So lets do a little ‘reforming’. Recently those who are feeling challenged in the whole area of ‘going to church’ have resorted to the classic verses to defend ‘going to church’ FORSAKE NOT THE GATHERING OF OURSELVES TOGETHER AS SOME. HE THAT SEPARATES HIMSELF SEEKS HIS OWN DESIRE lets put some context. Those in the radical ‘out of the church building on Sunday’ movement for the most part practice the ‘assembling of themselves together’ in a more scriptural way than ‘Sunday church’. Also Paul wrote this to the Hebrews, the Jews had a custom of meeting on Sabbath; Paul is simply saying when you transition into this New Covenant keep getting together! You are forsaking old sacrificial ways and law, but keep assembling. This is also why you find the ‘congregation’ and assembly mentioned in James. The Jewish context of those being addressed required them to deal with ‘assembling’ because they already ‘assembled’ as Jews. Also to use these verses to ‘push back’ against the Body of Christ finding freedom and maturity is simply a result of Pastors responding to reform out of insecurity. You can ‘go to church every Sunday for the rest of your life’ and still be ‘separating yourself’ from the purpose of God. When old time preachers do this kind of defense, I know they are sincere, but we must be willing to change!

(285)I had a friend who was investing in some real estate. He kind of asked for advice. Didn’t want to be obvious about it, but he knew I had done this in the past and wanted input. I gave him some, he didn’t listen and I think he is suffering for it, oh well. During the conversation he was telling me about the houses he will keep, and the ones he will flip in about 15 years. The others he will pay on for the full 30-year mortgage and pay them off. He was around 50 years old at the time of this discussion. I told him that one of the other mistakes people make when investing is to not count their own mortality into the scenario. You very well might be dead in 30 years! I am even bold with financial advice! I wasn’t really rude, but you could tell that my friend who was all consumed with having a few million for retirement, strategizing on more money, taking courses and studying on investment schemes. He wasn’t calculating in his own mortality. He doesn’t have kids. All you need is enough money to last for a few years, sorry if you don’t like to hear this, but it’s true. Financial advisors will tell you that people often make this mistake. They calculate in the million dollars they need at age 70. They look at how much interest they need to generate off the account, and they do not calculate the eventual need to withdraw the principal over a measured period of time in a responsible manner. Why? Because there is a natural tendency in man to avoid the fact that you will die! Be smart in investing and build a nest egg, that’s all right. Just don’t be buying houses at 50 and think you might flip it in 30 years. You might not be around to ‘do the flipping’! NOTE: as you see I live in a world of extremes, one day my friends are thinking like this, the next day I am working with the guy who runs the $1.oo balance in his account! [He does run more I am sure, I just caught him at a bad time]

(286)My daughter who works for the Vet. brought home a blind dog the other day. The owners were moving to Iraq and couldn’t take her. So they dropped it off to be put to sleep. Sad. Well now she lives with me [2 dogs 10 cats] she is old and cute. Her eyes are ‘cloudy’ like when it says in the book of Acts that Paul had ‘scales’ on his eyes. I left her in my yard for a few minutes and went inside. Came out and she was all wet. She obviously baptized herself in my pond! A strange thing happened. Her cloudy eyes were completely clear accept for the pupils. I have no idea if this was do to the adrenaline rush or what. This pond is fixed up to look like the Hudson River area where I grew up. When praying in my yard I pray for all my friends up north while walking past this ‘pool’. Pools and basins of water do represent healings and cleansings in scripture GO WASH IN THE POOL OF SILOAM and the LAVERS surrounding the Tabernacle in the Old Testament. And yes, the Baptism of John in the Jordan! I like the symbol of this new dog to the family. She was ‘at our table’ for a few days and got a ‘baptism’ that caused the ‘scales’ to fall from her eyes. Isaiah said the Spirit of the Lord was on Jesus to OPEN BLIND EYES I trust you new additions to our ‘family’ are getting your eyes opened, it can be scary [the dog was terrified after falling in] but it’s a new day for many of you!

(287)Reading Isaiah again, some stuff from chapter 45. God says his anointing subdues nations [large regions] looses Kings [leaders] from captivity [things that they didn’t even know were holding them back]. God goes before his anointed and breaks in pieces the gates and bars that people trusted would protect their borders [territory]. WOE TO THOSE WHO STRIVE WITH THEIR MAKER some will fight back against what God is doing and it will be harmful to them. Pride will cause them to see the reproof as ‘Oh, it's those critics again’ not realizing that this time certain things have come full circle and the Lord will not let certain things stand anymore. Those whom God anoints will LET GO THE CAPTIVES, NOT FOR PRICE OR REWARD there only motivation is to free the people and finish the purpose of God. THEY SHALL GO TO CONFUSION TOGETHER THAT ARE MAKERS OF IDOLS In the past when they were reproved they were able to ‘whether out the storm’ but not this time. They go into confusion together this time; the only hope is to finally truly address these same rebukes they have heard thru out their lives. I HAVE NOT SPOKEN IN SECRET, OR IN A DARK PLACE God says I have made these things plain, the only thing preventing many from changing is spiritual pride. LOOK UNTO ME ALL THE ENDS OF THE EARTH/ EVERY KNEE SHALL BOW AND EVERY TONGUE CONFESS all people involved will find harmony and peace when there is mutual submission to the Lord ship of Christ. All will bow! MEN OF STATURE SHALL COME OVER TO THEE AND THEY SHALL BE THINE Some influential Kingdom leaders will be persuaded this time around. They themselves have questioned many of these things but this time they know for sure which path to take.

(288)I am up early at work. I want to share a little on ‘territorial expansion’. Since 2004 I have been doing early prayer. Sometimes getting up at midnight, other times around 2:30 AM [like this morning] it’s been 3 years now and I believe this is a permanent thing for me now. This preceded the Lord giving us regional expansion. As a ministry who has no income [I pay for the stuff I do, others volunteer as family] the Lord has given us a lot of area. I have been praying over an area that covers our radio audience for a while. That’s from Houston over to San Antonio, down to Laredo thru the Valley and back up to Corpus. I kind of was happy with ‘staying’ in this perimeter [plus New York area]. I kind of felt the Lord saying ‘go to Dallas, Fort Worth’ but I really felt comfortable with the area we are in. I finally incorporated Dallas/Fort Worth in. While our program doesn’t reach Dallas, I do want to advertise this blog site there. It’s sort of like when I wrote about Jesus telling Peter to ‘cast the nets’ he was telling Peter ‘this is a time of multiple castings you will need to multi task at this season. If I say ‘nets’ don’t think ‘net’. I just felt like there are times when God opens many doors at once, in our fear and lack of faith we have a tendency to want ‘survival’ when God is speaking ‘expansion’! NOTE: While I was at work debating whether or not to add Dallas to our ‘perimeter’ I also had a list of some of our key people opened, I was just starting a new page in my address book that will list all the cities and people who are sponsoring a home group. Just as I started writing the list one of our key people showed up at work. He is one of the original drug addicts that we reached out to 20 years ago. He has been clean for a long time. He is just getting ready to graduate with a degree from A&M University. Today we will be getting together and this week we will launch a group in Kingsville, our original city. This all happened while debating whether or not to reach Dallas. Remember; when God is speaking ‘nets’ [multiple] don’t think ‘net’. Also I want to remind you of a verse REMEMBER THE WORD WHICH MOSES THE SERVANT OF THE LORD COMMANDED YOU, SAYING THE LORD YOUR GOD HAS GIVEN YOU REST, AND HAS GIVEN YOU THIS LAND. YOUR WIVES AND LITTLE ONES SHALL REMAIN IN THE LAND THAT THE LORD GAVE YOU ON THIS SIDE OF JORDAN, BUT YOU SHALL GO BEFORE YOUR BRETHREN ARMED, ALL THE MIGHTY MEN OF VALOUR AND HELP THEM UNTIL THE LORD HAS GIVEN THEM REST LIKE YOU God permits you to have a ‘home base’ of security and stability, so you will branch out and help others expand the kingdom. Don’t stay comfortable in the land, if you ‘store up too much Manna’ it will rot!

(289)As I have been reading sites from other areas where we are reaching out to, I recognize some of the names of people. Around 15 years ago we had a good brother come to corpus to preach at a conference. I remember him saying how he was ‘seeing’ all the deceptions of the prosperity movement and he had to back down because of mercy and love. You got the feeling that he was seeing some stuff, and for young guys it’s hard to believe that so much teaching can be so wrong. I could tell that he was seeing a lot of the stuff you see from this site, but out of fear couldn’t make the leap. He was around my age at the time [30]. Later on during a dinner with some of the preachers, I was invited. I didn’t ‘reprove’ or argue. I was just fellowshipping. Some how the prosperity gospel came up. I told him I just spent a year making radio tapes exposing the flaws of the movement. You could see that he was a little shaken. Sort of like realizing all the things he really wanted to say, but didn’t, were right! He also argued a little with me over some of the money verses. THOUGH JESUS WAS RICH, HE BECAME POOR SO WE COULD BE RICH he made an honest effort to say ‘it might be talking about money’ I just said ‘no it’s not’. Paul is the same guy who wrote all these other verses you see me teach on, there is NO WAY Paul is telling the Corinthians that Jesus died to increase their portfolio! Being we were both the same age and all, and being he himself knew I was right, it kind of shook him up that he didn’t preach this stuff at the conference, you could tell it. By the way you can take the verse I just quoted and make it say MONEY if you want. But you would have to go thru the same distorted way to interpret that I have showed you before on this site. Just about every cult in the world has bible verses, this doesn’t mean they are right! NOTE: to our critics, I was recording tapes for our radio program on KCTA prior to launching the show. I was also broadcasting on smaller venues already. NOTE during the phase a few years back when a lot of this stuff was first being dealt with, there were a lot of sincere brothers who didn’t want to face these issues. There is almost a sense of ‘if this stuff is as deceptive as it looks, it’s too bad to even admit it’ I remember hearing a national minister say at the time ‘ a lot of people are criticizing the prosperity movement, the lord told me when you get to heaven and see all the souls that were won by the money they brought in they will have great rewards’ [p.s. he has since changed his stance]. The problem with this reasoning is Paul and Jesus warned over and over again about the dangers of materialism. The leaders needed to speak with a clear voice many of the things I was saying. This cloudy view was making it difficult for those involved to break free.

(290)Let s go thru some stuff. I woke up yesterday at 3:00 am, felt like I needed to do some specific prayer. Some times I include about an hour and a half of specific intercession while doing ‘all night’ prayer. This list of things has grown and evolved over the last 20 years, but it has kept the basic structure for the most part, Family, Nations, Fellow believers and even old friends from Jersey. I have actually been praying specifically for you guys, often by name, for over 20 years! Well I didn’t get to do the ‘specific set’ yesterday, so I am now up at 2:45 am, been up since 1, and will make a second attempt soon. First lets do some stuff. I recently read an overview of the first book the Pope put out since becoming Pope. I will get it when it comes out in English. He wrote exactly what I have been speaking on the last month or so. He speaks on the dangers of Marxism [communism] as a form of govt. that pushed out God, though it had noble designs in its attempt to have all people ‘equal’ in society. He spoke on the dangers of capitalism as a type of govt. that can fall to the temptation of materialism. He spoke on materialism as an enemy of the church and how western society has fallen into this sin without realizing it. These themes are almost exactly what I have taught! It’s humbling to see God speak the same thing to an insignificant preacher on the gulf coast, as he is speaking to the Pope in Rome! During the time of slavery in this country there were many southern preachers who defended slavery from scripture. Many of these men were sincere, some were not. The sincere ones even had reputations as Christians that their own slaves vouched for. Some slave holders were cruel and abusive, some were actually good to their slaves [as good as you can be considering you have a slave!] The Christian slave holders read the actual verses in the New Testament where Paul writes to slaves and says SLAVES BE OBEDIENT TO YOUR MASTERS IN EVERY WAY, SO YOU DON’T GIVE THE GOSPEL A BAD REPUTATION the slave holders who were truly Christian read the other part that said MASTERS, TREAT YOUR SLAVES WITH LOVE AND RESPECT, KNOWING THAT YOU ALL ARE FELLOW BELIEVERS OF GODS GRACE. Now to read these real verses during the Civil war caused many sincere preachers to say that slavery should not be ‘undone’ because God addressed both the slaves and the masters this way. To be real honest, many of you who hold to a literalist view of scripture [I hold to a literalist view to a great extent] would see these verses the same way. It is the overriding purpose of the Gospel that causes one to fight for freedom despite the ‘verses’. Jesus primary goal in redemption was to set slaves free [spiritually] for this spiritual redemption to follow thru to a ‘physical’ one was only logical. To form your views at the time based on the overriding ACT OF REDEMPTION would trump any specific direction given, even in scripture, to a 1st century slave holder. Context tells us that Paul was addressing slaves under a different time and economy of societal rule. These 1st century slaves were governed by many Old Testament decrees that God allowed, for a multiple of reasons, to exist. It was easy for the ‘literalist’ preachers to say THE BIBLE SAYS SO in defense of keeping slaves; it was proper and just to free them as an extension of Gods purpose in Redemption! It takes courage and boldness to stand against a particular reading of scripture, that is popular at the time, in order to see and move down the bigger road of Gods overall purpose. Many today can’t follow this theme. Its possible to go to Old Testament scripture and find verses on putting to death kids who curse their parents, women who have cheated on their husbands and even those who live the Gay lifestyle. While none of these practices are considered good, even amongst most Christians today, yet to kill them is not an option! [Except maybe for that Westboro Baptist Church bunch of nuts who are going around picketing dead servicemen at their funerals!]. Christian’s today practice tithing under the same reading of scripture, many of them don’t know this, but its true. You can read the verse on robbing God in Malachi and scare people, just like if you read the verses on putting Gays to death. If you read that verse over and over every Sunday you could be persuaded of it. If you read Malachi and tithing as you read other Old Testament verses [with a spiritual truth behind the verse] then you would err on the side of grace. The old testament teaching on tithing shows us that God not only wants the ‘10 %’ of a persons income, but he wants the whole firstfruit. Spiritually we ARE the first fruits unto God. He wants ALL of us, we are his tithe! Simple, isn’t it. Now if you give 10% to your church on Sunday, fine. You shouldn’t read Malachi and tell New Testament Christians their under a curse if they don’t put 10 % in the bucket. The way people ‘rob God’ according to Jesus is by not meeting the actual needs of society WHEN I WAS HUNGRY YOU DIDN’T FEED ME, NAKED AND YOU DIDN’T CLOTHE ME, etc. Robbing God is not done by ‘not tithing’ it is done by not obeying the New Testament mandate given over our treatment of ‘our neighbor’. Now this is supposed to ‘leak’ over into society at large. That’s also why you see certain elements of catholic teaching that harbor illegal aliens [the sanctuary movement] they are responding out of this basic concept of ‘treating your neighbor well’. Neighbor in the 1st century context also meant ‘alien’ those who were living ‘in the land’ but were not really part of Gods covenant. God had specific instructions on how to treat ‘illegals’ and it was WITH GRACE. Sorry Sean Hannity! Well any way I felt the Lord had this word for you guys, hopefully I will get thru this prayer thing without coming back to write, many times I will write in spurts while right in the middle of prayer. Could it be that this is why the Lord allows these ‘words’ to have a big impact? Prayer is more important than ‘pulpit performance’ seek to speak what God is saying and the Lord will give you an audience. NOTE: When Paul was addressing the early believers and basically telling the slaves to ‘submit’ this was a practical reality that Paul was trying to instill in the new revolutionary movement called ‘church’. There were other messianic groups in the first century, some of these were called ‘zealots’ these people practiced a radical type of reform. A type of civil disobedience that Paul didn’t want the new believers to be associated with. Paul wanted the early believers to be seen as good citizens in society, not zealots. This explains the practical instruction on slaves being obedient. Paul wasn’t justifying slavery for all time!

(291)Well I didn’t make it too long. The other day I was fellowshipping with an old friend. He is one of our ‘first fruits’ unto God. Many years in Prison, doing drugs, robbing places. One of the ‘veterans’ of the Prison group. These guys have been with me from the start. They have seen us go thru transition and all types of changes and things over the years. I was reading the Saturday papers that our blog comes out in. He showed up at work and I gave him all the blog pages from these Texas papers to hang up as a prayer reminder. By the way if you guys see our listing in your city paper, do the same! I was sharing with my friend about some new cities we are going to reach out to. New territories and ideas, always thinking strategically. After talking a few minutes he was feeling a little apprehensive. He was telling me about his brother, also an old friend of mine, and how he’s back on ‘the stuff’ all strung out living in Robstown. I was like ‘yea, I will pick him up for the home group on my way to Kingsville’ my buddy was around when I went thru a lot of hard times in the past. He was like ‘ slow down brother, you know the devil starts coming after us when we try to reach out and all’. These guys have been shot at, shot at others. Been involved in the ‘Mexican Mafia’ in prison. Done all types of crazy stuff, and yet the devil still has them scared to reach out. I do understand what my friend was saying, I even remember his dad tell me this 20 years ago, the devil wants to intimidate us [and you!] Hey, we are all gonna die some day, might as well ‘go out in a blaze of glory’.

(292)Still praying [last 2 entries] and felt I should share this. I am at the point of prayer where I pray for all of you. Part of this prayer has me INVOKING THE BLOOD OF JESUS on all of you. I usually feel the anointing at this point [also when praying for the martyrs families and abortion I sense this feeling] Just now I prayed I INVOKE THE ETERNAL BLOOD OF THE UNIVERSE OVER ALL THESE PEOPLE and was looking straight up at the stars and there was this awesome gust of cool wind and a sense of God cleansing us. Add this to you’re prayer list!

(293)Many years ago while visiting Jesrey I would look up old friends and try to visit and tell them about what the Lord was doing. The first few years I would still find old buddies living in the same houses where they grew up. One time I found an old friend, Tom Roming. Another friend told me how he became a heroin addict [Revelation speaks of a rider on a horse whose name is death, some think the reference to heroin as ‘horse’ applies.] I found him staying at his mom’s house. I guess we were around 25 years old at the time. In the last 5-7 years out of high school I covered a lot of territory, it was sad to see that some of my buddies spent that whole time at the end of a needle. Tom was surprised to see me, the way he introduced me to his mom was ‘this is chiarello, he was one of those guys who was always beating some one up’. I thought about this later, how even in high school I had a buddy; frank Romano, who would hang out with me. One time a jock had punched him out. He knew he had to make it right. He didn’t have the same ‘ability’ to just walk up to someone and ‘whack the hell out of em’. The key to this strategy is you hit someone on the first shot with all your might and if you don’t knock him out, you already have a great advantage. Well Frank knew he had to do something. So I ‘coached’ him for the big day. I do remember being upstairs in North Bergen High School and meeting Frank. I was his ‘moral support’. When the Jock came out of the class, I told Frank ‘go for it’. He walked up and punched this guy in the face. It was quite wimpy! They fought and it was over. A few weeks later he saw some of these guys at some school function [without me around] and he told me he felt bad because he had purposely ran away. I said don’t feel bad Frank, you whacked him already. He said ‘yea, but you were there, and all those jocks know you would ‘kick their #$@#$ if they did something’. I never realized that I was viewed that way. Well one of our other ‘friends’ made fun of my friend when he first got whacked by the jock. He kept telling Frank ‘you saw the stars’ the other day. Not long after, right in class I told this guy ‘as soon as the bell rings, I am gonna whack the $^%# out of you right here. I am giving you fair warning’. I remember the bell ringing and I calmly stood up and ‘whacked’ him so hard I smashed his glasses into his face. He really got knocked out on fell on the floor [this was the only time someone actually got knocked out]. The Puerto Ricans in the class were always scared of me after this. It’s like you had Italians and Puerto Ricans and Cubans. Well Frank was able to tell this guy who I hit ‘I heard you saw stars too!’ Actually I see the name of this guy who I hit on the classmates site. I do want to email him and apologize and invite him to the site. I am not sure if I should. Well my drug friend Tom Roming invited me in and we had a good talk. I shared scripture with him and really had a good time. A few years later he was dead. I hope he accepted the Lord. NOTE: The class I was in was New Jersey History with Mr. Norris as my teacher. The teacher found out that I actually knocked him out after everybody left the room. The next day he really didn’t say anything, he actually looked scared! I found out my friend Frank had actually told him something like ‘John will kick your #%$@ too’. I wouldn’t have, but thought this was funny!

(294)GOD HAS THE ABILITY TO MOBOLIZE AND EXPAND ON ALL FRONTS AT ONCE!

(295)I have a captain friend at the firehouse who is a liberal Democrat. One day we were talking and the secretary pages the Captain to pick up the phone. I forget how she said it, but it was in a way that we knew it was Dick Cheney’s office calling to set up our ambulance service to provide for a local hunting trip that Cheney makes every year. He kinda said ‘damn, what’s Cheney want now!’ I thought it was funny. This Captain was rooting for Kerry to win the election against Bush a few years back. There were a bunch of guys hanging out and he was challenging the ‘non Kerry’ guys. I stuck my hand out and bet him $50 bucks that Bush would win. He went for it. Sure enough I won the 50 and he paid up. He was mad that Kerry lost, and he was taking it out verbally on the union guys who voted for Bush. He said ‘I cant understand how you labor guys could vote for a Republican, there out for the rich, what money has Bush ever gotten you?’ I answered ‘Well, he just made me 50 bucks’ this didn’t improve my Captains mood too much! NOTE: I am not a Republican or Democrat. I initially was against the Iraq war. I voiced my fear that we were trying to do too much and we were going to spread ourselves too thin. I said this from the start. Just thought I would mention this. Also many people don’t realize that Saddam was ‘friendly’ to Christians. Being he was a ‘secular’ Muslim, and not a radical one like Iran’s Ayatollahs, Christian evangelism and other aspects of Christianity had more of an open door than in Iran. I am not defending Saddam, he was a tyrant! Just thought you should know this.

(296)Let me overview some history from the Fundamental Independent Baptist Church and its beliefs. I used to attend a good one that did preach the gospel. I do want to share in love some examples from this peculiar type of Christianity. The church I attended had a sign that said FUNDAMENTAL, INDEPENDENT, PREMELLINIAL, PRETRIBULATIONAL BAPTIST CHURCH This ‘sign’ was in itself a sign of the danger that Christians fall into when they isolate themselves from the rest of the Body of Christ. While I understand this view and style of belief, I also see a type of theology [eschatology] that can develop when you truncate yourself from the mainstream churches. There are so many things that you can put on a ‘church sign’ why clutter it up with certain end time views [which in my view are actually incorrect!] You can put THE BLOOD OF JESUS WASHES AWAY SIN or John 3:16 or some other way to define your belief system, but this type of Church sees itself as THE ONLY truly Christian church today. Some are not this extreme, but even those have a ‘cultic’ spirit that sees everyone else as ‘straying from the faith’ while they are the true carriers of the faith. I was with a friend at work who is a Christian. I recently recommended the church I attend in Corpus [a great mega church] to him. They have a ‘branch’ church in Kingsville where I work. One day while I was reading the bible during lunch a city inspector came by to take care of business. He noticed I was reading the bible and started talking. I found out that he is a good Christian who attends a fundamental Baptist Church. I gave him some of the books I wrote and told him I am a little ‘radical’ but hoped he would get blessed [to be honest for a Fundamental Baptist to read this entire site would probably give him a heart attack]. It was good fellowship. He shared with me and the other fire fighter how he and his wife travel about 4 towns over [50 miles] to attend a Fundamental Baptist Church. It’s probably a small Church with around 50 people [OK] my friend later thought it strange for someone to do that. After all there are so many good Christian churches right here! I explained to him a little of the legalism that causes this. To see your ‘peculiar style’ of belief as the only ones you can truly worship with. Many Christians suffer from this. Some are more extreme than others. By the way my fire fighter friend did start attending the church I recommended, and he loves it. One day at work we were watching the history channel and they were doing a thing on the Mormon Church, my friend said ‘wow, I would never be a Mormon’ I looked at him with a real serious face and said ‘what do you mean’ he said ‘look at all the stuff they believe, I could never believe that’ I said ‘[my friends name] we are MORMONS! Bay Area Fellowship is Mormon!’ He was shocked, then I told him I was just kidding. I thought it was funny at the time.

(297)Some things from Isaiah 46. THE IDOLS WERE UPON THE BEASTS, THEY ARE A BURDEN TO THE BEAST Idols wear you down, they put the responsibility on you to change your world. Sooner or later they will weigh you down. I HAVE MADE AND I WILL CARRY YOU AND DELIVER YOU True Christianity puts the ‘burden’ on God to pull us thru. HIS YOKE IS EASY AND BURDEN LIGHT THEY TAKE GOLD OUT OF THE BAG, AND WEIGH SILVER IN THE BALANCE. THEY HIRE A GOLDSMITH AND HE MAKES IT INTO A GOD God will not let this stand CALLING A RAVENOUS BIRD FROM THE EAST, THE MAN THAT EXECUTETH MY COUNSEL FROM A FAR COUNTRY. I HAVE SPOKEN IT AND I WILL BRING IT TO PASS. I HAVE PURPOSED IT AND I WILL DO IT HEARKEN UNTO ME YE STUBBORN OF HEART God says this time around I will perform my purpose to bring true reform. Many times you have been reproved and shown the error of idolatry, you have for the most part ignored it and have not allowed for true reformation. This will not stand any longer. The people are tired of the burden it brings and they will flee to God so he can ‘carry them’. NOTE: I have memorized the ‘ravenous bird from the east’ for over 20 yrs. I always took it personal. Coming from the east and all. ‘Blinded by the light’ song says ‘preacher from the east’. American Pie from Don McLean says ‘the 3 Men I admire most, the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, they took the last train for the coast’ you have the train imagery and the coast. And the image from the gospel of John on ‘in my fathers house are many mansions’ speaks of people groups. Well Springstein says ‘ every body’s out on the road tonight in a last chance power drive, took highway nine to the mansions of glory’ I have driven highway 9, as you can tell I still like the old songs!

(298)I AM BRINGING IN A TRAIN FROM HEAVEN, IT IS COMING WITH POWER I forgot that chuck Pierce prophesied this around a month ago, I like the train stuff!

(299)Was just thinking about a show I saw a while back. Larry King had a bunch of preachers and Priests on his talk show. One preacher was a ‘fundamentalist’ he was doctrinally correct on a lot of stuff, but you could sense an arrogance. Another brother was a well-known Christian author, I liked him the most. He stood strong for salvation being thru Christ, but was humble and real. The Priest was a little to ‘liberal’ for me. He kind of had the mindset that all people who believe in ‘a’ god are all right [not all Priests are liberal!]. He even had a famous guy who is very popular today, he teaches ‘eastern mysticism’ though they really don’t call it that. It’s easy to fall into categories. I believe true Christianity should be ‘served’ with humility and grace. This doesn’t mean that we give in to extreme liberal views on salvation ‘all roads lead to heaven’ type stuff. One road leads to heaven, his name is Jesus. You can be Catholic, Protestant or any other group, but you must believe in the death, burial and resurrection of Gods Son. God is not asking people to change their cultural heritage, but he is compelling you to ‘get in the lifeboat’ [Ark!]

(300)A WHEEL WITHIN A WHEEL [bible verse- Ezekiel’s vision of God] A few years ago I flew to Jersey. At the airport I went to a gift shop to get some stuff for my kids. I saw a shop from the Smithsonian institute. They had all sorts of stuff that I remember seeing as a boy taking field trips to Philadelphia and stuff. I picked up a gyroscope. It’s like a ‘wheel within a wheel’ type thing. They function like a top. I know this isn’t what the above verse is referring to [to my Jersey friends, the wheel thing is in the bible in Ezekiel. Also Philadelphia is a word from the book of Revelation describing one of the 7 churches. It means ‘city of brotherly love’] but I like the image. As you wrap the string around the Gyroscope and spin it, it stays in ‘motion’ and doesn’t fall as long as it’s moving. This represents a ‘Divine gravity’ a ‘staying up’ as a result of moving in the Spirit with the Lord, stay in motion! [WALK IN THE SPIRIT AND YOU WILL NOT FULFILL THE LUSTS OF THE FLESH]

(301)Was just praying while listening to ‘Fleetwood Mac’ [yes it’s possible!] and had an image go thru my mind ‘Son of man, thrust in your sickle and reap, for the harvest of the earth is ripe’ [Revelation] Also Jesus words on the ‘harvest truly is plenteous, but the laborers are few, pray to the Lord of the harvest that he would send forth laborers into the harvest’. This prayer can be dangerous, like praying for patience! God just might send you! Why don’t you Christians sell out while there’s still time? Jesus said walk in the day while there is still light, but a time of darkness is coming in which no man can work. God gives you seasons of grace and opportunity, if we are always living for ourselves we will miss these open doors. You will later on change your mind and say ‘Now that I have lived MY life I am willing to do Gods will’ but it will be too late. The time is now; no man can pull it off if he misses his season. The goal is not self-preservation or longevity; it is completion of the Divine mandate! Note: Just went back out to pray with this home made C.D. heard ‘when September ends’ by Green day. 7 years has come and past, wake me up when September ends. 20 years has come and past, wake me up when September ends. Thought it fit in pretty well.

(302)I had a couple of thoughts that ran thru my mind. Jesus was being praised by the people at one time in the gospels. The religious leaders were jealous and said ‘tell them to stop’ Jesus responded ‘if I stop them, the rocks themselves would cry out’. This response was primarily to the 1st century religious Jew. Their whole destiny was at a critical point in history. They were created for the sole purpose of revealing God [and ultimately Messiah] to all the ‘rock’ nations around them. Scripture uses images like ‘precious stone’ ‘wood, hay, stubble’ and things like this to denote value and worth. The religious Jew of the 1st century saw themselves as ‘precious stones’ they derived this from their Old testament books [Isaiah, etc.] The prophets referred to Israel as ‘special and precious’. Jesus response to them by saying ‘if these don’t praise me, the rocks will cry out’ was a prophetic image. He was in essence saying ‘Israel, if you withhold the rightful praise due me as the true Messiah, there will rise up another Temple made of all these gentile stones, they will give to me the honor that I deserve’. Also I was thinking of the judgment verse where Jesus says ‘when you didn’t feed me, clothe me, visit me, etc’ and the people said ‘when did we not treat you well’ and Jesus responds ‘when you didn’t do it to the least of these, you didn’t do it to me, depart from me, I never knew you’. We often read that to mean Jesus is in heaven, we are here on earth and these outcasts of society are number 3 on the list. When Jesus says ‘I never had a friendship/relationship with you’ he is saying this to those who ‘prophesied’ and did many wonderful religious works. He is speaking to those whose experience of God is truncated from social justice issues. Those who ‘see’ God and their Christian responsibility as a separate culture that is to be enjoyed ‘outside’ of society. Jesus response wasn’t saying ‘I didn’t know you because you didn’t help others’ he is saying ‘the only way you could have truly known me was THRU these people; I was represented in society in these outcasts. You had a whole lifetime to have in some way reached out and gotten to know me, you never did, therefore I NEVER KNEW YOU’. This should change our mindset of church and ministry, it should compel us to come out of our safe cultural environments and touch the world, for in doing this you touch God.

(303)Today is 4-19-2007. I wrote the entries on abortion [277-278] a few days ago. I never wrote on abortion until that day. Within the next few days major events happened that I was not aware of. First; The Supreme Court just upheld the Bush administration and congresses law against partial birth abortion. This is the first major ruling affecting abortion since roe v wade. It was like the morning I woke up and wrote on the horrors of abortion, I didn’t realize it was like a prophetic intercession [along with many others!] crying out to stop this atrocity. The other acts are still being performed [the murder of babies!] but at least the partial birth ones are not. Second; When I wrote on the atrocity of this act, there was a real sense of violence and murder associated with this act that I couldn’t really express. I wrote about Moses and how this same violence was released in the land during his time. The last 2 days the news has been focused on the worst mass murder in U.S. history. The murder of more than 30 people at Virginia Tech University. The news is full of the horrendous violence of this act. Many questions on how things like this could happen. When I wrote on abortion, I was trying to show how we are ‘de sensitized’ by the violence of this act. About an hour ago I saw the video that the killer made. He said he saw himself as a modern day ‘Moses’ who was striking back at what society has done to the harmless and vulnerable that are in it. In no way do I justify, or see what this disturbed kid did as an act of God. I do find it prophetic that it happened so close to the entries that I penned on this subject. NOTE; I see this more like letting down the ‘natural barrier’ in society that exists against violent acts towards humanity. When society gets to a point where the act of murder against unborn children becomes not only accepted, but looked upon as ‘progressive minded’ then you have lowered the inherent barrier that exists in most societies and this opens the door to horrendous acts all thru the spectrum.

(304)The other day I was listening to a good preacher on the radio. Sort of a ‘reformed’ thinker who frequently calls the church back to the Puritan days. I love Puritan history and writing. Many of these brothers would agree with some of the stuff I teach in the area of the church being self centered and materially minded, but they would absolutely reject our prophetic stuff. God’s intent for the church is more than ‘the church’. Jesus spoke on the Kingdom over and over again, very little on the church. The reason we exist as ‘the church’ is to invade and impact all areas of society until Christ returns. There are certain ‘old time’ defenders of the faith who cant get past ‘church’ being ‘the old time model’. They stumble over the current mega church expression. Many have gone after Rick Warren and his purpose driven church model. Our radical teaching on the church being the actual mobile community of God ‘journeying’ thru every generation till now, leaves room for the unique expressions of meeting that would go from the simple ‘home based model’ all the way to the ‘mega church’ and even to the Catholic brothers! Our purpose isn’t to meet and argue over the many ways to meet, our purpose is to advance and communicate the gospel of the Kingdom into every arena of man. Some confuse my strong preaching against materialism with a call to come out of the market place. Nothing could be further from the truth! When Christians are able to live above the concerns of the unbeliever, and to do it in a way where they are so intricately involved in society, this itself is a testimony to them. Over the years I have had Christian friends try to tell me ‘why don’t you leave the Fire Dept. and get a building and be faithful to your calling’. I see now that some of them were saying this out of self-guilt. Many of the other Christians in the market place were feeling ‘threatened’ that a so-called ‘preacher’ [to which I hold no claim] would be working and holding a job like them. Sort of ‘well if this guy can do it, then I am responsible to be more than just a fire fighter’. Then you would have those in ‘full time ministry’ who would get offended that we didn’t take offerings or money. After all they would make the ‘offering time’ 25% of the Sunday meeting. The fact that we weren’t even doing it was offensive [we did take offerings at one time, but I never took a salary from day one]. These examples show you that society is comfortable with secular/holy divisions ‘just keep the church in the church’ and they will be happy. Now to the point of the believer being highly involved in all aspects of society, even economically. It is most definitely Gods will for believers to excel in the stock market, real estate world and all other avenues of finance and influence. Its just we need to distinguish between a message of ‘the Kingdom invading society’ and making the Kingdom about money. This is a real distinction that needs to be taught and understood. Many prophetic people who advocate these things are not yet able to articulate this distinction in an effective way. They will read so far on this blog and think that we are against being progressive, which is not the case. Jesus instituted the Church so the Church would be the key vehicle for expressing the Kingdom in the earth [as well as the whole universe!] We are about much more than which particular style of church or meeting we should have. The style or methods are really un important in my mind. The goal is to harvest enough people who we can then turn out into society to affect it for Christ. The Kingdom starts as a little seed [our small church mentality!] and eventually moves out to cover the earth!

(305)I was watching a prophetic TV show last night. The sponsor of the show, who also has a prophetic web site, was interviewing another prophetic person. I have sent our stuff to both of these brothers over the last year. Whether they read this site or not I don’t know. I found it interesting that as the host was interviewing the prophet; he said how the prosperity movement not only was unbalanced, but possibly not of God at all! The prophet kind of looked a little uncomfortable. I can’t help but think that the host has read our stuff. Their web site would never express this point of view before. I have sent this blog to many of the prophets on the site. I don’t want to be conceited, thinking that I am the only one who might have had an influence on this brother, but I think we did! NOTE: I find it interesting that I have sent our stuff to a lot of the prophets on this web site. I only got a good response from one of them [never got a bad response, just none!] But the fact that the brother who runs the site actually is ‘seeing things our way’ is the key. I sort of get the feeling that a lot of the ‘prophets’ just ignored us, but the sponsor of the site didn’t!

(306)Just remembered something that I wanted to share. I heard a brother speaking on Revelation. One of the rebukes to the 7 churches is they held to the ‘doctrine of the Nicolatians’. There have been different ideas about who they were. Most commentators agree that it speaks of ‘those who would rise above the saints’ or the rise of both early ecclesiastical offices [Bishop, Priests, etc] as well as later protestant titles [Pastor]. Some feel that the unscriptural foundation for the way these offices function are what this ‘doctrine of the Nicolatians’ is about. You can interpret many of the passages that deal with authority in either ‘family’ terms or ‘authoritarian’ terms. A famous, well respected evangelical scholar [reformed] actually did a whole book on the King James translation and how they chose to interpret many of the words in authoritarian language as opposed to family language. OBEY THOSE WHO HAVE THE RULE OVER YOU and other scriptures that could have said FOLLOW THE GUIDANCE OF SPIRITUAL ELDERS IN YOUR MIDST. Some feel the reason the most popular version today [King James] opted for this way of translating was for political necessity. The Church of England chose to use this terminology to reinforce the mindset of ‘submission to authority’ that is the authority of England and it’s ‘church’ as they were blatantly moving out from under the ‘authority’ of Rome. Sort of ‘you can have your cake and eat it too’ type deal. The historical background to the political motivation of this is no secret. I usually don’t approach it from this angle because it challenges the strong ‘King James only’ crowd a little too much. I believe exposing the simple fact of the New Testament not showing the modern role of ‘Pastor’ as we practice it today is enough to cause us to re think the ‘ruling’ offices in the church. I do believe the Lord has Elders/leaders that function in the Body of Christ, but I also see truth to the fact that many modern offices have been developed outside of the original intent of the Spirit of God.

(307)ISAIAH 47 Here this, thou that are given to pleasures [who see Christianity as a means to self indulgence, getting more and more] You who say ‘I shall never suffer the loss of children’ [those who have followed our belief system will always remain faithful to us] Thy wisdom and thy knowledge have perverted thee [the intricate systems of teaching and the lengths that you have gone to in order to get around plain scripture] stand now with all the formulas and gimmicks that you have performed from your early days, see if they will replace true repentance and open turning back towards the truth. Thus shall be all those who you have merchandised with from your youth, every one shall wander to his quarter [try to find refuge in abiding only in those groups who agree with the distorted views that have been perpetrated on the saints] none shall save thee [you will find that all the assurances of the past will no longer work. The obvious error that has been passed down from the leaders who have gone off course will be very plain to the new generation of believers that God is raising up. Many of the ‘children’ with love and respect for their ‘fore fathers’ will choose faithfulness to the Lord over carrying the ‘torch’ for the fathers of their movements. God will save the day!]

(308)Recently I heard 2 people speak on the hill of Caleb. Caleb and Joshua are the 2 spies that believed they could take the Promised Land. Caleb waited 44 years before he finally possessed his ‘hill’. Hills or mountains in scripture represent things that stand in the way, they represent territory or Kingdoms that are competing. Scripture says the Lords ‘mountain’ will be on top of all other mountains. We are called ‘mount Zion’ in the book of Hebrews. Don’t overlook this. In the Old Testament it was an actual dirt thing, today it is the Church! For the past 4 years I have been driving past this ‘hill’ on the way to work. Here in south Texas you have no mountains. But there is this little dirt hill that I pass on highway ‘44’. A few weeks back I took a picture from my camera phone of a train passing the hill while driving to work. I haven’t snapped a train picture in a long time. I do have a few that I use as the background on my phone. When I got to work I went to a prophetic web site and saw a prophecy on 2 trains colliding. It spoke about a season of faith and favor coming together. The hill represents the promises and the obstacles. Often times we see the obstacle as the hindrance to the promise, God sees it as the actual process that we go thru to inherit the land. Its like running with ankle weights, when you finally take them off at the real competition, you fly! Caleb took his hill after 44 years of waiting; I drive past this hill on highway 44. I will be 45 in 7 –17-07 [a few months] Holy field who is 44 years old just fought in Corpus. Feel like the lord is going to bring forth some fruit from his ‘Holy field’ at this season. The time is ripe for many of you to take your hill. You have been running into it for a long time, but you are about to ‘thresh’ that thing into dust and the wind will blow it away. The Divine Favor of God is going to impact that thing like a train wreck and you will come forth on the other side ready to fly! NOTE: Typing this right now I here the train whistle blasting in the background. Prophesy to that mountain, it will turn to dust! NOTE: The church I attend used an outline that I liked in the Sunday message. It quoted the verse ‘The little foxes spoil the vine’ but it was a modern translation that said ‘during the time when the field is blooming the foxes can eat the harvest’. I like this. It’s like the Lord is saying there are dangers that are inherent to the harvest. I want the harvest, I would prefer you to take a chance and plunge yourself into the harvest, but be ware that this is the time when the enemy wants to ‘eat the blooms’. Don’t fear, just realize he is feeling threatened and he knows once the harvest comes in it’s all over for him. He knoweth that his time is short.

(309)I am up early at work. I thought of a few funny things. One morning as I was praying early, one of the other guys woke up later and confessed that he was dreaming of God and stuff. He didn’t describe everything but I got the sense that he was having prophetic dreams. He was quite shocked. Another friend told me he was dreaming that he had gotten stuck in the bathroom and was banging on the wall for me to come help, but I just ignored him. I told him ‘this, my friend, is one of those prophetic dreams that speaks much truth!’ thought it was funny. NOTE: Even though this was funny, it actually is prophetic! This speaks of my friend feeling ‘bound/captive’ and calling out to me for help. I rarely witness or preach to the guys at work. Every now and than I can tell that someone wants to spark up a conversation or is really searching. I have prophesied specific stuff to a few and they have said it was right on, but I kinda take the position that ‘you do what you gotta do, and I’ll do what I gotta do’. I realize that people know that I have been known to be on the verge of ‘fighting’ and stuff, I don’t hide it. There have been times over 25 years as a firefighter that I have been close to ‘getting into it’ with a few guys. So I don’t try to come off as some ‘holy preacher’ or anything. But some times people are really searching for answers, and they see this psycho up praying all night. Maybe this affects them? I don’t know, really I don’t care.

(310)Talked about my blind dog a few days ago. Scripture says ‘who is blind like my servant’ Jesus told the religious leaders ‘if you were blind, I could help you, but because you say ‘we can see’ your sin remains’. The dog has learned to walk the paths in my yard. The first few days she simply had to follow the voice of my daughter to learn the way to go. God leads people who are humble and vulnerable. People who recognize that they ‘cant see’. You will eventually find your ‘sea legs’ under you once again, but you will know that is was the grace of God that brought you here. NOTE: I used imagery earlier on this blog about the Lord opening channels and waterways in this area. One of the channels is called ‘HUMBLE CHANNEL’ The Lord flows thru those who have been thru this process. Some believe the Apostle Paul was almost blind. He without a doubt was bringing forth some of the greatest revelation of his day, yet he himself could not see!


(311)A strange thing happened. We just started speaking into San Antonio in a strong way. Our broadcast has been going there for over 10 years, but recently we have had greater authority for that City. I noticed one of the most influential churches who we kinda ‘corrected’ over the air is no longer on the radio. I know they are doing well. They are in the process of building a huge sanctuary downtown [even though I like where they are at now]. I don’t feel they went off the air because of us. I feel the Lord will allow certain voices to speak at certain seasons, and will allow others time to ‘re group’. When God corrects things it is for the purpose of restoration, not destruction! I actually feel a little bad about them going off the air. They have been on the radio in San Antonio for a long time [years], I did enjoy the show. I believe they will be back with a clearer voice and vision for what God wants to do in his Church.

(312)CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP DOES NOT EXIST FOR THE PURPOSE OF SELF ADVANCEMENT AND UPWARD MOBLITY AT THE EXPENSE OF THE ‘LAITY’ we need to re think our function in this area. Paul and Jesus were not going around promoting what God was doing thru them, nor were they recruiting ‘financial partners’ to simply experience the Kingdom vicariously thru the gifted leader. They were depositing into the people and releasing them to function on their own. You find Paul and Jesus receiving financial support to send them and help them in their traveling ministry, but today’s mindset of the Leader being ‘sent’ all over the world while the saints sit back and wait to hear all the stories was not the normal mode. Paul did share what God was doing, don’t get me wrong. But today’s mindset sees the people as promoters of the leaders lifestyle and gift. This is why you have well meaning Ministry leaders who live in multi million dollar homes while the average supporter of the ministry lives in a $100,ooo dollar one [or rents an apartment]. It’s OK to live in a million dollar home, but it’s hard to appeal to supporters who are on fixed income, and to ask them to give out of their lack while doing this. The leaders have simply become victims of the western mindset of ministry that pools 90 % of the funds from the average person. While many of the leaders do use the majority of the funds for good things [Christian TV] they seem to justify a lifestyle of wealth and happiness at the expense of the sacrificial giver by their reading of the prosperity scriptures. ‘If God wants me to have wealth, then it’s OK’. They truly don’t see the rebukes in scripture to the ‘shepherds’ who have become wealthy at the expense of the sheep. Being wealthy is OK, you are not allowed to do it from the overall aggregate giving of many average income people. Scripture does forbid this in many places. NOTE: If the leaders salary is equal to those who are sending in support then it’s OK. If the leader is more frugal, a better investor and manages thru time to buy a million dollar home then that’s fine. I am speaking of those who run large ministries and their ‘salary’ including all the perks is in the millions. They often have their family members on the payroll at large salaries [500 thousand] while they really don’t do that much. These leaders look at the average CEO of a large company who makes millions more and justifies it this way. The reason you shouldn’t do this is because the non-profit ministry is really not ‘producing a product’ or commodity. The way they are bringing in millions [or billions] is thru outright giving. This is different than a for profit business. So the way to measure salary shouldn’t be thru the abusive CEO pay, but thru what I just showed you. Paul was reaching the entire known world of his day, pretty much single handedly. He found himself making tents at times to support himself. He traveled like the average person and lived in a lifestyle commensurate with those he was reaching. Jesus also. This is why you read Peter saying ‘desire to be an elder, not for filthy lucre’s sake, but of a ready mind’. This is why it is so important for us to have a good understanding of scripture. A friend of mine was attending a local word of faith church. And right from the start the preacher was confessing ‘you wait and see, my faith is going to produce a Cadillac by the end of this year’. Well this brother means well, he just doesn’t see all the things I just showed you. And when you try to correct this stuff, they will not listen! NOTE: What bugs the ‘hell’ out of me is the inability for prophetic people to see this. It’s like when you try to show a ‘prophet’ something he dismisses all the verses and warnings about this because he knows the other verses on prosperity. Heck [Ill’ be nice] I know them too!

(313)Jesus suffered irreconcilable loss. The tragedy of Judas betrayal and damnation caused more pain to Jesus than to Judas. Judas went to the place where he was destined to go. Jesus knew from the beginning that he could ‘keep’ him for so long. Jesus called Judas friend. Jesus wasn’t lying. He knew that his relationship with Judas was only for a short time. Why would you let him get so close and be your friend? I guess he just couldn’t help it. He lost his friend forever.

(314)A few years back a prophet gave a public prophecy on a Christian TV station. Basically it was a major thing that didn’t happen. I do like this brother and just believe he missed it. The problem was he couldn’t admit it. He went thru all types of excuses to get around the obvious ‘miss’. Then you had the ‘apologists’ come after him. So you had the prophetic people, being supported by a lot of the TV guys who are messing up in the money stuff, and this got the prophets siding with the prosperity guys against the apologists. The problem was the prophet missed it. OK so have I. The Lord is out for truth. Whether you’re the apologist guy [who is an attack dog] or the prophet group. Ultimately we need to align up with what the Lord is saying. It’s stuff like this that confuses the issue. I hope we can get past this.

(315)THE LAWNMOWER MAN many years ago I used to watch a famous prosperity preacher out of the Fort Worth area. At the time I liked his teaching and was attracted to it. I regularly watched him and listened to others as well. One time on their daily TV show they showed a testimony. The story was about someone who got saved and began winning people to the Lord. It showed how this brother spent a few years after his conversion giving his life away for the gospel. It then showed how one day he heard this preachers teaching and it ‘lured’ his interest. He then became a supporter and believer in the prosperity gospel. He started a very successful lawnmower business, made lots of money and that’s it! I thought the story would end with the guy using all this money to reach more people, or some kind of ‘spiritual’ point at all. Nope, That was it! Paul the Apostle made an interesting statement when reproving false prophets, he said ‘they testify themselves that they are false, and their testimony is true’. Over the years of myself and others sincerely writing and confronting these brothers in love, you would think that there would have been some attempt at change, even a little. But over a period of time everything about this message stays the same. You try to be patient and love and forgive, but then you have to seriously ask yourself ‘if these brothers refuse to stop doing this stuff, then it’s our responsibility to tell people ‘beware’. I don’t understand the motives of this anymore. I know that pride and rebellion are at the heart of unrepentance. I just see the age of some of these men, they have been ‘steeped’ in this for so long they cant seem to see their way out. I really am trying to change the course of the younger generation of believers coming up. These preachers who continue teaching people to live for finances instead of spiritual riches will give an account some day. The TV stations that broadcast these shows out of love and a real feeling of friendship towards these people will also give an account. I know many well-meaning people. Mormons, Jehovah’s Witness and many others. They do good things. The Masons are wonderful people who help burned children. I take my kids to their Circus to support them. The children’s ministry that they do is great. But I can’t allow the obvious goodness of many of these groups to take precedence over biblical truth. The simple fact that many of the prosperity preachers cause believers to live for wealth is really wrong. I know these brothers are Christians, but this has to stop. NOTE; A few years back a lot of these teachers were dealt with the first time around. I remember hearing one of them give a defense by saying ‘some people accuse me of being a money preacher. Well that’s right, I am a money preacher’ Now he said this in a way where he thought he was doing right by saying it. Sort of like saying ‘that’s right, I do believe all the stuff we teach is new revelation’. He didn’t realize he was actually fulfilling the verse where Paul says the false prophets testify themselves that they are false. In the actual statement ‘I am a money preacher’ you are actually saying ‘my God is money, I preach it. I confess it. My Jesus was a 1st century Donald Trump.’ They don’t realize that this is what they’re doing, but they are fulfilling Paul’s prophecy in the bible!

(316)Was just outside praying and kinda prayed ‘Lord, disrupt and deconstruct all the structures that are in place that are hindering your ‘structure’. Have mercy on all those who run these structures [ministries] deal in love and grace with them and their families, they didn’t know what they were really doing, but the time is now come for these ‘structures’ to come down’. We often defend ‘our ministries’ as the way a CEO would strategize and defend his company. God is concerned for his people; he is not defending ‘Christian businesses’!

(317)The enemy uses systems and structures of speech and thought that are closely related to godly avenues in order to sidetrack people. When the serpent came to Eve in the garden, he is using speech [confession] scripture [the words God spoke, though distorted] and the form of communication that God initially established for his purpose [by the way, those involved in Christian TV networks, many of you do broadcast very good stuff. I was just watching God TV last night and enjoyed a Rick Joyner meeting, also I like the I.H.O.P. meetings with Mike Bickle and many other good prophetic ministries. It is the enemies strategy to ‘mix’ the good stuff with the ‘bad’ wheat/tares strategy] The fact that the enemy uses the means of communication that God initiates should cause us to be more selective in discerning that which is holy [good] from that which is not! Pastor[s] can feel like I am ‘threatening’ their livelihood. I understand this. This is a direct result of the modern day phenomena of the ‘full time minister’. Paul and the other New Testament leaders were not trying to ‘defend their jobs’ they were laying their lives down for truth. Sometimes literally! True reform is difficult. People are happy and comfortable with a steady income stream. Regular supporters who are really blessed by other ministries who might broadcast thru the station. All the natural feelings of being threatened and losing that sense of security are involved with reform. Many Catholic Priests were shaken during the reformation. It was a time in history where God said ‘I am going to change some things permanently in the history of the Church’. I am not saying everything the reformers did was right. But the time had come for a shift to happen. Shifts are very uncomfortable. They cause you to re evaluate all that you have known and held onto in the past. Shifts are necessary. No chastening at the present time seems to be joyous, but grievous. Nevertheless afterward it produces right things as well as peace. To some it brings destruction. That’s not the purpose of chastening, but some are steeped in rebellion to the point where they have staked their lives on it. NOTE: Let me try to help some of you who are sincerely worried. The reality of God being our provider. The truth behind all the scriptures of God wanting to prosper us and God being a good God and all of these things are true. They were true for Paul who said ‘Preachers will rise in the last days, preaching that gain is godliness. From such turn away’ they were true for Jesus who said ‘be ware of covetousness, a mans life doesn’t consist in the amount of things he owns’. These scriptures of God being our provider teach us that God is good and will most definitely meet our needs. This is a far cry from the other stuff I am trying to ‘root out’. God being our provider is one thing. Making the entire gospel and kingdom about money is something forbidden in scripture! Discern this guys. Especially you Pastors and Leaders, you cannot keep getting away with letting this slip thru to your people. Ideas and wrong teachings have long lasting results. Don’t let your people go down this road! Teach them about the goodness of God, but don’t let them get ruined by this stuff! NOTE: The serpent actually accomplished his goal thru the speaking of Gods word in a distorted version. He ‘marred’ the image of God that was in man. Man continued to exist, but his ‘image’ was not the complete original intent of the Father. This is what I showed you earlier about idolatry. Many in this movement ‘believe’ in Jesus, but the true image of Christ is ‘marred’ by the distorted view of scripture!

(318)DON’T BE AFRAID! God has a great future ahead for you guys [and gals]. A lot of leaders are seeing all the stuff we have spoken on, many know it all to be true. Some are scared. Don’t be. Simply acknowledge that the church went thru a stage where we fulfilled aspects of 1st Timothy 6. Paul said if you rebuke false prophets sharply they will turn to truth. OK now lets move on with the great future ahead. Some of the more notable brothers will not deal with any of this stuff out of fear. Fine. I love them. We showed them what the Lord said. If they don’t listen that’s their problem. Will everything be smoothed over? NO! But they will give an account to God like everyone else. At least you guys who were sending in your ‘seed’ to the TV stations and ministries who were promoting this stuff have gotten wise. Give your money to ‘feed the children’ or Billy Graham or the church you attend [if their not a prosperity one!]. Time rolls on, we have a destiny to fulfill. Get on with It!

(319)AFFLICTION SHALL NOT RISE UP A SECOND TIME, THOUGH I HAVE AFFLICTED THEE, I WILL AFFLICT THEE NO MORE Over the years I remember discussing many of these issues with national ministers who have come to Corpus. I remember at one event there were many ‘word of faith’ people who attended and would absolutely be against the stuff I preach. They really enjoyed the meeting that the minister spoke at. Afterward I had a chance to fellowship with him. I was honest with him about the issues that I deal with thru our ministry. He told me he could sense the ‘word of faith/prosperity’ type teachings as being a real stumbling block to what he felt the Lord was trying to do at the meeting. I have often seen examples of leaders who were beginning to see a lot of this stuff, and I could tell they didn’t know how to deal with it. I remember hearing one of the Fathers of the movement begin backtracking on stuff that he knew was wrong, it was a sense of trying to undo some of the stuff. It was a good effort, but way too late. He has since died. His son now heads up the ministry and I remember hearing his son [a major word of faith figure] telling the people ‘you have all these people going around afraid to make a bad confession, thinking any bad statement will change their world for the worse. It’s a little legalistic’ [in so many words]. Another very famous black prosperity guy said ‘you have those in the ‘ultra faith’ camps’ and he went on and tried to say that he wasn’t one of them. He is one of the WORST! But it was stuff like this that shows me there is a ‘behind the scenes’ reality of the falseness of this whole movement. Many key leaders know this. The ‘laity’ at large do not realize this! Don’t have faith in men and movements, they will fail. Trust in God! For many of you having to re evaluate all this again has been painful. God is saying deal with it this time around and AFFLICTION WILL NOT RISE UP A SECOND TIME.

(320)I am trying to hear God right now. Felt this is for someone. Many people use as a defense ‘well, I know it works brother [prosperity gospel] because it has turned my life around financially’. This very well might be true. Napoleon Hill, one of the original ‘think and grow rich’ teachers taught a highly successful method of making money. I have read and listened to a tape of him speak [I do have a classic cassette tape from him!] I used to be into studying lots of motivational stuff. The things Mr. Hill taught definitely worked. He taught a type of meditation that said if you think money thoughts all the time, eventually you create an atmosphere around you that brings in wealth. This does work. The only problem is many who try to ‘christianize’ this teaching are violating the teachings of Jesus who plainly said ‘seek first [think on] the Kingdom of God and all these other things [money and stuff] will be added unto you’. So the defense that says ‘well you got what you confessed, and I got what I confessed’ isn’t a real defense. You might well have gotten a lot of money by following this movement. Getting a lot of money is not the criteria you use to judge whether a thing is right or wrong. You judge it by Gods Word! NOTE: Felt like the Lord just freed someone from this movement. Sort of like the straw that broke the camels back. Those of you who are not familiar with Napoleon Hill, he was a very successful turn of the century [1800-1900] motivational teacher. Many in the Word of Faith movement know that Mr. Hill was cultic. Mr. Hill had ‘spirit guides’ who brought these ‘teachings’ and stuff to him. Though many of the prosperity brothers will deny that they have his influence in their teachings, they do have many disturbing aspects of it. E.W. Kenyon also has influenced the main Father of the word of faith movement, Kenneth Hagin. Brother Hagin often would deny this. I do think brother Hagin was a good man who became a victim of deception. I never studied any of these guys out of trying to find fault. I was really into this movement at one time and studied it as a student [I know this statement offends people. I don’t know how else I can say that the visions brother Hagin wrote about are false. Did he really see ‘Jesus’ in these visions where Jesus says ‘you can write your own ticket with God’ Brother Hagin might have thought it? He might have seen ‘someone’? But for me or any other ‘preacher’ to not be able to flatly say ‘this was not Jesus Christ’ is being unfaithful to our calling!] It bothers me to hear Pastors that I like quoting ‘I am creating an atmosphere of money around me with my words’. I feel for these guys, I know their headed down a path that is not good. NOTE: If you read this whole passage from Jesus he plainly teaches the disciples to ‘not think money thoughts’. He says ‘the gentiles are always THINKING/WORRYING about the things of life’. Food, Clothes and money/material goods. Jesus says the Christians aren’t supposed to have these things at the forefront of their thoughts and meditations. Now I do realize that Jesus isn’t teaching irresponsibility. It’s fine to invest and have a financial plan. But he is going against the strong prosperity teaching that causes material things to be meditated on all the time. I had a Pastor friend who would come out and defend these guys at the same time the Lord was trying to undo this stuff. He would make statements in defense that would make it hard to undo. I realize they now see a lot of this stuff. At the time they weren’t ‘studied up’ like I was in all of the verses and stuff. To be frank about it, I work full time, do a lot of actual charity work on the streets, don’t take a salary [or even offerings!] and these brothers are like ‘we didn’t have time to study these verses like you’ What! You guys are in ‘full time ministry’ your main job is TO STUDY. Don’t want to be mean, but give me a break. Also if you use the argument that ‘you got what you confessed, and I got what I confessed’ look at Paul. He preached directly against this doctrine [1st Timothy 6] he was not wealthy at all. He suffered a lot. It would be easy to say Paul got what he confessed. The point is Christianity is not about ‘thinking money thoughts’ all the time. Creating some type of ‘financial vacuum’ around yourself. It’s giving your life for eternal rewards. I heard a Pastor say he was being reproved by someone on the dangers of the prosperity gospel, and later the person needed money for bus fare. Therefore the reproof must have been wrong because this person didn’t have money. I guess you could have said this about Paul and the other New Testament Apostles. Peter made a bad confession when he told the cripple guy ‘silver and gold have I none’ but still God used Peter mightily and performed a miracle. This miracle brought as much ‘advertisement’ as a million dollars of ad space! We need to stop judging people or ministries based on the amount of money they have, this is not the criterion!

(321)I have recently noticed some good prophetic people becoming more aware of some of the things we are saying. Some have seemed to respond in a way that might be like ‘we have secretly known of these major problems for years. We have ‘quietly prayed’ and tried to address these concerns. Don’t be so hard’. No one has specifically told me this [actually now that I think about it someone has!]. Let me say, I don’t want to ‘start a war’ among the ‘prophets’. I like the brothers and really receive direction from a few. The main problem with ‘not going public’ and trying to deal with it quietly is the fact that so many new believers are slipping right past the ‘quiet correctors’ and spending 40 years in the wilderness needlessly. Most of the ‘quiet correctors’ never warned any body away from this movement. There are a variety of reasons, and I can’t judge their motives. Suffice it to say that scripture COMMANDS us to confront these things publicly. Paul said WHOSE MOUTHS MUST BE STOPPED, THEY DECIEVE ENTIRE HOUSEHOLDS while speaking of the false teachers who were doing it for financial gain. I understand the feelings of the ‘behind the scenes’ reformers. It’s just the ‘reform’ never seems to take place under this strategy!

(322)ISAIAH 48 ‘ hear this O house of Jacob [my people listen] which sware by my name, but not in truth [you say JESUS IS LORD but are denying my image constantly] I have declared these things before, these things went forth out of my mouth many times over your life. I knew you were stubborn and would not listen the first time I warned you. I have now once again showed you ‘hidden things’. I knew you would deal deceitfully, and were called a transgressor from the start. For my sake I will hold back my anger and give you another chance to make it right. I have chosen to correct you in the furnace of affliction. I know it’s hard, but how can I continue to let my name be polluted. [You use my name and say ‘Jesus is Lord’ and I have no idea who this image belongs to that you confess!] I have raised up the ‘spirit of prophecy’ [thru many, not just one voice!] I will make HIS WAY PROSPEROUS. I am the Lord thy God which TEACHETH THEE TO PROFIT [godliness with contentment is very profitable, but they that seek wealth come to confusion] O that thou hast listened to me before, your peace would have been like a river. There is no peace saith God to the wicked [wicked is a word that denotes a ‘twisting’ {wicker} when you twist scripture and the truth of Jesus Christ there is no peace. God knew from the beginning that many would take this path. He chooses to call them to repentance so they will now have peace like a river. True peace in God.] NOTE: I remember when I used to regularly watch the brother from the Forth Worth area. He did a whole week or so on finances, and he would end the prayer by praying to ‘our great Lord and financier’ I thought of the verses where the brothers are fighting over their inheritance and they ask Jesus to settle their financial dispute. Jesus says ‘who made me a judge over you in these matters’. Jesus was saying ‘who taught you to come to me in this way and view me as your financier; I am not here to settle your financial disputes. I am hear to fulfill the purpose of my Father’. No mountain will stand in the way this time, even one who calls himself ‘eagle mountain’. THOU HAST HEARD, SEE ALL THIS. AND WILL NOT YE DECLARE IT. I HAVE CALLED YOU, I HAVE SPOKEN THRU YOU AND I SHALL MAKE YOUR WAY PROSPEROUS.

(323)At work right now. Getting ready to pray. Was reading some verses from my mission statement and remembered something. I recently dreamed I was blowing a trumpet. There were a few different styles and I was enjoying the ‘blowing’ of these trumpets. I just read the verse ‘I will bend Judah like a bow, and raise your sons o Zion [I like to put ‘John’ for Zion and make it personal] against thy sons o Greece, and make you as the sword of a mighty man. His arrow shall go forth like lightning [I have had both ‘bow’ and ‘arrow’ and ‘lightning’ images as signs these past few years. Also ‘JUDAH’] and the Lord God shall blow the TRUMPET and shall go with the whirlwinds of the south’ Zechariah 9 13-14. I am seeing the Lord do things thru those who are being ‘birthed’ thru our blog site. Many people know all the things we are saying are true, but there was an ‘intimidation factor’ holding them back. It’s like a feeling of ‘who do you think you are, these preachers have been around a long time. The stuff they are preaching must be true. How dare you speak against it’. Now that many of you guys [gals] have seen us deal with it, you are like ‘arrows of lightning being shot out of a bow’ you are like ‘trumpets’ that God is going to blow thru. You have been stirred up from this site that has blown like whirlwinds out of the southern gulf coast and you will be like the sons of Zion coming against the sons of Greece [worldly wisdom and philosophies of men, men’s systems of thought and ‘theology’ that directly contradict the clear meaning of scripture]. NOTE: God blowing thru the ‘trumpet’ speaks not only of a prophetic voice, but also of ‘prophetic offspring’. I have shared images of ‘lightning’ and arrows. The Lord seeming to refer to us as ‘sons of thunder’ and the name Judah. I felt like these things referred to having special authority to do certain things. Ministry is not a tool for self promotion. In this scripture it speaks of ‘sons’ being like lightning, I see the people as the ‘trumpet’. All these images speak of you guys being empowered and released to do tremendous things. These images are not speaking of me as an individual who will be the one ‘sent forth’ as you watch and wait. But we are all being ‘sent forth’ at this season. I really urge you guys that are from my generation [mid 40’s] to get past the ‘mid life crisis’ and the stage of feeling like ‘you missed the boat’. You didn’t miss it yet. God still has a great purpose for you. The boat is launching, take a risk and jump on that thing now. There’s still time! Kansas [the rock group] says ‘ looking for men to show the way and leave today, how long till the point of no return’. NOTE: During the period between Malachi in the Old Testament and the Gospels there is a 400 year ‘gap’ where there was no prophetic word given The Catholic bibles have the apocrypha in this place. One of the books of the Apocrypha is ‘Maccabees’. The Maccabees was a revolt from the Jewish nation against the rulers that occupied them at the time [Many of whom were products of Greek wisdom]. This Maccabean revolt is the ‘sons of Zion rising up against the sons of Greece’ historically. It was a time in Jewish history where Gods people were under bondage to a ruling empire that was known for its worldly wisdom and philosophy. Many of the great philosophers came from this time period. Later in the New Testament book of Colossians the Apostle Paul warns against the early believers coming under the influence of the philosophies of men. I find the Spirit of God rising up at different times in history to ‘cast off’ the ‘thought structures’ of men that come against the wisdom of God. These ‘systems of thought’ are not shallow. Many intelligent men are truly taken captive by the close relationship to truth that they espouse. It takes a ‘prophetic revolt’ to break off the ruling influence that these false systems hold over the people of God. Till this day the Jewish people still honor the Maccabean revolt as an important holiday in their tradition. The name Maccabees comes from the family who led the revolt. The dads name was JUDAH! [I actually read his name ‘Judah’ in an article. I also read his name to be ‘Judas’. So if the ‘Judah’ article got it wrong, it was still prophetic! The feast the Jews celebrate to this day is Hanukah. This feast commemorates the revolt against the Syrian king who tried to force Hellenization on the Jews. Trying to force Greek language and culture on the Jewish nation]

(324)Two things I want to say. There are many ‘prophets’ and other ministry leaders who’s chief concern is the functioning and success of their ministry. They view all other things from this paradigm. They sincerely have a prophetic gift, no doubt about it. It is the mindset of seeing and acting out of the view that the success and financial income of their ministry takes precedence over what God is trying to do in the corporate people that is causing them to come against what the Spirit of the Lord is trying to do. Many are acting and responding out of a desire to ‘survive’ first, before any other thing. Many are good men who do not hold to the errors that we are trying to uproot at this season. It is their friendship for these other groups that is causing them to hinder the work of the Spirit. The Old Testament has a story of a young prophet going and giving a word. After he gives the word the Lord says ‘go straight home and don’t stop for anyone’. On the way home he runs into an older Prophet who says ‘come back with me’. The young prophet says ‘the Lord told me not to’. The old guy says ‘I am a prophet too, and the Lord says come eat [fellowship] with me’. Sure enough the Lord judges the young prophet for this. The current prophetic movement in our country started in the late 80’s. Many who are now truly gifted are really the ‘younger generation’. Many of the prosperity guys are from the older ‘prophetic group’. The young guys are feeling ‘I like these older ‘prophetic’ guys. They were truly at the forefront of certain prophetic things. I want to sit at ‘their table’ and enjoy their fellowship’. God is saying NO MORE! The other thing I want to share is an example of the intricate systems of thought that have gone into the defense of the false prophets. One of the key chapters that I and others use to root out this doctrine is Hebrews 11. This chapter shows how people of FAITH have not only been described as those who were overcoming and getting what they wanted, but it also shows many people of faith who suffered and went thru hard things. I heard the Fort Worth teacher explain that the people of faith in Hebrews 11 that suffered were still part of the group that was Old Testament. He even used verses from Hebrews to show that these people were not ‘perfected’ yet until the Cross. This is true. He then ‘crossed the line’ and taught that the ‘perfection’ was financial and material well being at all times. He basically used an excellent biblical reasoning to explain away the plain meaning of the chapter. The fact is Paul would later go on in the New Testament and teach that many believers who are ‘perfected’ under the New Covenant would also suffer many things. But the false teacher taught it in a way that would ‘catch you’. I have come to believe there has to be a degree of demonic deception going on with these guys. They have ways to explain away every single verse in the bible to teach what they want. That’s why I understand how the ‘average level’ preacher [don’t want to be rude] can fall for this stuff. That’s also why the ‘quiet correction’ approach isn’t going to work anymore with these guys.

(325)There are a lot of things that I want to share. The other day I was quite strong in a particular ‘prophetic word’. I mentioned ‘Eagle Mountain’ as a mountain that will not be able to stand against Gods ‘mountain’ [purpose at this season]. I am uncomfortable with the whole ‘persona’ and time period that I am in at this season. This ‘eagle’s mountain’ is actually the physical location of one of the major prosperity churches in the country [here in Texas]. Those in ‘the know’ knew what I meant when I said this. This area is also right around Denton where I have felt certain ‘prophetic correction’ going into that area. Sometimes when I speak a strong word towards a certain area I will notice a ‘weather’ event happening right after I speak the word. The ‘word’ towards eagle mountain/Denton area was a little strong. Yesterday I was watching the Texas news and one of the worst Tornadoes ever hit a region called ‘Eagle Pass’ [Located on the border of Texas/ Mexico]. The Tornado was 4 miles wide and it caused tremendous destruction, 9 people dead. Devastating [the warning alert system did not sound, this left the people vulnerable to what was coming. Much like the watchman in Ezekiel who refused to speak out on the dangers that were coming] I know God isn’t to blame for the loss of life. There are times where certain religious movements are devastating towards the people of God. When God says ‘no mountain can stand in the way’ he has the potential to ‘clean house’ [I felt it a little significant that the town was Eagle Pass. Sort of like God saying ‘the Eagle is coming into judgment’]. Let me say a few things about the Dallas/Fort Worth area. The last time I was there I was partying in Fort Worth, drunk and pulling off the road puking [throwing up] on the side of the road [20 yrs ago], I also remember being in Milwaukee after boot camp and drinking around 12 shots of Rum at some bar. Walking out to the street and passing out. I remember some navy guys picking me up [I was in uniform] and bringing me back to Great Lakes [Illinois]. I was thinking of the verse that says ‘I will save you out of all the places where you have sinned, and I will cleanse you’. I am very uncomfortable with the present ‘place’ where I am at. There are times where you journey to different levels and places in life. As you ‘proceed’ to the next place it often entails great death. We seem to think that if we can just master our lives and get it all together, then we can present this image to people and we have succeeded. I see it more like you are called to go thru things, often the things you go thru are very difficult. It is in the crucible of Crucifixion where you bring forth much fruit. ‘Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone. But if it dies, it will bring forth much fruit’ [Jesus]. One of the most accurate Prophets of our day is still living [he has been sick and some think he will die soon]. His name is Paul Cain. I remember hearing Paul on tape share a story of how he was approached by a nice looking gentlemen when he was younger. This man was offering Paul a career and fame in ministry. Sort of telling him he would promote his image [death to any prophet!] After a while Paul asked him to confess Jesus as Lord. He would not. Paul at that moment recognized it was satan. I remember having this happen one time in my life. It was early on as a Christian and we were going to see a friend who got caught up in a cult. They called themselves ‘Gods Angels’ and were traveling around in robes and sandals. We went to visit a friend who joined the group. The main leader was there and after a while I asked if he could say ‘Jesus is Lord’. He gave the same response that the person in Paul’s story gave. I then felt a demonic presence hit me and I felt like I was having an acid trip. I lost all sense of where I was and it felt just like a ‘mesq’ flashback. I find it interesting that today we know that this person in Paul Cain’s experience came back time and again thru out his life. Paul never told us this, but we now know it. When Jesus was seeing this same person in his life he knew that there would be a tremendous cost involved with the completion of his mission, that’s why I don’t understand the lust and desire for fame and success. God often withholds true prophetic ministry for the sake of the individual. He realizes that there is a severe cost involved, and those who are really enjoying their lives don’t realize what the calling will carry with it. NOTE: I do realize that this stuff makes people very uncomfortable. The reason why ‘Eagle Mountain’ needs to come down [either close or repent and become a tool of deliverance in Gods hand] is the fact they disseminate so much of the heresy that I have exposed on this blog [thru books, tapes, TV, etc.]. You cant keep doing disgrace to the image of Christ no matter how well spoken and good hearted you are. No matter how much money you give to missions, no matter how many good works you do! NOTE: Crucifixion is an event where you have no say or control over what’s happening with you physically, it is the process of saying ‘God, if its possible for this cup to pass, please help me come out of this’ and then arriving at the point of saying ‘whatever you want, I will go thru it’ and it concludes with ‘MY GOD, MY GOD WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME’ in today’s terms ‘I cant believe the desolation I am feeling at this time in my life’. NOTE: I just went outside to continue praying; I kind of felt that presence of the evil one. Sort of like ‘how dare you expose me like this’. NOTE; I just spoke to one of our original ‘ex con/addict’ friends in Kingsville. He is one of our key men. I told him about the Eagle word and the Tornado. He told me that a day or two right before the tornado he dreamed of 2 devastating tornadoes coming towards him and his family. He woke up and told his wife of the dream. Within the next day or so the tornado hit. This is one of our ‘prophetic’ people who have often had dreams and impressions that were significant over the years.

(326)BE STRONG AND OF A GOOD COURAGE, FOR TODAY [RIGHT NOW] I WILL BRING YOU IN AND YOU WILL INHERIT THE PROMISE I read a statement form a prisoner being put to death here in Texas. He said ‘lets rock and roll’. I think we need to thank God for his mercy and move on. Don’t keep debating stuff he is clearly saying. God forgives all of us. LETS ROCK AND ROLL.

(327)Let me make another note. About 6 months or so when I pray early [every day] I began ‘seeing’ myself in Prayer with the Denton brothers [glory of Zion] as well as the other churches who are regionally praying during the 4th watch [3-6 am]. I believe my ‘joining with them in prophetic intercession’ gave me authority to prophesy into the land. Prophets don’t just give prophetic words, they intercede. I believe it says of Abraham ‘he is a prophet and he will pray for you’ I know it says this about one of the patriarchs.

(328)Understand that Jesus is the lion of the tribe of JUDAH. Any prophetic expression of Judah is actually the Spirit of God thru the prophets rising up in rebellion to cast off the wisdom of men that comes against the true knowledge of God in Christ. These last 50 years the enemy has laughed at how he was able to mock the true image of Christ thru these false systems. The purpose of the prophetic was to lead a ‘revolt’ against the ‘occupiers’. Revelation says ‘the Lion of the tribe of Judah has prevailed’ he ‘opens seals/ opens the book’. It is the ‘opening’ of Gods word that does war against the wisdom of men. This is primarily a prophetic act. The wisdom of men cannot accomplish this. When the Lion of the tribe of Judah begins this process thru the prophetic, the enemy no longer laughs, because his day has finally come.

(329)Many years ago in Texas I used to watch a good preacher out of the Rockwall area. I did like his ministry. I felt a little uncomfortable about the type of ‘spiritual warfare’ that a lot of us were espousing at the time. I remember watching this brother during a message. He was walking back and forth on the stage of a large auditorium [now that I think of it, he was at a James Robison bible conference in Fort Worth] as he was walking back and forth he was into the whole image of ‘look at this, I am a spiritual warrior’ he kind of was so into it that he was almost falling off the stage. It was normal fare for the time. Later ‘prime time’ news magazine did an expose on him, nothing really scandalous, but showing him to have been less than honest on some money appeals. The fact that we want the spotlight opens us up for attacks. True warfare is usually done behind the scenes with humble people. When we ‘strut’ and boast and openly ‘mock the enemy’ he laughs. He knows he’s setting us up with the glory of men. The same temptation he used on Jesus. When we give in to the lie of ‘it’s all about me, look at me, look at the great thing God is doing thru me’ he has us hooked and we don’t even know it. [Watch the end of the movie ‘the devils advocate’ with Al Pacino. It really brings this out well. Also they play the song ‘sympathy for the devil’ from the stones. It’s amazing how Jagger describes the craftiness of satan in this song]. NOTE; I went back and read some stuff on this brother. His wife said when Dianne Sawyer first contacted them to do the show, they tricked him by saying ‘we want to interview you. You are said to be the next Billy Graham. Can we do this interview?’ The network new the lure of fame and recognition would get him on the show. I do think these networks are really hypocrites themselves. This show [primetime] has been caught lying about stories [planting explosives in vehicles and having them rear-ended to make it look like it blew up easily. Then trying to defend doing it!]. The real point is they knew if they appealed to his ego he would do it.

(330)Man was ‘built’ with the inherent desire to ‘storehouse’. This is a need for man to ‘build up, store up, increase wealth’. This desire was originally intended to manifest itself thru the ‘saving’ of eternal rewards. When God made man in his image, this desire was originally sanctified and was to coincide with Gods original intention to give man dominion over all the earth. Man would ‘collect’ if you will, all created things under his dominion, man would corral these things and provide safety and a hedge around these things for the glory of God. In essence the same mindset is seen in the New Testament with the stories that Jesus tells about God giving his ‘vineyard’ to people to take care of and things like this. It is inherent for man to want to storehouse and build the resources of things. This is why Jesus warned against the strong draw that ‘mammon’ [lust for financial increase] would present to the purpose of God in the church. There are verses in the Old Testament that say men build up their financial fortunes and say to themselves ‘when I die I will pass this legacy on to my kids, and MY NAME will endure thru the heritage of this financial legacy that will continue to operate after I am gone’ [King Ranch]. Now scripture says a good man leaves an inheritance to his kids, so this concept is not wrong in and of itself. It’s just that Jesus knew how strong this pursuit of wealth can become and he chose to teach that it is the singular most competitive threat to the purpose of the Kingdom. Many fall into this trap by seeing the purpose of God to invade all areas of society, even financial institutions. They see the ‘surface’ level of teaching on finances in scripture, and then go headlong into this twisted interpretation of scripture that finds ‘proof texts’ that eventually leads them to preach a wealthy Jesus who fits the image of the modern day televangelist. You then find people [like us] who try to bring back into alignment the distorted view that many of these brothers espouse, but those ‘taken captive’ by this insatiable desire for wealth cannot see beyond this strong inherent desire that God originally put in man. You can present plain scripture to them, and they will even argue that Paul and Jesus were not really saying what they said. This is caused by the lure of covetousness that has replaced the original intent of God to ‘storehouse’ with the less noble desire of ‘building wealth’. NOTE; this same mindset can be seen in the desire to ‘build’ a ministry. You begin focusing your energies on using your faith to bring in the finances to operate. You ‘see’ the increase of income as the answer to the noble intention of carrying out Gods purpose. But when this desire begins to take precedence over the actual preaching of the gospel [by distorting the image of Christ to fit into the mindset of bringing in the wealth] then the enemy has tricked you into preventing the original purpose of God to manifest thru you. At the end of the day you might bring in the desired income stream, and with this a sense of ‘mission accomplished’ you might even reject guys like me out of hand because of this desire to ‘bring in the resources at all costs’ but when all is said and done, if your not really preaching the biblical gospel, the enemy wins, even if you funded the ministry! NOTE; over the years people have confronted the leaders of Christian TV stations. There are a bunch of brothers who regularly preach covetousness to an extreme. Most of the presidents of these stations are not ‘full blown’ money preachers. But they have seen God work in areas of finances, and they have seen the uprightness of many of the prosperity brothers. Some [like the Fort Worth brother] are very good people. They do not ‘splurge’ in outwardly fancy lifestyles. It’s just that somewhere down the line they got ‘hooked’ by the lure of these things. The leaders of the networks have seen how the apologists went after these guys, and out of sympathy the network presidents for the most part decided to air their programs. These presidents are going all over the world, trying to start stations in many countries. Doing noble things for the cause of the gospel. Some of the wives of these great stations actually graduated from Rhema [a major word of faith college]. All these people are good people. The TV leaders see the good heart of those who they have known in the past that were ‘prosperity/word of faith’ teachers. It’s a matter of real humility to see the things that I am trying to say, and to fall on the side of ‘truth in love’. I do believe if these stations continue to run these programs, the Lord will do something about it. But those stations who actually ‘make the hard decisions’ in love, will remain and be much stronger for the gospel.

(331)When Jesus overthrew the moneychangers in the Temple, it was a violent prophetic act. When Paul warned against false prophets he was ‘negative’. When Jude [a bible book in the New Testament] warned against false prophets he spent time dealing with a problem. Some [prophets] believe the way to deal with all the problems in the church is thru praise. That if you simply always say positive things and praise God, that the weapon of praise and a positive confession will correct everything. The New Testament disagrees.

(332)Lets tell some stories. I remember one day at work we were doing a mutual training thing with the Corpus Fire Dept. [though I live in Corpus, I work for the Kingsville Fire Dept.] We had a couple of Corpus Firefighters sitting on the bumper of the ladder truck. The ladder truck has a button for the horn on the floor right under the seat. The guys were always accidentally stepping on the thing. I remember one time we were driving to the park for some function and the guy who was driving kept stepping on it not realizing it was there. Every few blocks he would stop to get out and the horn would stop blowing, he couldn’t figure out why! Well I accidentally blew the thing with these other guys on the bumper. It scared the ‘Hades’ out of them. It was an accident. I got out and truly told the brothers I was sorry. I might have had a little smirk on my face, it was funny! The one guy was a Corpus Captain who was originally from New York City. He was mad. I kinda said I was sorry, what else can I do. He indicated ‘lets rock and roll’ [don’t you just hate these Yankees who are always looking to fight!] He said it in a way that I knew he was serious, but I could tell that most guys usually don’t take him up on the offer. His friend was familiar with his Captains character. I didn’t get mad, but it was one of those offers I just couldn’t refuse. I kinda laughed a little and said ‘brother, if that’s what’s gonna do it for you, then OK’. Well his friend saw I was OK with it and got in the way. It was funny to me, running into one of those Yankees who are always looking for trouble.

(333)Was just listening to ‘simple man’ by Skynard. ‘Momma told me when I was young … forget your lust for the rich mans gold, all that you need is in your soul…don’t forget there is someone up above…all that I want for you my son is to be satisfied…don’t you worry you’ll find yourself…you can do this if you try…be a simple kind of man, wont you do this for me son if you can’. It’s sad that Skynard is more prophetic than many of the prophets.

(334)A few years ago I was dealing with these issues [money gospel] and I particularly took issue with a brother out of Louisiana, I like the brother. Many years ago I took our church to see him speak in Corpus Christi when I was living in Kingsville. He is the brother who wrote in his book about going to heaven and king David telling him he regretted the negative confessions that he made in Psalms [ouch]. I have openly rebuked this, not by using his name. The year I came out fairly strong on him was the same time period that one of the gulf coast hurricanes, either Katrina or Rita, hit the gulf coast. I later found out that his ministry ‘headquarters’ was hit. He was on TV asking people to help support the ministry. He still is active, and I don’t want to give the impression that he got wiped out. This was just another ‘weather event’ that coincided with a strong prophetic word. I remember studying the Azusa street revivals years ago [the early 1900’s] and how there were some prophetic words of judgment and certain earthquakes and things happened that were major. There were brothers who took the position that these events had nothing to do with God. They were clearly the work of the devil. Others produced tracts [small booklets] showing all the verses in the bible that speak of God acting thru these events. There are a lot of them, particularly in Psalms. Frank Bartleman, a very well respected brother who was a journalist during the revivals documented this. I remember reading in his book ‘another wave roles in’ [an excellent book] the scriptural proofs given for weather events to have been from God. The argument was made fairly conclusively. I am not saying Katrina or the deaths of innocent people are an act of God. I am saying that there were many scriptures that were brought out at this time that seemed to show Gods hand in weather events that coincided with the things he was doing at the time. Before Katrina hit the gulf coast and wiped out New Orleans, a prophet in the US, Kim Clement, prophesied of it. I do not endorse everything Kim says, but he did prophesy this event. Many in the Body of Christ were quick to come out with articles on how ‘God was not in this’ ‘it was a demonic thing’ and all sorts of stuff saying there is no way God would ever bring judgment in this way. The ‘pastoral’ part of me says the same thing; the ‘prophetic’ part of me differs. I dreamt yesterday that I was going to see my prophetic friend [the ex addict who is prophetic] and as I was leaving his block I was running to the corner, I don’t know if I was feeling attacked by the enemy or what. I dropped the cassette tapes on the street [the ones I drop off at the radio station] and some vehicle ran over them. I tried to salvage them but couldn’t. I felt this was a prophetic dream telling me that the enemy is ‘coming after’ me because of the ‘seed/word’ that the Lord has deposited in me at this season. The experience of feeling attacked the other day was quite severe. It was the same feeling of ‘loosing my mind’ that I felt many years earlier when confronting the ‘cult guy’ [gods angels group, by the way scripture says the devil disguises himself as an ‘angel of light’] When this happened the first time I was rocked. This time I managed to pray thru and simply stand ground and say ‘get behind me satan, I rebuke you’. This comes from years of experiencing Cross experiences. Arriving at a place in your life where the goal isn’t to live, but to get the word of God out as much as possible before you ‘depart’. A sense of ‘at least I posted this stuff on the blog, now if you try to kill me at least the word got out’. In the world I believe you would describe some of these ‘emotional’ ups and downs as depression, nervous breakdown and stuff like that. Then you wind up getting medicated and you abort the process of discovering the true hidden secrets of the Kingdom that come to those who have ‘descended low into the pit’. There is an actual truth to identifying with Christ in severe trials that allows you to go so low that you can ‘retrieve treasures’ that are only found in that place. An identifying with Jesus in his actual descent into hell. It was there that he ‘took the keys’ and led a troop of captives out of captivity. You must go to ‘that place’ in order to set captives free. NOTE: I want to stress the prophetic image of Jesus being in Hell and taking the keys of death from the devil. To me this experience shows me that there will be times where you will have to be face to face with the enemy. These experiences are not ‘flashy warfare experiences’. You could describe them as ‘terrifying’ but that’s what the enemy wants us to feel at those times. The best way to describe this is God wants to bring us to a place where we don’t fear death. [Don’t fear the reaper-Blue Oyster Cult] The main ‘button’ of fear is death. When you have settled this issue it enables you to have these ‘times’ where by necessity you will have to go to a ‘low’ point and stand face to face with the devil. You will not glory in your spiritual authority at this point. You will be vulnerable and understand that it is Jesus who is ultimately doing battle at this point. When I first got saved I remember having experiences in prayer that I thought were normal. I would sit on the bed early and just pray. I experienced a sense of ‘being out of my body’ and kinda going into space. It was quite surreal. I knew if I wasn’t a believer it would be too much too handle. There was a total loss of control. You might well have been dead and not even realized it. This is what it felt like. These were not demonic things; these were experiences with God that caused you to ‘fall on your face as one that is dead’ [it says John did this in the book of Revelation]. It takes years of walking with God and experiencing severe ups and downs that enable you to go thru these things without fear. I read how the brother from Rock Wall that I spoke on earlier went thru a lot of this stuff after the ‘prime time live’ show ‘mugged’ him. Even though he divorced his wife and suffered severe depression/bi-polar disorder, his wife still spoke well of him. She testified that even when all was lost in his life, even his mind, that he still prayed regularly. I identified so much with this. God brings us full circle and we get to a point where we are not concerning ourselves with ‘looking good’ or presenting a ‘package’ to people. You at that point say ‘if I can just finish the course I will be happy’. NOTE; I know I have mentioned a lot of prophets on this site. Let me say I do not endorse everyone I mention. I like Bill Yount, John Paul Jackson, Patricia King, Bobby Conner and a few others. I like them all, but some are putting stuff out right now that isn’t for a worldwide [or national] audience. They might be OK words, but they are meant for the local church only. Others are too quick to say ‘I heard an audible voice from God’ while this is possible, it is extremely rare. The purpose for prophetic insights and gifting is for God to communicate with us thru his Spirit to the whole Body. The ‘audible voice’ is a form of communication that is not primarily ‘spirit’ it is by definition ‘physical’. I know these things have happened in scripture, I just am a little uncomfortable with the level of the brothers who are saying this to a national audience at this time. NOTE; The principle of going ‘so low’ and ‘so high’ emotionally is called bi-polar. Some feel that true genius is associated with those who have had the ability to ‘obsessively compulse’ on things. Einstein, Luther and others had things like this. The great mind in math, John Nash [beautiful mind] suffered from severe schizophrenia thru out his life. Lincoln was a manic-depressive. I am not saying I am a genius, but I remember as a boy memorizing all the license plates on the block as I walked to school. Also having ‘ticks’ where I would have to turn my head and stuff like that. Years later my family [wife and kids] would see the shows on TV and say ‘that’s dad’ I know it is, I kinda joke about it. I have these stupid ticks with my hands. I will be ‘extending and twisting my fingers all the time’ I do joke about it. I was pruning the roses and actually cut my finger. My kids thought it was funny. It was the stupid tick that made me stick the finger out and cut it. I feel for the turrets guys [I actually think I have some of this to be real honest, I don’t like being this honest] who have this uncontrollable urge to use racial slurs when they are around black people. It would be hard to live in Newark with this one! NOTE: In the story of John Nash you find him avoiding medication because it not only dulled the ‘other voices’ he was hearing, but it also ‘dulled’ his ability to think critically and hear ingenious’things. When people are diagnosed with certain things and they also have great ability to understand, they choose to deal with the ‘other stuff’ so they can continue to hear God in a special way. It’s like one of the strategies of the devil is to speak to you so much that you will choose to medicate out so you wont hear anything. Jesus said the sheep ‘hear’ and know the voice of the Father, they will not listen to the enemy. But inherent in the ability to discern which voice is which, is the fact that when you start hearing from God at a higher level the enemy will also speak louder! [If you are diagnosed with a disorder I am not telling you not to take medication, that is between you and God].

(335)I was talking to a friend the other day and we were discussing certain end time things. I showed him how the first century Christians had their heads chopped off, were burned at the stake, eaten by lions and all sorts of stuff. How our black Christian brothers in southern Sudan are being wiped out by the oppressive northern Muslim regime. How Christians have gone thru these things and will go thru them till the end. I told him this in answer to the question ‘do you believe Christians will go thru the tribulation’. I said it must look funny to all our brothers who are in heaven looking down, thinking ‘these American 21st century Christians are the only ones who will escape this stuff, that sure doesn’t seem fair’!

(336)Picture if you were playing some board game. The game lasted one hour. The object of the game was to collect as many rewards as possible within the hour. During the game you and others learn certain ‘secrets’ along the way. One of the secrets is, at the end of the game the only rewards you get to keep are the ones you didn’t show off during the game. The temptation to ‘show them off’ was strong, but if you wanted credit after the hour you just had to ‘hide’ yourself until the hour was up. Many others who had collected wonderful treasures assured those who were waiting ‘don’t worry about it, we all show our treasures now, it feels really good, we all do it’. Most of us today don’t realize we are not ‘waiting the hour’. NOTE; just walked outside and heard the verse ‘could you not wait for me for one hour’. Jesus said this to the disciples right before the Cross. Note; scripture says Jesus descended lower than any man, and then ascended higher than any man. It is the actual experience of being in the lowest pit that qualifies you for great revelation. The New Testament says Eve was deceived when she ate of the fruit, not Adam. Some see this to be chauvinistic. I believe it is prophetic. Scripture calls Jesus the last Adam. The first Adam willingly chose to cut himself off from the presence of God so he could be with his wife. Jesus endured the cross for the joy of knowing we would be with him. In essence Jesus walked willingly away from the presence of the Father so he could be with his wife! [All Christians are called ‘the bride of Christ’].

(337)Lets try to undo some stuff. One of the other areas where Christians have been ‘taught wrong’ is the area of suffering and difficulty. I remember the elaborate explanations that the Word of Faith/prosperity preachers would go thru to contradict the plain meaning of verses. I don’t want to harp on this, but thanks to the worldwide voice that these brothers have had thru Christian TV there are lots of people who are taught wrong. First; There is a verse in Corinthians that says ‘I sought the Lord 3 times to take this away from me and the Lord said ‘my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness’. The old time churches teach that Paul was sick and God wouldn’t heal him. Of course the prosperity guys would never go for this so they taught that God was telling Paul ‘I have given you the authority, you rebuke it and make it go away’. First, whatever it was that Paul was asking God to take away, if you read the whole passage you will see that the lesson Paul learned was God was allowing this thing to co exist for the purpose of humility. God was bringing great revelation from Paul and the fact that God would not remove the problem was what happened here. Like I said before, it is almost ‘demonic’ how the word of faith preachers get around every single verse like this. It is amazing. Now what do I think the ‘thorn’ in the flesh was. Paul said he asked God to remove the ‘messenger of satan that was sent to disturb him’ it is possible that the ‘messenger’ was an actual person [maybe the main Pharisee out of the Jerusalem church who was going around infecting Paul’s churches with legalism?] It is possible that an actual ‘messenger’ was really what Paul was talking about. To interpret this passage by saying God was telling Paul to remove the problem ‘with his own faith’ is false. Just wish the Christian networks weren’t letting so much stuff like this ‘slip thru’. The word of faith group also teaches that the Lord would never use actual sickness to chasten ‘discipline’ his children. For the most part I kinda agree with this. The old time churches used to have the attitude ‘if I am sick then God is trying to teach me something’ so the prosperity guys go to the other extreme and say ‘if you are sick, somehow it is your fault. Sooner or later you will see you did something wrong, didn’t have enough faith, etc’ There is an interesting verse in Corinthians that says ‘for this cause many are weak and sick among you, and some have died’ and then ‘if we would judge ourselves we would not be judged, but when we are judged, we are chastened by the Lord so we will not be condemned with the world’. Believe me I am familiar with all the arguments around these verses. To be honest, in this context the word ‘sick’ and God ‘chastening’ go hand in hand. Can I explain how this is true along with the truth that God heals and the enemy kills. I can go thru a few pages on it, but for now simply go check these scriptures out. I am not saying Christians should sit idly by and accept sickness. God’s word says ‘by his stripes I am healed’ and I believe that. I am just saying we don’t have to go thru the bible and find ways to explain away everything that we don’t like or understand. And finally ‘Is it ever Gods will to suffer’ well the word of faith preachers teach no. They say all suffering, chastening and discipline that God does is limited to ‘the word’. To be honest once again they have a real intricate system of ‘theology’ that seems to explain away all the plain verses on suffering. They will take you to the suffering/discipline verses and say ‘the suffering spoken of here is the ‘pain’ you experience when Gods word shows you that you are wrong’ [I guess sort of like what we have been doing!] and then they also extend the ‘suffering’ to the idea that when all Christians are wealthy and healthy and every thing is full and good, that when others talk about them, that in essence this is the ‘persecution’ that arose ‘because of the word’. That is because they have appropriated the word to arrive at this level of ‘fullness in all areas’ that any one who disagrees is actually fulfilling the suffering verse. Well it does get tiring after a while. First, Peter says [in the bible] that Jesus suffered and left us an example on how to suffer also. Did Jesus suffer by everything going well and people just talking about him? I mean heresy is deceitful because it can be believable. I think it was Hitler who said if you tell a lie long enough people will begin to believe it as truth. The New Testament teaches there are Christians who in Gods will suffer. These prosperity guys even explained away the martyrdom of Stephen in the book of Acts. Cant go thru the whole thing, but they taught basically that it was Stephens choice to believe for deliverance or go thru martyrdom. He chose martyrdom. I guess you can say we all choose whether we will be obedient to Gods call or not. And in some cases people do choose to ‘opt out’ of the suffering. But this is not Gods will. Many of these preachers who preach this have actually ‘opted out of Gods will’ by choosing to embrace these things. They have managed to get around the ‘cross experiences’ thru these elaborate schemes and will have to answer to God for teaching this to so many people. So today we learned that sometimes we are called to go thru hard times. We don’t accept everything that happens to us with a fatalistic mindset ‘whatever will be will be’ like the Calvinist who stubbed his toe real bad and said ‘sure glad that’s over’. But we do understand that sometimes the will of God is ‘my grace is sufficient for thee, for my strength is made perfect in weakness’.

(338)There are so many things to say right now, I really wanted to take a break. I read an article from a book on business and fulfilling life’s goals. It wasn’t a Christian book, but I liked the principle. The author shared how she learned that one of the major obstacles to doing what matters in life is YOU! That is we have a tendency to become ‘stagnant’ and live our lives in the parameters that we are familiar with, in the same ‘scenery’ we have been looking at for years. When we decide to step out in faith and ‘remove’ ourselves from familiar surroundings, this act in and of itself creates the new ‘route’ and way to see beyond the present [actually a lot of this wasn’t in the article]. Biblically God calls us at times to ‘Abrahamic’ faith. ‘Get out of your country and from your kindred and from your fathers house and I will make of thee a great nation’ this last year my children moved out and bought homes and ‘resettled’ in new land. If you were to ask me at the beginning of the year to have helped them ‘re camp’ and move out and everything, I would have said ‘no way’ you guys are working full time, attending college and stuff, you are biting off more than you can chew! But now I actually enjoy going to my daughters ranch and spending the night. It’s ‘new territory’ that my ‘seed/offspring’ walked into and I am in a sense entering in to their harvest. I read online some stuff on the prosperity brothers. I really cant ‘stay there’ too long. I know you guys think I am hard on them, but there a lot of critics who really personally attack them with name calling. We look ‘tame’ compared to them. I feel like the reason I am not a ‘theologian’ or even a ‘suit and tie’ preacher is because the Lord wants us to reach a lot of the younger generation of kids who are ‘lost’ in this movement. Most people that finally meet me after hearing us for years don’t realize I really look like some throwback ‘hippie’ from the 70’s. I am not purposely doing it; I just am more comfortable with jeans and raggedy clothes then with the whole ‘ I am a preacher’ type look. I feel many of the kids in these movements have not been effectively reached because the ‘reproovers’ have been the old type guys, and some have been way to personal. I was watching an old show from some businessmen who were Christians. The whole time period and persona of these brothers was another time and place. They were sharing on their experiences of coming to faith in Christ. Very successful and well-known business guys. As one of them was sharing on what the Lord showed him in the parable of the sower, he made an off the cuff remark that the parable wasn’t about money ‘30-60-100 fold’ but about spiritual truths. I thought how sad, that this brother is right, but this false interpretation has been going around for so long that it even reached these brothers from ‘another time and place’. I recently read a vision that a prophet had, part of it dealt with God doing a mighty deliverance among his people. There were some other personal things that led me to see our role in this. I pray for you ‘young guys’ God is asking you to step out and re position yourselves spiritually, you are required to ‘leave your fathers house’ [the old stuff you were taught from men you respected] and move to another place.

(339)THE MAN WHOSE NAME IS THE BRANCH, HE WILL BRANCH OUT FROM HIS PLACE AND BUILD THE TEMPLE OF THE LORD Was just praying and seeing Gods purpose. A tree will ‘reach’ out to certain areas/spaces. The tree will drop acorns/pecans etc. the seed has the potential for another tree. God wants you guys to be trees, not just ‘seeds’. We often view our selves as simple ‘little parts’ in a big plan. Modern churches/ministries often tell you this ‘what can you do on your own? But if you join your little part with this big ministry then you can touch the world’ I am here to tell you that you CAN touch the world with your little part. I don’t want to ‘re produce’ other ‘corrective’ ministries. I want to ‘re produce’ Jesus followers who are willing to lay down everything for the gospel. I don’t want you guys coming to this site for interest only, sell out too! Join the revolution!

(340)I read a prophecy a while back that spoke of 7-7-07 being a significant time. I emailed the brother and told him my birthday falls on 7-17-07 this year. [Who knows, maybe he missed it by 10 days?] Also 10 days represents a time of intense trial and difficulty. ‘The devil will cast some of you into prison for 10 days, be faithful unto death and I will give thee a crown of life’. While studying on line, I noticed that the major prosperity church here in Texas started their ministry in 1962, the year I was born. God in his mercy knew that there were things that would be taught in Texas that would do damage to the Body of Christ. He knew that one of the major propagators of this ‘doctrine from Balaam’ would arise in Texas in 1962. Maybe the Lord had a person ‘of violence’ born that year from the North [I was born in Hoboken, Frank Sinatra’s turf. A ‘voice’ that would touch a generation] that would eventually come down to ‘root it out’ [I will raise up one from the north, he will come upon princes as mortar, and the coastlands shall wait for his law] maybe the year 7-17-2007 was a time appointed by God, maybe we have come to the Kingdom for such a time as this? Just maybe. THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN SUFFERETH VIOLENCE, AND THE VIOLENT TAKE IT BY FORCE. I HAVE RAISED UP ONE FROM THE NORTH, FROM THE RISING OF THE SUN SHALL HE CALL UPON MY NAME [early prayer] HE SHALL COME UPON PRINCES AS MORTAR AND THE COASTLANDS SHALL WAIT FOR HIS LAW. [Isaiah] NOTE: Some of the brothers speaking on the date ‘7-7-07’ are saying this date will not happen again for 1000 years. I understand what they mean, but they are actually saying ‘7-7-07’ will not happen until 1000 years. Well it will happen 10 more times in this period. 7-7-[21] 07, 7-7-[22] 07, etc. I don’t want to just be critical, but the problem of Christians not thinking things thru when they say them makes us look silly to the world.

(341)The western church [you and me] plays a major role in the purpose of God at this time. We are extremely immature in our thinking. We are extremely materialistic in our view of the churches role in society [read the Popes recent book-2007] we see ‘the answer’ to world evangelism as bringing in more money. God sees the actual people as the ‘riches’ of the nations. ‘Ask of me and I will give you the heathen for your inheritance and the ends of the earth for your possession. Your sons shall come from far and your daughters from the ends of the earth’ Many truly do not see what we have done in the American church for the last 50 years. Jesus is prophetically ‘turning the tables of the money changers over’ he is entering a time period in the western church where he is dealing with and judging ‘our god’. One of the major tools that he raises up to use for tasks like this are prophets. It was a crafty strategy of the enemy to cause the prophets to ‘worship gods of gold’. In doing this the enemy for the most part removed the key tool that our Father wanted to use for this work. This work of dealing with idolatry in the western church is a major [if not the major] prophetic work that needs to be done in order for the nations to say ‘Hosanna in the highest, blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord’. Jesus wasn’t just dealing with 1st century moneychangers. He was signifying the future ‘cleansing’ of his people from this mindset. Right now the Spirit of God is doing a ‘violent’ work in many key prophets thru out our country. Many were not dealing with these issues out of pride. They put their ministries and the success of their personas at the forefront of their concerns. They saw any reproof in this area as wrong. They were not humble enough to realize that the Spirit of God shows no partiality. God commands all men everywhere to repent. He does not come to take sides in arguments. He comes in power so he can reap the riches of the earth. We must be free from the riches of the world in order for him to do this.

(342)There are tremendous worldwide movements taking place right now in the earth. China is being brought to Christ at a tremendous rate. Some estimate 1200 people an hour are coming to Jesus. I remember hearing a testimony from some Pastor from an overseas country. Many of the Pastors in this country [it was a 3rd world country, I cant remember what one] were looking at the money gospel that we were pumping into their country. They all with one voice joined in an outright rejection and rebuke of these American heretics. They plainly saw all the things I have shown you on this site and flat out rejected it. There is a mindset that comes from these ministries that sees the ‘doctrine’ that they are putting out as ‘deep truths, the meat of the word’ they have deceived themselves into thinking that all of these obvious errors are really the true mysteries of God. Pride is very destructive. It was really humbling to see instances where sincere leaders and believers from the world over have at times openly rebuked the obvious error of these things. The instances I recall were like the people were saying ‘cant you see how deceived you American preachers are’. I realize that all American preachers are not like this. But these worldwide Christians see a regular dose of this kind of Christianity from the Christian networks. I see this as the Spirit of the Lord rising up within his people to correct the Body. I do remember watching the Fort Worth brother teach a series on Hebrews and teach that the meat of the word of God was being able to ‘rule your senses’ to a point where you only hear the promises of abundance and become rich. Any one who can’t ‘rule his senses’ and listens to the ‘nay sayers’ has weak faith and therefore is not financially rich. The amount of deception that was broadcast worldwide form this program is unbelievably harmful to the church. These verses from Hebrews were saying nothing even remotely close to this. It was so obvious to the average believer. But the leaders of this movement are so steeped in this stuff they simply cant see it. NOTE; I have written to some of these networks, as others have done. At times I feel like saying ‘I can’t believe you guys are allowing this to go worldwide’ but I guess they feel like they should. NOTE; Many of these verses that they use to do this are either taken from chapters or books of the New Testament that are actually warning against covetousness. Sometimes the actual verse says something like ‘avoid materialism, seek spiritual riches’ and these guys will take that verse and say ‘the word for ‘riches’ speaks of abundance in every area. Therefore God is telling us to seek wealth and money’ the amount of deception is quite unbelievable. [That’s why I can’t understand how my ‘prophetic’ friends do not only remain silent on this stuff, but they often perpetuate it. This takes the tool that God wants to use to up root this [the Prophets] and actually causes it to line up in agreement. This cannot stand any more.] NOTE; When these guys do this stuff, it’s like the bible and the true person of Jesus are tools to do what they want with. To say ‘Jesus is Lord’ after doing all this makes you think of the verse ‘why do you call me Lord and not do/say the things that I am saying’. This same preacher also taught that Hebrews says ‘Jesus is the Apostle and high priest of our confession/profession’ he actually taught that this meant ‘Jesus is the SERVANT of what we say, if we confess ‘car/money/etc.’ then Jesus as the priest of our confession goes and says ‘yes sir, I will now go to the father and cause the things you spoke to manifest’ This has Jesus ‘being Lord/High Priest’ turned completely around. The verse means we obey him. As our high priest he mediates for us. Because we have entered into covenant with him, we are debtors to him. We lay our lives down for him. To be honest the way this preacher actually showed Jesus in a way that made him look like a servant was truly offensive. He kind of showed Jesus as a slave to our desires. You guys defending this stuff, times up, don’t defend this anymore.

(343)Just ran our blog ad in the Dallas Morning News. Thought about the event that put Dallas on the map. The killing of President Kennedy. John Kennedy was killed in 1963. Right around the dates I have been discussing. It’s like a demonic spirit was coming against ‘John’ as the enemy was ‘planting’ a work of deception that would do harm to the person of Christ for generations to come.


(344)I am up early right now, there is this tremendous wind/lightning storm going on in my area. Usually I have to get wet when this happens. Being outside praying during a thunderstorm is surreal. This time the rain is limited to the gulf, so I can walk without getting wet. The view of the lightning is great. I am typing this without power right now. Working on batteries because the storm knocked out power. I have a lot to say so I hope I get power back soon. We should have our blog posted in the Dallas Morning News this Saturday. At first I had no intention of ‘biting off more than I could chew’ but I felt the Lord gave me some signs to go to Dallas. This area houses a lot of worldwide ministries. Some of the leaders are seeing the things we speak on. There actually is a type of spiritual warfare going on in the ‘intellectual community’ of charismatic/evangelical ministries. I put ‘intellectual’ in quotes because I hesitate to use this word. The normal level of study and thinking among these ministries is really shallow. All the obvious things we have dealt with could have been avoided if key leaders simply new how to read and interpret scripture. A few years ago I spoke to a national ‘level’ prophet. He actually had opportunity to personally witness to Saddam Hussein before the war. I share this not to brag, but to show that God wants the prophets and the church to see and think on a level that we are not at yet. Most American ministries are simply Christian businesses that are set up to teach their peculiar view/style of Christianity to a passive audience. The intent of the prophetic voice of the church is to speak into society at large and influence it with the reality of God. Some of the silly end time scenarios you see espoused on Christian TV are not only wrong, but also dangerous. All the governments of men [even Israel] that operate outside of Christ’s rule are simply the governments of the world. While God has great plans for Israel, this does not supercede what I just told you. The fact that we have well known evangelists siding to the point of military action from one side towards another is blurring the lines. While I in no way support the Hammas groups of Palestine, to actually advocate military violence towards any group is wrong. I recognize the right of all nations to defend themselves against terrorism, yet Gods Kingdom operates on a different level. These end time preachers really think you can open up the books of Daniel and Revelation and read the newspaper as commentary. This level of ‘thought’ is not only shallow, but deadly. The Christian preacher should never place him self on the side of any human govt. against another group of people that actually has Christians living in the country. If you advocate violence thru the reading of these prophetic books, you don’t realize that you might have joined sides with a govt., no matter how ‘good’, that rejects Christ and actually kills Christians as collateral damage. Now am I saying we should have no voice in world affairs? NO! But the churches voice loses credibility when it does not see these distinctions. The former Soviet Union was an oppressive form of govt. the people were ‘robots’ that functioned as tools of a greater purpose. The problem was no one developed into independent people/thinkers under this model. Though the original designs were noble to a degree, the fact is this type of govt. was repressive. The church in general has functioned this way for generations. Most modern forms of church tell people that their job is to be an audience and be passive and bring your money and GOD FORBID THAT YOU WOULD THINK ON YOUR OWN. Then you have the radicals like me who challenge the system and at times have succeeded in a small way. But the people, just like the Russians, were co dependant for so long that they cant really function well when true liberty is given them. Many had high hopes for the former Soviet Union [The Beatles actually wanted to get back to the USSR, you don’t know how lucky you are] the reality is the people could not function well in a Capitalistic form of govt. because they were ‘held captive’ for so long. God wants the prophetic voice to bring his people to an ‘Exodus’ from limited mindsets and practices. The problem seems to be that they have been ‘held captive’ for so long, they really don’t know how to deal with it. NOTE; the simple fact that the transition from natural land [Israel] to spiritual land [the church] as one of the major ‘shifts’ in the minds of the first century JEWISH APOSTLES should cause us to question the strong GENTILE EVANGELISTS emphasis on natural Israel. This development of end time views revolves around specific scripture. The disciples asked Jesus one time ‘are you going to restore the Kingdom to Israel now’ and Jesus says ‘it is not for you to know the times and seasons that the Father has put in his hand’. The future return of Jesus and the fact that scripture speaks of Christ’s return to this land [natural Israel] is significant. You cant ‘spiritualize’ everything about natural Israel. The fact also is that Gods chief concern and purpose for humanity is located in ‘the true Israel of God’ this is a Bible reference from the Apostle Paul speaking about the Christian Church. Paul made a division between Gods natural purpose for natural Israel and Gods eternal purpose for spiritual Israel. Paul also spoke of a day when all Israel will fall down in repentance and acknowledgement of Christ [book of Romans]. The Old Testament prophets speak of a day of great humiliation when Israel will ‘look upon him who they have pierced’ they will say ‘how did you get these wounds’ and he will answer ‘in the house of my friends’. The biblical characterization of Christ appearing to natural Israel is not one of militaristic vindication. It is one of national ‘rebirth’. At this time in the future when this happens, it will not be a vindicating of Israel over the church. It will be a humiliation and repentance as she is added unto the church. At this moment in history she will at one time have fulfilled her long awaited destiny, which was to present Messiah to humanity. She will be fulfilling this event as spiritual Israel, not natural! This level of understanding is not common today; we need to attain to these things long before Christ’s return. He will not return in a way that would seem to justify the American evangelists repression of other believers thru their distorted view of natural Israel. To put it bluntly [as I have been known to do] it would rock these American end time preachers for Jesus to come back and blow away the image and mindset that they have espoused. To a degree some of them have unknowingly sided with the kingdoms of men against the Kingdom of God. All natural govts, outside of Christ, are the Kingdoms of men. All believers on the planet are in the Kingdom of God. Some of these evangelists have given voice, thru their interpretation of scripture, to the kingdom of man coming against the Kingdom of God. It would be devastating to some of these preachers to think that Jesus is coming back to lead a military campaign in the natural, only to realize that they have sided with a human govt that has actually killed a fellow believer [possibly Palestinian] and in so doing have fulfilled the verse that says ‘I have received these wounds in the house of my friends’. Many evangelists don’t realize that the actual killing of another believer is the worst ‘wounding’ you can inflict upon Christ’s Body. To have done this thru a distorted view of scripture would be too much to handle for these guys. God in his mercy is not returning just yet. NOTE; scripture says a time is coming when those who kill Christians will think that they are doing Gods service, most don’t realize how true this can be!

(345)Let me deal with certain things that inevitably come up when you discus these things. Jesus said in the gospel ‘destroy this Temple and in 3 days I will raise it up’. The mistake that caused the hearers to later accuse him [the Body of Christ] was thinking that he was speaking about/ concerned with the natural Temple. The leaders would later bring this up at his unjust trial. The fact that they were unable to discern between Gods purpose for the spiritual temple [the Church/Body of Christ] with the natural temple was one of the ‘hinges’ that would cause them to side with human govt. [Rome] against Gods govt. [the govt. shall be upon his shoulders]. Today we make the same mistake when we view the natural temple [yet to be built] as the ‘hinge’ of end time events. I have heard the most elaborate scenarios of things that will happen and the temple being the key factor. The key factor for Christ’s return is the condition of the spiritual temple, not the natural one. Scripture clearly says that Christ will return for a glorious temple without spot or wrinkle. This is speaking of us, the true Body of Christ. Those who have focused on the natural temple have unwittingly missed the key element of Christ’s return, which of course is the condition of the spiritual Body of Christ. When Christian leadership in the church is able to ‘rightfully divide’ the word of truth, then we will have come a lot further towards the return of Christ. God loves all nations. Muslim ones, Jewish ones, Gentile ones, etc. His chief concern since the Cross is to bring all tribes of humanity into this one new nation called ‘the Church’. His kingdom is not of this world, or else we would be fighting and crusading against the ‘infidels’. But because his kingdoms boundaries are spiritual, we fight with the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. We ‘take dominion’ and inherit the earth thru acts of love and charity. These radical Muslim nations who want to kill us, see us feeding their children at the risk of our lives, while we bomb the hell out of them from the air. Which strategy fits in more with Christ? These Palestinians and Israelis see our charity workers risking their lives on the field while our American evangelists are advocating violence and expound on ‘smart bombs and patriot missiles’, which do you think is representing Christ’s concerns? We have not done justice to our King who said ‘if my Kingdom were of this world my servants would fight’ If you look at the mindset of ‘his servants’ it makes you wonder. NOTE; I am not a pacifist. I do believe in the historic Christian doctrine of ‘just war’. There are times where it is noble for human govts to war against other govts for the purpose of justice [WW2]. The point I am making is the ‘line’ between the Church and the ‘warring nations’ should be clearly seen. The tremendous damage that is done when a radical Islamic Nation is able to portray their terroristic advances as ‘Muslim against Christian’ is helped when American evangelists don’t rightfully distinguish between the two. It also doesn’t help when the American President actually uses the word ‘crusade’ when describing what we are doing!

(346)Let me note that these last 2 entries were written right after one of the ‘worst’ days I have had in a long time. When you go ‘low’ you can get the ‘keys’ from the adversary that will unlock many doors.


(347)Just felt like I heard the Lord say ‘I am coming at this season to remove certain things that have embedded themselves within the church, align with my purpose. I am the Plumb line’. Felt this especially for the Prophets.

(348)There were certain prophetic people whom God raised up at specific times. The history of Gods Old Testament people showed that they time and again were not recognizing the significance of what God was saying thru them at the time. This is what scripture means when it speaks of Israel saying ‘they rejected the chief corner stone’. Lets be real. I am not saying ‘our voice’ is the singular fulfillment to these things. Many prophetic people have gone really off course by viewing themselves as the 2 witnesses of the book of Revelation. I fall on the side that sees these types of verses as speaking of ‘companies of people’ the restoration of offices ‘Apostles/Prophets’ more so than specific people. In saying this I also see that God has real destiny for each of us. There are ‘prophetic’ voices that he does use to speak at set times. Martin Luther King and others. What I felt the Lord saying is ‘don’t despise the people that I set in your midst’. We are often looking for ‘prophets’ and prophetic words from ‘far away’ ‘I went to this Prophets meeting and he said this’. That’s fine, but the scripture shows us that we have a tendency to ‘reject’ the prophetic voices from our home turf. Jesus said a prophet has honor except in his hometown. Now I don’t want to be too self-serving to all my ‘hometown brothers’, just wanted to say in general that we miss important things because of the ‘familiarity’ of prophetic people. ‘Oh I know him, he said or did this. Can you believe it’. Jesus ‘offended’ people by his familiarity. ‘This is the carpenters son. I had that kid fix my back porch 15 years ago. I brought him iced tea for [his name!] sake! If I want a prophetic word, it wont be from him’. Know no man after the flesh. Look at what God is saying. John the Baptist ‘knew’ Jesus as a cousin his whole life. Yet when it came time to officially recognize him and present him to Israel at his baptism, scripture says that John ‘knew’ him by the Spirits testimony. He did not act out of familiarity, he knew he had a destiny to fulfill, and true humility enabled him to do this.

(349)The rise of the Islamic religion came as a direct result of the Christian churches idolatry. 1400 years ago the prophet Muhammad saw the actual idolatry of the church in having statues and Christians actually bowing down in front of them during ‘church’ services. Muhammad led an iconoclastic revolt [image smashing] and felt that God was using him to judge idolatry in the church. In essence ‘radical Islam’ is sort of a type of ‘Babylonian’ judgment that God allows to come against the church when she becomes idolatrous/materialistic. Today radical Islam looks at all the TV and entertainment that is being produced from ‘western’ Christianity, and sees herself once again as an instrument in Gods hand to ‘judge’ idolatry/materialism. The western church doesn’t yet realize the significance of not being materialistic. Many of the mindsets say ‘this is what Christianity is all about, God is a good God [true] and therefore we are all bout ‘accumulating stuff’ [false]. This ‘idolatry’ of things has once again opened a ‘spiritual portal’ that allows ‘pagan’ nations to judge Gods people. In essence God uses wicked govt. and religions to come in and attack the ‘secure’ feeling of those who find security in ‘things’. The significance of the worlds 3 great religions [Christianity/Islam/Jew] at this time in world history is at a critical point. The reason why ‘spiritual Israel’ [all believers] will be the ‘body of people’ that Christ will return to and vindicate is because these have been the servants of all these other nations during these conflicts. Jesus said the last will be first. These humble believers who have been risking their lives reaching out to all these communities and trying to feed and help these nations are the ones that Christ returns to and ‘shows’ himself. In essence the humble church do inherit the earth. Natural Israel could not do this. The Israel of today is a govt. built and established on Old Testament truths. They still have embedded in their minds the concept of ‘animal sacrifice’ and obedience to law as the nationalistic ‘glue’ that holds the fabric of their society together. The return of Jesus will be an event where all nations will see and fall down and confess Jesus as Lord. It will be humbling to realize that at this moment God is not vindicating the thoughts or religions of men, but instead he will be vindicating the Lamb and his followers. Judgment will be given over to the Lamb and the humble ones who have been following him for 2 thousand years. The world will be relieved to see judgment in the hands of those who truly loved and gave themselves for them. Paul said we shall judge the world. Jesus said whosever’s sins you forgive will be forgiven. There is an aspect to the final judgment that is given to the Saints. This will not be an arrogant thing. Jesus is waiting for the saints to be mature enough to return and entrust this to them. You wouldn’t give your car to your 10 year old. But when they are mature enough you will entrust it to them. So a major aspect of Christ’s return is for his people to be mature enough to not want to judge and condemn, but who will be willing to ‘suffer these other nations to come unto him’. After all redemption was his purpose from the start. [I am not advocating universalism, I am showing you that at Christ’s return he wants his people to be able to handle in grace and mercy the role we will play in the judgment of the nations].

(350)I was watching a prophet the other day on TV. He seemed to be really enjoying the limelight. Just basking in Gods presence while ‘broadcasting’ his image worldwide. At one point he quotes a major money preacher. He quotes him in a way that justifies and aligns himself with this man. This is the same brother I have spoken about who routinely abuses Christ’s image and people. There was a sense of this prophet really enjoying God during this encounter, without truly putting the concerns of Gods people first. To have used this worldwide medium [TV] in a way that will eventually have to be undone was offensive to me. The arrogance of ‘self enjoyment’ ‘my ministry is going well, I have a worldwide persona, I regularly broadcast much revelation to the world, and oh yes, I just endorsed a person who does harm to the image of Christ’ We must put our ministries and our personas away [or at least far behind!] it’s having wrong priorities that causes these things to happen. First priority should be, if God gives you a worldwide audience, how can I best advance the cause of Christ? Maybe you are not called to be as radical as me in these areas. But at least stop endorsing these terrible views to a worldwide audience! Stop it now! NOTE; the quote was something like ‘so and so says ‘faith is the absence of fear’ True. There is a strange thing that happens with these brothers. They see simple truths, they focus intently on them. They proclaim them as tremendously deep revelation. They then go right past the entire plain body of truth taught thru out the entire Word of God. It is an amazing ‘deception’ to strain at nats while swallowing camel’s whole!

(351)While outside praying, I was praying for the area where our radio program broadcasts. The southern part of Texas as well as up and down the gulf Coast. I also was praying for the ‘blog’ cities where we post. From Texas all the way to the New York area. There is an ‘overlapping’ area where both ‘trumpets’ blow. I sensed the Lord saying ‘I am going to do some overlapping things, some manifold things at one time. A wheel within a wheel. A territorial advance that will be unstoppable’. I have for a long time ‘seen’ the image of ‘3 fold cords’ not being easily broken. This year I kind of see it like the Radio [spoken word] Blog[written/virtual word] and People/Ecclesia [living epistles]. Felt like you guys are to play a major role in this thing. Let God use you to extend the Kingdom. Break the limited mindset of ‘getting people to support my ministry/come to my church’ type thing. Enter into a ‘brave heart/Patton’ mentality. ‘I will risk my life to be at the fore front of this revolution’.

(352)‘What did you expect to find, was it something you left behind? Don’t you remember any thing I said when I said ‘don’t fall away and leave me to myself, don’t leave love bleeding in my hands, in my hands again. Love lies bleeding. Don’t you remember? But I do, you never even tried’ [Jesus says we are marked in his hands]. The song Hemorrhage from the group ‘fuel’. You can also find this in scripture! We are so plastic in the eyes of the world. The limelight sucks the anointing out of Gods Prophets. In 2 thousand years we went from Jesus instruction on church leadership as washing each other’s feet [servant hood] to today’s mindset that has the singular most important piece of ‘church furniture’ as being the stage. God help us. I feel so tired right now, totally drained.

(353)Let me ramble a little. I was watching the Republican Presidential debate last night. One of the candidates said of abortion ‘I am against it personally, but it is a woman’s choice. She has a right to her own conscience’. Was it the ‘slaveholders choice’ to do what he wanted? Were you personally against slavery, but respected the ‘free choice’ of the slaveholder? Bunch of lying hypocrites. Choice ends at the line of another human beings right to live. No person has the ‘choice’ to dismember a baby’s body inside a womb. I heard the reading of one of the transcripts from the recent Supreme Court ruling against partial birth abortion. The Judge was asking one of the Doctors who gave testimony to describe the procedure. The Doctor is saying ‘we pull the babies legs out’ the judge asks ‘are the legs kicking’ ‘yes’. We insert the ‘tongs’ type instrument and place it over the babies skull. ‘Are the legs still kicking’ ‘yes’. We squeeze the instrument and crush the skull. ‘The legs are not kicking anymore’. You call this a woman’s right? I don’t care which political side you fall on, how dare anybody be so blind to call this a woman’s right, and to approve of this for someone’s vote. To want power and position so bad, that you would do it at the cost of giving voice to the singular most horrendous act of ‘infanticide’ that has taken place in 2 thousand years. Never has there been a time in history where the amount of babies that have been killed can equal what we have done. The wonderful Democrats are right now trying to undo what the Supreme Court has banned. They have certain things they feel they can do legislatively. Thanks so much. I actually like one of the Democrats who is running at this time. He is a Black American, well spoken. His favorite philosopher is Reinhold Niebuhr. A great Christian Theologian. His son [Ralph- I think it’s his son?] is on the cutting edge of Christian thought in our day in the area of ‘Ecclesiology’. A lot of the stuff you read on this site in the area of church form and structure are things he would agree with. I think it’s great for a Black Democrat to have his father as one of his favorite thinkers. Could I vote for him? No. Why not? He believes the murder of little babies is a woman’s choice. Would you vote for someone who believed slavery was the slaveholder’s choice? Don’t vote for people who believe the life or control of another person is in the hands of those with the power to take their life. The fact that this is being done is wrong. Don’t side with it. [Also, as we speak out for the unborn. Lets do what we can to save the hundreds of thousands of little black children dying in Africa and other parts of the world].

(354)Just thought of Isaiah. Haven’t read it in years [at least the first 39 chapters, I do read chapters 39 to the end regularly]. God appears to him and gives him this wonderful prophetic ministry. God ‘touches’ his lips with fire [a prophetic image from Revelation that says ‘fire proceeds from their mouths’ not real fire, Gods voice. God is a consuming fire.] Isaiah then sees his own life as being undone. He sees himself and the time period he is living in as ‘unclean’ [out for their own pleasures and concerns]. There is this ‘realization’ that just about everyone involved, including himself, are so far behind. He ascends to this place of ‘seeing’ the Lord. At the same time he is at the lowest emotional and spiritual point in his life. The fact that God has given him this door to speak, brings with it this ‘prison’ of going high and low. An aspect of Jesus ministry, who ascended higher than any man, but also lower than any man. Isaiah begins to see the vanity of everyone involved. I read something from John Paul Jackson. It was either a dream or vision. God showed John the present state of leadership in the church. There were 4 levels. One of the levels was very shallow. No one from that ‘time’ was actually mature. They were all victimized by pride and showmanship. They meant well, they just couldn’t truly see the condition of themselves as well as the church. God told John that this was the present level. Isaiah thought they were at the 1st level, until God opened his eyes. It was hard to swallow what he was ‘seeing’. NOTE; Bible says ‘eat the book/words’. In your mouth it will be sweet [prophetic flow will be life giving] but in your belly bitter [it will be required to ‘ingest’ stuff that wont taste good. Things that are ‘hard’ to swallow. It says this of the prophet John in the book of Revelation]

(355)I kinda see it like this. Say if we were all in the 3rd grade [lets stick to our earlier analogy] but we didn’t realize it. We were all doing ‘stage plays’ and assignments and regular school activities. Some of us were smarter than others. But we were all still at the 3rd grade level. The real achievers among us, those who really stood out, were very well known. All the others classmates knew how smart they were. But the truth was they might have been at the 4th grade level, maybe 5th. But in the overall scheme of things everybody is still immature. Then one day the Lord reaches out to little Tommy. He tells him ‘Little Tommy, I am going to reveal to you university level stuff, but first I am going to show you how everyone is really in elementary school though they don’t know it’. God then pulls back the curtain and shows little Tommy the vanity of it all. Tommy realizes that though the Father loves them, they are all little kids acting like adults. The fact that God decided to show Tommy these things doesn’t really change Tommy’s level of maturity. Tommy is just like everybody else [I am a man of unclean lips in the midst of unclean people] the only difference is God chose Tommy for this task. The problem is because they are all still immature, even Tommy, this will lead to the other classmates saying ‘did you see Tommy’s scores the other day? He is really smart; lets make Tommy the most likely to succeed. Lets make him class president’. The only problem is along with the ‘ability’ to see more than his classmates, comes with it the obvious vanity of the whole thing. It’s sort of like Tommy realizes he might very well be the most influential kid in the class. But a time is coming [maybe after Tommy and all his classmates are gone] that all the other students are going to realize that Tommy and all of his contemporaries were only at the 3rd grade level. This causes Tommy to feel like ‘why even waste all this time in the 3rd grade?’ [Paul said he had a desire to depart, which would be much better, instant university level, but to stay with the 3rd graders was needful. Remember with the gift that Tommy had came also the realization that he too was in the 3rd grade] Even though Tommy’s friends ‘idolized’ his ability to see down the road, Tommy realized that this fleeting moment of glory was an absolute waste of time. Tommy even wrote in his letters about the vanity of the whole thing, but the other students would keep exalting Tommy, even though he wrote that we shouldn’t do this. There finally comes a day when Tommy will have to leave. All his friends will go their ways. Eventually Tommy will see them again, at that time everyone will realize that what Tommy was saying and seeing didn’t make him better in any way. They will realize that they were all childish. That even though they now see that Tommy knew a lot of this before them, yet somehow this doesn’t matter anymore. They all see everything at the same level now. Tommy knew all along that this future re union was coming, a day when everyone would all see at the highest level. At that time they will realize that to glory in each other’s knowledge and wisdom was just a childish game that they all played at a former time. This is why Tommy could never ‘get on with the program’ the same ability to see a little further than his classmates also brought with it the futility to glory in men. IT IS SWEET IN YOUR MOUTH, BUT BITTER IN YOUR BELLY. NOTE; One of the worst things that came along with Tommy’s gift was every once in a while some of the students would pretend to have very deep truths. They would tell the others students ‘this is university level stuff’. Out of pride the others students would learn these basic teachings and spread them to the whole school. It was easy for Tommy to recognize that this teaching wasn’t really university level. Tommy could see this because of the gift, not because he was smarter. It was really hard on Tommy because when he would warn the other students of the obvious 3rd grade level of their teaching, they would take it very personal and say ‘who does Tommy think he is, he’s just a carpenters son [a ‘secular’ un ordained laborer] I think maybe we should even kill him’ this made Tommy really tired of the whole thing and would cause him to want to graduate real fast. NOTE; Sometimes Tommy would feel like the whole thing was a big game. He knew it was wrong to feel this way, as being God chose him to see at a higher level. Tommy would feel bad about being cynical at times. He sometimes thought that maybe this was part of the price. Maybe God allowed Tommy to feel this way as part of the gift. Tommy knew there was a man named Paul who used to pray that certain things would go away and God told Paul I am allowing this thing to remain because of the gift. This made Tommy wonder why so many of the 3rd graders wanted to be on stage so badly, Tommy knew that to really be ‘on stage’ was something different than they thought. Tommy knew that the piece of furniture that God uses is called the Cross. That to be ‘lifted higher’ meant something different. The 3rd graders used to sing a song ‘lift Jesus higher, lift Jesus higher’ they took the words from the bible, but being they were only in the 3rd grade they didn’t realize that this spoke of crucifixion, not fame. Tommy felt this to be a prophetic sign that spoke to the level of maturity that they were all at. NOTE; The rock opera ‘Tommy’ by the Who spoke of a blind kid [who is blind like my servant] who kept hitting the pinball just right. I have a cat named ‘Tommy’. We thought she was a boy at first, then she had babies! We had to get her leg amputated when she started coming around. She got hit by a car. Poor thing, she had 3 kittens [more are the children of the afflicted!] and spends a lot of time by her self. Sometimes it’s like she’s waiting to ‘depart’. The cool thing about prophetic things is they are so prophetic! [3 kittens/3 legs] 3 fold cords are not easily broken!

(356)Lets line up with scripture. God is going to allow us to ‘posses the land’. God has tremendous Abrahamic fulfillments that he wants to do thru you. The first century Apostles lived in a time where the actual inheriting and purchasing of land was a very real biblical act. Yet not one single New Testament Apostle raised money to purchase land or property. Funny thing? All the verses dealing with the purchase of land in the Old testament [I stress all!] were ‘spiritualized’ by Paul to mean ‘people groups’. Not once, not twice, every time! You think this would affect the mindset of the modern minister. God wants you and me to begin ‘possessing land’. If you do it the way Paul and Jesus did it, you will ‘run rapidly thru the land’. If you refuse to ‘transition your mind’ and attempt to fulfill these promises in the natural, it will not only slow you down, but you will be spending too much time with the cares of this life ‘I have bought land and I need to go see it’. Build the way EVERY New Testament Apostle did. Not a single appeal for money to buy ministry property or land. The only ‘land’ transaction you see taking place is the actual selling of it to meet the needs of the saints [Acts]. There was a very real sense of ‘inheriting the land’ that the Apostles took to mean the people who lived in these regions [Ephesus, Galatia, etc.] NOTE; To the ‘local’ Pastors who read this site, I don’t have you guys in mind right now, if it fits, fine. But I was reading some stuff on line and kind of felt like this was for some not in this area!

(357)Just woke up at work. Was dreaming I was in Jersey. This means God is doing a work with some of my generation, the old friends who I ‘re attached’ to this year. I had the sense that God was saying ‘all things are in place, I have ‘manipulated’ the environment to be favorable towards you. All you really need to do is stay on the board [game board] and you will begin hitting boardwalk/park place’. Guess I cant get away from board games right now. Did you ever feel like you were ‘in the game’ but not really? Your rolling the dice, your going around the board, but you just can’t seem to hit the favorable ‘real estate’. I felt like God was saying you are going to start hitting the ‘good land’. It’s always been there, but certain things prevented you from possessing it. You are about to start hitting the good spots. Don’t think ‘linear’ think ‘buffet table’. At the risk of going a little too deep, let me share some stuff. Some theologians feel that when the bible was interpreted from Greek/Hebrew to English that we lost something. Greek and Hebrew thought carried with it a type of learning that was like a buffet table. You would communicate many things at one time. These truths were not meant to be ‘put in a row’. You were not supposed to read them ‘in a line’. For instance you can read the book of Revelation as ‘consecutive’ events that happen one after another. Or you can see it as ‘concurrent’, that is a broad overview of many things, some are happening as we speak. This is a very debatable subject in the field of theology. Clark Pinnock, a contemporary theologian, actually says theology is like a buffet table. The more reformed thinkers reject this out of hand. They feel this is heresy. So without going to deep, lets say there is an aspect in God where he ‘spreads out the table before us’. Everything we need is really there [don’t think materialistic here!] the only thing that has been keeping us from ‘possessing the land’ is we have not been walking in divine favor. We haven’t been landing right. We are so used to ‘missing’ park place, that we are not even expecting to hit it anymore. We are happy to build motels on Baltic! God’s favor is the ‘transition’ stage that causes you to start landing on favorable real estate. You will begin to ‘inherit the nations’. God will allow you to influence people groups with the gospel. Don’t forget, to ‘inherit’ the nations is to bring in the harvest. In Jesus teaching those who were actually buying land [just developing material wealth] were actually disqualifying themselves from laboring in the real harvest. Don’t get too caught up with the acquisition of stuff. Be free to labor in the fields, they are ripe and ready to harvest [if you will, the buffet table has always been there].

(358)I was up praying early. I was actually saying to myself ‘you can go so low in the pit to retrieve treasures, that it becomes dangerous’. I had a sense of a Hollywood schema that would have the ‘hero’ saying ‘I will go and risk my life to save the damsel [or some other corny thing]’ and the others standing by and pleading with him not to take the risk. Sort of like Peter telling Jesus ‘don’t go to the Cross’. As I was actually ‘muttering’ the words about ‘a very low pit’ I heard on the radio the days verse ‘he reached down and took me out of the most horrible pit’ it was a contemporary version from Psalms. Lets share some treasures that were just mined from a low place. On this blog I discuss a lot of controversial things. One is the end times. I don’t hold to a lot of the popular end time scenarios. For instance I recently showed you why Christ’s return will not vindicate natural Israel. The answer was Jesus could not ‘vindicate’ any system outside of the true gospel. So the ‘key’ to seeing this is actually the Cross! You will find this to be the key to everything. All truths must ‘filter’ thru the Cross. You will not rightly divide scripture until you master this. One of the controversial ideas I have espoused is Nero being the ‘beast’ of Revelation. Many evangelicals disagree. Lets open a door using the ‘key’. One of the New Testament books that Paul wrote speaks of Jesus ‘destroying the antichrist’ at his coming. With a total destruction. Some who believe Nero was the beast say this ‘coming of Jesus to destroy’ was a ‘coming’ in judgment in AD 70. They ‘spiritualize’ the 2nd coming to make it fit. The modern evangelical who holds to the Tim Lahaye stuff sees this as an excuse to prove a point. They say ‘see, if Jesus totally destroys antichrist at the 2nd coming, then obviously Nero wasn’t him!’ I do want to note that early historians will tell you that one of the ‘nick names’ for Nero was ‘the beast’. Here’s a ‘key’. In Revelation you see many things happening at different times. You also see many spiritual truths that are concurrent [remember what I showed you the other day]. There are images that show the beast and the antichrist being bound for a period of time. I also showed you on this blog that Hebrews says ‘Jesus destroyed him that had the power of death thru dieing himself’. This ‘key’ of Christ’s death teaches us that the devil is already destroyed by the Cross. It’s not ‘really’ a future event. The 2nd coming is a ‘culmination’ and ‘crowning’ of the Cross’s work. So the image in Revelation of the antichrist being ‘bound’ might very well be speaking of what happened at the Cross. In all the generations of man, since the Cross there has been more light and freedom than at any other time. The enemy, as well as the antichrist, can very well be described as ‘bound’. Now you also have images in Revelation that show this ‘binding’ as being a ‘waiting stage’ for ultimate destruction. The ‘contents’ of death and hell are finally ‘poured’ into the lake of fire. Peter in the New Testament gives images of rebellious angels being ‘held in chains’ until the final ‘destruction’. So with all this in mind, here’s a key. Nero is being ‘held’ right now, with Hitler and every other wicked despot that has ever lived. They are waiting for the 2nd coming. At the real 2nd coming [not AD 70!] he will really be ‘destroyed with total destruction by the presence of the Lord’. This my friends is the key, Jesus and his Cross.

(359)I was ‘seeing’ some people from Jersey again. I saw myself going thru the Tunnel in the Fairview cemetery that I wrote about earlier in this blog. I kinda saw a light at the end of the tunnel. I was hoping I was finally getting there. Then I realized I was at the midway point! Ouch!! In the middle of this tunnel in Jersey we found a ‘smoke stack’ that was huge. I guess it was a midway point to let steam out? We would look up and see sky. We wondered where it came out. One day walking in Fairview we found the stack shooting up a few hundred feet in some ones yard. It was huge. From inside the tunnel it was hard to ‘see’ where you were at on the terrain. From outside your perspective changes. There’s a light at the end of the tunnel for you [3rd day, a Christian group. I do listen to all types of music, even Christian!]

(360)Let me clarify some things. To ‘exalt’ people because of their gifts is a sickness that the church suffers from. This is imbedded in the current level of maturity that we are at. It will take time for us to out grow this. To ‘recognize’ the gifted ones in our midst is also an act of humility. While we live in a time of exalting men’s images, we also live in a time of ‘not receiving’ the prophets. To ‘receive them’ means to simply recognize and accept the things they are saying by the Spirit, while at the same time seeing them as ‘equals’ in the Body of Christ. To understand that the priesthood of all believers supersedes the gifts. Gifts are free ‘presents’ that God gives us for everyone’s benefit. The fact they are gifts should cause the ‘gifted ones’ to be humble about it. It should also cause the others receiving the benefits to understand that they are all sharing from a gift that no one has earned. To understand the difference between the exalting of men and the receiving of gifted ones is a level that we are not at yet as a Body of people. Now some things about John the Baptist. John had this incredible singular ability to ‘see Christ’. He was humble enough to recognize as Christ increased, he would decrease. John also had this ‘knack’ for offending people in authority. Poor John just couldn’t stick with the positive confession! John preached against the Kings marriage to his brother’s wife. He spoke out against an obvious sin that others had come to accept. The kings wife eventually would have John beheaded. The beheading of John was accomplished by the wife manipulating the Kings authority to come against the prophet. She had her daughter dance a sensual dance for the King, The King said he would give her anything she asked. The mother told the daughter ‘I want Johns head’ she got it! The story of Jezebel in the Old Testament carries the same theme. The prophet Elijah [whom Jesus compared John to] was attacked by the King of Israel’s authority being used by his wife. Jezebel had ‘power’ to come against Elijah because of her position to the King. The book of Revelation speaks of the spirit of Jezebel. God warns one of the churches that ‘she was allowing Jezebel to seduce her people’. In the charismatic world whole books and conferences revolve around this theme. A problem with the church, we take stuff and blow it out of proportion. I see this ‘Jezebel’ as the power of the enemy to manipulate authority to come against Christ’s Kingdom. The crucifying of Jesus. It was accomplished thru political manipulation. Pilate and others using govt. and their place in it to position themselves. Being so caught up in trying to gain the approval of their constituents that they allow an ‘innocent man’ to slip thru and be put to death unlawfully. The enemy knew that an outright attempt to take innocent life would never fly, but thru these manipulative means, he could use secular authority to come against Gods people [Both John the Baptist and Elijah]. So today we have the act of abortion. It is accomplished because human govt has been manipulated by those who want position. The leaders were more concerned with power than justice. The enemy manipulated leaders to a point where the supreme court put its stamp of approval on infanticide, could a human being on his own go around killing babies? No. But the ‘voice’ of govt. behind the scenes allows this to happen on a broad scale. Jezebel [the manipulating of power] rears her ugly head. The fact that John spoke out against the wicked lifestyle of the King [authority] brought with it the inherent danger of Jezebel. John graduated early! NOTE; I feel like ‘to suffer that woman Jezebel to seduce Gods servants’ speaks more of a rebuke towards the church getting to a stage where she is so comfortable in society that she loses her prophetic voice of justice. When believers are under the ‘spell’ of Jezebel, it is not so much a demonic thing to me, as much as a ‘seduction of silence’. Things are going well for our ministries, we are experiencing joy, fame and growth. God is a good God, we are ‘changing our world with our words’ [which means we are creating the lifestyles that we want, while never truly impacting society] in a nutshell ‘we are suffering jezebel to seduce us’ while we sit around quietly as the King blatantly struts around with his brothers wife. Everyone knows it’s wrong, but there is this ‘conspiracy of silence’. That is until old John comes along. You know he’s got this great prophetic ability to ‘see Messiah’ the Old Testament prophets actually spoke of John, they said he would be someone who ‘came in the power and spirit of Elijah’. You know what he went and did? Old John had to go open his mouth one too many times. He felt like ‘the Lord’ wanted him to speak out on the obvious sins of the time. Poor old John went and got himself killed. We are still around to enjoy the benefits of Roman society; we are very ‘posh’. Just don’t talk too much about our King, he is an embarrassment that we are willing to put up with for now! [Old Jezebel had a good run in 1st century Rome]

(361)I was parked down by the bay/gulf the other day. I was listening to Christian radio out of San Antonio. I heard a church from the area. The Pastor was real nice, kinda reminded me of our early days. A little ‘too nice’. A good word, but very apologetic. Sort of like ‘we have a very nice church, very loving people. Our childrens worker is really nice. We have a very loving family’ all of it was good and true. It sounded like the early tapes I recorded the first few years of ministry. I remember going thru them years later and throwing them out. A lot of the stuff was OK, but there was a lot of ‘word of faith’ mixture that I was uncomfortable with [I used to actually say ‘we now know it’s Gods will for us to all be rich’. Ughh!] There was also a lot of ‘good morning everybody, I hope you had a very, very wonderful week. We are going to have so much fun today’. Ughh again! This just reminded me of how we have lost our prophetic voice. We do sound like wimps to the world at times.

(362)When I was a kid I had a chance to see Pink Floyd at the Jersey shore [Springsteins turf]. I missed the concert. It was ‘the wall’ concert. ‘All in all were just another brick in the wall’. Just had an impression of running and hitting and doing damage to a ‘wall’. It’s like others have ‘hit’ it before, but there was a sense of going so far and being a little scared. Like you reach a point where for a season you find yourself all the way up the wall, and you look back and realize you’re in trouble. I remember going to the Jersey shore with a friend. We were about 16 yrs old. He ‘hired’ me to go with him as protection. Me and one other guy. We went because he was going to beat up the guy his girlfriend was seeing. We got to town in this Chevy Nova. I asked my friend where he got the car. He ‘found it’ with the keys in it and running! We wound up at dusk in some baseball field asking for the guy. Some kid shows up and offers to smoke some free pot. Sure, why not? Now we are totally wasted in some strange town looking to ‘kick someone’s @$#@’ Sure enough the kid that got us high starts walking back to around 30 kids making their way across the field. He was just ‘prepping’ us for the kill. This is how I just ‘saw’ the wall image. I feel like there are certain ‘walls’ that have needed to be dealt with for some time. Dealing with them can be dangerous. You feel like you’re in the middle of some strange town and outnumbered. This is why scripture says ‘those who did not love their lives unto death received a reward’. We must advance beyond the point of security and self-preservation. The ‘wall’ is high; you will at times be by yourself way up the wall. At that point you might as well go all the way.

(363)‘To obey is better than sacrifice’ at this stage in what we are doing, some people have truly questioned the whole concept of what they have been preaching and believing for years. Some times when we question these things there is a tendency to use as a cover ‘my ministry has done good things, we might not be as pure as we should be in the gospel, but we have done good things’. This is thinking to ‘sacrifice’ is better than obedience. I do understand the difficulty that ministries go thru when they do an inventory and realize that 99% of their teaching was ‘missing the gospel’. I heard a testimony from a word of faith/prosperity preacher. He was/is pastoring a church. For many years he focused on the prosperity gospel. He was convicted over a period of years by seeing the many things I have shown you. He realized that his library was consumed with the teachers of the movement. That most of his focus was not really the true gospel. It was not easy to admit this to himself. He finally threw out his entire library and got back to focusing on the Bible. Jim Bakker went thru this same thing. A realization of ‘what have I been teaching and preaching’. The point is God is happy when we ‘sacrifice’. Do good things. Give money to Christian things. But all the sacrificing doesn’t trump obedience. Get back to the gospel of Jesus, and continue doing ‘the sacrifice’.

(364)The New Testament teaches believers to ‘defend the faith that has once been given to the church’. This ‘one time deposit of faith’ is not speaking about ‘guarding your personal faith in Jesus’ [as I have heard it taught]. It is speaking of guarding the basic Christian doctrine of God and the Gospel of Christ. Basically God calls us to ‘remain in the truth’. This ‘truth’ is the simple reality of us being saved thru Christ. It is the message of the gospel. It includes the basic tenets of the faith [things that you would find in the Apostles creed] and the basic ‘stuff’ of foundational Christianity. Often times you will find believers identifying with peculiar beliefs or offshoots of Christianity [I know some think we do that!]. Many legalistic groups have this mindset. They will view ‘leaving their style of belief’ with apostasy. God requires us to be faithful to the gospel. Not to some group that sees itself with ‘special knowledge’ that the church at large doesn’t posses. For centuries the parable of the sower ‘30-60-100 fold’ was easily seen to be speaking about Christian truth bringing forth fruit in a persons life. You then had a movement who taught that this really wasn’t what it meant, but it really meant bringing in a ‘100 fold’ of money. This is a direct departure from what it clearly said, as well as what all Christians seemed to understand for centuries. When ‘being faithful’ to the ‘faith’ that was once delivered to the saints, you have to basically know what was once delivered!

(365)Isaiah 49- ‘The Lord called me from birth, he made mention of my name from my mothers womb. He hath made my mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of his hand hath he hid me’ God combines ‘hiding’ with authority. Elijah not only had a strong prophetic ministry, he also had the ability to go in hiding for 3.5 years. ‘Then said I, I have labored in vain’ in context this is speaking of Israel’s national re birth at the 2nd coming. She says ‘I labored in vain’ in the context of ‘laboring under law’. At the appearing of Christ she will realize she spent thousands of years trying to legalistically gain Gods approval when all the ‘work/labor’ had already been done. ‘Your warfare is accomplished and sin forgiven’ [we will read this later on in Isaiah]. ‘Thus saith the Lord to him whom men despise, nations hate and a servant to rulers. Kings [leaders] shall see new things and rise. Princes also shall worship’ I see this as a type of God giving authority to those who have felt rejection. If you want authority to influence ‘kings’ then you will experience rejection on a large scale. ‘I will contend with him who contends with thee and save your children’ the fact that you are being ‘contended with’ is a sure sign that you are ‘birthing children’ winning people to the true cause of Christ.

(366)While praying I had a thought. The purpose of the Trumpet [all the various aspects of preaching and declaring Gods Word/Prophetic voice] is to ‘alarm’ the people to action. The Trumpet exists to cause the people to rise up as Gods mobile prophetic community and to advance thru society as his witnesses. This requires a willingness to ‘die to self’. The word for martyr means witness. Today we organize all the people around the ‘Trumpet’. We polish it, we come to look at it, every now and than we let the laity ‘blow’ it. But the focus is really the trumpet [gift/ministry]. Remember, the purpose of the ministry is to so enable you with a revolutionary mindset, that you would in turn revolutionize the world.

(367)About 4 months ago I consciously stopped making radio tapes. I was in the middle of teaching the book of Hebrews and was over 2 years ahead of actually broadcasting the tapes. I usually don’t prepare anything; I just read the bible and share as God leads. I stopped because I was only half way thru Hebrews and I was seeing a lot of stuff. I wanted to put ‘speaking’ on hold [remember Elijah had the ability to ‘not preach’ for 3.5 years]. I am not Elijah, but I didn’t want my ‘identity’ to be preaching. The month I consciously stopped preaching I started reading Isaiah as devotional material. Sort of like putting things on hold. Then we started this blog and I have been ‘speaking’ ever since! I share this to let you know I really am not looking for avenues to speak, I kinda feel like when Paul told Timothy ‘in doing this [preaching] you will save yourself and those who hear thee’ It’s a necessity. I just heard on the radio a preacher talk on ‘the name that is given to us that no man knows, but he who gives it’. This is in the book of Revelation. He innocently gave the ‘common’ commentary on ‘I wonder what my name will be, the bible says no one knows’. I kinda think it would make us feel uncomfortable to wake up in heaven and to find out my new name is ‘Youseff’ or ‘Zerubabael’ or some other weird thing. Maybe all the northeast liberals will be given ‘bubba’ type names, all the southerners wake up with the name ‘Al Sharpton’! We can be stupid at times. Lets use the key. What did I say the key to everything was? Jesus and his Cross. The book of Corinthians tells us that no man can say Jesus is Lord but by the Spirit. Also no man can ‘know’ the name Jesus [intimately] unless he is in ‘the Body of Christ’. Only God ‘knows’ this name, and only those whom God chooses to reveal it to. We are presently called ‘the Body of Christ’. We right now bear the name ‘Jesus Christ’. No body truly knows this name but those to whom it is revealed [all Christians]. We truly have a name that no man knows, but he who gave it! NOTE You can still go around wondering what this new mysterious name is, but if this didn’t ‘turn the lights on’ then you deserve to wake up with the name ‘Al Sharpton’.

(368)Just had a dream. I was at some type of flea market. Lots of salesman trying to get you to their stand. A doctor was running one of the stands. As people were walking around and engaging in ‘market type’ activities, I saw someone from the past. I don’t really recognize this person, I just no he looks familiar. His mom brought him to the Doctors stand. He was supposed to ‘work’ for the doctor. I got the sense that the mom was trying to get her son a job. He is getting older and kinda lives in fear. As I was looking at the trinkets and stuff the doctor was selling, I saw the mom make excuses for the son to not work. ‘Doctor he says his foot hurts, I can’t risk him getting an infection’ [he cant work hurt!] At the same time the mom is berating the son. ‘Your foot will sure be OK later to go visit your friends’. She was both rebuking him and enabling him at the same time. The doctor is a doctor. He looks briefly at the foot and kinda sees there is nothing wrong with it. The ‘enabling’ worked and the kid got out of ‘the doctors harvest field’. As I was going thru the doctor’s stuff to see if I wanted to buy something, another ‘stand owner’ was interrupting. Trying to get me to go to his stand. I finally refused and kept shopping. I found a little bag of jewelry. In the bag I spotted a little trumpet. I knew this was what I had come for. I bought the trumpet and walked away. I had previously injured my foot, and was walking with a bad limp. The act of walking with the limp was in and of itself an indictment on the other son who got out of the market with his excuse. I simply felt like the Lord was saying there are many things trying to prevent you from ‘finding your trumpet’ [voice and purpose in life]. We often eliminate ourselves by creating false disqualifiers ‘how can I work while hurting, it wouldn’t be right’. You will never find the perfect atmosphere to labor in! There will be other ‘tradesmen’ who will try to ‘sell you their wares’ in order to distract you from the trumpet/purpose of God. Don’t get side tracked! Eventually you will find that ‘item of value’ from the great Physicians stand. You might have to walk into the ‘market’ with a limp [Jacob/Paul] but that’s all right. All you need to do is get in the right place and blow that trumpet [I just went back to edit this site. I read a dream I had earlier. I dreamt of me having a thorn bush branch sticking in my leg. I had totally forgotten about this. It’s like the prophecies and dreams are a separate world of reality unto themselves. Sort of like a series of events that fit in, whether I remember them or not!] NOTE; To those of you waiting for the right environment before you will work in Gods field, even as I type this the last thing I feel like doing in my life right now is THIS! God wants to bring us to a place where we function thru difficulty. I do not want ‘hurt’ people to ‘hurt’ other people. I am showing you that the purpose of God is not always the exciting vision or dream of ‘ministry’ that you have in mind. Often it is the faithfulness to finish the task in the midst of personal turmoil. I think we used to call this ‘the Cross’. NOTE; Paul said ‘I desire to DEPART and be with Christ which is far better’. Moses and Elijah and Jonah all expressed feelings of ‘now go ahead Lord, take my life I am ready to depart’. These were real feelings of wanting to leave. I am not saying suicidal feelings are from God. It’s just important to understand true ministry is not necessarily your long-term existence on this planet. It is a mindset that struggles with wanting to ‘wrap this thing up’ while at the same time realizing you need to finish the course. Most of us don’t realize the reality of this. You [and I!] don’t decide when ‘to wrap it up’ God does. Sometimes you really feel like its time to depart, and it can be a struggle to realize your only half way thru the tunnel! NOTE; Me and a friend at work get a kick out of a story of one of these fakers who pretend they are hurt to scam the Social Security system. The guy pretended he got hurt some how [no one we know, this was on TV] The ‘injury’ caused him to act like a big baby [prophetic!] he would go around for years talking baby talk and acting just like a 30 year old baby. They finally busted him on tape. The cop car is driving him to the police station and he is in the back of this car pretending he is a baby again. He is being taped. The wife finally says to him ‘O shut up you big baby, the gig is up!’ You kinda got the feeling that the wife was tired of his whining and was glad he finally got busted.

(369)I just heard a word from God ‘don’t define me by your experience of me, I knew you and had a purpose for you before you even knew me’. I felt like God was saying ‘I chose you even when you were not following me, even as you were in active rebellion. Your religious experience which some of you now despise [previous church affiliation] I was with you thru all that. Don’t despise others who are still there. Your whole experience of me is very limited. Don’t judge me or others based on this experience, even if you call it ‘born again’ for I knew you before you were born’.

(370)A few entries back I spoke of the King that John the Baptist ‘exposed’. His name was King Herod. I don’t think I have ever written on him before. I am sure I have mentioned him on radio. The next day [or the same day?] I was watching the news. For the first time in 2 thousand years they found King Herods tomb. Prophetic things work like this. The significance of finding the tomb holds a spiritual truth. The ‘exposing’ of Herod was a prophetic act that said ‘you can’t continue to manipulate and hide behind authority to accomplish your agenda’. The last few weeks the Supreme Court upheld the law banning partial birth abortion. For a long time it was the manipulation of this system [Supreme court and human govt.] that allowed for this act of murder to take place. This act was openly described in testimony before the court in such a way that just reading the transcript would offend you. Its like time was up and ‘the King’ was exposed.

(371)Was reading in Isaiah ‘is anything too hard for me? I am God. I created everything. I can do anything’ I have heard it taught that God saves us, but basically that doesn’t change us. That we are really still the same. Our minds and everything else about us are still ‘unredeemed’. After getting ‘saved’ we are now beginning this long process of renewing our minds and bringing our bodies under control. It is biblical to renew the mind and it is also biblical to ‘bring the body under control’. It’s just we need to keep in perspective that the ‘act of redemption’ itself was God changing us at the basic ‘DNA’ level in such a way that all the other ‘trimmings’ could never accomplish. We don’t want to turn ‘redemption/salvation’ into an act that basically doesn’t do anything. It does a lot! God has acted on our behalf to accomplish changes in us that could not have been done any other way. The whole attempt of man ‘changing himself’ was tried under the law. He would ‘renew his mind’ he would ‘bring his body under’. The law was man saying ‘God has given me these tools, and now it’s basically up to me to implement them’. Man tried this for thousands of years until the Cross. At the Cross God said ‘I am God, I can do anything. Nothing is too hard for me. I will do for you what you could never accomplish thru your efforts’. Renew your mind, fast and bring your body under. It’s all good. Most of all understand that God has saved you. He has done stuff for you that all the disciplines in the world could never accomplish! NOTE: ‘and you who were enemies and alienated in your minds by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled thru the Body of his flesh by death [New Testament]’ See this. The act of the Cross has already ‘reconciled’ your mind. There truly has been a fundamental change in your mind. You shall know this truth, and this truth shall set you free!

(372)I am up praying early at the firehouse. I walk outside and pray silently! Don’t want you to really think I am too crazy. I am working off a street called ‘Armstrong’. It’s the first [or 2nd] place I lived when first moving to Kingsville. A few blocks away my friend Miguel lived right down the block. Actually it was off of this street 25 years ago that I led Miguel to the Lord [my first convert from new jersey]. Right around the corner one of my Kingsville friends lives. Just praying and thinking about him and his boys. Many years ago I used to preach to his dad at the jails. I eventually met him and his brothers. All my age. Actually I backslid pretty bad with these guys years ago. They all have these reputations as ‘bad guys’. I remember having to ‘show them’ what ‘bad’ was when I backslid. I actually beat one of the brothers up. The other one [my good friend] I would ‘box’ in fun [no gloves] and I could tell that he tried to avoid me when I was drinking. It’s all in the past now. It was something in me that had to say ‘I don’t care how tough of an ex convict you are, I’ll kick your %$@#.’ All stupid stuff. Not too smart either. I was a ‘lone ranger’ and these families have lots of brothers and fellow drug/gang friends in these towns. As I was praying for these friends and their sons and realizing I am just a few blocks from where all these many experiences took place, it felt surreal to realize thru it all God has worked. Now many years later some are doing well, some are dead. I am even praying for the Jersey friends I contacted this past year. ‘I will bring your sons from far, your daughters from the ends of the earth’ [Isaiah]. It’s like you can be in touch with all types of people groups thru prayer. Now this blog enables me to communicate within a few days time. The radio ministry is good. But some times I would say something important and depending on the timeline it might take over a year before the tape gets played. Thru the blog I can actually write and post to all of you in minutes. I felt like God ‘shortened’ the delay. Hopefully eventually I will get with you guys in a bible study environment and there will be no delay! Well just felt like I needed to communicate this to you. Pray for all of the people who are part of this ‘on line’ community. Read the bible on your own. Seek the Lord. I don’t want to offend any of my old friends by thinking ‘who does John think he is by saying he’s trying to reach out to us, he’s got problems too!’ This surely is true. Pray for me too. Lets all see what Gods got in store. Thanks.

(373)Woke up with thinking I had nothing to say. Then had a thought. The book of Hebrews [bible] says that the era of Christ’s 1st century appearing is called ‘the times of reformation’ this obviously is not speaking of the 16th century movement. This is speaking of Gods ‘reformation’ from Old Testament patterns to the actual reality of Christ. This ‘time’ is described by the angels as a time of ‘peace towards men and good will’. Yet Jesus will later say ‘don’t suppose that I have come to bring peace, but a sword. My ‘coming’ at this time [1st century] is revolutionary. Many upheavals will take place’. And yet later in the New Testament the scripture clearly teaches that we have peace with God thru Jesus Christ. Like Doug Heffernen would say on the King of Queens ‘huhh!’ The process of God reforming and bringing in a new era under the New Covenant was a wonderful event. God was forever changing the economy of Gods Kingdom from one of ‘self righteousness’ and legalism, to one of Fullness and Grace. This singular time period would forever change the history of man. The benefits of this ‘reformation’ are unbelievably great compared to the law. The conflict and difficulty in making the initial transition was not fun. Many followers of God who were faithful for centuries were being told ‘now its time to leave all the doctrines and beliefs that have become your cultural identity. All the great fathers/leaders of your religion served a purpose. You can no longer ‘dwell’ in their heritage’. This was the ‘sword’ part. Peace would later come to those who would accept the ‘sword’ in cutting off religious heritage and moving on into the New Covenant. God will even allow those who leave their old heritage to embrace a new one [the faith once delivered to the Saints] but first the sword! Those who would be willing to die to all the old mindsets and ways of seeing things would be on the cutting edge of this new movement called ‘the Church’. First the Sword! I feel God is challenging the church today in this way. He is not asking us to leave the fundamental faith that has been given to the church. He is asking us to lay down old models and systems of thought that are ‘passing away’. We too often confuse ‘faithfulness’ with standing true to the ‘faith of our fathers’ but we think the ‘faith of our fathers’ is either some cultural thing, or some peculiar belief that old ‘poppa daddy’ passed down to us. Hey, let the sword of the Spirit [Gods Word] sever that old stuff. It will be uncomfortable to go thru this ‘spiritual circumcision’ but that which you produce from your seed/heritage will be a genealogy that is on the cutting edge of a new millennium.

(374)Many years ago a preacher visited Corpus. He was speaking here locally. I enjoyed him; you could see that he was going thru difficulty. He even questioned some of his beliefs in an open and honest way. He shared from the book of Romans [bible; p.s. to our Christian friends, you know these are bible books. I realized that a lot of my old friends don’t know this. They already think I am a little ‘unhinged’ by the prophetic things I share on this blog, I don’t need them thinking I am quoting things out of ancient books that nobody knows about!] He spoke on the verse ‘all things work together for good to them that love God’ and he openly challenged his ‘word of faith/prosperity’ roots by saying ‘I know we often teach this to mean that ‘all’ things are not really working for our good [the bad stuff] but I am tired of trying to ‘get around’ all the verses that say stuff like this’ [I am paraphrasing]. His church is ‘covenant church’ in Carrolton, TX. He is a good man, and I don’t think he would describe himself as ‘word of faith’ its just I could tell he has been influenced by this teaching. Anyway this first time he spoke there was a realness about him. A ‘prophetic’ cutting edge that comes along with difficulty and trials [you could tell he was really struggling in his life]. A few years later he came back. Still preached well. But he was different. He even looked ‘sufficient’. Sort of like ‘I am now back to the believers authority and this self sufficiency that you didn’t see last time’. He was not arrogant, it was just you could tell that his ‘return’ to the classic word of faith/prosperity type system drained the ‘reality’ he had the last time he was here. He sort of went back to the interpretation of ‘all things work for good’ doesn’t mean the bad stuff. If I remember right I think he even said this? This just was a lesson to me on how God speaks from our reality and difficulty. When we embrace doctrines that reject these aspects of Christianity we lose the ‘cutting edge’. The brother held a few meetings. He did all right. He never came back to Corpus. I think he was on the verge of ‘reformation’ the first time I heard him. Then when he came back you could kind of sense that he never really made the transition.

(375)A few entries back I spoke on not judging God or others based on our own experiences. I have noticed over the years how a lot of believers who might have had a Catholic background became very ‘anti catholic’ after being ‘born again’. I do believe in the New Birth. I believe all who believe in Jesus Christ are Born Again. In 1st John it does say ‘whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God’. Some times we associate ‘being born again’ with our own evangelical experience. ‘Have you asked Jesus into your heart?’ If not, then you’re not BORN AGAIN! This is what you would call ‘reductionism’ reducing everything to a simple ‘me and Jesus’ format. You know none of the Apostles ‘asked Jesus into their heart’ [the original 12]. It would sure seem like an awkward thing. ‘Jesus’ ‘yes Peter’ ‘would you come into my heart’ ‘I have been with you from the start, you will soon believe in my death and resurrection. You will be one of the key figures in the founding of my church’ ‘I know all this Jesus, but if I don’t get saved I cant go to heaven’. The point is simply, all the Apostles and every other believer since has had one thing in common. They have all believed in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. They believe ‘he is the Son of God’. Don’t use your own personal experience to exclude others who might not have come to the Cross the same way. We all come by faith, the peculiar aspects surrounding the event are not what saved you, it was Jesus who saved you. Also it is a common hobby for the more extreme fundamentalists to question whether or not ‘you are really saved’. They often use verses like ‘you should know whether you are in the faith or not’ [Corinthians]. But they use them in a way that’s not really in context. Paul uses these verses to question Christians who were doubting the physical resurrection. He is not using these verses to ‘micro examine’ every little detail of their conversion experience! God gave his son to save the world; it would sure be strange to find out that the majority of people who believe in Jesus didn’t make it because of some technicality! God wants to save people, people need Jesus to be saved. Don’t make it harder than this! NOTE; Now that I mentioned ‘reductionism’ let me say a few things. In the world of theology reductionism refers to the ‘reducing’ of Gods greater corporate and societal purposes [the Kingdom of God] to the simple act of ‘getting saved’. There are whole churches and movements whose entire ‘thought life’ is centered on ‘am I saved’? If so I will find a church that tells me this every Sunday, and often these same churches will convince the ‘saved’ that they really didn’t get it the first time. And there you have it ‘they get saved for real this time’ and then the whole cycle repeats. The more ‘communal’ churches see salvation in a broader way. They often quote St. Augustine’s famous words ‘there is no salvation outside of the church’. Many good theologians hold to this. I believe this is true to a degree. In Paul’s teachings ‘the church’ are all the communities of people who have come to Christ. Paul does teach a form of corporate salvation. That is ‘if you’re in the church you are saved’. It’s just there is a tendency [Augustine] to see ‘church’ in an evolving way that restricts ‘church’ to the specific community that YOU personally relate to. So in Augustine’s mind [as well as other great Catholic theologians] to be ‘church’ is to be Catholic. Now after Vatican 2 [1962-65; The year I was born] the Catholic Church officially acknowledged the Protestants as ‘separated brethren’. A big step for them to have made. Some more liberal Catholic thinkers see ‘all religions’ [Muslims included] as being ‘saved’ thru the grace that is resident in society thru the Catholic Church. Sort of like ‘Gods grace to reveal God to people is activated by Gods Son. The only ‘true’ church that is ‘transmitting this grace’ is the Catholic Church. The fact that all Muslims are believers in God is a divine sacramental act that is taking place in society thru the Catholic Church. Therefore the fact that Muslims [or any one else] are truly in communion with God is a real work of grace that has been generated thru the one true church’. Now I don’t hold to this. All Catholics don’t either. This is to show you the broad range from ‘me and Jesus’ to that which borders on universalism [the doctrine that says eventually everyone gets saved. Some very intelligent church fathers believed this. Origen was one of them. Though Origen is not considered ‘Orthodox’. He was a very influential teacher and figure in the early church. He actually taught that satan would ultimately be saved. He was a real Universalist. Some Universalists don’t deny the blood of Jesus, contrary to popular opinion. They actually believe the blood is so powerful, that it will ultimately ‘save all people’. There are very smart Christians who do believe this. I personally do not believe this. But I find it interesting that modern evangelicals do not for the most part see ‘universalists’ as other Christians. There are different types of them, the ones who believe in Jesus are Christians, even if they believe all people will ultimately be saved. The other types who reject Jesus are not Christians] NOTE; I remember hearing a story about one of these evangelists that preached one of these ‘you think you are saved, I’ll show you you are not!’ type sermons. The sermon was so ‘convicting’ at the end of the meeting he went down to the altar and had the Pastor ‘lead him to the Lord’, that’s strange. If his own sermon that he preached got him ‘saved’ then that means he ‘got saved’ from a lost mans message. That would mean ‘he’s not really saved’ wouldn’t it? This stuff gets ridiculous after a while.

(376)Let me give a little example of the ‘overriding act of redemption’ trumping any little verse or experience. Paul actually tells the Corinthians ‘if the dead are not raised, then why are you baptizing people in ‘proxy’ for the dead?’ This is tough stuff. Let me give you one way to see this. The ‘baptism for the dead’ seems to have been a real cultural thing that took place in a specific time and setting [like the slavery verses I mentioned earlier]. There seems to have been a concern specifically to the 1st century church that said ‘this new doctrine of Jesus is great, but being its only been around a few years, and you are telling us [Paul] that you must embrace it to be saved. Then we have a problem. A lot of our loved ones never got a chance to hear. How do you expect us to quell these concerns?’ And it’s possible that the ‘baptism’ by proxy [like a father or son getting baptized in the place of the loved one who died] was a 1st century cultural thing that grew out of this. The fact that they were doing this does not mean that Paul the Apostle was condoning it. Paul was simply saying ‘if you guys really don’t believe in life after death, then why are you bothering with this rite?’ Its like Paul was using their own cultural thing to show them the inconsistency of their thinking. He wasn’t really teaching the baptism for the dead. [This is my view, Mormons believe different. They do practice this today and they use this verse as justification].

(377)I went to sleep at around 7 pm [early] woke up at around 10 pm and was mad. I felt like I was going to get up and do another all nighter. I have to work today and frankly I was telling the Lord ‘this is ridiculous, if I had some sleeping pills to take I would’. I was complaining and feeling like God is asking too much from me. Not that I am some great one-man show. Just that I felt 2-3 hours of sleep cant cut it. Getting up at 2 am seems to be the norm. I really am fine with that. Before midnight is a total drain on me. Well anyway I fell asleep and woke up around 2:30 and had a dream. I was in some type of ‘portable/temporary’ building. It was like a combination church/counseling facility. I saw some friends from the past. Christians who I haven’t seen in years. I said hi and they ignored me. I stopped them to see if they recognized me or what. They seemed to, but they have gone thru so much disillusionment that they didn’t care anymore. I saw some staff people from the church I attend. Some were doing well, others seemed to be ‘trying to fit in’ and all, but they seemed to be ‘punching the time clock’. Nothing bad, just a sense of ‘I am a Christian, I am on staff at a great church. I should be happy and fulfilled. There’s something missing’. I also was doing some counseling and ministry stuff. I saw a kid named ‘Tommy’ [I originally just ‘picked’ this name out of the blue when I told the story the other day. It now seems to have been prophetic]. He was a nice kid, sort of roaming the halls. We went into one of the study rooms and were both studying. He was very isolated and withdrawn. I told him I was a lot like him. I managed to have a good friendship with him. Later I went to another room where there were 3 kids who I was going to counsel. Tommy was there again. I don’t remember asking for the other kids names [or I don’t remember what their names were] but I must have asked Tommy 2 or 3 times. It was embarrassing to keep forgetting his name [identity struggle]. It’s like I should have known him by now ‘get on with the program John, how long will it take you to come out of this feeling of isolation and identity crisis’ type thing. I woke up and realized that I was probably ‘Tommy’. Its kinda hard to admit stuff like this on the blog. I realize that the Lord wanted this blog to be real. I would have NEVER been this real a few years ago. I just am at a point in life where I felt this is what God wanted and I do have a lot of struggles so what the ‘heck’ [Ill be nice!] I don’t think I need to explain this dream too much, you should be able to ‘find yourself’ somewhere in it. Just apply what you feel fits. NOTE The Cross experience in Christ’s life was one of going thru things for the benefit of others. Though these things were a direct result of Gods redemptive purpose for these people, they would say ‘look at you, you claim to be from God and have this great calling. It doesn’t seem to be working for you, you are a major hypocrite. Even our religious leaders have said you are way off’. They judged him by the reality of his difficulty. They seemed to not perceive that his ‘difficulty’ was for their benefit. The things he was publicly going thru were for them. The fact that they judged him by these difficulties was part of the Cross. The Cross was public humiliation on a major scale. His family and friends were watching him go thru this very open humiliation. This was no time of ‘me and my successful ministry’. Now you do have the vindication at the resurrection. The problem is Paul wrote in one of his letters ‘we have struggles now, while our persecutors have it easy. This is just a sign, our temporary affliction will bring forth great vindication and glory in due season, AT THE APPEARING OF CHRIST’! The time of our vindication is at the resurrection! [Ouch!]

(378)‘Truth trumps authority’ [or actually ‘truth and authority co exist’] Many years ago when I attended a Fundamental Baptist Church they viewed the ‘Assembly of God’ church down the block as a cult. They had speakers come in and give revivals and they would say that the ‘tongues talkers’ are a cult. They would give examples of people who were speaking in tongues and some one who knew the language actually said they were cursing God [by the way this is possible. There very well might have been a ‘demonic’ infiltration like this. There are incidents of possession that have had a type of demonic thing like this happen. The problem is you can’t paint all ‘tongues speaking’ with this brush. Many ‘tongues speaking’ people are the ones who brought these things out] the point is when I eventually left this church, they were a little ‘cultic’ in their mindset. They challenged leaving their group. But when the Pastor [a really good man who I respect today!] saw that I was going to leave to start a church, he also knew I couldn’t go along with the ‘anti charismatic’ stuff anymore. He then appealed to ‘authority structures’ to challenge my decision. He basically said ‘well if you are leaving to become a preacher, and you think the charismatics are OK, then even they agree with us that you must follow the guidelines of bible school and ordination and all these things. You cant just go and preach!’ I found this interesting, though they viewed the ‘assembly of God’ as a cult, they then resorted to the mutual agreement that they all had that said ‘how dare you try to function outside of the standard norms of authority’. They all saw authority as a process you go thru to gain legitimacy. The simple act of being equipped with truth and declaring that truth [The Gospel] wasn’t really sufficient, unless you ‘jumped thru the hoops’. In scripture you do find ‘lines of authority’ biblical mandates to ‘obey those who care for you’ and things like this. Paul himself taught stuff like this. Paul also challenged the ‘normal lines of authority’. Paul became an Apostle after the original 12. The early church had a hard time with accepting his authority. The Jerusalem leadership actually had the mindset of ‘we were in this before you. You don’t have the legitimacy to preach this gospel to gentiles. You have gone ‘outside’ of the accepted norms to be ‘ordained’ and recognized as one who has authority.’ You read this in Acts chapter 15 as well as Galatians chapter 1. Paul eventually says ‘I don’t care who these guys think they are. It doesn’t matter to me. I am sent to preach the gospel, and if their ‘authority structures’ have been by passed, then the ‘authority of truth’ trumps them’. This is the same reformation spirit you see in Luther in the 16th century. Basically we all have times of growth and development where we learn to respect Elders and those whom God has been using. They have truly earned biblical respect. It’s when these guidelines of authority and leadership try to ‘trump’ truth that truth trumps the ‘structures’ [both the protestant reformation going over Rome’s head, as well as what Paul did in the 1st century]. Paul will actually rebuke Peter face to face in the whole area of Gentile acceptance by faith. The fact that Paul was right in doctrine, made him right in authority. The challenge from the Fundamental Pastor sounded good, but it was fundamentally flawed [note: he meant well, I am sure he realized how young and immature I was at the time and simply tried to steer me towards a path that he thought would help]. He basically tried to say ‘even if we view the other church as a cult, we all agree that you cant preach/ start a church without going thru the accepted structural procedures’. Basically if you are called of God and are walking in truth you have authority. If you ‘depart’ from truth along the way, you lose authority. Though Gods giftings and callings are permanent, when you step out of truth you are ‘temporarily’ setting aside your authority. I feel this is important for those who feel like they have really learned truth from us this past year. Don’t stay faithful to systems of thought and belief that are operating on the ‘fringes of truth’. You have the right to walk away from that stuff. Keep loving the people, they are good people [Jerusalem church] but you have a mandate from God, walk in it!

(379)The most amazing thing about the ministry of Jesus. God chooses him to bring in this great reality of the Kingdom ‘the Kingdom of God is here’. He gives him the message of the Kingdom on forgiveness, leadership, the last being first. All these great truths that seem to go against the grain of society. Even their religious understanding said ‘en eye for en eye’ but Jesus says no more. The central ‘ingredient’ to the establishing of the Kingdom will be the Cross ‘except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies it remains alone, but if it dies it will bring forth much fruit’. The only problem is this message will become ‘fleshed out’ thru the key preacher of this new Kingdom. That’s the tuff part. I wish we could just have this great message and simply proclaim it and go home and enjoy everything. Jesus understood that he had come to the Kingdom for such a time as this. There were many shameful things that he despised [Hebrews] there was stuff that he ‘endured’ but he recognized that the simple ‘indoctrination’ about this new Kingdom wouldn’t suffice, it had to be ‘nailed down’ at the Cross. The only problem was he would be at the receiving end of the nails.

(380)In the writings of Paul [New Testament] you see him fighting against the Judaizers [trying to convert Christians to half law/grace] he describes them as ‘enemies of the Cross’ he actually says they ‘preach another Jesus’ and that even if an angel appears and brings this new ‘Jesus’ that you are to reject it. Paul was strong for the gospel. It’s perfectly possible for believers to develop an experience with God thru Jesus that leaves out the crucial elements of the Cross. When people ‘choose’ to focus on the other aspects of Christianity that are on the fringes of the gospel, they choose to opt out of the Cross. I have said before, you do ‘get’ what you focus on. This is a true principle that works whether you are a believer or not. If people choose a form of Christianity that says ‘we focus on comfort and happiness’ they for the most part will get that. If challenged by the message of the Cross [which includes both redemption and the call to self sacrifice] they can actually choose to reject it based on self-preservation. The choice of thinking ‘I do not want to hear the possibility of me suffering and going thru difficulty. The old time churches taught this and our current teachers showed us they got what they confessed’. So you begin to believe in a ‘Cross less’ gospel, and you justify it by the actual fact that you are materially doing better than the old time Christians ‘our teachers must be correct, look at how much better we are doing materially than they were’. The fact that all of this might very well be true does not mean it’s the biblical gospel. Inherent in our call as believers is the fundamental ‘counting the cost’ mindset. The cost of radical revolution is to put self and the concerns of ‘creature comforts’ away. The many learned men who have seen much truth in the areas of wealth and finances have ‘crossed the line’ in not rightfully submitting these truths to the superiority of the Cross. The many sayings of Jesus on ‘you can’t serve God and money’ are seen as ‘old school’. You then have someone like myself that comes along and preaches the Cross. I am then seen as an ‘enemy’ to this peculiar belief system. The ‘system’ becomes that which you defend, as opposed to the true message of the Cross. Paul nailed it down fairly well when he said ‘even if an angel comes and declares a different Jesus to you, let him be accursed’. Paul knew the stakes were high. Jesus went thru too much for the church to sit idly by as the parade of new teachers slowly erases away his central message.

(381)When I was a Pastor I had a friend who was a ‘word of faith’ preacher. He would attend some of our services. I also let him preach every now and then. I spoke on prayer once. I used the verse from the book of James that says ‘we ask and do not receive, because we ask amiss that we would consume the things we want out of lust’ [paraphrase]. Basically the verse is saying selfish prayers are not answered. My friend tried to explain to me that this was not what it was saying. He was taught this verse in a way that said ‘the reason you are not obtaining the wealth and things you desire is because your are not aiming your prayers in the right direction’ he told me it was saying to ‘aim’ at the proper trajectory and you will get all you want. This was another one of those examples of how we take verses and make them say the complete opposite of what they are saying. Jesus did say ‘when you pray, believe that the things you are saying will happen, and you will have what you say’ I do believe this verse to be true. You will find Jesus and Paul ‘saying’ things this way. Jesus said to the fig tree ‘dry up and die’ it happened. Paul would say to the person who was possessed ‘you are a hindrance to the gospel, be blind’ and it happened. Basically this teaching from Jesus is to fit in with the whole counsel of God. Paul used this truth to spread the gospel. You never found Paul or Jesus using these things ‘to get what they wanted’ in a self serving way. They ‘had what they said’ because they said things in the will of God, not to ‘consume stuff upon their desires’. Jesus would say ‘I am going to go to Jerusalem to be killed’ Peter didn’t like this confession. It didn’t line up with what Peter wanted. Jesus didn’t ‘get what he said’ simply because he said this. He said this out of the reality of fulfilling Gods purpose. He ‘got what he said’ because what he said was the unselfish will of God concerning the Cross. We as believers need to be at a higher level than where we are currently operating. It’s like I could go thru all these types of verses and debate the real meaning of them. Others will stick with the ‘fake’ meaning. You can spend years trying to undo all this stuff. Until we get to ‘another place’ of putting our lives at the foot of the Cross, we will never really see these things. God will give you good things, don’t get me wrong. Just allow all these truths to be filtered thru the Cross.

(382)‘You have been faithful over a little, I will now give you authority over 10 cities’ Jesus says this to the disciples. Sometimes in our minds we picture the Apostles as ‘city managers’ over future cities. Remember in Jesus teaching authority was not ‘being over people’. We know Jesus taught stuff like this, yet we read him saying stuff about authority and we see it as ‘being in charge’. How did the apostles ‘have authority over cities’? By bringing the gospel to these regions and the people who believed became their ‘spiritual children’. Paul told the Corinthians that he had apostolic authority ‘over’ them because he birthed them thru the gospel. Being ‘faithful’ over a little. What’s this? Many of you who have made it this far on this blog have read things that you personally knew to be true before you heard me say it. Yet until you heard me say it you never really were able to truly make the break. It’s like we go thru a process of hearing and seeing before we are ‘faithful’ to what God said. Some of the things I have shown you guys are obvious mistakes that even a child could see was wrong. Yet the peer pressure of being in an environment where others hold to certain things, though obviously wrong, is hard to break. Once you learn to ‘be faithful in the little areas of hearing and obeying’ then God allows you to ‘have authority’ over 10 cities. That is he gives you influence in his Kingdom for his purpose. Many times we seek to have a voice/forum in the Kingdom. We do things to ‘make our voice heard’ but God is primarily looking for people who will speak truth when they see it. Learn to be faithful to the things God is plainly showing you, then he will ‘put your feet in a large place’ [of influence]. NOTE: In my own life I have gone thru stages where the Lord will increase my area of influence from the present one to ‘another place’. When these events happen I can tell before hand. It’s sort of like the excitement from the present region ‘wanes’ a feeling of ‘this present parameter is too small, don’t despise the ‘day of small things’ but I am bringing you to a larger place’. When this happens with me it’s like a feeling of ‘the people we are presently reaching are still valuable, but you are moving to another place. That which I have done thru you and for you are ‘seeds’ that will continue to bear fruit long after you’re gone. You have been faithful over this little area and now move on’. Even if the area’seemed big a few years ago, when I sense this type of transition, it seems ‘small’. I also make it a conscious point to NOT DESPISE or think condescending towards the previous land marks. I feel this in itself enables me to gain authority in a larger region. Also the amount of ‘pain’ associated with the larger area of influence [for as MANY as were astonished at thee, so shall you touch MANY nations] keeps you from lusting after the influence. Scripture says Jesus ‘despised the shame’ associated with the Cross [Hebrews] but endured it realizing that the ‘regional impact’ would be directly related to his suffering. The MANY who were astonished equals the MANY who you will have influence with! Also in Isaiah it says the children that you will have, after you have lost the other will say to you ‘this place is too small for me’ and you will respond ‘who birthed all these children, I was in captivity, I was going back and forth, I was suffering. How in the world did I gain such a following?’ It’s almost like the fact of the extreme difficulty was actually producing the children/converts. This is an amazing thing that you will see thru out scripture. ‘More are the children of the desolate, than of the married wife’. Look at the covenant women in scripture, they are for the most part barren [forsaken] and yet give birth to these tremendous prophetic people [Samuels mother, John the Baptist, Sarah].

(383)A few things from Isaiah ‘I have seen your ways and will heal you, I will restore comforts unto you and to your mourners’ I spoke on the Cross a few entries back. One of the hard things was Jesus would say to the disciples ‘you must also take up the cross and follow me’. A central area of identifying with Christ was going thru the Cross. This is a difficult thing. There are times in life where all seems to be going well. You have your life organized and happy. The ‘dose’ of Christianity that you have embraced is just strong enough to insure that all your needs will be met. You have the verses down and all. Then there comes some ‘strange’ preacher you never heard of before. He seems to be a little different. He is speaking the same language and all, it’s just different ‘Jesus spoke with authority, not like the scribes’. The average people could really identify with him. He rubbed the elite class the wrong way. One of the main parts of his teaching was those who were ‘well off’ now, would pay later. Yet the poor would inherit the earth. This didn’t sit well with the ‘well to do’. The religious leaders were getting tired of him. Every time he opened his mouth it seemed like he was teaching stuff that was right on, and it often reproved the systems of belief that the average preacher was ‘hawking’ at the time. Then the day comes where his zealous followers are going to prove to everybody that Jesus is the Messiah, they have been waiting for a few years to be vindicated. Peter was this zealot type reformer who was tired of the oppression of Rome. Being treated as some type of ‘illegal alien’. ‘You wait and see Rome, our Messiah has finally arrived. It was even prophesied that he would deliver the Jews from Rome’s oppression. Our day is here’. Then a funny thing happened. The road to Jerusalem is nearing, our vindication day. All the prophets spoke of the triumphal entry of the Jewish King to take David’s throne. This obviously will be fulfilled in Jerusalem, the city of the great King [David]. Well as the day approached, Jesus started talking about death and leaving us. We couldn’t grasp what he was saying. We gave everything to him; we looked like fools following him against the opinions of the preachers of our day. Jesus doesn’t seem to understand we can’t have him dieing now. It will ruin our ‘day of getting even’ with all those who spoke against us. If he dies now we will feel like we have allowed the enemies to win. We want to win! Then they remember the teachings of Jesus. He told them the Cross was not just something he would experience. He told them a day was coming where they too would identify with him in this process. A day of humiliation and defeat. Those who would experience it would be different on the other side. Peter swallows hard and readies himself. “Though all the others forsake you, I wont’’ He even cuts off the ear of one of the company who come to take Jesus. A very brave thing to do, knowing your out numbered and all. I guess he really wanted to show that he was willing to die this day. But this wasn’t his day to die. Then the hour comes. Jesus begged the Father if there was another way please help me find it. He determines to allow the Cross to take full course. He sees Peter cursing and denying him. Peter tastes it too. They drive the nails thru his hands and prop him up over this hillside. It looks like something out of Hollywood ‘the place of the skull’. Something strange happens. The sky turns dark. It’s eerie, the people were just making fun of him and now they are terrified. One of the others being crucified that day decides to ask Jesus if he could be with him in Paradise. Jesus has so much on his plate right now. The ‘weight of the world’ and yet has time to pray for him. ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’ still putting others first. As the sky darkens the earth shakes. Later we find out that the tombs of believers broke open from this event and after the resurrection many saints rose from the dead and were seen witnessing in the area! A Roman guard is seeing all this, he sees this strange religious leader cry out to his God ‘O my God why did it come to this. You have forsaken me. Into your hands I commit my spirit’ the soldier simply says ‘truly this man was the Son of God’. He is taken down and put in a tomb. Others will come who will teach that Jesus was part of the ‘aristocracy’ that he was from the ‘rich class’. They put him in a ‘rich mans tomb’ but it had to be donated! His followers are distraught. Especially Peter. Peter was thinking ‘what have I done, I cant believe the weakness of my flesh. All that I worked for in this revolution is now lost. I will be remembered as the one who failed. My image is forever stained’. Jesus appears to the women who were his followers after the resurrection. A strange thing for sure. If someone were writing this story and it was all made up, you wouldn’t have Jesus going first to the women. It would take away from the ‘believability’ of the story. 1st century Rome was a bit patriarchal you know. The women are amazed. Jesus did it. ‘Go tell the disciples I am alive. Especially Peter. I know he gave it all he could to not deny me. But it had to happen. It was part of his Cross’. They go and tell the others. The disciples will go on and found the greatest religious movement known to man. Peter will gain his boldness back. History even tells us that when they crucified him he asked to be killed upside down, because he wasn’t worthy to die like his King. They finished well. God restored comforts unto Jesus and to his mourners. But first the Cross. NOTE: The martyrdom of Peter. Jesus tells Peter one time ‘where I am going [the Cross] you cannot follow me at this time. Later you will follow me, but your time has not come yet’. Jesus knew it was necessary for Peter’s denial to still take place. Peter had an ‘appointment’ with failure. Peters desire was to be a martyr for the cause. He was a ‘zealot’ a political activist of his day who would have been willing to die for freedom. He tried to show this at the point when they came to take Jesus. The act of cutting off the ear of a Roman soldier is something that you get executed for. The 1st century means of execution was the Cross. Peter actually took a step towards martyrdom with this act. Jesus interrupted the process by miraculously putting the guys ear back on! Its like Peter wanted death, but Jesus already told him it wasn’t yet time. You find Peter after Pentecost preaching to the Jews in such a way that it seemed like he was back to the ‘martyrdom complex’. He says things that could very well get him killed. It’s like he can’t wait to pass thru the ‘tunnel’. When the day finally comes he does get crucified upside down. He never really overcame the guilt of his initial denial. He still felt unworthy over what he did. The early church had a movement where Christians were wanting to get martyred. They read verses like the one in Hebrews 11 that says ‘those who are martyred receive a better resurrection’ so this group of ‘Christian zealots’ were actually doing things to get executed for the faith. The early church fathers/Bishops had to put a stop to it. These guys were like Peter after the resurrection! There was a real sense of ‘I want to get killed for the faith’ that some of these brothers had. What a contrast to today’s gospel. We appeal to people by telling them your gonna get rich if you follow Christ. Things will be great. We seem to appeal to the flesh of people. The early followers knew if they embraced the faith that there was a chance that you might get killed.

(384)A few things. I was reading the verses in Isaiah and ‘saw’ the theme of ‘I have put my words in your mouth’ ‘I have made you a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth, you will thresh the mountains and beat them small and the wind shall carry them away’ ‘I have hidden you in my hand’ [this hidden part comes after both the above verses]. I felt like the Lord was saying there are seasons where he speaks thru people. It’s important for those people to understand the principle of ‘being hidden’. I feel this ‘being hidden’ is a voluntary act where Christians [prophetic people] follow the example of Jesus in the gospel. When they came to ‘make him King’ [exalt him in their way] that he refused! I believe Jesus was showing us that when God chooses people to carry certain prophetic messages at reformation times, that there is a temptation to allow people to ‘make them Kings’. Often times well meaning humble men fall into this snare. It is not always pride that leads to self-exaltation. Sometimes it is humility! A feeling of ‘I really don’t want to be exalted, but the people really want this, so what the heck’. Scripture gives us examples on how to deal with this. FLEE! I also just addressed an envelope to a Texas jail. Got the letter yesterday from one of the sons of one of the addicts/ex cons who has been a friend of mine for 20 years. I remember this son coming to our church meetings as a little boy. I haven’t seen him in years. I knew he was doing bad. Into drugs and all. Kinda happy to get the letter. Sad that he’s in prison. I will send him some books and stuff in a few days. Something about the Cross experience. It must have been hard on Jesus to realize that his friends and disciples were ‘experiencing’ the cross because of him. If Peter and Judas and all these guys never met or knew Jesus, then the whole drama of agony and defeat [and damnation!] would have played no central role in their lives. I am not saying it’s our fault when things happen to people. It’s the reality of knowing that those who are ‘recruited’ into the game by you, if they get ‘hurt’ during the game, it’s you who recruited them! This part of the cross is difficult for me to swallow. I do struggle with self-guilt when things like this happen. NOTE: I just read the letter, my friend is seeking God and getting restored. The main question that he asked me about was how to deal with all the ‘self guilt’ and depression that he is experiencing at this time in his life. I will print this blog for him and send it!

(385)‘You think the people exist to provide you with possessions, I think the possessions exist to provide the people with freedom’ William Wallace [braveheart] to the tribal elders of Scotland! The people [Christians] do not exist for the welfare/benefit of the clergy/ministries/churches; these things exist to release Gods people to walk in freedom!

(386)I was talking to some friends the other day. They brought up evolution. Some were against it, others for it. I mentioned how science today has advanced to the point where evolution has been disproven. There are some die hards who won’t admit this, but there are entire schools of science that do not hold to this theory any more. Many of these scientists are not Christian. They simply see the level of scientific truth and cannot truly hold to the immature level of thinking that Darwin espoused in the 19th century. Darwin was a good man, his wife was a very active Christian who did many works of charity. By all accounts they were very good people. In the discussion I mentioned how in Darwin’s day they did not know things we now know in the area of DNA testing. Today we know that the function of human blood has 30 or more ‘complex machines’ that must be present at the start for blood to function. The idea that people could have evolved slowly over millions of years cannot scientifically be true because of this. This is not a ‘religious’ belief. This is not ‘faith’. This is science. So any honest scientist seeing this fact has to reject the concept of human blood slowly evolving. However man appeared, we scientifically know that his blood had to have ‘showed up’ in a complex form, not a simple one. Evolution loses based on scientific truth. Sorry to all you intellectuals that are wrong. Now one of the guys said ‘but it’s still possible that chance did this’. No its not. If you flip a coin ‘chances are’ it will land on heads or tails. What are the chances that it will land on ‘feet’? Absolutely none. The point is ‘chance’ cannot go against fact. In the area of science certain things are fact, others theory. The ‘facts’ have to shape the theories, not the other way around. Darwin held to a level of scientific understanding that was OK for his day. The level he was at was highly ‘immature’ compared to where we are at today. If you will ‘science has evolved to the point where evolution is no longer viable’ [threw that in for all the smart alecs]. Darwin believed that life ‘appeared’ by random acts of chance. The maggots that would ‘show up’ in something rotting and the appearance of fish in bodies of water that pooled after a hard rain were thought to be processes of ‘evolution’ that proved that things [life forms] can just show up without any creative cause behind it. Today every scientist in existence knows this to not be true. The birds would carry ‘larvae’ and eggs by transmission into the pools. The bacteria and transmitted ‘debris’ from flies and other things landing on the dead bodies of animal’s accounts for the maggots. To continue to hold onto Darwin’s beliefs in these areas is ridiculous. He was an honest man operating at the level of science for his day. I heard a priest [who I like] defend evolution [they are called theistic evolutionists]. These believers honestly view evolution as fact and they feel the church is behind the times like in the days of Galileo. They make an honest effort to teach that God started the ball rolling and he used evolution as a means to create. The only problem with this theory is that evolution is scientifically false! This Priest used the ‘commonality’ of present life forms to prove his point. He said if you look at monkeys and other created animals you will see that they have similar ‘structures’ to humans. Therefore all humans came from monkeys! That’s a big ‘therefore’. The fact that animals and humans share common traits [eyes and ears and stuff] prove a common creator, not that they all came forth by evolution. Actually these ‘common traits’ disprove the theory. Evolutionists can’t explain why the eye of a fish, a dinosaur a monkey an insect and a human are all alike [for the most part] yet everything else about them is so different. Why didn’t the ‘common traits’ evolve like everything else? The creationist uses this argument to prove the idea of a ‘common creator’ the concept of one being making everything and choosing to use the same structures for some parts while the other ‘parts’ being unique. Well any way I thought it was worth throwing this entry in today. NOTE: True science is the practice of ‘looking’ at things and observing them and seeing how things work and then basing conclusions on these facts. Theory is a part of scientific study, but the theories must come from the facts. In all ‘observable’ data, there is not a single incident of one species ‘evolving’ into another. Not one! All observable data show that complex things come from design, not chance. All things that are complex in our industrial world were designed and created by a higher form of intelligence [watches, cars, etc.] The enormous complexity of man, the Solar system, the planet earth and the amazing intricacies of living things all show a level of design that is absolutely incomprehensible. For all of these things to have come from a point in history when there was nothing in existence, accept a few unexplainable gases floating around for eons of time. And then without any pre thought or design, over billions of years thru some unexplainable explosion, to have then produced this unbelievable amount of intricate design is scientifically impossible. Why? Because science [the observing of things] never shows us any thing like this. The Christian worldview teaches ‘something’ from outside of the natural dimension, that always existed [God] acted upon creation and brought into existence all things. A true scientist would have to come to this conclusion eventually. Because all other observable complex things have had prior forethought and design. This is why when believers debate evolution, they should not do it from the standpoint of faith, they should debate it from the standpoint of scientific fact!

(387)Let me jump back to a small group of our readers who are from the ‘fundamentalist’ background. A lot of the issues on the Rapture and end times and ‘getting saved for real’ that I deal with is helpful to this part of our ‘on line’ community. One of the other areas that I saw when I was attending a fundamental Baptist Church was the inability to see or accept the fact that some of the heroes of the faith were not like them. Jonathan Edwards, George Whitfield and other great revival leaders who were part of the historical great awakenings of this country were presented in ways that were intellectually dishonest. The Pastors didn’t mean to be dishonest, it was simply a result of the sectarian mindset that works within this group. The church I attended described classic Calvinism as ‘hyper Calvinism’. The above preachers all believed in classic Calvinism. They honestly held to the historic doctrine of predestination as taught by the Apostle Paul. Now the groups who do not hold to ‘predestination’ in the classic way are called ‘Arminians’. Most of the Evangelical church in America fall into this group. The point is when the Fundamental Baptists spoke on these historical preachers they taught that they were all like them. They would say ‘some are trying to teach that Edwards was a hyper Calvinist, we no better than to believe this’. The fact is Edwards was actually a ‘hyper Calvinist’. The point I am making isn’t to debate the different positions of the fathers of the faith. Whatever side you fall on is up to you. But no matter how you believe, this doesn’t give you the right to distort or misrepresent history. To some of the brothers the simple reality that there were great heroes of the faith who actually believed in ‘hyper Calvinism’ was too much for them to handle. This grows out of being insecure and sectarian in your faith. In order for believers to be able to embrace the other parts of the church that they are unfamiliar with, there needs to be a basic security of accepting the fact that others are not like you. You can still teach about them and the historic movements that they were a part of, but to deny the reality of what they taught and believed does a disservice to true Christian learning.

(388)I watched Brave Heart the other day. People need something to die for. Would you die for stuff? Would you die for doctrine? Would you die for someone who died for you? We have lost our soul and passion. We have sold our selves for ‘nought’ [Isaiah].

(389)‘As many as were astonished at you, so shall you sprinkle many nations. Kings shall shut their mouths at you. They will see things they have never seen before. They will consider things that they never considered before’ rough quote from Isaiah. Chapter 50 something? I felt like God was saying he is going to produce things from the shattering of our lives. The ‘broken pot’ imagery. He will bring forth things from the act of ‘crucifixion’ that could not be produced in a thousand years of our own intellectual capacity. Our gifts and talents don’t produce. The ‘grain’ of wheat must fall into the ground and die. They said of Jesus once ‘this is a hard saying, who can receive it’ I guess those for whom it is meant.

(390)I spoke a while back on the Pastor friend that used to attend the church I Pastored years ago. Let me share a few things from this experience that serve to illustrate a point. One time this friend was struggling financially [actually all the time] I used to advise him to get a job until he felt like ‘the ministry’ would support him. He seemed to fall into the mistake that sees ‘ministry’ as a trade, and therefore getting a job would be wrong. He would get offended when I told him stuff like this. One time he had put some pens he had made with scripture on them into the offering. He later told me he had no money to give, but by putting the pen in, with scripture on it, he was ‘exalting’ the Word and God would see this ‘seed’ he planted and give him a return. All of this was symptomatic of the way the Word of faith movement would approach scripture. In this case my friend was violating all the verses that speak of being diligent, working and stuff like this. He then felt ‘honoring the Word’ was doing what he did. Many in this movement teach that to be a ‘doer of the Word’ means to ‘speak the Word’. Speaking the Word is a good thing, but being a ‘doer’ is contrasted with being a ‘hearer/speaker’. This actual teaching comes from the book of James and James is saying ‘don’t be a hearer only, but be a doer’. ‘doing’ in this context is not ‘speaking’ it is ‘doing’. James says if someone comes to your door and is in need and you say [confess] ‘be warmed and filled’ but you don’t actually meet the need, then you are only a ‘confessor’ and not a ‘doer’. It’s another one of those strange interpretations where these brothers found a way to teach that ‘doing the word’ means ‘saying the word’ even though ‘saying the word’ is what is being contrasted with ‘doing the word’. Jesus did say ‘say unto this mountain’ and the Word of God teaches the principles of confession and speaking truth, the problem is these things are simply tools to help us along the road. They are not to become the road! To simply learn and put into effect all the biblical ‘techniques’ and watch them work does not mean you are in the will of God. Many people have excelled in finances thru the use of biblical principles. Some of them were called to other things and instead chose to become wealthy. They might have even attained the wealth thru ‘diligence’ [a biblical principal] but if that truly was not Gods purpose for them, they failed. I find the focus on techniques and ‘windfall’ inheritances less than profitable. Many who hold to the ideas that my friend held to will see the truth of God giving the ‘wealth of the heathen/Egyptians into the hands of Israel’ and will use this to justify a lazy lifestyle. The above friend believed that God was going to ‘give him the wealth of the heathen’. Does scripture say the ‘wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous’ you bet! But it continues to say ‘and God will give it into the hands of those who are upright in his sight’. Is being lazy upright? Is sitting around spending your life waiting for some windfall upright? God gave the children of Israel the wealth of Egypt because the children of Israel labored for years as slaves, they were not being compensated justly for their work. They got paid for their work by leaving Egypt with their wealth. God did not give an inheritance to his people who weren’t working! Well the point today is don’t use scripture as a ‘technique book’ that if you master you will get more than the next guy. Scripture is a book that brings us the truth of the gospel. We enter into covenant with God thru this gospel. We become ‘debtors’ to this great God and Father. We seek to serve him all our days. We are not looking for schemes to ‘get rich quick’. NOTE: In Jesus teaching he says ‘why do people confess me as Lord, but do not do what I say’ ‘many people will come to me and say ‘Lord, Lord’ and I will say ‘I never knew you’. I am not saying these brothers are not Christians, they are. I just want you to see that Jesus really put the emphasis on ‘doing the works’ more so than on ‘what you say’. The ‘saying of things’ is a part of it. But this is not the ‘heart of the matter’.

(391)I felt like the Lord wanted me to share some things, I do not ‘feel’ like doing this at all. These last few days have been real difficult for me. This is an example of ‘doing what God says despite your feelings’. I want to speak on the Kingdom of God. The Christian church has had various ways to ‘see’ the Kingdom of God. For many centuries [19 of them to be exact!] the church for the most part taught ‘amillennialism’ a type of view that saw the work of the Cross as the significant event that ‘triggered’ Gods Kingdom. In effect believers saw the fact that Jesus died and was resurrected to be seated at Gods right hand as Gods Kingdom already being in effect thru this event. The giving of the Spirit to the church was Gods ‘program’ of expanding the Kingdom in the earth thru the growth of Christianity down thru the centuries. Some who held to this view [which for the most part I agree with] also ‘spiritualized’ all the verses of God dealing with Israel and the event of the second coming in a way that denied the literal return of Jesus to David’s throne. During the 20th century you had the rise of ‘fundamentalism’ and dispensational theology that saw the truth of the real second coming and Jesus actual return to Israel to be seated on David’s throne [John R Rice and other fundamentalist preachers brought out much truth in these areas. These brothers would come to be seen as ‘premelliannial’ in the sense that Jesus must first return and take David’s throne in Jerusalem before the ‘millennial’ rule of Christ can come] The divisions between these ways of seeing Christ return are strong. Some from the latter camp began to hold to a view of the Kingdom that said ‘man cannot bring Gods rule in, only Jesus. Therefore until he comes back all the church can do is win souls’. The other camp said ‘ we are here as Christians to initiate Gods rule. We are salt and light and therefore we have Christ’s Spirit in us to bring Gods rule in’. Both of these groups have truth. The fundamentalist for the most part rejected the reality of God initiating his rule thru Christ the King who is already seated at Gods right hand [the position of rule] and is working thru his subjects [the church] right now. In reality man cant change the world, but the church thru the present ministry of Jesus at Gods right hand does have the ‘ability’ thru Gods Spirit to bring in Gods rule. The idea that the second coming is the ‘event’ that God will use to bring about world change denies the reality of Christ’s rule right now. The American president is the president right now. He has certain abilities to effect change by this fact. He is ‘seated’ in the nations capital, you might never actually see him in person, but the fact of his authority is a real thing. The fact that Jesus rose from the grave and is seated at Gods right hand is the event that gave us the authority to affect the world thru the church. This is Gods idea, not mans. It is also true that Jesus will come back and literally return to Jerusalem. But the seat of authority that he now holds at Gods right hand is much greater than David’s throne. There are actually scriptures that show that Jesus has already ‘inherited’ the throne of David by virtue of the fact that he ‘sits on top of the mountain that trumps all other thrones’. The dispensational brothers will look to the world wars and other major events and say ‘see, this is proof that man cant change the world. Until Jesus comes back things will get worse’. The Bible says those in darkness will continue to get worse, those in the light will get brighter and brighter. The Idea is as Gods ‘citizenship’ increases [thru evangelism] more people become children of light. So even though the world is getting darker, the church isn’t. The more people who become ‘members’ of the church will become ‘brighter’. This obviously will affect the world for good. So man in and of himself cant bring in ‘Gods rule’ but the fact that Jesus is presently reigning [though you don’t physically see him] is where the real power of ‘world change’ is located. So for people like myself, I would answer the strong dispensationalist with this fact. Now to the Parables of Jesus. The strong dispensationalists have a ‘strange’ way they interpret some of the Parables. The one on ‘the kingdom of Heaven is like unto leaven that someone took and hid in 3 measures of meal until the whole loaf was leavened’ this Parable, as well as many others show the concept of Gods kingdom invading the planet in a small way at the start [Jesus and the 12] and eventually effecting all the earth. The dispensationalist’s teach that Leaven is always a sign of something unclean and because the ‘law of first things’ [the first time a certain theme is used in scripture will define it for the rest of scripture] that therefore the leaven here is wickedness, and that the Kingdom of Heaven is different than the Kingdom of God [they are the same by the way!] that what Jesus is actually teaching is that wickedness will eventually invade all of the ‘church world’ [which they say is the Kingdom of heaven-silly] and therefore when Jesus returns he will fix everything. To me this would be a failure of what Jesus is trying to do. He left all authority on earth to the disciples by saying ‘go into all the world’ after he said ‘all authority is given to me’. He commissioned the church to ‘invade the world’. If the evil in the world wins until Christ’s return that would basically be a big failure on the part of the church, which represents Christ Kingdom now! The first century religious mind had a view of religion that was based on Old Testament ideas. In the Old Testament, if a Priest who was ceremonially clean, touched something unclean, then the priest would become defiled. The ‘transmission’ of holiness to unholy things didn’t work. But the ‘transmission’ of unclean things to holy things did! This is why the Pharisees had such a hard time with Jesus ‘contact’ with sinners and prostitutes. The Pharisees saw the ‘church’ as an institutional fortress ‘flee into Gods community and be separate from society’. Now the New Testament gives a mandate for believers to ‘come out from the world’ but this is speaking about not partaking of the sins of the world while being salt and light in the world. Jesus instituted a type of Priesthood that transmitted ‘holiness to unclean things’. A better priesthood [Hebrews]. Scripture says ‘light came into the world and the darkness couldn’t overcome it’ [John] So in Jesus rule you find the ‘Priests’ [all believers] having Christ’s Spirit in them for the purpose of affecting the world with righteousness. Now the church has too often grasped a mindset like the Pharisees. You see this in the strong conservative elements of Christianity ‘the moral majority’ ‘the center for moral clarity’ and all these other silly institutions. These guys mean well, but they are dividing society into ‘sides’ that has the gay lobby and others fighting against the ‘moral crusaders’. In essence this is a return to the ‘Pharisee mindset’. But there is also a movement in American Christianity [by the way we are only a small part of world Christianity!] that is appealing to the other side of the political spectrum Sort of like liberal ‘yuppie’ type Christians who might vote democrat or republican. They don’t hold to the ‘religious right’ persona. They are concerned with environmental issues and stuff [they might even still go to rock concerts, amen!]. I see this movement as great. God can recruit from all sides of the political spectrum. This is Gods ‘leaven’ affecting the whole lump. [By the way, leaven can represent something that starts small and invades everything. Sin can be described this way, or Gods Kingdom. Leaven is simply a ‘material’ that God can use in symbol any way he wants. Just cause it was used for an ‘unclean thing’ doesn’t mean Jesus cant ‘re use’ it for a clean thing. This actually can be a sign in and of itself. Jesus took a natural thing that was ‘sinful’ in scripture [man/leaven] and turned it around into something clean!] Basically what I am trying to get across today is Gods kingdom was not ‘postponed’ in its entirety. Certain aspects of its ‘revealing’ in regard to natural Israel are ‘hidden’ right now. At the second coming all Israel will see that Jesus has been ruling and reigning for thousands of years already. He will appear to natural Israel some day, but remember its not always the way we think!

(392)I took my kids to the beach yesterday. It’s the beginning of summer vacation and we live about 2 miles from the gulf. Growing up in Jersey I loved the shore. My kids don’t always realize what a blessing it is to be so close to the ocean. One of them [my oldest] does go regularly, she surfs and all. Well this was the first time I had a chance to swim at the Packery Channel, since they opened it up. It has these 2 huge jetties strutting out into the gulf. It was sort of strange, a huge storm blew in, a cold front and all. I don’t remember seeing something like this since first moving to Corpus. That is while actually swimming in the ocean! It felt surreal. I kinda felt it to be a little significant. I spoke earlier on this blog about this channel having significance to me. I also read in Isaiah where God says ‘this is my servant, I will open up before you the 2 leaved gates that no one will be able to shut. You will crush the bronze gates to dust’ Sort of like God saying ‘I have opened up a door for you that no man can shut’ [John in the book of Revelation]. We had a huge flash flood from the storm. When I got home I realized that my study roof wasn’t leaking any more. I have tried to fix it for years! I actually tore off the roof twice and re did the whole thing with role roof [twice! I do have a tendency to overreact at times.]. I couldn’t fix that ‘darn’ leak for years. Finally one day I resorted to the ‘last resort’ you Christians know what this is. Prayer! I don’t know why we do stuff like this. You think it would have been easier to have prayed first before re rolling the whole roof twice! [It’s only a 200 sq. foot section] Well even after prayer I felt it wasn’t yet fixed. Sure enough it rained one day and it was still leaking. But I kinda felt that something did happen when I prayed. One day I got up on the roof to trim some branches [pruning] and noticed 2 small wet spots. It wasn’t raining, but the sun wasn’t out and this created an environment where any small hidden wet spots would be exposed. I have checked for holes and leaks many times, never could find anything. It’s just this time the Lord supernaturally gave me an environment where I would clearly be able to ‘see’ the leaks/breaches and be able to ‘seal up the breach’. Well when I got home yesterday from the beach the flash flooding was enough rain to check for the leak. I got home and realized for the first time that the leak was fixed. Over a period of a few years! Felt like God was saying he will open up ‘breaches/leaved gates’ that we were unable to open before. And that he will also ‘close up’ areas where we have been leaking for years. It was the ‘rain’ that allowed me to finally ‘see’ that the breach was fixed. It actually was really fixed when I sealed up these 2 little holes a few months back, but it took a period of patient waiting to see if it really worked. Be sensitive to the Lords timing. Don’t expect him to do ‘all the leg work’ in the sense that you prayed and just sat idly by. Remember faith without works is dead. In my scenario I prayed and ‘accidentally’ found the leaks by God creating a type of atmosphere that allowed me to see what I couldn’t perceive before. It still required 2 little dabs of roof tar, but these dabs were nothing compared to all the re roofing efforts I had done in the flesh. When God changes your environment to see things differently, your labor will go a lot further. Be open to these signs. NOTE scripture says when Gods people were in rebellion that they brought home their paychecks and it was like putting money in a bag with holes in it. It’s like the bag had leaks. When you align yourself with Gods purpose the bag ‘stops leaking’.

(393)While watching Brave Heart the other day, there is a scene where Mel Gibson steps back onto the land of his heritage. It shows Gibson/Wallace standing on the land and breathing in the air. Sort of like ‘this is the place of my destiny’. I am reminded of the verse that says ‘stand and feed in the strength of the almighty’ ‘I will raise up one from the tribe of Judah and he shall inherit my holy mountain’. God has planted within us the DNA to ‘inherit the land’. This is not some real estate inheritance; this is entering in and ‘breathing’ in the environment of your destiny. There are times when we are surrounded by the ‘practices’ of life. We go thru the motions. We pray [I hope so!] we seek God, do evangelism and all the other stuff. Then there’s that thing in us [or at least me] that says ‘risk it all again’. Jump into the ocean. The big leaps of faith aren’t finished yet. STAND AND FEED IN THE STRENGTH OF THE ALMIGHTY once again. I just sense that God has destined us for more than having enough money to retire on. There are times where we are surrounded by the mundane things of life, during these times the only way out is ‘jump’. God does tell us to ‘go all the way into the river until it goes over your head’ [Ezekiel?]. It’s time for some of you to ‘go over your head’.

(394)Some things from Isaiah 53. ‘He is despised and rejected of men, we hid our faces from him’. Funny thing, never did or said a single wrong thing. Theologically correct 100 % of the time. How did we view him? We HID from him when we saw him coming. The gossip was so bad about him we couldn’t even face him. ‘We esteemed him not’. We said ‘I don’t care who he thinks he is, do you know what I heard’? ‘He was wounded for us, bruised for us. The price to obtain the things that would bring us peace was on him’ all the things that caused us to look down upon him were actually part of the price he had to pay for our benefit! ‘He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he opened not his mouth, he was like a silent lamb being killed’ I don’t have what it takes to be silent when I am being talked about. There was a sort of oppression that kept coming against Jesus. It was like men will keep doing whatever it takes to ‘get to him’. Pilate says ‘don’t you know I might actually have you put to death’ they kept pushing all the buttons. What was it again that they found wrong with him? O yes, he said ‘I am the Son of God’ in so many words. That’s right, now I remember. The great crime that led us to this point of killing him was HE TOLD US THE TRUTH! ‘He did no violence, nor was there ever any deceit in his mouth’ I cant say the same about me. ‘Yet it pleased the Father to bruise him, HE HATH DONE THIS TO HIM’ it’s so hard to comprehend this. You are not only allowing these things, but actually doing them by your great purpose! I thought any thing like this was the work of the devil. I thought I was suffering because of something I did wrong. I have been trying to get out of this difficulty. Everyone today preaches ‘if he were from God surely this wouldn’t be happening’. ‘He will see of the pain in my soul, by his knowledge shall my righteous servant justify many’ the things I will bring forth from your pain will ‘justify’ [bring into alignment] many. The pain first! ‘I will divide him a portion with the great [he will share the fruits with many well known people, those who thrive on fame]. He will divide the goods with the strong, because he poured out his soul to death. He bear the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors’ in the midst of this personal turmoil he was faithful to continue interceding for others. He did like Job who ‘prayed for his friends’ and then the Lord turned his captivity around. He learned to be faithful in intercession even when his life was being poured out. Who can live up to this? Jesus is the perfect man. NOTE this chapter starts with ‘who hath believed our report’ I was just ‘worrying’ about how many people are accepting/believing the things on this blog. A feeling of like ‘am I crazy, is nobody getting reached in a lasting way?’ Then I read the part of ‘our report’. I felt like the Lord was saying don’t worry about whether or not you are accepted. If you speak the things I am saying, then it’s ‘our’ report. Sort of like when scripture says to the prophets ‘they have not rejected you, they have rejected me’. I don’t want to come off as everything I say is right. I just felt like the Lord was saying when you speak in his will, it’s up to him to deal with the problem of whether or not the ‘report’ is being believed. Sometimes it’s in his purpose for reports to ‘not be believed’ so he can get to the next step.

(395)I saw a ministry out of Texas [We sure seem to have a lot of em!] who again preaches money all the time. I have read and listened to tapes from him before. He does have a tremendous amount of wisdom and Knowledge in areas of business and finance. His teachings were some of the best I have ever heard in these areas. He himself testified of how when he became a believer he later began to be ‘fascinated to an extreme’ with rich people. He studied and researched and could not get and consume enough information on these rich and wealthy people. The way he described it sounded like an unbelievable obsession with wealth. He used this description to explain how he became so knowledgeable in these areas. I saw it more of falling into the danger that Jesus warned against ‘Beware of covetousness, for a mans like doesn’t consist of the abundance of the things that he possesses’. I like this teacher, he does have great wisdom. It’s just he advocates so many of the things I have shown you to be wrong on this site. He would never admit it, he is brilliant. Scripture says ‘thy knowledge hath perverted thee’ it is possible to learn the most intricate truths of success from scripture. To apply them in such a way that you become highly successful and wealthy. It is possible to teach this system to others with a PURE HEART, that is you truly are not trying to take advantage of people. All of this in and of itself does not justify the obsession with wealth that these types of teachers promote. Their ‘wisdom’ has truly perverted them. NOTE: Many of these brothers are not ‘crooked’ fakes. They are sincere and honest in their dealings. They give extreme amounts of money to missions. Because of this they do not see themselves like the obvious fakes. There have been blatant deceivers who have robbed people; these brothers do not fall into this category. Because of this they cant see that they have fallen into the snare of desiring to become wealthy, which scripture forbids [1st Timothy 6- go read it!]. This is what makes it so difficult when you try to uproot this teaching from the church. NOTE: Let me show you how humility and truth trump wisdom. Though the above teacher is extremely wise, he also uses the ‘proof texts’ to teach that Jesus was also rich. The many verses I have shown you on this site. You can honestly show these brothers that these ‘proof texts’ do not trump the overall character of Jesus that comes to us from the testimony of the gospels. The gospels plainly show us an itinerant preacher who gathered a rag tag team of disciples and led a radical life. Sure they had a ‘bag’ [treasury] and Jesus wore an expensive coat [more than likely donated!] but these verses do not teach a wealthy Jesus! It is next to impossible for these guys to ‘see’ this. Knowledge can pervert you. These guys have seen real truth [knowledge] in areas of finances that the historic church has overlooked. They see how they know more than the traditional church in these areas. The fact that they posses true knowledge is a stumbling block to trying to show them these other areas of false teaching. They seem to think that all critics are traditional thinkers who do not have revelation knowledge. Deception is deceitful, that means you don’t know you are being deceived! NOTE: I know I have ‘harped’ on this a lot. I do over emphasize this area of correction because there have been so many leaders who have refused to deal with it over the years. Many innocent Pastors who are not familiar with the extreme elements of some of these teachings have inadvertently taught or condoned these teachers by mentioning their names or teaching a small aspect of their doctrine, like Jesus being rich because he had an expensive coat, or the teaching that the parable of the sower is speaking about finances [it is not!]. So in general this area has affected a lot of innocent Christians who are truly not aware of these things.

(396)Been studying some ‘apostolic movements’ [ministries that re produce many off shoot churches]. Some of the groups are very anti college. They feel that the Bible teaches a form of learning that is opposed to the university format. As someone who has never been to college myself, I can identify with this. But I don’t fully agree. The ‘Bible’ itself is a product of ‘formal education’. Jesus himself never penned a book, there is no epistle written by Jesus. Yet we do have the gospels that record his teachings. I guess you could argue that because Jesus himself never wrote a book, then all ‘book learnin’ is ‘un biblical’. The point is it’s all right to use formal means of education. There are definitely colleges that do harm to Christians. There were many liberal Christian universities that taught in a way that absolutely undermined Christian faith. I remember studying on how the 4 gospels were all written from 1 source. The ‘theologians’ surmised if you looked at all the differences and similarities in the gospels that the only logical conclusion was they all were written from another book. They called this single source ‘Q’. They taught this in a way that denied the writers accounts of actually being eyewitnesses to the things that they wrote about. A sort of ‘undermining’ of the trustworthiness of the gospels. Were all the gospels taken from one source? Yes. His name is Jesus. It is possible to be too smart for your own good!

(397)In the Bible you find stories of Jesus healing people. He casts unclean spirits out of people. In some of these scenarios you see the person who is healed respond violently. He will fall or give some type of indication that the ‘unclean thing’ that is ‘lodged’ in him doesn’t want to go. Its sort of like the enemy has strategized for years to ‘hook’ people. He has spent an enormous amount of ‘thought time’ coming up with schemes to entangle you. In some of these instances he has tricked you into allowing him to snare you. Sort of like you voluntarily opened the door, and in a way he had ‘a legal right’ to ensnare you. Then Jesus comes along and ‘un does’ in a moment that which the enemy took years to build. Jesus does this despite any legal right or ‘generational curse’ or any other thing that claims a right to attach itself to you. Its like the enemy gets mad because he thinks he earned the authority to have beaten you over this 9-inning game. He has worked hard to develop the series of attacks thru out your life. He feels his team [of demons!] has played hard and its only fair that he wins. Then this Jesus comes along and simply manipulates the environment to be favorable towards you. Don’t get me wrong, Jesus isn’t cheating. He has all the authority to rightfully do this because of the Cross. It’s just the enemy feels cheated in a way. This is why you see the violent responses when Jesus is casting these things out. Its like Jesus shows up and the other team is saying ‘man, this guys gonna ruin it for us again!’ [Too bad Jesus couldn’t show up to the Dallas games more often!]

(398)‘Its not the perpetuation of our personas that we are looking for, it’s the impartation of the gift, in order to bring to maturity the Body of Christ’. A crucial aspect of this is the season of recognizing that you have effectively planted the seed. Then to purposefully withdraw your image and ‘preoccupation’ that people will have towards your gift, and to allow Christ to increase as you decrease HE MUST INCREASE, AND I MUST DECREASE [John the Baptist speaking of Christ]. As Jesus ‘increases’ into maturity thru the Church becoming more self sufficient, we must decrease in proportion. If we don’t properly make this adjustment then the people of God will never fully develop. This means ‘Christ didn’t increase’ [as being fully formed thru his people] as a direct result of our not ‘decreasing’. NOTE; There are many modern scenarios where the Pastor is totally frustrated with the inability of his people to grow. They fall into a trap where they see this year after year and this develops a ‘dysfunctional family’ where the well-meaning Pastor begins to berate the ‘children’ for never rightfully transitioning into adulthood. The saints ‘come to church’ and the ‘Pastor’ basically yells at them for not growing. They don’t seem to see that the reason they are not growing is because the system depends on them to stay the same. The system [modern church] needs them to be faithful tithers in order to fund the system. Before there can ever be any real change, there has to come a paradigm shift of what ‘being the church’ really means.

(399)One of the hindrances to the development of the Body of Christ is the present mindset of ministry. Most good men who feel God has called them into service usually wind up in a scenario where the main thrust of their life is preparing messages to preach on Sunday. All good men, I too have been there. There are many prophetic people who have had the same types of experiences that you have read on this site. Many leaders who have seen greater things than me. Why aren’t you as familiar with these brothers as me? Why aren’t you growing thru their gift as was intended? For the most part it’s because the average Pastor is consumed with the functioning of his ‘church’ [Christian business]. He sees his responsibility as primarily servicing the people. Marrying, burying, getting the message ready. Stuff like this. Nothing really wrong about it, its just too much time is spent with these things and he never sees himself primarily as a vision implanter into people. Now some Pastors have written books and have done some long term planting. But for the most part the average Christian Pastor falls into this role of ‘full time minister’ that is to be found nowhere in the New Testament! Think long term my friends. If God is revealing things to you, write them down. Give time and attention to the specific areas of revelation that he has shown you. You don’t have to come up with something new to preach every week. Just allow the Spirit of God to use you to shape people into what God has for them. Try to break out of the mold of the modern Pastor who for the most part spends his entire life speaking to the ‘laity’, while spending 1% of his life hearing them. This is not a biblical model! Well that’s all for now, felt this word was for someone [I have no one in specific in mind]. NOTE: As this blog becomes known, I kinda sense the feeling from some Pastors who hear about us thru their ‘parishioners’ that they feel ‘we have a web site too’. Sort of in a defensive way. ‘Why don’t you go to our site?’ type thing. I don’t get into this type of competition stuff; I want all people to go to all web sites and every other thing the Lord is using in the church. The reason why some of these ‘church web sites’ are not popular is because many of them are geared to either promote a book [I am thinking of an out of town site that I went to and they simply showed the picture of a book for sale, if they actually published it on line many people would be able to tread it!] or to invite people to ‘church’. People are hurting and starving for real truth. See your web site as a radical means to get the message out. If all you are doing is advertising for church meetings, people are looking for more. This might be the reason that some Pastors are wondering why their sites aren’t as popular as they want.

(400)Let me clarify something. It is hard to fight too many battles at once. There are financial planners and other good Christians who absolutely disagree with me on tithing. Some misunderstand what I am saying. Also as humbly as I can put this. The ‘teaching authority’ that God has placed in various ‘elders’ [Apostles/ Prophets] absolutely trumps the best intentions of Christian counselors. I know some are mad, o well? Many well meaning Christian counselors say ‘it’s too late to convince me that tithing doesn’t work, I have been counseling people for years as a responsible financial planner, it works!’ Without rebuking you guys too much, here’s what you are wrong about. First, the ‘tithing’ as taught in the bible is not what you guys are teaching in the first place. So when you appeal to Malachi [the Old Testament book that says Gods people are robbing him by not tithing] you are not even speaking of the same thing. Go do an Old Testament study for ‘crying out loud’ and realize you are not teaching Christians tithing! Number 2, what you do teach works because YOU ARE TEACHING GIVING! Giving always works. The simple fact that you guys [Pastors and financial guys] are teaching Christians to give of their first fruits unto God works. Now if you give a lot [more generous] God returns a lot. If you give a little [cheapskate] then you get a little. Got it? In no way, shape or form is this the biblical doctrine of tithing. This is giving! It works not because you are teaching tithing, but because you are teaching giving! Well brother we teach it has to be 10% or you are under the curse. Well you asked for it. You guys are 100% wrong on this. Good theology trumps financial planners authority, sorry. There is NOTHING a believer can do to actually ‘get cursed’. Theologically impossible. Go read Galatians. Now its possible to go back to the mindset of law, and bring upon yourself the judgment of legalism. Feeling guilty and condemned if you don’t live up to certain standards. But this is what the so called TITHE does, not giving! In general all Christians should give. If its 8-10 or 20 percent, that’s between you and God. But for sure you are free from the curse because of Christ. Well to all my Pastors friends and Christian financial planner friends, sorry to have ‘trumped’ your authority on this one, I know it hurts. NOTE: Many preachers use this verse in Malachi to teach if you don’t put 10% of your income into the offering plate on Sunday that you are ‘robbing God’. Remember Jesus taught in his judgment scenarios that when you didn’t feed the poor, or visit those in jail, or clothe the naked. That this was how you were ‘robbing’ God. So in effect the way a person ‘robs God’ is by not ‘giving’ to meet the needs of society/brothers in need. This is also what Paul was doing in 1st Corinthians 16 when telling the Church to ‘take up a collection on the first day of the week’. This collection was to meet the needs of the poor saints at Jerusalem. So to ‘rob God’ is to not give to people [who are the New Testament Temple]. NOTE; there is a very popular Christian financial counselor on Radio today. I like him, most of you would know him. He is basically OK. I have a real problem when he says ‘this program is about making gobs of money’. He also uses language like me! He says ‘crap’ on the air. I kinda put his statement on ‘gobs of money’ in this ‘crap’ category. I actually think that some of his financial advice is wrong. Not even talking scripture here, just basic financial advice. The point is there are lots of experts in many fields who are Christian and for the most part do a good job. As believers we all have the right to question and come up with our own ideas on how to approach subjects. Take what’s good from these guys, and leave the rest alone.

(401)Might as well go a little more, being some guys [Pastors] are already mad. The area of the Second Coming. If there is any doctrine in the New Testament. The Cross. The Second Coming. Any major theme that is specifically defined as ‘an event’. For example; the ‘event’ of the Cross. The ‘event’ of Christ coming ONE more time. When you have something defined this way. No matter how many other end time scenarios you come up with, it has to stay faithful to the event. There are different ‘looks’ at the Cross in the gospels. There are different views of certain major miracles. There are different words that describe the Kingdom of God [One writer says ‘Kingdom of Heaven’]. When you read the different ‘angles’ you are seeing the same event from different perspectives. If one writer shows the events surrounding the Cross in a little different light, you don’t say there were 2 Cross events! That’s just plain common sense. If Jesus says to Peter in one gospel ‘you will deny me 3 times before the rooster crows’ and then in another gospel ‘you will deny me 3 times before the rooster crows twice’ are there 2 separate events when Peter did this? NO. One writer is just giving a little more detail about the event. So when you see in the New Testament various ‘angles’ to the second coming, no matter what, you don’t have the option of turning it into ‘2 more second comings’. Those who teach this say ‘we believe in one second coming. It’s just in 2 stages’ come on man! If I told you I am coming to visit you. I come. Then I say I will be back ONE more time for dinner. You don’t know when it will be. But watch, because I am coming back ONE more time. 5 years later I show up, I take care of business. I do some stuff. You would assume I came back for the last time. If I left and showed up again after 7 more years and said ‘this is the second part of the last coming’ this would be a little confusing. If there’s a ‘second part’ then that means I came back 2 more times. So you would have the first visit, the second time and then number 3! If you tried to tell me the last 2 times were one event split by 7 [or 3.5] years I would say ‘then why don’t you call all 3 of your comings 3 separate parts of ONE COMING’. We are silly at times! Jesus is coming back again. All the saints will meet him in the air. 1st Thessalonians says this. Will they ‘disappear’ for 7 years? NO. We meet him, the great inauguration day, the wedding supper. What ever you want to call it. We then return to the earth [that’s why you see images of Jesus coming back with his saints] not 7 years later, the same day! A lot of stuff happens for sure. But you cant turn this major historical belief into 2 separate events because it seems to fit better into your end time prophecy charts. Jesus will come back ONE more time according to the New Testament. It will be a great day for sure. He is not coming back 2 more times. That would make it the ‘third’ coming of Christ, not the ‘Second’. NOTE: To all my ‘regular’ readers. Many Christians teach that Jesus will come back again 2 more times. They call the next time ‘the Rapture’ which comes from the phrase ‘to catch away/ caught up’ found in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4. They then teach Jesus takes all the Christians away for 7 [or 3.5] years and comes back for a 3rd time at the ‘revelation’ [that is ‘his revealing]. There are many reasons why this teaching developed in the church. It’s not really heresy; I refer to it more as ‘silly’ [I would say stupid, but Christians are not supposed to use that type of language!] NOTE; I do find it a little ironic that many of the fundamental churches who believe this doctrine don’t seem to realize that more than likely it originated from a prophecy that a woman gave in a ‘brethren’ church back in the 19th century [this comes from some exhaustive research on this doctrine] it became popularized by some good men, gained a ‘foothold’ in the fundamentalist/bible conference movement of the 20th century and is taught today in some good bible schools [Dallas theological Seminary is one]. The point is some of these churches who embrace this would be the last ones to accept the ‘prophetic’ movement, and they would be apoplectic if they knew that one of their major ‘doctrines of the faith’ came from a woman’s prophecy! God does have a sense of humor! NOTE; Some teach that Jesus comes back ‘secretly’ at the event seen in 1st Thessalonians 4, they teach that Jesus comes all the way back to earth but just stops short [his feet not touching the ground] and is hidden and takes all the Christians away. They see the ‘taking away’ of Elijah and Enoch in the Old Testament as a ‘type’ of this. If God wanted to ‘take away’ all the Christians out of the planet, why would he have to come all the way back and stop short? To truly follow the model of Elijah and Enoch he could just take all the Christians while remaining seated at Gods right hand. I really don’t see why he would have to come all the way back and stop short in heaven [the air] to do this. The simple fact is when he returns we will be ‘caught up’ to meet him in the air and will from that moment forward forever be with him. This event as described in 1st Thessalonians chapter 4 is without a doubt the resurrection. There is no ‘secret’ resurrection spoken of in scripture.

(402)In 2005 Indonesia put 3 Sunday school teachers in PRISON for converting Muslims to Christians. The parents of the children willingly permitted their kids to attend the Christian church, but these wonderfully tolerant Muslims put the Christians in PRISON. You often hear of the tragedies of the Christian church. The inquisitions, that of course were wrong. How many people were killed again? Do you remember? Was it around 6 million? O no that was the Holocaust, that’s right. It was less than 3 thousand! [some say 30 thousand, either way it was small in comparison to the holocaust]. Any loss of life is wrong to be sure, but it sure seems strange that historians would make you think it was something equal to the Holocaust. Saddam took this many people out in a day! Now this wonderful Muslim religion, you know, this tolerant group of fanatics, they took out 3,ooo in one day also. I think it happened somewhere up North? Do you hear all these rights groups speak on the fact that this religion is still killing and imprisoning people TODAY? No, what you see is the UN blaming the US as one of the worst human rights violators on the planet. Where are the voices speaking out against the actual Muslim countries killing and imprisoning Christians right now [Like the northern oppressive Muslim regime who are committing genocide right now against our black Christian brothers in the south of the Sudan!] I just find it strange that the liberal groups want to blame the US for the events of 911, while they still uphold the inquisitions as the worst human rights violation in history. O that’s right, I forgot. How many Irish Catholics were on the Planes that killed 3,ooo people? How many Protestants? How many Christians? These wonderful 19 hijackers all worshipped Allah and thought that they were following the dictates of the prophet Muhammad. It’s funny, these human rights groups never seem to want to discuss ‘current events’. NOTE: All Muslims are not terrorists. The point is if you had right wing Christians all on a plane, crashing into buildings while believing they were doing it for God, and then you had a Christian country regularly imprison and kill Muslims, these human rights groups would be the first ones to make the connection of their religion with their fanaticism. But they want to treat the radical Muslim as if his religion has nothing to do with his radicalism.

(403)Isaiah 54 ‘sing O barren, thou that didst not bear, break forth into singing. For more are the children of the desolate than of the married wife’ God says those who are empty and feeling ‘numb’ are reproducing spiritual children in abundance. We recently read how God ‘saw’ the pain in Jesus soul and was satisfied. How those in bondage and captivity brought forth children and said ‘where did these come from, I was in pain and affliction’. God seems to bring forth fruit from our lives during seasons of weakness and failure. Paul saw this and learned to ‘glory in his weakness’ because when he was humanly weak and incapable of the task, God would then step in and do for him what he was not able to perform. ‘Enlarge the place of thy tent and let them stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations. Spare not, lengthen thy cords and strengthen thy stakes’ the ‘them’ are the promised offspring that are coming. God says ‘make preparations’ you will have many spiritual kids. The Lord also says ‘lengthen your cords’ and then ‘strengthen the tent posts’ we usually want to strengthen first, sort of have everything pre prepared before we ‘expand’. The order here is different. God says ‘go for the growth first, and then I will strengthen what needs to be stronger’. I am not saying don’t make preparations, but sometimes we spend our whole lives ‘preparing’ and we never grow! ‘For thou shalt break forth on the right hand and on the left and your seed shall inherit the gentiles’ ‘for a small moment have you felt forsaken, but with great mercies will I gather you. In a little wrath I hid my face from you for a moment, but with never ending kindness will I have mercy on you’ The ‘down’ times in your life seem forever, but compared to the fruit and grace that are coming, they will seem like small moments of history in my overall plan. ‘For this is like the waters of Noah to me, just like I swore that I would never flood the earth again, so I promise I will never be angry with you again’ the Cross removes any future wrath and anger from God, all future dealings will be as a father who disciplines a son. Can you imagine an earthly father truly hating or refusing to stop spanking his son? [I know some who have been abused can imagine this, but God is different!] How much more is God willing to correct you and let you move ahead? Quit beating yourself over the head because of your failures, God is not holding this stuff against you anymore! ‘The mountains shall depart and the hills be removed. But my kindness shall remain’ God is going to change your ‘scenery’ the things you have been ‘seeing’ and the obstacles obstructing your view are coming down. The mountains and hills in your way are being ‘threshed’ and God is going to restore to you ‘fore sight’ an ability to see down the road. Without vision [prophetic insight] people perish [have no controlling destiny, have no reason to be restrained and disciplined]. God is removing the things that were blurring your vision and you will see clearly again! ‘Thou shall be far from oppression, for you will not have fear, and from terror, it shall not come near you’ ‘whoever comes against you will fall for your sake’ In another place it says ‘I will give men for thee’ God favors you to the point of ‘manipulating’ the environment to be favorable towards you. You don’t deserve this to be sure! But he is doing it for his own glory, you already bear his name! NOTE: The verse ‘more are the children of the desolate’ Paul uses this in Galatians to show Gods promised children are the ‘spiritual Jerusalem’ all those [both Jew and gentile] that would receive the promised Spirit by faith. He basically says ‘the mother’ [heavenly Jerusalem-the church] that has no ‘physical children’ [desolate] will have more offspring/seed [all the spiritual children] than the nation/mother [natural Jerusalem] who has many offspring! NOTE: For those of you who have made it this far on this blog, if you keep reading into the later 400’s you will find that I have become very sick. I won’t go thru it all here. But I want you to see something prophetic. This chapter [Isaiah 54] has been one of the key chapters for me for over 20 years. As a matter of fact from Isaiah 42 thru the end of Isaiah have been the most prophetic words the Lord has given me about our ministry. Part of the sickness I am going thru is numbness to my right leg and extreme dizziness/vertigo. The only time I don’t feel dizzy is when I am looking far away. Like my habit of praying outside and looking to the stars, or even during the day looking at a distance feels fine. Being in the house and other confined spaces feels very disorienting. In this chapter, which I wrote about a month or two before getting sick, it says ‘blessed are those who are numb’ [right leg]. That God is going to ‘change our scenery’ [that which we see]. That God is going to remove things that are blurring your vision [vertigo/dizziness]. I even said ‘God is going to restore to you fore sight, an ability to see down the road [seeing ‘down the road’ long distances, is the only ‘seeing’ that doesn’t get me dizzy!] I find the prophetic word interesting, especially when you prophesy about yourself and don’t even know it!

(404)We all have a tendency to ‘take refuge’ in a ‘completed’ belief system. We want to have every answer down pat. We decide to believe one way or another on certain doctrines [not talking about the basic truths of the gospel!] and then we move ahead in the journey. Whether we are right or wrong doesn’t seem to matter. We have already decided, we have preached it to others, and there is no way I can admit that I have been wrong. It’s funny because many who act like this are the same ones who will criticize the Catholics for holding on to tradition. These guys are worse! God is calling us to take refuge in him. For him to be the ‘rock of defense’ the ‘fortress and one who never changes’ our stability should be in him, not some system of doctrine that has come to us from men. Now the faith that was once and for all given to the church is not what I am talking about, but the other silly stuff we find ‘refuge’ in. Am I pre trib, mid trib or post? Well if there is only one second coming [and there is only one] then you don’t have a lot of choices, do you? ‘But I have been taught this historic doctrine from the great men of faith of days gone by’ no you haven’t, you believe in something silly that is not true. ‘Well I will believe my way, and you will believe yours’ I know that already, but the point is you guys are the same ones that get apoplectic over the Catholics! Just thought I would show you what a bunch of hypocrites you are. NOTE; Let me show you what I mean. If you read the passages in the gospels when Jesus is speaking on his second coming and the end of the world. He says ‘there will be tribulation like never before’ he talks about the obvious events of the great tribulation. He then says ‘after these things you will see the sign of the coming of the son of Man’ the pre tribulation brothers call this ‘the revelation’ part of the second coming. The ‘second part’. You then also have Jesus say ‘then one shall be taken and the other left’. Now he specifically says this ‘one taken and the other left’ is after the tribulation, at his second coming. This seems to make it real simple. Jesus will come and ‘take some and leave others’ at this event, which happens at the ‘second coming’ and his return. The Rapture guys say this is not the event of 1st Thessalonians chapter 4. Even though if you read that chapter Paul says when Christ returns some will be taken and others will be left [the unbelievers]. The rapture guys say this is a ‘different’ taking of people at a ‘different’ second coming. Well I think I could accept the doctrine of Peter being the first Pope before you could convince me of this one!

(405)Been studying an apostolic movement. I am familiar with this church. They have a few of them in our area. A lot of stuff on line says they are a cult. They really are not one in doctrine. The leader of the movement has a legalistic background from an old time Pentecostal church [four square] and it seems to me that the movement, though Christian, has embraced a lot of the mistakes from the ‘Shepherding/Discipling’ movement. I am not studying what the so called ‘cult researchers’ are saying about them. I am reading from their actual story on line. It really is a great story. One of the limitations of these movements are the limited way they see ‘church’. For the most part these groups see church as sending someone to a city, either renting, buying or building a building [too many of us still cant get past this building centric mindset- none of the disciples or New Testament Apostles EVER did this!] They then set up ‘a Pastor’ to ‘run’ this ‘New Testament Church’. And then the strong authoritarian types will basically teach a strong doctrine of submission to this ‘New Testament order’ and anyone who questions this very limited/unbiblical view of ‘Local Church’ is ‘out of order’ and seen to be ‘departing from the faith’. We need to get back to the biblical model of Jesus and the Apostles. Jesus sent them out ‘2 by 2’ to go and bring this message [the gospel] to the cities and towns where they were sent. Later you see Paul doing this same thing. The ‘planting of churches’ was the actual speaking the gospel to people groups. Those who would believe and get baptized became ‘the church’. These believers were encouraged to get together, have fellowship meals [the original pattern of the ‘Lords Supper’] and to basically be ‘Gods Ecclesia’ in their town. They were seen to be Gods ‘dwelling place’. There was no ‘church’ that they were going to on ‘Sunday’. Paul told the Corinthians that when they got together on the 1st day of the week they were to take up an offering. We take stuff like this and turn it into a commandment. We teach Sunday as some type of New Testament Sabbath [it is not!] and we say ‘go to church on Sunday, obey your Pastor [singular] and put in a tithe’. This is permitted to a degree, but in no way is this some type of mandated New Testament order. That’s why those Pastors who lean towards grace and liberality are seeing growth. They are operating in this system while not teaching that this system ‘is church’ to the same legalistic degree as the other guys. Now when you take this limited way of seeing church, and you put it into the hands of strong authoritarian types. Then you have the ingredients of a ‘cult like’ culture within the group. You find well-meaning Pastors telling Christians ‘how dare you challenge my biblical authority, you are under me’ well this is an abuse of the grace of God. These well meaning guys have taken a pattern of ‘church’ that is common for our day, and have turned it into THE MEASURE of a person’s faith. Any question from the parishioners is seen as rebelling against ‘Gods Man’. Well just remember Paul was not teaching this strong Sunday church, tithing to the church, obey your Pastor mindset. Paul actually teaches [Romans] that the weaker Christians [in faith] will observe certain days and foods and stuff as clean or unclean. He then teaches those who are stronger [more mature] in the faith don’t do this. So for believers to meet on Sunday and to give offerings and to share in Gods grace is a good thing. But to teach that a limited system where you are under ‘a Pastor’ for the rest of your life can become ‘cult like’ in its expression, especially if you have a legalistic background to begin with. [The movement I am studying is known as ‘the door’ or the ‘Potters House’, not to be confused with T.D. Jakes]. NOTE: A few things that I want you to see about the biblical mindset of every believer having the potential to go and evangelize the world. When a believer goes forth with the gospel and brings the good news of Gods forgiveness and acceptance thru Christ. Others want this. To simply see ‘church planting’ as a natural outgrowth of evangelism allows for there to be a rapid increase of the gospel thru out a region. Everybody can ‘pass it on’ to everyone else. You are not viewing ‘church planting’ as going somewhere to start an organization that will need lots of money to function; you are simply preaching the gospel. Those who believe get together, there will be elders [more mature ones] that will have special ability to ground these new believers. But for the most part the only ‘finances’ needed to do this is enough money to get you to the place of ‘sending’. You then teach these new believers to share of their resources with the less fortunate. This is actually the biblical model of church planting. This is why Paul could evangelize large territories in his day. The modern idea sees the need to raise tons of money to support ‘other pros’ who are doing it for a living [missionaries]. They see church planting/evangelism as the ‘job’ of those in ‘full time ministry’. The average believer is told ‘your primary responsibility is to work in the secular world and bring in the finances for the ‘church’ [Christian business] to have enough money to pay the pros’. We have effectively ‘de clawed’ the average believer from the divine mandate to go and preach the gospel to all nations. That’s why when the well intentioned Pastors get mad at me for preaching against tithing, they really can not see how the ‘law of the tithe’ has actually put people back under bondage. The average believer is under the bondage of seeing himself as the ‘resource pool’ that brings the money in for others to do the ‘ministry’. This is actually a form of legalism that puts believers under bondage. Every so often you get a radical believer who breaks the mold of simply being a ‘funder’ and then he goes off and enters ‘full time ministry’. He is then taught all the above and the cycle repeats! The Pastor feels like he is doing right because he now is so fulfilled [it cant be wrong if it feels so right]. But he doesn’t realize the fulfillment he is experiencing is to a large degree the sense of well being that God intended for all the saints to experience as they express themselves and give themselves away for the gospel. In essence the Pastor had the courage to break the mold and step into the journey, but where we have failed is to then take that person and make him into a propagator of the current system. God wants a change in the current system. God wants all his kids to see that we all have this freedom to run the race and be active. It is not limited to the ‘full time clergy’! NOTE: When the well meaning Pastor in the current system looks at the statistics ‘only so many percent of all Christians tithe, therefore we are not reaching the world’ he is seeing ‘reaching the world’ from his limited paradigm. This type of Pastor truly believes it is the lack of tithing that is hindering the gospel. It is not the lack of tithing that is doing this, it is the above system that is limiting the gospel! NOTE; The other day I was trying to open some bag of lunchmeat or something. I remember how hard it was to get the bag open. So of course I thanked the Lord for this obstacle and praised him as I looked for a pair of scissors [I am lying]. I did think to myself ‘what a wonderful product. I am sure it will taste good. I am sure the producers went out of their way to produce the product. Much thought went into the marketing of it. They only forgot a very small thing, they made it next to impossible to actually access the thing!’ This is what we do in modern church. The most valuable asset are the People of God. They can do unbelievable things in the area of reaching the world. We have made it next to impossible to ‘get the product out of the package’.

(406)NOTE: The reason you see me quoting old movies on this blog is because when I spend a few days at my daughter’s ranch [Jim Wells county for all you local guys!] she has no cable or Internet. I do get up early to pray, but during the day we put on all the old movies we have. Lots of DVD’s and VHS tapes. LION KING The father Lion tells the son when he is in hiding ‘YOU ARE MORE THAN WHAT YOU HAVE BECOME, YOU ARE MY SON’ the dad Lion is dead and he tells his son this in a vision. The son returns to his ‘land’ of destiny and fulfills his purpose. The son was anointed king as a baby cub, he enters his true destiny after much failure and fear. The father also told the son that the stars in the sky represent past kings who have gone on [I know this isn’t Christian, but let me use it]. In Hebrews it says the heroes of the faith have gone on before us and they are looking down from the bleachers cheering us on to finish this great destiny. I want to encourage you to realize ‘you are more than what you have become. You are your Fathers son’ God chose you for destiny when you were a child, its time to overcome your fears and stop living in obscurity. Fulfill your destiny while there is still time.

(407)Didn’t get a chance to ‘go to church’ Sunday, so I made a point to catch a brother out of Dallas [you all probably know him] that I like to catch on TV every so often. He usually has a real prophetic word that you can tell is being produced out of trials and stuff. This week he was at some ‘preacher conference’ and he was using Romans 12 as a text. He then proceeded to go from chapter 1 thru chapter 12 by memory, hitting the high points from each chapter. I have a pretty good memory, I actually memorized large portions of Romans in the past. I kinda saw that he was going to do this. It felt more like a performance than the usual real word that he speaks. As he began going to chapter 2, then 3, etc. I jumped ahead in my mind and could almost quote the entirety of the rest of the book as I was ‘testing’ my memory. I found out I could do as good as him in this mental exercise. It didn’t mean anything, because I could sense it was sort of showing off at this conference. I changed it to Fox news.

(408)I want to talk about the reality of gifted Prophetic/Apostolic people in church history who had real gifts, but embraced false doctrine. This is an area of stumbling for those who are trying to break away from false movements. The Mormons are good people, whenever they come to my house I have real good talks with them [a little too good, after a few visits they go back to their elders with questions and they never come back!] I actually become real friends with them. I honestly discuss their movement’s history and I give an honest evaluation of the Prophet Joseph Smith [the founder of their church]. I do not demean them in any way. I simply acknowledge that the giftings of Joseph Smith were tremendous in the area of pioneering a religious movement. I also challenge the belief that Joseph was the prophet that the Lord chose to restore the true church. I find agreement that the true church are all those who have come to embrace the sacrifice of Christ [which they believe in] and then I explain how Jesus said the gates of hell would never totally prevail against the church. If Jesus words were true [they were!] then there never was a time since the 1st century that the church didn’t exist in some form. The gates never prevailed against her. Therefore Josephs teaching on him being the restorer of the church to the degree that God supposedly told him there was no true church left, has to be wrong. I do make headway with the younger guys. Once you honestly become true friends with people, you can have influence. My position on all the extra biblical doctrines and visions and other so called supernatural things [finding gold plates in the ground!] I simply ‘compromise’ to the point of saying ‘it is possible that Joseph [or any other leader of any other movement] had visions or experiences that they felt were true. They might have actually saw someone/something’. But we go back to the reality of Jesus being the way to God, and we put these other things at the foot of the Cross. The history of the pioneering Mormons is tremendous. The people are all good people [for the most part] there are strides being made right now to influence certain key leaders of this movement and to bring them back into alignment with historic Christianity [like what happened with the seventh day Adventists on the west coast. A few years back some evangelicals established relationships with key leaders and certain seventh day groups came back to the historic church- The worldwide church of God group [not the Pentecostal church of God] had a total reformation from the top down!] The point is, it is possible for certain religious groups to experience great success. In some strange way the fact that there is a small degree of the gospel present within the system [remember the leaven affecting the whole lump?] enables a certain degree of success until the time comes for true reformation. This approach can be seen with the more extreme word of faith/ prosperity teachers. Many were good men who did good things. We should not allow this to be an open door for the other doctrines and stuff that are wrong. Acknowledge the good, and honestly face up to the things that went off track. God requires all of us to do this at certain times. NOTE: After a few talks with these Mormons they see that I am a Christian; I know the bible and am even aware of their history. I use this fact as an example of God revealing himself to people without them joining or identifying with some religious group or organization. One of their beliefs is God has a true real church in society [true] and therefore which one is it? I try to show them that I too believe there is ‘one true church’ and that this church [society of people- not an organization or denomination] is actually made up of all those who have come to the reality of God thru Christ. They will challenge this view [as do some Christians!] and say that it is wrong. That how could people just come to a true knowledge of God unless they are in the true church [which to them is Mormon] I then bring them back to the fact that we have spent hours discussing and sharing many truths about Jesus. We all know many of the same verses [to be honest I usually know more by memory than them] and we have been discussing all these truths of God and his purposes and redemption thru Christ. And yet I have never met you before. I am not Mormon. How did God break thru to me and show me all these things that we have been sharing? It wasn’t thru some organization; it was the fact that God is revealing himself to mankind thru Christ. All who have come to this reality ARE THE TRUE CHURCH. Therefore everyone who worships the Father thru the Son are the true church. This leaves room for them and all others. I don’t whitewash the many wrong teachings of Mormonism, I simply try to bring them to the reality that even if Joseph Smith never existed that the reality of all of us [I include them] right now believing in God and the sacrifice of his son would qualify us as the ‘true church’ you don’t need Joseph Smith for this!

(409)I watched the second Republican debate for 2007 last night. It was interesting. One of the questions [from Wolf Blitzer] was to Rudy Giuliani. Wolf asked him to respond to the recent comment from A Catholic Bishop that compared his abortion stance to what Pilate did in betraying Christ. Basically Pilate allowed Christ to be crucified, even tough he was ‘personally against it’ Pilate knew Christ was innocent but permitted his execution to appease a political constituency. As Rudy responded it began to lightning, this caused his mic to go out and you couldn’t hear a word thru the TV. Rudy joked about it. Sort of like ‘I guess God is trying to tell me something’. A few other candidates kidded also. As Rudy talked the lightning kept cutting out his remarks. Everyone just took it as a joke. The ‘funny’ thing was as the other 9 candidates spoke [all pro life!] this ‘interruption’ didn’t happen. As soon as the mic went back to Rudy it started again. You could almost see in everyone’s faces that this wasn’t a joke! Rudy is the only ‘pro choice’ candidate in the Republican field. Also this debate took place in Hew Hampshire at a Catholic University ‘Saint Anselm’. the moderator harped on asking a few of the Christian candidates their view on evolution [which should have nothing to do with whether or not you make a good President!] It was asked in a way to make these guys look like idiots. One of the candidates answered wisely. He basically said he doesn’t know if God created the world in a literal 6-day period or longer, he affirmed the scientific reality that all creation could not have simply come by mere chance. He gave an intelligent response to the question. He also challenged the question. He believed it really shouldn’t be in a Presidential discussion. Though he defended himself well. Wolf Blitzer wanted to make these guys look like idiots. So after the answer he says ‘you were asked whether or not you believed in a literal 6 day creation, you dodged the question, answer it’. The candidate told Wolf ‘I did not dodge the question, I told you that I don’t know if the literal account in Genesis is speaking about periods of time or 24 hr days’. Wolf looked like the idiot! The point is they were so obsessed with getting a certain response that Wolf didn’t ‘hear’ the answer. When it’s your main job [moderator] to ‘hear’ the answer, and you don’t hear it, you look stupid. The ‘after’ show that discussed the debate brought up ‘why are all these candidates injecting God into it’ and then ridiculing them for various reasons. Even though it was obvious that these candidates were not bringing the ‘God issue’ up on their own, they were annoyed to be getting these questions. The Democrats actually are bringing it up more on their own because they are trying to appeal to the Christian vote in a greater way [which is fine]. I think Rudy is a good man, I like him. I am an Italian that grew up where he was mayor. I don’t think God was necessarily ‘judging him’ by the lightning. I felt it more to be a prophetic sign that said ‘If you refuse to speak up for those who have no voice in society [the unborn] I in turn will remove your voice from society’. NOTE: The obvious bias of the media is seen clearly in these types of things. It would be like me asking you ‘do you believe in Hitler and the oppression of Jews’. And you would respond by saying no, and then begin to explain the atrocities of Nazi Germany. Then later I had a discussion with a panel and said ‘can you believe they were even discussing Hitler? I know, what a bunch of racist bigots!’ For the media to do this is an insult to the average American. These elitists truly think that Christians are ignorant idiots. They then show their blatant bias by doing this. NOTE: God takes men and turns them into fools when they willingly reject him. These people who look at creationists as ‘back water’ idiots, believe that at one point in time there was nothing. From nothing gases ‘showed up’ one day [this is a scientific impossibility!] these unexplainable gases had an unexplainable explosion. From this all creation came into existence. Now science does show us that there was a point in history where all the worlds ‘mass’ or matter was at a beginning point. And that from this point thru an unbelievable event all creation came. This is scientifically accurate. But for this to have occurred from nothing is scientifically impossible. There had to be something from outside of the material realm that had the ability to act upon the material realm in order to make this happen. Whether you believe this something is God or not is irrelevant to this argument. The FACT is all created things could not have come from nothing! For the unbeliever to hold to this obviously childlike explanation of all things is absolutely foolish. But they see their belief in this as being intellectual. God has truly changed their wisdom into total foolishness. If you had a point in time where nothing existed, it is scientifically impossible to have matter now. The only scientific explanation is something else had to act upon this ‘void’ in order to bring about matter. This is not religious belief, this is scientific fact!

(410)A few years back before 9-11-2001 I was at work at the firehouse and noticed a Muslim walking thru the truck stalls. He was dressed in full fashion. You could tell he was a Muslim! I went out to see what he wanted and he said he was just doing research for the University on ‘fire houses’. This station is right across the street from a University and there are lots of exchange students. He did look suspicious. I began talking with him. We did get into ‘religion’ and the way Muslims view Western society. He shared how all the Muslim world sees the United States as Christian hypocrites. I then explained how all westerners are not Christians in reality. I am aware that the Muslim world doesn’t make these distinctions. I then ‘taught’ a 30-45 minute overview of the history of Abraham and his sons [Arabs claim their genealogy from Ishmael the son of Abraham, while Jews trace their lineage to Isaac]. I went thru the historic development of these groups and shared how though Jesus was a descendant from Israel, that it was Gods design to redeem all heritages thru Christ. That God has a great purpose for ‘Ishmaels’ descendants and Jesus transcends all of these ethnic stereotypes and makes all nations ‘one new heritage’ in Christ. I was surprised to see this Muslim was not aware of this. He looked like he was glad to really hear the truth of the gospel. You could tell he never really heard the story of redemption in this way. The world is so caught up on taking sides for political reasons, that this central message and appeal to people’s real need is being overlooked. He left that day seeming grateful to have heard this truth. Not long after 9-11 happened. We were then warned by the F.B.I. to take extra precautions in securing our truck bays, because intelligence came down that showed certain radical groups were going to try to ‘car jack’ fire trucks and use them for terrorist purposes! NOTE: The 2 sons of Abraham, Ishmael and Isaac, were to be used as a sign of strife that would arise for many generations to come. Many evangelicals use this to point to the strife between Israel and the Arab world. This is true to a degree. Paul in the book of Galatians uses this to speak of the strife between Law and Grace. In essence Paul says the Jews who are fighting against the believers are what Ishmael and Isaac represent. He did not see it like we do today! In reality it is possible for natural Israel to persecute a believing Arab, and in this context Israel would be ‘Ishmael’ and the Arab would be ‘Isaac’ the ‘spiritual’ offspring. Remember, Paul says the ‘children of the promise’ are counted as the kids, not the children of the law. The point being all who are Gods kids by faith [both Jews, Arabs and every other group] are Gods kids. So any other group who are not ‘in Christ’ [even natural Israel] are not counted as ‘the seed’. Seeing these things thru the ‘lens’ of the Cross overcomes racism. It’s wrong for any ethnicity to war against another. God is no respecter of persons. When Christians use scripture to take sides in actual warfare, this does harm to the true intent of God.

(411)I had a friend years ago who worked with me at the Fire Dept. He was ‘sort of’ an Atheist. He did ridicule Christians a lot. He would challenge them on all sorts of stuff. I remember discussing something with him one day. Some type of challenge. In the middle of the argument I simply said ‘if all of this you are saying is true, then why do you believe in God’. He was shocked. He couldn’t answer back. It was like the Lord knew he always held to a secret belief in God but never revealed it. I guess he never thought anyone would ‘see this secret of his heart’ [prophecy].

(412)I was just wasting time today. Too much TV and being unfocused. I hate these days! I was watching ‘mad TV’ and flipping the channels. I also was thinking about a mayor from a small town directly on the other side of the Corpus bay from where I live. I live in Flour Bluff and he lived in Ingleside. I have no idea why I was thinking about him. He was convicted of murder about 9 years ago and has been in prison. As I had enough of Mo Collins and Will Sasso, I flipped to A and E and saw City Confidential. I pressed info on my remote controller and saw that they were doing a show on Mark Crawford, the Mayor who I was just ‘thinking’ about. This ‘thinking’ was actually ‘seeing’ the mental image of the crime he committed. He gassed some guy and buried him in the ground [he actually had an accomplice do it]. The show talked about Marks life. He grew up in a dysfunctional family. Joined the Army and eventually wound up in this area. In 1988 he woke up one day and made a decision to change. He quit his job and ran for Mayor. About the same time I was living in Kingsville and ‘quit’ the church I was going to in order to start one of my own. Mark became very involved with the Baptist church and led the youth group. I was reaching out to addicts and ex cons [I also was the youth leader at my Baptist church]. Mark went astray and got into business and got involved in some shady dealings. Mark became well known and eventually everything fell thru when in 1996 they found a dead body buried in a deep whole in his yard [remember the dream I had about digging a deep whole and putting a body in it?]. In 1996 I started our radio ministry out of Corpus, Mark might have been listening during the year he ‘buried this body’. At the end of the show I wasn’t too sure why I was watching, I knew I was supposed to. Maybe I will write Mark and see if he wants to be used for outreach in prison. I know he claims to be innocent, and you have to be careful because some ‘brothers’ want to use their contacts with someone ‘famous’ or who has influence in order to try and get out. I believe it’s possible for Mark to have done this crime and yet for the Lord to use him. I am not in the camp who always defends the Christians and thinks they can do no wrong. I know better! I feel Mark was a lot like me. Willing to take too many chances in order to break the monotony of life. Striving for something more. Not being content with just ‘going to church’. I believe God has a destiny for each of us, even those who have gone off the deep end. P.S. Mark, if you ever read this [by me sending this to you, or someone from the area who knows you sends you this blog] you made some bad choices my friend, the only excitement left in the journey is to radically sell out for the Lord one more time. NOTE: I also read David Berkowitz’s testimony on line [the son of Sam] he has some story. Google his name and see if you can find it [just looked it up, its ‘www.forgivenforlife.com’]. God uses the worst of us. I do not see myself any more worthy than any of these guys. NOTE; If you follow the ‘self image’ that the Apostle Paul had of himself you will see something interesting. Paul ‘sees’ himself as an Apostle, then as the least of the Apostles. He then sees himself as a sinner, then near the end of his writings he sees himself as the ‘worst of all sinners’. I do not see this as ‘false humility’ it is more of an understanding of the sovereignty of God. All people are capable of all things at one time or another. Also when I wrote on Peter. I always felt he carried the self-guilt of his denials of Christ. When you see Peter in the Book of acts confronting Christians who lied about selling their property and saying they gave all the money to the Lord. Peter had the choice to ‘meet out’ strong discipline or not. He was the key Apostle at the time carrying the prophetic authority of the Kingdom. If he chose to forgive and ‘let it slide’ he could have. This is where you see the teaching of Jesus come into play when he said ‘whoever’s sins you forgive, they are forgiven. Whoever’s you don’t forgive will not be forgiven’ in this area of Peter dealing with these believers he chose to NOT FORGIVE. He says to these Christians ‘you have lied to God and his Spirit’ and they fall down and die as the judgment for what they did. Why was Peter so hard? I think he saw that part of himself in them that causes us to lie and present a false image to people. He was reminded of his duplicity and released judgment instead of forgiveness.

(413)I want to talk a little about ‘Local Church’. As I am reading on movements who ‘plant’ Local Churches, it is reminding me of some things. First, nowhere in the New Testament is the command given to ‘go and plant New Testament churches’. Now I don’t want to be picky here. I want you to see why this is so. Protestantism has developed an understanding of ‘Local Church’ that is really unbiblical. I recently read about a movement that ‘sends out churches’ to cities as opposed to ‘sending out missionaries/evangelists’. They see the sending of a person to get a building and preach on Sunday and get the tithe and for people to be ‘faithful’ to the ‘local church’ as the right way to evangelize because ‘this is Gods plan’. Then another group says ‘we are a ‘local church’ with a worldwide vision’. The more extreme brothers will teach ‘you are not in right relationship with God until you submit to his plan, which is ‘the Local Church’. All these brothers mean well. They are just expressing views that are un biblical. The ‘local churches’ in scripture were all the believers living in a ‘locality’. In these ‘communities of believers’ there were gifted men who God placed there for the growth of ‘the local church’ [all the Christians]. Today’s idea of every city having 100 to 200 local churches, all with the office of ‘Pastor’ who is the authority over that specific group is no where to be found in scripture. Now all the brothers doing these things are not heretics [notice I said ‘not all’]. But when you take this limited view that sees ‘the local church’ as the separate organization that you start in your area. And then you teach a form of ‘being in submission’ as tithing to that thing, you are in essence usurping Gods authority that is being released thru a wide diversity of gifts in your area. God sees ‘the local church’ and its ‘members’ as those who are called out of the world unto Christ who reside ‘locally’. So you are ‘part of the local church/group of Christians in your area’ by virtue of the fact that you are all ‘partaking spiritually of the Body of Christ’. The outward sign of this is the Lords Supper. So for you to view your ‘membership’ with a particular group [among 100’s] and then to say ‘I am faithful to ‘my local church’ [the Sunday meeting I attend] and to not see the reality that all the believers in your area are ‘local church’ actually harms the church. Most Protestants do not realize how this limited view ‘colors’ the way they read scripture. In the book of Revelation you find the letters to the 7 churches. These ‘churches’ are once again all the believers living in different locals. God is speaking to the ‘Angels’ of these churches in this book. ‘To the Angel of the Church of so and so’ the word for angel is ‘messenger’. You have the majority of Protestants teaching these angels are the ‘Pastors’ of these ‘churches’. There was NEVER a Pastor over all the believers in these locations. Sardis, Ephesus, Thyatira, etc. When I do the radio ministry. It is not a ministry ‘to the radio’. When I speak into the cassette recorder, I am not ‘speaking to the recorder’. In scripture Angels are messengers. They receive and transmit the message from God. These ‘angels’ of these 7 churches were simply that! God is speaking to the ‘messengers’ and saying ‘if you don’t repent I will remove your candlestick’. These are not messages to Pastors over churches [see how your view colors this!] these are Gods words spoken to his ‘transmitters’ and therefore he is saying it ‘to the angels’ just like I preach ‘into the radio’. Now all of this is for the purpose to show you that God doesn’t send people or movements to go and ‘plant churches’ per se. He sends people to preach the gospel to people groups [Gods idea of ‘churches/ communities’]. These ‘groups’ of people who believe become the ‘local churches’ of the New Testament. When Paul writes to these ‘churches’ he is addressing ‘all the believers’ in the locality. If there were an office of Pastor like we practice it today, there would be no way that these letters would not contain strong instructions and rebukes ‘for the Pastor’ [by name if they were singular authorities]. For the ‘churches’ in the book of Revelation to have had ‘Pastors’ over these entire regions, and for us to not know their names is unthinkable! All the major figures [Paul, Peter, John, etc] were well known leaders in the first century church. To have had ‘Pastors’ as the singular authorities of entire regions, and for them to have remained anonymous till this day would have been impossible! So in essence you are not going around setting up some type of organization that people need to submit to in order to be in ‘proper order’. Gods ‘proper order’ is to be ‘under Christ’. This does carry with it the humility to accept and receive the gifts that God has placed in our communities. The Pastors and Prophets and all the other gifts. These are gifts to the entire community to build the people up. When you have ‘church planters’ who are going around [with a good intent] teaching believers that they must ‘submit to the local church, because this is Gods program for reaching the world’ they are seeing ‘local church’ in a way that is really unbiblical. God is sending all of us out into the harvest field to preach the gospel. I don’t see all the ‘Sunday Local Churches’ as wrong or in rebellion. I see that overall we are all Gods kids who are doing our best to please God. When we deal in grace with each other God works. When we use limited forms of church to the degree of seeing those who don’t fully operate in that mindset as being in rebellion, then we are not truly building each other up in love. NOTE: One of the faults with these strong authoritarian church planting movements is they use verses like ‘follow me as I follow Christ’. They use this to push back against their critics who say they are too authoritarian. ‘Hey, Paul told people to follow him’. Yes he did ‘as I follow Christ’. How did Paul ‘follow Christ’ well he certainly wasn’t setting up ‘local churches’ with Pastors ‘over the people’! NOTE; The first 3 centuries of Christianity you didn’t have ‘church’ as the place you go to on Sunday for religious worship. This mindset developed over time. Our Catholic friends developed a way of doing church that saw the ‘priest’ as the ‘minister’ empowered by Christ’s grace to ‘oversee’ the Mass where the Eucharist becomes the means of grace whereby God ‘infuses’ grace into the souls of the faithful. Basically the Catholic chapter for their belief is centered around John chapter 6 ‘unless you eat the flesh and drink the blood you have no life in you’. While I do not hold to the doctrine of transubstantiation I do not see my Catholic brothers as wicked devil worshippers for this. I see it more as an historic belief that did develop out of an ‘infancy stage’ of Christianity. Holding to Jesus words literally [which Luther himself held to in this area of disagreement with Zwingli, the Swiss reformer!] with a childlike belief that many Christians embraced. During the reformation of the 16th century you had many doctrines questioned, but for the most part the Protestants simply changed the office of the priest with the office of ‘the Pastor’ as the ‘clergy person’ who will administer this ‘protestant office’. This ‘office’ does not exist in the New Testament! So today we are seeing the Lord move in an area of ‘reformation’ [a process, not a one time event] concerning church form. Something that really wasn’t adequately dealt with in the 16th century movement. So we move on to maturity as we accept the good things of the church Fathers [even the Catholic ones!] and we ‘move away’ from forms and styles that are not mandated in scripture. We should not be ‘anti Sunday church/Pastor’ as much as we should be ‘pro Body of Christ’. Wanting to see the people of God fully functional under the headship of Christ. NOTE: This causes us to deal in grace with our fellow Christians. I have heard Protestant preachers say ‘the Catholics teach for doctrine the commandments of men’ while all the while they are declaring a ‘form of local church’ as THE SINGULAR TOOL OF GOD TO CHANGE THE WORLD that is nowhere to be found in scripture! NOTE; ‘Enlarge the place of thy tent and LET THEM stretch forth the curtains of thy habitations’ I spoke on this verse from Isaiah a few entries back. The LET THEM speaks of releasing your spiritual offspring to continue the growth of the spiritual lineage that God permits us to ‘birth’ into the Kingdom. This ‘letting them’ is a voluntary act of leadership releasing people to continue the journey on their own with Jesus becoming their ‘Chief Pastor/Shepherd’. In today’s ‘Local Church’ environment we do not practice the ‘letting go’ part well. NOTE; I have taught the term Ecclesia in our books. Let me mention that the way we view ‘Local Church’ rides heavily on how you interpret this word. The word ‘ecclesia’ is the Greek word in the New Testament for Church. In the early centuries we see how the believers understood this to mean a ‘called out community of people’, not necessarily ‘those called to the building on Sunday’. Later Christians [and theologians] began to develop a type of ‘ecclesiology’ [church form] that fit into the limited mindset of Church being the place where Christians go on Sunday. While it is true that the word ‘Ecclesia’ can describe a ‘city council meeting’ or other types of public assemblies. The true intent behind the ‘called out people’ are those who have been called out of society [separated in the biblical sense] and have become citizens of another country/Kingdom. So to limit the ‘church’ to the actual place of meeting is really not scriptural. The term for church was simply the best word to use at the time. Words are limited. It takes the Spirit of God to truly convey the meaning of them. We do not contradict the words that are used in scripture to make up our own definitions [which is a common hobby today] but we allow the Spirit of God to reveal to us things that the ‘surface reading’ can’t fully show us. NOTE; You never had a scenario where Paul would address the ‘church of Corinth’ or another area and say ‘and to you who live in Corinth, but are actually members of the church at Ephesus, because you have chosen to have membership there’ You were part of the church at Corinth by virtue of the fact that you lived in Corinth and were a believer. You didn’t have the idea of joining a separate entity [group] like the ‘Elks’ lodge or something of this nature. We have developed a way of seeing church that seems to tell believers you must join a specific ‘church’ in your city, out of the 100’s of ‘churches’ that exist there. While it is fine to ‘go to a church on Sunday’ we must not see them as actual ‘local churches’ in and of themselves, this cause’s a division to the Body of Christ that is not seen in scripture.

(414)Let’s talk about divine healing. Over the years I have heard different ‘angles’ on this. I absolutely believe God can and does heal. If you do an in depth study of scripture there is no question about it. ‘He is the God who healeth thee’. The problem, like anything else, is we have a tendency to go to ‘extreme views’ on this. Recently in some of the movements I have been studying I have seen the idea surface that ‘if you did not act by faith in the healing, it’s your fault’. These sincere people get to the point where they teach if someone is in a wheel chair, and you say to them ‘arise and walk’ and if they don’t do it, they didn’t obey [act upon the word] and it’s their fault. Surely it can’t be Gods? Well you then develop a healing theology of condemnation. You begin teaching ‘if you are not healed you have done something wrong’. All redemptive purposes are in Gods plan. The most obvious one is to redeem man from actual death. 'O death where is your victory’. Jesus is the resurrection and the life right now. He said this to Lazarus sisters. ‘This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God’. It was not Gods will to heal him during these 3 days. In Gods sovereign plan he chose to allow death to happen so he would be glorified in raising him. So even though healing and the defeat of death are parts of God purpose in redemption, we do not understand why all of the aspects of it are not fully revealed now. We should not develop a teaching that says to the person in the wheel chair ‘if you don’t ‘get up’ when I say ‘get up’ then you didn’t obey the word!’ This has been done more times than you know, in various scenarios. I have used the comparison that if it’s always something the person is doing wrong, then what about raising the dead? Jesus taught healing in the great commission just like raising the dead. He said those who believe would even raise the dead. Raising the dead has happened and does actually happen. Why don’t we go and raise all the dead all the time? I actually heard a brother on the radio who was defending the teaching that every time someone isn’t healed there’s something wrong. And he defended the idea that the person being healed is not believing right or else they would be healed. He then gave an example on ‘well why then are not all people raised from the dead?’ He actually taught an experience he, or someone else had, where the Lord showed them that when a dead person is told ‘rise from the dead’ that the spirit of the person hears it, and if they don’t ‘obey’ well there you have it. As you can see, when preachers want to be extreme, they are like kids. They will come up with the most elaborate schemes to make themselves right. Lets just say all of Gods purposes are not fully revealed yet. Even the promise of ‘never dieing’ does not mean we will ‘never die’. It just means that we will win at the end. I believe God is the healer; all of our doctrines and teachings are for the benefit of man. If you turn them into something that condemns man, then you have defeated the main purpose of God. Like what the Pharisees did with the Sabbath. Jesus said the Sabbath was given for man, not man for the Sabbath. We worship our doctrines and put them on pedestals and we make man fit into them. If we can’t find a satisfactory explanation, we then make it mans fault, surely it couldn’t be Gods?

(415)Being I just discussed healing, lets talk about the ‘baptism of the Spirit’. When attending a Baptist church they taught the Baptism of the Spirit occurred at the new birth. When you are born again you ‘got it’. Every believer most certainly has the Holy Spirit. The Assembly of God friends taught ‘you got saved, but you didn’t get the Baptism until a separate experience’. This too can be found in scripture. If you look at the book of acts [which I haven’t read in years!] you see in chapter 10 the Gentile converts. The fact is ‘they got it all at the same time’. Sorry to my Pentecostal friends. But you can look at Acts 19 and see Paul saying ‘have you received the Holy Spirit since you believed’ to some disciples. They tell Paul ‘we haven’t even heard of the Spirit’. Now I do want to stress that many Pentecostals do read this to show its possible to believe and ‘not have the Spirit’. Actually if you read this passage you will see that they were ‘baptized with Johns baptism’ they were only disciples in as much as they received the initial message of repentance that John the Baptist preached. Paul tells them ‘he preached about someone who was to come later [not the Spirit, but Jesus!] and then after they heard this’ [not the message of the baptism of the Spirit, but the gospel] then they were baptized and Paul laid hands on them and they prophesied and spoke in tongues. The point is these believers were not believing in Christ yet. They didn’t hear the ‘rest of the story’ until Paul preached it. I am not siding today with either side. I am showing that the book of Acts is ‘Gods diary’ if you will, it is a compilation of the ‘experiences of God with men’. It certainly is doctrinally sound, don’t get me wrong. But it shows Gods primary purpose of redemption and how he is sovereign. If he chooses to ‘give it all at once’ in chapter 10. Or to ‘give it thru the laying on of hands’ in chapter 19. He has the right to do whatever he wants. He is God! It is perfectly biblical to have both ways of operation in existence. It’s possible that the Pentecostals are right and the Baptists! You mean God actually might have been experienced in different ways by different groups? Yes! Scripture shows that this is possible. Now I want to make my self clear. I believe in the gifts and operations of the Spirit. You can actually develop a doctrine of ‘multiple baptisms’, times where the Spirit shook and ‘baptized’ groups on more than one occasion. God is God, be open to his reality. Don’t take one part of a chapter and try to make it fit for everyone. Both sides are guilty of this. The Spirit of God is alive and active. John the Baptist was filled with the Spirit from his mother’s womb! You mean before he got saved? Now go and rack your brains on this one.

(416)There were a couple of things I felt like sharing, but I was waiting until I cover the book of Hebrews. I hope to overview it on this blog. But I just had a prophetic dream and it dealt with sharing it. The dream was I was on a roof with a friend of mine from the Fire Dept. This friend has learned stuff from me over the years. He wouldn’t be what you would call ‘a real active Christian’. Just a friend who has been kind of interested in all the stuff I do. Well while we were on the roof [sort of like a roof you might be on to ventilate during a fire] there was an authority figure [a military guard] that was keeping him on the roof. Not like he was breaking the law or being in a judgment type situation. Just the sense that the ‘authority’ figure was not permitting him to leave this post yet. I shared a few things and repelled down with a rope. I then was teaching some stuff [the stuff I was going to wait till I got to Hebrews to share] to one of the younger firefighters. He was sort of a rookie and was just beginning to learn some stuff. He had to go and I was not able to finish the teaching. I told my friend [who was now on the ground] to finish teaching him. He was not the type of person who would normally share his faith. But he knew exactly what I was teaching the other guy, and sort of said ‘yea, I’ll tell him John. I know what you mean’. Well let me share the stuff and maybe get back to the dream. The other day I spoke on the concept of ‘Sunday church’ and how we get this from Paul telling the Corinthians ‘upon the 1st day of the week take up a collection’ [1st Cor. 16] The early church began to practice meeting on the first day [as well as every day!] in memory of the resurrection of Jesus. Nothing wrong about this. As the church ‘lost’ her family/community mindset and digressed into a ‘Sunday church building’ mindset, it just became natural to develop ‘Sunday as the New Covenant’ Sabbath. This is not a biblical doctrine. There is no ‘New Testament Sabbath’ in this way. Now there is tremendous truth to what God wants to teach believers thru the Sabbath, but when we simply teach that God changed one religious day to another [Saturday to Sunday] we lose the truth. The mature believer does not ‘hold’ one day above another. It’s fine to ‘go to church on Sunday’ but to see Sunday as the old covenant Sabbath, and all the blue laws and stuff associated with it, is to not ‘see’ the truth behind the shadow. All people who are in Christ, who are new covenant believers have entered into a ‘place of rest’ where they have ceased from their own works [efforts to make themselves righteous before God]. This ‘place’ is the ‘Sabbath’ rest of God. It is not a day, or a mode of religious worship. It is an eternal ‘age’ of rest that comes to all those who are in Grace. Now Paul actually teaches this in Hebrews. I can’t do it now, but scroll down to the tape/book catalog on this site and read the descriptions on Hebrews. I cover some of it in there. Paul teaches that God created all things in 6 days, and rested on the 7th. He tells the 1st century Jewish community ‘you must cease from your own works too [the law, and trying to please God legalistically] and come by faith to the Cross’ Paul teaches it in a way where he says ‘if God rested on the Sabbath, so you must enter into this rest’. He does do a lot of spiritualizing of scripture. But it must be right, it is inspired! So basically the ‘Sabbath rest’ is entering into the New Covenant. The ‘age of Grace’. But as the church lost the family mindset, it just became easy to teach that Sunday is now the new day for religious things, as opposed to Saturday. You then have all the 7th day groups [7th day Adventists and others- there are whole regions in this country where the Baptists are 7th day Baptists. They hold to Baptist belief in every area, but they believe the same way the 7th day Adventists believe. That the Catholics changed the ‘Sabbath’ to Sunday, and that in so many words this is the ‘mark of the beast’] using scripture to prove that Saturday is the Sabbath and not Sunday. Now Saturday has always been the Sabbath Day. This has not changed [It’s just that in Christ the law has been fulfilled and we are not under any legal requirements in this way. We are in grace and not under law]. The issue isn’t ‘what day is church day’, the issue is once you enter into Gods grace and rest [the Sabbath] you are fulfilling the Sabbath by resting in him. In essence you have found Gods rest. This isn’t saying ‘church day’ is Saturday, or Sunday. ‘Church’ day was every day in the 1st century church. But you see how easy it is when you function out of the ‘going to church on what day’ paradigm, it becomes natural to go thru the bible and try to find ‘the right church day’. We do this with the tithe and all sorts of stuff. Well in the dream I felt like the Lord was saying that many of my friends over the years, even the ones that usually don’t view themselves as ‘preachers’ are going to be used to pass along some of these truths that they have learned from me. The ‘authority figure’ was simply God saying to these friends ‘you are to remain here [at the fire dept?] after John leaves and you are going to be responsible to pass along these things’. I also felt like some of my buddies at the dept have felt like the lord wanted to use them in a greater way, but maybe they felt constrained to be working there. To these friends, let the Lord use you by doing the things you have seen me do in ministry over the years. Use this blog. I share some stuff on the Kingsville fire dept. this will give a sense of purpose for the guys who feel ‘stuck’ at a menial job. The older brothers can use this blog and any other tools to pass stuff along to the new guys. In essence you haven’t missed your chance to have an impact in the Kingdom, maybe the Lord left you there by Divine appointment! NOTE; The 7th day brothers will make some arguments like ‘as believers we keep all the commandments, why not Saturday?’ They also point to the fact that one of the Catholic fathers actually taught that the proof that the Catholic Church has the authority to change ‘laws’ and establish new ‘commands’ was the fact that they changed the Sabbath from Saturday to Sunday. This is a true argument that a Catholic scholar has made. So this re enforces in the mind of the 7th day brothers that they must be right. Look at all this proof! Well to be honest, if the issue was ‘what day is church day’ as far as what day has God ordained as ‘the special day’ I think the 7th day guys would win. But I believe the truth on this is in the new covenant there is no ‘special day’ because ‘church’ isn’t a ritual at all. Paul actually told the Colossians that the Sabbath day[s] were shadows of truths that were seen fully in Christ. Sort of like what I just told you. The 7th day brothers say Paul was talking about ‘days’ not ‘day’. The point is when you are resting in Christ you don’t kill, steal, and all the other stuff mentioned in the commandments. Well what about the Sabbath? If Christians are ‘keeping’ all 9 commandments, how do you justify not keeping this one? We are keeping it! When you are in Christ you have ceased from all the religious works of the law and are being made righteous by faith. You are keeping the Sabbath like all the other laws. It is a natural outgrowth of your new nature In Christ. It is not ‘going to church on Sabbath day’ you silly Christians! It is daily walking in Gods free grace, being in right relationship with him by faith. You are in essence ‘keeping Sabbath’ because you have ceased from you own works. It is not some type of ceremonial thing you do on Saturday! NOTE: To all my radical readers [Apostles, Pastors, etc] I too believe that the kingdom involves radical continuous action. There are times where we are ‘non stop’. There are others [not like us!] who lay back and experience their Christian life by really not doing anything. They sort of justify it by ‘entering the Sabbath rest’; they think God requires no action. Let me put some perspective. When God entered into the 7th day of rest in creation, it was a time where he initiated 6 days of tremendous SELF SUSTAINING life and then allowed that creation to reproduce as he ‘sat back’ and enjoyed his heritage. So Gods ‘rest’ is not a ceasing of activity, in as much as it is a period of watching the things you ‘planted’ grow. So for you radicals, lets operate in grace and see the things we are planting ‘grow on their own’. Don’t think you need to be involved in all the ‘re producing’. Jesus said faith in the Kingdom was like planting seed and as you sleep and rise the seed is growing, but you DON’T KNOW HOW THIS IS HAPPENING. So be faithful to plant, and let God nurture and sustain and cause to grow [Paul said some plant, others water but only God can cause actual growth]. NOTE: Let me say a few things on cults. Most true Christians see the major cults as the Mormons and the Jehovah’s Witness groups. I must admit I too see them as cults. The Jehovah’s primarily because of their denial of the deity of Christ. Their bible translation purposefully misinterprets the passage in John chapter one that says ‘in the beginning was the Word and the word was with God and the word was God’ they change it to say ‘the Word was a god’ a big no no! Simply put, this puts you on the ‘cult list’. The Mormons [Latter Day Saints] are a little more difficult. Their main reason why they make the list is because of the extra biblical book [book of Mormon] as well as the unbelievable amount of extra biblical doctrine that can only fit into the characterization of ‘fantasy’. A lot of Christians do not realize the amount of truly weird stuff they teach. They teach God was like us at one time. He basically ‘evolved’ to where he is now, and we are on this journey. Eventually we will be gods populating our own universe with the many wives [therefore plural marriage was originally part of the plan, but not any more! The only ones who still embrace plural marriage are the fundamentalist Mormon groups who believe the church ‘apostatized’ when it officially rejected this doctrine]. So besides all the other historically un true stuff [the whole so called civilization that Jesus appeared to in the Americas] the group has way too much extra biblical stuff to fall into the class ‘Christian’. The one caveat is they do believe in the sacrifice of Christ for man, it’s just how do you balance that with all this other stuff? Sorry, I do call them a cult. Now, I like Mormons and Jehovah's Witness as people. I do not personally demean them! But the facts are there. What about the 7th day Adventists? Too many evangelical friends of mine have classified them as a cult too quickly. I am aware of the few strange teachings they hold to. Nothing even close to the Mormons. I am concerned about the credence they give to certain past ‘founders’ and stuff. Overall I see them as Christian, though they fall into legalism with the classic belief that they are the true church because of the 7th day observance. They say all others who ‘go to church on Sunday’ have received the mark of the beast. Basically I do have disagreements with them, but I do not see them as a ‘classical cult’ the way I see the other groups. I find it troubling that I have had evangelical friends who classified groups as ‘cults’ because they didn’t believe in the Rapture. They don’t even realize that the ‘Rapture’ is basically false! At least the way they teach it. So you can see that it is easy to label groups as ‘cults’. I don’t want to judge any of these groups, I just needed to be honest about these groups and try and share this stuff in love. I am grateful for all the Mormons and any other groups who read this site. I don’t want to lose you guys! God bless you all.

(417)Lets do one of no spiritual value. I got up the other morning and began my routine. I started with my first cup of coffee, I do drink 3 cups or so every morning. I also have a habit of losing the cup I am working on and going to start a second. You think you would need to be a little more organized to run the ministry, but I do stuff like this all the time. I was eating on the couch last night, watching TV and lost my fork! Well as I finished my first cup I started on another cup [a new cup, not just a second drink!] I then went into the living room to put the radio on the Christian channel as I get ready to go outside and pray [which I am going to do in a minute]. I then go back to the kitchen and forget where I put cup number 2. I then see a cup on the stove and realize this must be it. But it’s empty. Oh well let me get a clean one anyway. So I grab another cup from the cabinet and fill it up and put it in the microwave for a quick nuking. As it’s being warmed I think to myself, wasn’t I just doing this with another cup a minute a go [not the one on the stove]. Sure enough I look on the kitchen table and there it is! Cup number 4 is full and waiting to get nuked. O well at least it will be ready when I finish cup 3, that is if I remember where I put it.

(420)‘Avoiding extreme forms of isolation’ my background with the Fundamental Baptist church allowed me to see how pride and sectarianism affect true corporate unity. There was always a sense of mockery when it came to any type of unity. It was truly deemed ‘part of the one world church that the antichrist is setting up’. Regardless of your views on this, the simple fact is Jesus prayed in John 17 that all believers would be one. If you were to study the New Testament from Matthew to Revelation and were looking for all the times where scripture speaks of ‘one Kingdom’ and ‘unity’ you will see that Gods purpose for this ‘one Kingdom under God/Christ’ and the unity of the church would far out number the times compared to the ‘one world church’ idea. Now there are a few instances where scripture speaks of the unity of lost men and how lost man does come up with religious ways to appease his conscience [tower of Babel]. But the overall truth is God speaks of ‘one Kingdom’ in a right way many more times. So this preoccupation with these isolated Christian groups is simply a sign of extreme immaturity. I remember stopping one time at some highway shop to purchase some lawn ornaments. I talked to the brother who was selling the stuff. I noticed he was listening to cassette tapes of some Old Testament book [Leviticus?]. We fellowshipped a little while. I kind of got the sense that he was one of these brothers who will spend hours listening to bible tapes, but would never partake of anything the Lord is presently doing in the church. Many of these groups wont even study church history or any other Christian writings. This causes there to be a total lack of understanding on how Gods Kingdom has been operating for the past 2 thousand years. Jesus never intended the doctrine of the completed cannon to cause us to not partake of all the great things God has been doing in society for the past 2 thousand years. Well I felt the Lord wanted us to be challenged to come out of our religious shells. Don’t be so consumed with the ‘one world church’ that you never partake of Gods ‘one world Church’!

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