Sometimes, it is indeed personal. Sometimes, it ought to be!

Reposted from servehiminthewaiting.com

By STLloyd January 26, 2017 Jesus Christ New World Order prayer Scripture sin

When you serve the Lord, expect opposition.  Sometimes it is not in the form of conflict or disruption in your life, but rather more personal than that. Satan attacks where we are most vulnerable. Even with the armor on, God doesn’t guarantee that we will win every skirmish.  Sometimes we will get some bruises.  An oft-overlooked and rarely focused-upon portion of the Ephesians 6 “Whole Armor” passage is that relatively passive instruction that says  “that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand“.

Sensitivity to and awareness of evil around us, is an ability that God gives in varying proportions to different believers.  A profound sensitivity is a gift that few of us would choose if given our “druthers”.  As humans living in this period of human history, there is an awful lot happening in our world which is terribly grievous to our spirits.  We are not unaffected by the rising noxiousness of evil.  God equips the called, but He also requires us to bear, within His yoke, things we could not bear on our own.

It is often said among Christians “If anyone has reason to smile, it’s Christians, so don’t go around looking glum”.  While I can understand and appreciate the point being made, I usually find the person who makes that sort of proclamation one of those people who does not pay much attention to, nor involve himself in the opposition of, the evil taking place around us. Though some people do prefer a head-in-the-sand approach, that statement  is not necessarily an indictment of negligence or lack of compassion on the part of the speaker who says those things.  It simply may not be their calling.  I get that.  I just wish that the person who says those things understood that if there were not those “assigned” to concern themselves with those less pleasant things, who would be the caring voice of God to the ones who suffer under that evil?  Who would be the hand that pulled them out?  If you or  I don’t take it personal, who will?

Did you ever wonder why it was that Jesus wept over Lazarus’ death ( John 11:35)?   It was not because He was going to miss the man, He knew He was about to raise Lazarus back up.  Verse 33 says Jesus “groaned in his spirit and was  troubled”.  Jesus is a High Priest that is “touched with the feeling of our infirmities” (Hebrews 4:15).  This event took place only days before Jesus Himself would lay down His own life as a ransom to pay the sin-debt of man, and I imagine He grieved over the tragedy of sin, the curse of it which leads to death, for the unnecessary suffering which sin created and continues always to create, and for the horrible cost of it all.

I read an article today which, on top of the harsh and secret realities recently exposed behind the very people leading our government, and on top of the awareness of evil in general, really made me physically sick.  It is a story about one of the leaders, one Donna Hylton, of the recent marches of angry women in all their “pro-choice, anti-Trump and anti-hate” rage.  It is about this one woman’s criminal record, one heinous crime that flies totally in the face of the supposed “oppression” she and her “sisters” claim to loathe and speak out against and want to see come to an end.  A woman who, along with 2 other women,  bound, tortured, sodomized, and killed a man.  I thought the article was surely some sick attempt at satire.  But I checked the sources.  It’s not fictional.  This is what those “millions” of women worldwide who marched the day after Inauguration, uphold as their mentor. Along with the likes of Madonna, and Ashley “I am a naaaasty woman” Judd.

When the Bible talks about homosexuality as an abomination and a curse, when it addresses the fact that women partake in this sin, it uses an interesting adverb.  It says “even” their women exchanged the natural use into that which is against nature. 
This seems to indicate that there is something particularly awry when women have started to do something that men already have been known to do.  After all, women are mothers, nurturers, they have special intuition and a capacity for compassion which men can more easily suppress in themselves because of their role as warriors and as hunters/gatherers. The women who marched in those “protests”, have rejected these God-ordained qualities and differences between male and female, as God designed them.

Christians know what is sin.  The unsaved are not enlightened to the things of God, but everyone has a God-given conscience and knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong.  Those who have seared their own consciences are the ones who can participate in horrific things without the slightest qualms, and not only that, but come to love it, to have an insatiable appetite for it.  Those who “take pleasure in” their evil deeds are as guilty in God’s eyes, as the perpetrators, and there were all those women cheering this reprobate woman.
If that is not an example of  calling evil  good and good evil, putting darkness for light and light for darkness, (Isaiah :20) I can’t imagine what is.

I read about the thirteen year old girl last week who live-streamed her suicide on Facebook, and I wondered yet again how long the Lord will continue to restrain the coming judgment.  That little girl’s blood is on someone’s hands.  She was no saint, I heard her foul mouth on other of her posts, however, she stated she was being molested by her mother’s boyfriend.  Where was the mother?  Where was her actual father?  Who will and does care about these neglected children and the dying babies, and the women and children, both male and female children, who are captives in the sex trade industry?  God cares.  And I won’t apologize for caring.  I pray, and yes, I grieve.

Rapture-Ready had two posts today that particularly resonated.  One was an expose on the role Obama may have played in the change of Popes, and the role both he and the Pope have in the goal of a New World Order.  I believe the Pope is the False Prophet, and the developments will ultimately be all in God’s plan, however, we know that the way the world responded to Obama was at the very least, proof of the world’s readiness to embrace one man as their leader.  Obama  was literally worshiped.  The other post was a submission by Gene Lawley entitled “Making Sense Out of the Swirling Scenario” which was featured on several other prominent end-times websites as well.  Lawley repeated a phrase several times in this piece.  It was “sometimes things are not as they appear to be”.  And I think that is the word for this hour.  Deception, mind-games, sleight-of-hand, bait-and-switch, you name it, we are in the thick of it.

Wearing the armor is crucial, but remember, in the end, sometimes all God expects is for us to stand our ground as Christians, remain standing, and “Fear ye not, stand still, and see the salvation of the LORD, which he will shew to you to day”. There are 279  different accounts of  the Lord delivering His own from the hand of the enemy in the Bible that use those very words. That is not to say we are idle.  It’s not to say we don’t continue to fight the good fight, but  Hope deferred makes the heart sick (Proverbs 13:12a).

We want Him to wait a little longer, as Lawley mentions the words to an old song, “for our loved ones to come in”, but our hearts long to leave the pain and sorrow, the sin and filth, of this world.  It feels hard to breathe this air.  We stand. We are weak but He is strong.  No one is more  grieved by these things than Jesus.  To Him, you better believe it’s personal.

The Three Major Sins - Pr. Charles Lawson

The Hal Lindsey Report 04-10-2016

Watch video!

The Myth that Religion is the #1 Cause of War

Reblogged from carm.org

by Robin Schumacher
edited by Matt Slick

Atheists and secular humanists consistently make the claim that religion is the #1 cause of violence and war throughout the history of mankind. One of hatetheism's key cheerleaders, Sam Harris, says in his book The End of Faith that faith and religion are “the most prolific source of violence in our history.”1

While there’s no denying that campaigns such as the Crusades and the Thirty Years’ War foundationally rested on religious ideology, it is simply incorrect to assert that religion has been the primary cause of war. Moreover, although there’s also no disagreement that radical Islam was the spirit behind 9/11, it is a fallacy to say that all faiths contribute equally where religiously-motivated violence and warfare are concerned.

An interesting source of truth on the matter is Philip and Axelrod’s three-volume Encyclopedia of Wars, which chronicles some 1,763 wars that have been waged over the course of human history. Of those wars, the authors categorize 123 as being religious in nature,2 which is an astonishingly low 6.98% of all wars. However, when one subtracts out those waged in the name of Islam (66), the percentage is cut by more than half to 3.23%.

That means that all faiths combined – minus Islam – have caused less than 4% of all of humanity’s wars and violent conflicts. Further, they played no motivating role in the major wars that have resulted in the most loss of life.  

Kind of puts a serious dent into Harris’ argument, doesn’t it?
The truth is, non-religious motivations and naturalistic philosophies bear the blame for nearly all of humankind’s wars. Lives lost during religious conflict pales in comparison to those experienced during the regimes who wanted nothing to do with the idea of God – something showcased in R. J. Rummel’s work Lethal Politics and Death by Government:

Non-Religious Dictator Lives Lost

• Joseph Stalin - 42,672,000
• Mao Zedong - 37,828,000
• Adolf Hitler - 20,946,000
• Chiang Kai-shek - 10,214,000
• Vladimir Lenin - 4,017,000
• Hideki Tojo - 3,990,000
• Pol Pot - 2,397,0003

Rummel says: “Almost 170 million men, women and children have been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, bombed or killed in any other of a myriad of ways governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people. It is though our species has been devastated by a modern Black Plague. And indeed it has, but a plague of Power, not germs.”4

The historical evidence is quite clear: Religion is not the #1 cause of war.
If religion can’t be blamed for most wars and violence, then what is the primary cause? The same thing that triggers all crime, cruelty, loss of life, and other such things. Jesus provides the answer very clearly: “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed the evil thoughts, fornications, thefts, murders, adulteries, deeds of coveting and wickedness, as well as deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride and foolishness. All these evil things proceed from within and defile the man” (Mark 7:21–23).

James (naturally) agrees with Christ when he says: “What is the source of quarrels and conflicts among you? Is not the source your pleasures that wage war in your members? You lust and do not have; so you commit murder. You are envious and cannot obtain; so you fight and quarrel” (James 4:1–2).

In the end, the evidence shows that the atheists are quite wrong about the wars they claim to so desperately despise. Sin is the #1 cause of war and violence, not religion, and certainly not Christianity.
           _____________________________________________________________

• 1. http://books.google.com/books?id=XP_86itwp2IC&pg=PA27&lpg=PA27&dq=sam+harris+%22the+most+prolific+source+of+violence+in+our+history%22&source=bl&ots=sdpOO04g1D&sig=asL3JyvcaRp9zWRI9a4oVyoPU2E&hl=en&sa=X&ei=d9CKT92fGYqogweQgsXfCQ&ved=0CFgQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q&f=false
• 2. http://books.google.com/books?id=sF8wv_Y54j8C&pg=PA104&lpg=PA104&dq=encyclopedia+of+wars+%22Almohad+conquest+of+Muslim+Spain%22&source=bl&ots=VBRkLHXHj3&sig=XLT88ICr2Lu98L1_eldxRwMPgIY&hl=en&sa=X&ei=SdKKT4jLHIr1gAf8vNjiCQ&ved=0CCIQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=encyclopedia%20of%20wars%20%22Almohad%20conquest%20of%20Muslim%20Spain%22&f=false
• 3. http://books.google.com/books?id=sK5CJFpb2DAC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=stalin+42,672,000&source=bl&ots=Tw7FJG9OnR&sig=aSUiodXqC4euU2UTyVNlnFkwyRE&hl=en&sa=X&ei=fc2KT7rnNcipgwe9tL3mCQ&ved=0CFMQ6AEwBw#v=onepage&q=stalin%2042%2C672%2C000&f=false and http://books.google.com/books?id=mbnLn6A3q-4C&pg=PA178&lpg=PA178&dq=Zedong+37,828,000&source=bl&ots=-VlfCns1xy&sig=2TrcOYMxZTjr653ULLdNkIkltwU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2c6KT-G7BYGXgwf63-3kCQ&ved=0CEsQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=Zedong%2037%2C828%2C000&f=false
• 4. http://books.google.com/books?id=N1j1QdPMockC&printsec=frontcover&dq=death+by+government&hl=en&sa=X&ei=WcyKT5TBDITiggfdpO28BQ&ved=0CDgQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=Almost%20170%20million%20men&f=false

Question: "What is the Christian view of suicide? What does the Bible say about suicide?"

Reblogged from gotquestions.org
 
Answer: The Bible mentions six specific people who committed suicide: Abimelech (Judges 9:54), Saul (1 Samuel 31:4), Saul’s armor-bearer (1 Samuel 31:4–6), Ahithophel (2 Samuel 17:23), Zimri (1 Kings 16:18), and Judas (Matthew 27:5). Five of these men were noted for their wickedness (the exception is Saul’s armor-bearer—nothing is said of his character). Some consider Samson’s death an instance of suicide, because he knew his actions would lead to his death (Judges 16:26–31), but Samson’s goal was to kill Philistines, not himself.

The Bible views suicide as equal to murder, which is what it is—self-murder. God is the only one who is to decide when and how a person should die. We should say with the psalmist, “My times are in your hands” (Psalm 31:15).

God is the giver of life. He gives, and He takes away (Job 1:21). Suicide, the taking of one’s own life, is ungodly because it rejects God’s gift of life. No man or woman should presume to take God’s authority upon themselves to end his or her own life.

Some people in Scripture felt deep despair in life. Solomon, in his pursuit of pleasure, reached the point where he “hated life” (Ecclesiastes 2:17). Elijah was fearful and depressed and yearned for death (1 Kings 19:4). Jonah was so angry at God that he wished to die (Jonah 4:8). Even the apostle Paul and his missionary companions at one point “were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself” (2 Corinthians 1:8).

However, none of these men committed suicide. Solomon learned to “fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind” (Ecclesiastes 12:13). Elijah was comforted by an angel, allowed to rest, and given a new commission. Jonah received admonition and rebuke from God. Paul learned that, although the pressure he faced was beyond his ability to endure, the Lord can bear all things: “This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Corinthians 1:9).

So, according to the Bible, suicide is a sin. It is not the “greatest” sin—it is no worse than other evils, in terms of how God sees it, and it does not determine a person's eternal destiny. However, suicide definitely has a deep and lasting impact on those left behind. The painful scars left by a suicide do not heal easily. May God grant His grace to each one who is facing trials today (Psalm 67:1). And may each of us take hope in the promise, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Romans 10:13).

Recommended Resources: Life, in Spite of Me: Extraordinary Hope After a Fatal Choice by Anderson & Goyer and Logos Bible Software.

 http://www.gotquestions.org/Christian-suicide-saved.html

A Rabid Nation | Lamb & Lion Ministries

Via servehiminthewaiting.com

By STLloyd October 14, 2015 America Bible prophecy Christian News

This article and video are re-posted From Lamb & Lion Ministries and a good analogy of what we are seeing happen in America and how it feels to born-again followers of Christ to watch it take place.  Perhaps you will relate, as I did.—S.T. Lloyd  (The below article is essentially a transcript of the first half of the video.  Video 28 mins)

Is the United States Suffering from Spiritual Rabies?

[Note: Our guest author is Al Gist, the founder of Maranatha Evangelistic Ministries in Longville, Louisiana. Al is a former petroleum engineer and pastor who decided in the year 2000 to commit himself full-time to the preaching and teaching of Bible prophecy.
In July 2015, Lamb & Lion Ministries held a Bible conference with the theme Messages for a Rebellious Nation. Al was one of six outstanding speakers at the conference, and he presented a powerful message titled “A Rabid Nation.” The following is a portion of that message.]

Al Gist
I want to begin with a little story about my own personal life. When I was just a kid back in the late 1950’s, my Dad took me to see a movie called Old Yeller. It was made in 1957. I’ll never forget it, because not only was it an awesome thing for us just to get to go to the movies anyway, but this is the only time in my life that I can remember that my Dad took me to the movies. It was not something that he would normally do. He was a very stern man. But, my Dad took me to see this and so Old Yeller made a really emotional impact on my life. I guess that’s the reason why I remember it so well even to this day.

The plot of the movie goes something like this. A young boy from the 1860’s named Travis is given the responsibility by his dad of caring for his mom, his younger brother, and their ranch while his father was away on a cattle drive. During that time, a yellow mongrel dog shows up at the ranch. At first, Travis didn’t care anything for the dog. He thought of him as only a nuisance, but soon he named the dog Old Yeller and they became the best of friends. He actually saved the life of the young lad on one occasion from a bunch of wild hogs. They became very, very close to one another.

Later in the story, Old Yeller has to protect the family from a rabid wolf who makes his way onto the ranch. In that fight the dog contracts this terrible, terrible disease called rabies.
When Travis first realized that Old Yeller had gotten rabies, he was heartbroken. To protect his family, and in hopes that for some reason maybe the dog hadn’t actually gotten the disease, he locks the dog up in the corn crib. Each day he would go out and he would pet his dog and he would tell him how much he wanted to release him to go back out on the ranch.

The dog looked perfectly well. He looked fine for many days, but on that last day when Travis thought that he’d go out and release his dog, he is met with a different animal. Instead of his beloved Old Yeller, Travis finds a dog that is foaming at the mouth and growling at him.

Travis knew what he had to do. To protect his family, he had to put down Old Yeller. I can remember the scene so well as Travis is crying and he lifts the gun to shoot his beloved dog, because I was crying too. It really touched my heart.

I guess this was probably the first exposure I ever had to the disease of rabies. I didn’t really understand it when I was young. It didn’t really make sense to me. How could something so minor as a few little bites on the dog cause him to change this way and have to be put to death?

Rabies, if it’s left untreated, is a 100% fatal disease. It is most often transmitted to its human victims by a bite from a skunk, or cat, or a dog, or a fox, or raccoons. The virus is carried in the saliva of an infected animal and can get transferred to its human victim. The result is that rabies causes the person to begin to change in a very terrible way.

According to the encyclopedia, rabies is defined as:
“After a typical human infection by bite, the virus enters the peripheral nervous system. It then travels along the nerves towards the central nervous system. During this phase, the virus cannot be easily detected within the host, and vaccination may still confer cell-mediated immunity to prevent symptomatic rabies. Once the virus reaches the brain there is no treatment. As the virus progresses to the brain, the symptoms may include: slight or partial paralysis, cerebral dysfunction, anxiety, insomnia, confusion, agitation, abnormal behavior, paranoia, terror, hallucinations, progressing to delirium.”

Rabies is a horrible disease! Most people probably have seen animals that have contracted rabies. In their state of cerebral dysfunction, they stagger about foaming at the mouth, and they are confused and easily agitated. Their abnormal behavior produces a kind of paranoia of terror and hallucinations that leads them to the point ultimately of delirium.

I bring this to your attention because in my humble opinion I think that the United States has contracted spiritual rabies and that has led to our cerebral dysfunction. Our leaders, both political and religious, seem so confused that their decisions border on delirium.
Like the early phases of rabies, decades ago our nation started out as something very innocent, but our great nation contracted this terrible spiritual rabies that has now led to cerebral dysfunction. Rabies leads to behavior that is totally abnormal. If allowed to continue, it will end in delirium and, I’m afraid, of a state of death even for our nation.
It started out innocently enough with the desire to be less offensive. It’s a good thing for society to be, right? We should be less offensive to one another.

In the realm of religion, we had the Seeker-Friendly Movement in churches which started as an effort to make unchurched people feel welcome to our churches and feel less uncomfortable in the setting of a traditional church. But, it went too far! Now we have churches whose services are more like a Broadway production than a worship service. It eventually led to the Emergent Church, which is completely apostate, denying the miracles of the Bible, the divinity of Jesus Christ, and even avoiding at all cost the mention of that terrible “S” word — Sin. Our churches no longer say “Sin” lest it offend someone.
In the political realm, the government also began to encourage us as a society to change our speech so that we be less offensive. We called it being Politically Correct, or PC for short. We’ve been encouraged by our government to change our vocabulary in order to be less offensive and more politically correct.

For example, at one time it was thought that a person who was not able to walk was simply crippled. But, that seemed to describe something more harsh. So, the term “crippled” was deemed to be too degrading and it was changed to handicapped. But, this too was eventually thought to be offensive and it was changed to disabled. And then finally, they declared, “No, no! That is too harsh, so now we have to say they are ‘physically challenged'”.

With the extreme efforts these days to separate Church and State in public institutions, we had to remove all words that are of a religious nature. I read of a story from a few years ago, and you may remember seeing it in the newspapers, about a teenager in Seattle who volunteered at a local elementary school to do a community-service project in which she desired to hand out to the little children those little plastic eggs filled with jellybeans — Easter eggs. In asking the teacher for permission, the student reported and I quote, “She said that I could do it as long as I called this treat ‘spring spheres.’ I couldn’t call them  Easter eggs.” Spring spheres?! I can’t even hardly say it without spitting. It’s horrible!

I don’t want my vocabulary to be offensive, but I’m not sure I know how to talk without it being offensive. I’m not politically correct, and to be quite honest, I have no desire to be.
As a society we have changed things. We’ve changed things to the point that people are becoming paranoid about everything, just like rabies. We’ve reached the state of paranoia. It seems like everybody is offended about something these days. Everybody is angry about something.

I remember something that Jesus said, He said, “And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.” Hey, you better watch out! The PC police are watching and they are liable to betray you and turn you in!

My point is this — just like rabies, which starts out as relatively innocuous, we’ve gone to the extreme and to the point of paranoia. People don’t want to be heard in public because they are afraid that somebody will accuse them of being politically incorrect.

It seems that our national leadership, both politically and religiously, can no longer see clearly and discern the difference between reality and fantasy. They are in a hallucination state. Level-headed common sense has been replaced with hysteria and over-reaction. Now we’ve reached a point of absolute delirium and as a result our original political and religious foundations that made this country great are crumbling right before our very eyes.
It breaks my heart! I’m so sad to see the direction our country is going in.

The sin problem and the schism

Reblogged from Serve Him in the Waiting

By STLloyd December 5, 2014 Ferguson Police Brutality racism salvation
 
In my post “Conversations that need to be had“, I talked about the fact that Benjamin Watson had got it right when he said the issue in Ferguson is not a race problem but a sin problem.  There was a reader/commenter who expressed his resentment of any insinuation that as a black man anyone could tell him to act a certain way in order to ensure his safety from being targeted by police.  Granted I mentioned and linked-to two other videos wherein black men expressed opinions that blacks need to stop blaming whites, and start taking a look at themselves and behaving better, but those were not the point of my post, yet they were the only message the Christian black male commenter seemed to hear. 
Ok.  I get that this is a volatile issue and that as a white female I can’t possibly know what that feels like.  He quoted someone who had said “you have the complexion that ensures protection”.

I want to be clear, and I realize that my mind is often going in so many directions at once, and write in such a stream-of-consciousness way, that I sometimes don’t do a good job of making my point.  And of course, I write as if to those who have been with this blog all along and know a little about me, that I do care.  As I responded to his comment, I think that everything that happened in Ferguson is a tragedy.  It is a tragedy that a young black man is dead.  It is also a tragedy that a police officer who never had to fire his weapon in the line of duty before, did so and is going to live with that knowledge the rest of his life.  It is a compound tragedy that so many black business owners now have had their livelihood wiped out, and that those who participated in this travesty have made those of the Ferguson community look bad.  Especially when a lot of the looters were not locals, and there were provocateurs fanning the flames.

This writer was a nurse.  I worked in hospice.  I am no stranger to death and the signs of impending death.  America as a Constitutional Republic, is on her deathbed.  Obama and others have over-played their hand with the race card this time around.  Many more Americans are still waking up.  But those who would rather not take personal responsibility, will always eagerly and readily project that blame onto someone else.  The politicians know this, and they use it to their advantage.  With a media that is complicit, the narrative gets broadcast and incessantly reinforced.

I don’t hate black people.  There is one race.  The human race.  There are different ethnicities in each of our heritages, but we are all just people.  We all have a sinful nature, though, and that is what is at the root of all of it.

Police brutality is also a major issue.  But all of the evidence presented to the Grand Jury in Brown’s case says he was a real and immediate threat to Officer Wilson.  l of the black individuals think that this brutality is aimed only at blacks,  I can tell you that it isn’t.  It seems pretty equal-opportunity, actually.  In a world where “right and wrong” have purposely been made fuzzy and vague, I would imagine a police officer, who is supposed to enforce the law, might have a pretty high level of frustration.  The law used to mean something, and as an officer of the law, the authority of the law was behind them in their job.  These days, though, they can risk their lives to get a real bad guy off the street, only to see him released with little or no repercussions whatsoever.

Sometimes people get mad and do foolish things, and sometimes people do really stupid and foolish things because they are already angry.  I don’t doubt there are a lot of angry cops out there.  The really angry and bitter ones who see criminals get away with murder, sometimes decide, “why not me?”

I don’t doubt that a lot of the folks who took to the streets of Ferguson were angry.  But I don’t think it was about Brown.  Kind of like the “Occupy” movement.  What were the protesters protesting?  Anything and Everything, each his own thing.  Mad, and determined a whole lot of some bodies are going to know about it!

The political manipulators know this about an angry person.  They are so easily manipulated because they don’t care to exercise self-control or restraint.  They are “bloodthirsty” for chaos, mayhem, destruction, and actual blood.

That is demonic.  Demons know this about an angry person too.  And will use it.
This blog doesn’t focus only on America, and yet lately, with all that is going on, you’d think that was the focus.  I guess that is because America has always been a sort of  “world hero”, and no one enjoys watching a hero fall.  Cosby is like America’s Dad in a symbolic way, and it’s almost like watching a ritual sacrifice. Who can anyone look up to anymore?
God deals with people and He deals with nations.

If you are looking for answers and truth, to make sense of all that is happening in this world, you won’t find it in elected officials.  If you are looking for true justice, you won’t find it in courts.  If you are troubled by the direction things are going in this nation, it won’t be fixed via politics or activism, or protests.  If we could get every person in America to hold hands and come together, we still could not achieve the peace we seek.  Because of sin.
Sin is an unpopular word.  It has fallen way out of favor.  But you know what, in a world where we so value “expression” and so “struggle” to achieve it, the fact is, we can’t express anything if we don’t have some universality to the meanings of words.  We can’t have peace if we don’t have laws that say and mean exactly what they say and mean.  It’s like the Tower of Babel all over again.  Don’t you see it?

We have thrown off all restraint and denied all absolutes, and now the very building blocks of communication, civility, and an orderly society are no more.  We are tearing them down brick by brick.  We are throwing away with both hands, all the blessings God has so graciously given America.  I say we, because all of us are guilty to one degree or another,  if only in taking it all for granted.

But what is happening is not just happening to America.  There is something much bigger going on, across the entire globe. This is going somewhere.  And the one place to figure out where this world is headed, is in the Bible. Yes, that old book.  Some say it is outdated.  But those who read it know better. The explanation is all there.  People don’t reject the Bible because it is irrelevant or because it contradicts itself.  They reject it because it contradicts their behaviors and their evil hearts.  They don’t like what it says.  But no matter.  That doesn’t make it any less true.

People caught up in the welfare state, are stuck there because they choose to believe lies.  The Bible says those who love not the truth will be given over to delusion.  When you look around doesn’t it seem like a lot of people are delusional?  Starting with the man in the Oval office and the other heads of state, and right on down.

There is a split that has always existed.  Jesus said you are either reconciled to God by His blood (if you are willing) and adopted as a son into God’s family or you are “of your father the devil”.  Hal Lindsey talks about a split in his report today.  It is a split in the church, but this church he refers to is the biblical “Harlot” of Revelation.  It is the church of those who practice a form of godliness and yet deny the power thereof (of God Himself, who is able not only to kill the body but cast the soul into hell).  The world’s religions are very much in the front pages of the news these days, have you noticed?  Islam, the Pope, Jews, Satan-worshipers, Christians being tortured and killed in many places, and harassed by atheists, the gays, government officials.  Seems like in the last 20 years the few holdouts who didn’t want anything to do with spiritual things, suddenly took interest in spirituality, and started a trend (with Oprah leading the way) of cafeteria-style religion.

When you mix red and blue, you get purple. When you mix red and blue, and yellow and green and pink and brown and orange and purple, you get a murky, muddy black mess, no “color” at all.  Nothing is distinct after that.  This “universal religion” will be a mixture.  It will mix complementary beliefs, and then embrace opposing ones.  Ecumenical.
Followers of Christ know to come out of her, this harlot church.   She is doomed. She will unite the world and facilitate the rise of a world leader, who will then destroy her.  America has more churches than any other nation.  The harlot is alive and flourishing in most of them.

The wars that are “in the making” will change some dynamics.  Many of the radical Muslims will die.  Peaceful Muslims will then have no reason to fear and will go ahead in the quest to unite with other religions.

All throughout the Bible God speaks of chosen out a people, both from the Jews, and out of every kindred, tribe and nation.  Some day, true justice will be served. But when we face our Creator, we will not be there to lodge our case against others.  We will be there to be judged ourselves. On that day it will not matter how good a person you feel you are.  Because He will be the judge.   There is one defense, and one only.   The blood of infinitely sinless Jesus, shed for infinitely sinful sinners. Has that ransom been paid on you behalf by Jesus?  
Have you asked Him to save you from hell?

Call upon Him while there is still time.  Sudden destruction is going to befall this world soon. Everyone knows it.   As the lines are drawn, are you trying to figure out how to “weather it”?  Your only safety is in Jesus. He is the bridge that closes the gap between you and your Maker that is a great chasm, not just a schism.  When God withdraws His grace, and pours out His wrath, only those hidden in Christ will escape it. Lets quit pretending it is just a matter of my truth vs. your truth.  Lets stop pretending that just because we don’t like the truth sometimes, that actually nullifies it. 

Most blacks are killed by blacks.  Well guess what?  Most whites are killed by whites.    Most Muslims are killed by Muslims.  Murder is sin.  Along with lying, stealing, and adultery. The gays didn’t destroy marriage, heterosexual self-professing Christians did.   If we are going to talk about a slippery slope, then let’s go all the way back.  God gave His law to the Jews and to the Christians. Where we fail to uphold it, the unbelievers can hardly be held to account.  He gave the gospel to a small group of Jews who He chose to be the first Christians,  revealing Himself as Messiah, and extending His grace to all people. We live in that age of grace now, but it is coming quickly to an end.

'It's a darkness that claws at your sanity...'

Reblogged from Elizabeth Prata´s: the-end-time.blogspot.com

Darkness is a primal thing. No one likes it. No one seeks it. We think we have beaten our ancient fear of it, but it is only the fragile light bulb that makes us think we are less primitive than we are.

Darkness is disorienting, you cannot see the ground ahead of you nor the prey sneaking up on you. As a child, the prey is the alligator living under the bed. As an adult, the darkness is a thing to be laughed at in the light and a thing to be dreaded while in the dark.

For generations and centuries, man hated to see the sun set, having no candle to ward off the night spirits. Even with a candle or kerosene lamp, its flickering glow seemed too meager to combat the oppressive night.

Sailors for millennia will tell you that the night watch from 2-4 am is the most chilling. Terrifying is the night, especially if there is no moon and the stars are obscured. Samuel Taylor Coleridge captured this in the stanza about sailing at night in his famous Rime of the Ancient Mariner,

The Sun's rim dips; the stars rush out;

At one stride comes the dark;

With far-heard whisper, o'er the sea,

Off shot the spectre-bark.

We listened and looked sideways up!

Fear at my heart, as at a cup,

My life-blood seemed to sip!

The stars were dim, and thick the night,

The steersman's face by his lamp gleamed white;

From the sails the dew did drip—

Till clomb above the eastern bar

The hornèd Moon, with one bright star

Within the nether tip.

George Grie 'Final Frontier Voyager' Wikimedia commons

 Night sailing is vertiginous, captured here in Grie's painting. At every moment one believes the edge of the world looms and we will be pitched into a void from which there is no escape.

The River Styx is the Greek mythological river that separates the outer world from the underworld. It is a kingdom lorded over by Hades, and guarded by Cerberus the three headed dog. Charon is the ferryboatman who brings the lost souls across the river to their eternal doom. The term ‘stygian darkness’ comes from the Styx.

Here in the book Stories of the Ships, by Lewis R. Freeman, we read a description of a storm at night-

Riise3

“The ship was reeling through the blackness of the pit when I clambered to the deck after dinner, so that the driving spray and ice-needles struck the face before one saw them by even the thousandth of a second. The darkness was such as one almost never encounters ashore, and it was some time before I accustomed myself to close my eyes against the unseen missiles (when turning to windward) without deliberately telling myself to do so in advance.”

“Into the Stygian pall the vivid golden triangles from the signal searchlights on the bridge flashed like the stab of a flaming sword. One instant the darkness was almost palpable enough to lean against; the next, the silhouette of funnels and foretop pricked into life, but only to be quenched again before the eye had time to fix a single detail.”

“Darkness you could lean against” … so apt!

I was in total darkness once. I do not mean the dark night, or even the dark when sailing, though that is very dark. I mean under-the-earth kind of dark where there is no spot of light nor any particle of brightness nor any beam of luminosity…just oppressive dark. It was when we toured the Queen Copper Mine in Bisbee Arizona. The tour takes you down under the earth and as you go along, they explain about mining. When we got to the bottom, the tour guide says to turn off your headlamps, and for 5 to 8 seconds we sit in a darkness so black is it alive. It suffocates, and permeates the brain to the extent that you want to scream and scrape your way out. It is a darkness that is palpable, suffocating you with its wild dementia. It is a darkness that claws at your sanity. When the lights come back on your mind relaxes at the soothing balm that brightness brings.

In darkness such as this, your eye has no opportunity to grasp a single detail, and instead, the mind is floating as a raft upon the darkness, free-wheeling and unhinged from the anchoring light.

In this NY Times review of an art installation, Darkness Visible, and Palpable, the author wrote,

“Usually, when we see something, we see it in advance: we know we can approach it; we can assess it as we move forward. Sight helps shape our sense of the future.

Here we have a different experience of time. Sounds help us anticipate, but in this strange, darkened space, even voices seem to float, positionless, in a void. We don’t know what is about to happen; we aren’t sure where we have been; and it is a problem finding out just where we are. No wonder horror movies rely on darkness: Anything can take shape in front of our eyes, and we would hardly know it. The world becomes immaterial in one respect but all too solid with dangers in another.”

Dore's illustration in Dante's Inferno,
Gates of Hell, 'Abandon all hope, ye who enter here'

Studies have been done. Darkness does things to us. Participants in an experiment were put into a dimmed room. Their behavior became more dishonest than the participants in the well-lit room. In another study, participants were situated in a well-lit room with another person, except then they were given sunglasses. Participants wearing sunglasses acted more dishonestly than participants without.
Read more about "What darkness does to the mind" at The Atlantic.

The bible frequently uses light and dark to contrast truths. Ecclesiastes 2:14b says that the fool walks in darkness. John 12:35b says "Whoever walks in the dark does not know where they are going."

The way that darkness is used here is that movement in the absence of light could cause self-injury or harm to others. You walk slowly when it's dark, you don't run. That is because you do not know where danger is. Pulpit Commentary says, "they will drift over the fathomless unknown into infinite and endless suspense. When the Light of the world is spurned, ... humanity and the world have no goal set before them; there is no end at which they aim - no mind or will to guide the progress of mankind."

Sin is darkness. "Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them." (Ephesians 5:11)

The power of satan is darkness. (Acts 26:18)

The LORD spoke much in the Old Testament about the Day of Darkness. His judgment brings darkness.

"Woe to you who desire the day of the LORD! Why would you have the day of the LORD? It is darkness, and not light" (Amos 5:18).

"Give glory to the LORD your God before he brings the darkness, before your feet stumble on the darkening hills. You hope for light, but he will turn it to utter darkness and change it to deep gloom." (Jeremiah 13:16)

But Jesus IS THE LIGHT!!

"Again Jesus spoke to them, saying, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12)

How wonderful we can follow Him, a Light that never goes on and never dims. We will never walk in darkness if we follow Him. He knows the way, because He IS the Way!

If you do not follow Him, O, my heart aches in sadness to say, but there the person will remain in outer darkness all their lives throughout eternity. A person who dies in their sin, will remain in that clawing, palpable, screaming darkness forever- in hell.

Hell is a place of outer darkness (Matthew 22:13) where there is weeping and gnashing of teeth (Matthew 8:12).

People, the precious Light has come!

"Believe in the light while you have the light, so that you may become children of light." (John 12:36)

Sin Leaves Scars and God Loves Us Anyway

Posted on May 31, 2012 by shekinah419

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Reblogged from servehiminthewaiting.wordpress.com

There is a medical condition that causes the skin and other soft tissue to shrink and harden.  It is called Scleraderma.  Like scar tissue, the skin draws tight and thick and hard.  Sin is like that in our life.  We are born as sinners, and the longer we live, and the longer we remain subject to sin, the more damage it does in our life.

We are not only subject to our own sins, but often are victims of the sin of others.  From sexual abuse, to violence and crime, the damage accumulates.  One only has to look around at the pain and suffering and the evil in this world, to realize this is true.

But God did not intend for us to live this way.  And He did something that makes a way for us to escape the cycle of sin and damage and harm.  Jesus, God’s only son, who never sinned, came here and he lived as a fully human being, facing the same sinful temptations we do, yet He did not sin.  He then shed His blood on the cross to make atonement for all the sin of this world, so that we could be reconciled with God, whereas before, our sin created a divide between us and our Creator, Christ became a bridge by which we could again draw near to God.

When we acknowledge God, and admit to ourselves and Him, that we are lost and floundering in sin in this life, when we admit to ourselves that nothing really makes any sense unless there is Someone greater than us, Someone in charge, and we admit that we have rebelled against Him, wanting to be our own “god”; when we admit that we are sinful and evil, and come to Him humbly and ask for salvation, He doesn’t just “clean us up” or fix us.  He literally births new life in us.  “Unless a man be born again, He cannot enter the kingdom of Heaven”. When we are born again, all the past wrongs on our balance sheet, are wiped away.  Yet the consequences don’t go away with them.  There are still those scars.

David was a lowly shepherd, but He had great faith in God.  He understood that He was just a small and weak human being, and yet he also understood God is a great and mighty God.  By that faith he slayed the giant Goliath, was anointed by God’s priest Samuel, to be the King over all of Israel, and was known as “A man after God’s own heart”, and yet he sinned grievously against the Lord in polygamy, in adultery, and in murder.  And yet when God confronted him, he was humble.  He did not try to make excuses.  He confessed and repented.  You can read David’s confession and repentance in Psalm 51.

Even though he repented, there were waves and waves of consequences that continued to wash over David’s life thereafter.  When we read about David we sometimes have a hard time understanding how such an upstanding “man after God’s own heart” suddenly fell so far and so hard one day.   But the truth is, our sin is never sudden.  There is always a progression.  It generally starts with a small compromise, and goes from there. 

 As David was blessed more and more by God, he became comfortable and complacent and took for granted God’s favor.  It was the custom of his time and culture, for kingdoms to expand and alliances to be made via marriages between kingdoms.  Though polygamy was clearly forbidden by God, David went along with this worldly custom.  How often do we do that?  Because something is so “common” and no longer taboo by cultural standards, we make the mistake of thinking God has lowered His standards.  That never happens.  God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

David got into a habit of collecting wives.  It is doubtful he just walked out on that roof one day and decided he had to have Bath-Sheba.  Probably he inadvertently discovered her routine of rooftop bathing and “just so happened” to amble up to the rooftop about that time each day to indulge in a little voyeurism.  Lust took root, and having been so lavishly blessed by God, David made the grave mistake of thinking maybe he was somehow an exception to God’s rules.  Regardless, he was obviously willing to take the chance.
Lustful thoughts gave birth to sinful deeds.  As we know, David committed adultery with Bath-Sheba and then had her husband Uriah purposely sent into the heat of battle where David knew he would be killed.  A child was born out of the union, but God did not allow the child to live.

After David’s fall from grace, he was never able to discipline his own sons, knowing he himself had failed to toe the line.  As a result, his son Amnon rapes his own sister Tamar.  As David had Uriah killed, so Absalon murders Amnon.  And on and on sin’s ripples and repercussions spread.  More damage, more scars.
That is what sin does in this world.  It is viral.  It is deadly.  It causes damage, decay, and death.

We often think of God as a spoil-sport up in the sky who just doesn’t want us to have any fun.  We fail to understand that the “thou shalt not”s are for the purpose of sparing us that pain and suffering and heartache.  God is so wise and loving.  When we were kids we often didn’t understand the dangers of things we did, and were mad or disappointed when mom or dad said “no, don’t do that”.   But they knew things we didn’t know.  And so, certainly, does God.

God’s way is always the better way.  Yet so many people are not even willing to consider trying life “God’s way”.
When you get saved, you start a new life.  You are no longer in it all alone.  Being reconciled with the One who created you, now you have a Heavenly Father and in a lot of ways, “the buck no longer stops at you”.  I don’t know about you, but being the grown up, the parent, the one in charge, the one with all the responsibility, gets to be kind of heavy sometimes for me.  It is a great comfort to know that there is Someone else in charge, and over me.

The Christian life is not easy in this world.  It requires swimming against the tide, taking unpopular stands, denying the flesh.  But because God is merciful and gracious, it is so good to know that even when we mess up, and we can mess up pretty bad, God is able to work all things together for Good.  That is something we can never do.

I don’t know about you, but I am glad there is a God and I’m not him.  I know there are people in this world who want nothing more than to be “in charge”.  But when you really have those responsibilities on your shoulders you soon learn it’s not as fun as you thought it would be.  Because it means huge responsibility.  Pressure.  Demands.

At the end of the day I am happy knowing that God is over all and He is big enough and smart enough to fix what I screw up or make something good out of the worst messes I am capable of making, and believe you me, I can make some real doozies!
I thank God for His Word and the testimony of a very real man named David and that God didn’t exclude David’s failures when He wrote the Bible.

Thank You, Heavenly Father, for loving us, and for your gift of Salvation.  Thank you, Jesus, for dying for such a hopeless sinner as me.  I don’t know what You see in me that You loved me that much, but I thank You, Lord and I can’t help but love You for loving me that much.
God you are an awesome Father.  Praise the name of Jesus!

Homosexuality is sin and those who practice it want you and me to stop saying so.

Posted on July 31, 2012 by shekinah419

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Reblogged from  servehiminthewaiting.wordpress.com

“For those of you who want only to be at peace with
everyone I have a special word for you. These folks who promote homosexuality
will not simply allow you to remain on the sidelines as they permeate the land
with their filth. If you are not with them then you are a target” – Ron Graham  “Them that Defile Themselves”

Frankly this is not a post about the rightness or the wrongness of homosexuality, but rather about our duty as self-professed followers of Christ and believers of His Word, to align ourselves with God’s position on the matter.  (And to do so based not on personal feeling or preference, but upon the immutable truth of God’s law).  You see, Gay Pride parades are not really so much about sodomites asserting  their right to sin, as they are about daring anyone to do or say anything  about it.  The dare is not really aimed at Christians, but at our God.  And I would even go so far as to say that the dare does not originate with the cross-dressers, transgendered, gay and lesbian folks who march in these parades (and push for “gay rights”), but originates from their god, (their father, satan–John 8:44)

Just as Solomon said, “there is nothing new under the sun”, every society that eventually embraced homosexuality did so only as an end-stage progression of their rebellion against God, with the extreme end of which being their decline and ultimate demise following relatively close upon the heels of that choice.

I wrote a post recently in which I stated that there was still hope for America, but do not misunderstandme on that.  It is not the hope for a return to our previous glory and prosperity.  There are always consequences and just like with individuals,  as a nation our sincere repentance makes provision for God to withhold his rightful wrath and condemnation, and brings us back into the sheepfold of safety, but does not erase consequences. 

 Consequences are not wrath and punishment, they come about as a natural fulfillment of immutable spiritual laws.  Just like the law of physics says if you release a rock from a 7th story roof, it will fall downward by the law of gravity, spiritual law says when we defile our bodies and veer outside God’s design for our bodies and sexuality, we suffer consequences (Romans 1:26-27) such as STD’s and  psychological and sociological consequences. 

There is hope that America can repent and experience some degree of revival thus averting some judgment and wrath.  But I’d say at this point it’s more a matter of damage control– The difference between a fiery crash-landing with mass casualties, or something less painful and traumatic.  God doesn’t say if unbelievers turn from their wicked ways and repent, He will heal their land.  He says if MY PEOPLE, which are called my MY name…. (Christian) shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways…  You know the verse, and the principle behind it.

It is time for Christians to examine their own sincerity and commitment, if not their basis for calling themselves Christian.  Salvation by grace only, through faith in Christ alone and obedience to God and His Word.  Our beliefs, our moral positions can’t be based on opinions, feelings, and certainly not political correctness.  We do not get to call ourselves saved while rejecting God’s authority over us.  

 And that is really what homosexuality, and all  willful sin, is about.  It is the human tendency to want to be the sole authority over self, and to have the freedom to dictate our own standards and moral code.  But a thing, by virtue of being what it is, cannot simultaneously be “not that thing”.  That is a convoluted way of saying “you can’t have it both ways”.  Something can’t be “true for you, but not true for me”. (Law of Non-contradiction, or in the words of Aristotle:”one cannot say of something that it is and that it is not in the same respect and at the same time”).  Nothing can be both true and “not true” at the same time. 

So look at what God says about homosexuality  Leviticus 18:22, and 20:13.   (These verses are the most clear and straightforward in the King James Bible, as is true in general, which is why I avoid other translations which often tend to soften or really outright change the meaning altogether of what God said).

As a professing Christian, there can be only ONE position;  God’s!

A double-minded man is unstable in all his ways (James 1:8).  (And comes off looking pretty foolish, take Jay Carney HERE, who knows the truth but is obligated by political correctness not to say it). 

 Even gays knew at one time that what they are doing is wrong, despite their vociferously asserting otherwise.  Then it becomes easy to lie with conviction once God gives that person over to their sinful choice.  Christians who waffle or shrink from the truth, are themselves in danger of wrath.  Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them. –Romans 1:32
Come on, people, choose ye this day whom you will serve, are you a man or woman of God, or are you a mouse?