The downfall is trusting yourself

Assessing the psychological make-up of Hillary Clinton, TV psychiatrist Dr. Keith Ablow concluded that her “really big problem is that she seems unable to determine when her lies are registering with audiences as clearly untrue . . . 

"At the core, people who lie transparently do so because they lack empathy—the ability to intuit and vicariously experience what others are thinking and feeling.  Locked behind walls of narcissism or arrogance or imperiousness, consumed with the pursuit of power, they can’t tell convincing lies because they can’t truly resonate with how their words and mannerisms are being received . . .

“As a forensic psychiatrist I have seen this psychological paradigm before—in those with sociopathy.  Not infrequently, criminals attempt to hide their crimes with lies that are so obviously untrue that they leave investigators shaking their heads and chuckling. The criminals cannot tell that their lies are ineffective, because they are too insensitive to the feelings of others.”

******

China missionary R. Dawson Barlow writes in his 2004 book, The Origin of the Races, “Old age is rarely a time for a philosophical search for a living, workable faith and philosophy . . .

“Statistically a small percentage of people 35 years and older are ever brought to a decisive ‘change of mind’ that brings them to a living faith in the gospel of our great Redeemer.

“Most conversions that lead to a life of loving, faithful service to the Lord take place in the teen-years, or perhaps in the early twenties.

“By the time old age creeps up on the sons and daughters of Adam, most have hardened themselves by their cynicism and their futile outlook on the meaning of human existence and destiny.

“Unfortunately, many older people develop a superficial interest in religion merely because of their fear of death. Consequentially, they often fall into the clutches of a man-made philosophy. In Contribution to the Critique of Hegel’s Philosophy of Right, Karl Marx wrote in 1844, ‘Religion is the opiate of the people,’ and he was right.

“Hitler said it more eloquently: ‘Religion (is) the means of doping the people so as to exploit them afterward . . .’ (Hitler, by Allan Bullock, Pg. 38). An opiate-like religious philosophy seems to dissolve any anxieties that result from the reality of one’s increasingly obvious mortality.”

*****

Paul writes in II Timothy 3:15, “And that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”

“The salvation there is not salvation from hell because Timothy’s already saved,” says Jordan. “It’s salvation from the deception and the difficulties you read about in the first 14 verses of II Timothy 3. Where do you find salvation from the perilous times? Where do you find salvation from the persecution, and in the afflictions? You find it in God’s Word. That’s where the deliverance from those things resides.

*****

“If you want to profile what being a Christian really is, Romans 12 divides it up into five sections, each of which talks about a relationship you have. Life is about relationships.

“Eternal life is not just living forever because everybody’s going to live forever somewhere. In John 17, Jesus is talking to His Father and says, ‘This is eternal life.’

“I read that verse one time and said, ‘Hmm, I want to know what that is!’ The verse goes on, ‘that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.’

“Eternal life is knowing God. It’s not like, ‘Hi, how are you?’ and shake your hand. It’s to understand Him. It’s to know how He thinks.

“It’s like marriage. I know my wife different now than 40 years ago when we married. I know her more intimately, more personally, more dynamically, more thoroughly. I know what she thinks about, I know what she likes, what she doesn’t like. I know how she feels about things.

“How does God live? Who does He seek to exalt all the time? Himself? No. The Father lives to exalt His Son. He wants His Son to have the preeminence in all things. That’s what brings pleasure to the Father’s heart.

“Every member of the godhead lives to glorify the other members of the godhead. You see, the life of the godhead is spontaneously living for others, having their interests above their own.

*****

“I like this quote: ‘To engender confidence in Him and a healthy distrust of yourself is God’s ultimate reason for every experience He allows into your life.’

“That’s II Corinthians 1:8-10. You say, ‘Why does God let these things happen?’ Steve Jobs said that as a teenager he gave up on God when he saw sick and hungry children.

“Richard Dawkins, the egghead atheist of the 21st Century, says he gave up on God as a teenager because ‘a God who could let suffering exist the way it exists couldn’t be worthy of respect.’ And you say, ‘What’s the answer to that?’

“Well, you see, underlying that is a false assumption that everyone knows isn’t true--assuming that there could never be any purpose in suffering.

“If you go to the gym there’s a sign that says, ‘No Pain No Gain.’ You know that any growth that ever takes place costs something and what it costs is called suffering. The very fact of the existence of suffering is a part of the necessity of growing.

“For sure there can be purposes in suffering. There can be a redemptive purpose. But ‘the God of all comfort’ comforts us in our suffering and one of the reasons for that is so you’ll learn the only person you can really trust is Him.

“I learned a long time ago I couldn’t trust somebody like you. Why would I want to trust somebody who would lie to me? That’s me. Why would I want to trust somebody who would let me down? That’s me. And it’s you because you’re just like me.

“What I could trust is somebody who would never let me down and always tell me the truth, and that’s Jesus Christ. Didn’t take me a genius stroke of ‘Aha!’ to get that one right!

“The whole issue behind it all is so you learn to trust Him because, when you learn that He’s really all you’ve got, then He’s really all you can trust! And when He’s all you’ve got to trust, you’ll find out He’s all you really need. And when you realize He’s all you really need, you learn a healthy distrust of yourself: ‘It’s not I but Christ.’ And in that, it’s the excellency of the power of God’s Word that works in you and teaches you—and the TRUTH of it.

“Otherwise, you’re like a blind bat flying backward in a dark cave. You don’t know what the purpose of any of it is.”

Listen to what The Man said?

Proponents of “listening prayer,” gaining in popularity as a so-called acquired skill of talking to God in such a way that you can then listen for Him to talk back, use John 10:27 as their proof text. Jesus Christ says, “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.”

The first stanza of a hymn under the category “listening prayer” reads:

I see the stars that flood the skies,
A thousand at a glance,
And wonder that You guide them all
As simply as a dance.
My Father God, I know Your love
Won’t leave my life to chance.
Speak, I am listening.
Speak, I am listening.
Speak, I am listening to You.

In his book, “The Art of Listening Prayer,” author Seth Barnes writes, “I don’t know about you, but for a long time, this verse (in John 10) bothered me. I was supposed to be listening for his voice, but mostly all I heard was silence. The silence pointed to a deeper frustration. All my life I had struggled with this problem: I had accepted Jesus as my savior and was supposed to have this personal relationship with him, but it didn’t feel very personal . . .

“Maybe you are like me—you grew up having monologues with God and have never heard before that he wants to talk to you. You’ve not really learned how to hear his voice.

“I remember the first time I heard his voice. It was years later; I was desperate. I had been betrayed by someone very close to me and I needed to know that God cared. I asked him if he would share with me what he thought of me. The next thing that happened changed my life forever. God spoke inwardly to me in a way that might as well have been audible. He said, ‘Seth, I love you.’

“That did it. I was a junky, ruined for anything that smacked of a tame, compromising faith. I shared with my children what they called ‘praying the new way.’ One of them heard God say, ‘I love you more than the flowers and the trees.’ After that, we all began to grow in our ability to listen. We would ask the Lord questions, then listen, and he often spoke.”

*****

Preachers will tell you that if you want to know the will of God in your life, you must carefully scrutinize your circumstances and listen for Him to interpret the events and give you directives through an “inner spiritual voice.”

“If circumstances were the means of divine revelation, then what is the Bible? Chopped liver?!” reasons Jordan. “You say, ‘Well, the Bible’s the primary means, but . . .’ No, it’s the only means! Because anything God is communicating and revealing to you outside of the Bible is extra-biblical.”

“The mechanics of the way the Spirit of God operates today is something you can put bullet points by it’s so clearly delineated in Scripture. Plain and simple, the Spirit of God works through the Word. Paul says, ‘The words that I speak unto you they are spirit and they are life.’

“When we communicate and we’re talking, speaking to one another is a spiritual medium; it’s a communication of spiritual truth through a spiritual medium. Paul says in I Corinthians 2:9, ‘But as it is written, Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him.’

“In other words, left to yourself you’re never going to find out the things God has prepared for you. But God revealed them to you. It’s revealed truth. You’re not left in the dark. He revealed them to you through His Spirit. How did the Spirit of God reveal these things? Through His Word!”

*****

“I got a real wicked email from a person this past week, and they just went on and on and on, calling me all kinds of terrible invectives, telling me what kind of a heretic I am because I tell people (on our TV program) that the Spirit of God speaks through His Word, and that He DOES NOT speak outside of His Word; He’s NOT communicating to any of us through circumstances, inner impressions, events, physical things, etc.

“Oh, this man was just as mad as could be at me about this. He said, ‘You’re limiting God! God speaks into your heart and He doesn’t just speak with the cold letter of His Word; He talks to you and He leads you.’

“I simply wrote back, ‘This just isn’t how God says He communicates, and every contact you have with Jesus Christ outside of the Word of God is on an inner subjective level inside of you, so how do you know that communication—that feeling, that impression, that thought, that word—you get in your spirit is from the God of the Bible and not from the devil?’

“ ‘Well, I just feel’. . .  Listen, every Mormon who ever lived, the way he got converted was he got the ‘burning in the bosom’ and he feels that way. Every Muslim you know, they went and got the feeling.

“I had plenty of  feelings about God talking to me before I ever got saved. Religion does that. That’s what it’s based on! Religion is designed to satisfy the lusts of your flesh and your flesh lusts for feeling.

*****

“So how do you know that the contact you have is the God who created all things and not some evil spirit? Well, you need some objective standard outside of your own intuition to know that.

“That’s why Paul writes, ‘Which things also we speak, not in the words which man's wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual.’ (I Cor. 2:13)

“Where do you find the words that the Holy Ghost teaches? That’s what the Book is! ‘Holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.’ ‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God.’ ‘The Holy Ghost spake by the mouth of David.’ ‘The Holy Ghost spoke by the mouth of Isaiah.’ The Bible’s full of that!

“So when the Holy Spirit wants to speak, He speaks through words and those words are recorded on the pages of God’s Word. I Corinthians 2:10 says, ‘But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit: for the Spirit searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God.’

“He did it in the Book, in His words. When it says ‘for the Spirit searcheth the deep things,’ God the Holy Spirt knows the mind of the Godhead. Verse 11 says, ‘For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.’

“That’s a verse you don’t want to read over too quickly. ‘What man knoweth the things of a man.’ You have a spirit that gives you a capacity to know things beyond simply the physical world around you. You have a spirit of man within you. I’ve got the spirit of man within me.

“And when I speak words, those words come out of my mouth. They tell you what’s inside of me in my spirit. Those words are a spiritual medium of communication that go into your ear and are translated . . . somewhere in the mystery of your makeup it’s translated into words that your spirit hears. And words—the communication we engage in—is really a spiritual thing.

*****

“The reason you and I can talk is we have the spirit of a human, the spirit of man. Your dog has a spirit and a soul, they’re just not human. They’re not able to communicate on the basis that we do.

“When we talk back and forth (as Believers), there’s a spiritual ministry going. Now, when what we’re speaking is the Word of God, there’s more than a spiritual medium being transpired than when we’re just communicating human viewpoint—

we’re really communicating the things of God!

“And as a teacher teaches, if you read verse 12: ‘Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.’

“As the teaching ministry communicates godly edifying to you, there’s a spiritual ministry that’s developed inside of you, and literally you store up the capacity in your inner man and you’re built up. In Galatians 4:19, Paul talks about Christ being ‘formed in you.’ There’s a form of sound doctrine built up in your inner man.

“That’s what the ministry is designed to accomplish. Our purpose as the preachers is not simply to be here at the church and entertain you, or have a place where you can come and feel good about being there.

“Our purpose is to take some godly edification—some sound doctrine based on our identity as members of the Body of Christ in the dispensation of grace—and impart that information into your inner man so that it builds up that edifice of sound doctrine inside of you, and your frame of reference (your thinking, your conscience, your inner man, all of the processes that go on inside of you) is renewed. The shorthand terminology in Romans 12 is ‘the renewing of your mind’ that you might be ‘transformed by the spirit of God from glory to glory.’

“II Corinthians 3:18 says, ‘But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord.’

“There’s this inner-man transformation and it’s the spirit. Paul’s not talking to you about getting saved, he’s talking about the edification process.”

*****

“Paul tells us in Galatians 3:5 that when he ‘ministereth to you the Spirit, and worketh miracles among you,’ it’s by the hearing of faith and not the works of the law.

“Now the reason Paul adds that about him working miracles is because, at the time in which the Book of Galatians was written, this was the first of Paul’s epistles, and miracles were in operation at the time to confirm the message that was being preached.

“In Acts 13 and 14, you’ll see that Paul did work miracles among them. What was the reason? Romans 15:18 tells you. He writes, ‘For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed, Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.’

“That covers the territory the Galatians were in, and when he says there that he’s made the Gentiles obedient by word and deed through mighty signs, that’s what he’s talking about in Galatians 3.

“He’ asking, ‘When miracles are done in your midst, is it because of your performance or because of the activity of the Word of God?’ Now, that’s a real strong verse, by the way, for all the folks out there trying to do miracles today, because if you go to a miracle meeting today, what do they tell you? How do you get your miracle? Don’t they always tell you something to do? It’s, ‘Plant this seed faith. Give this offering.’

*****

“There’s that yo-yo down in Texas who gets up on the desk and talks so loud-- Robert Tilton. What a con artist. He had a thing a couple of years ago where he said, ‘God told me that for every $57 you send to my ministry, He’ll save one of your kinfolk. You want to get a relative saved, send us $57.’ It wasn’t long before he dropped it down to $37. You know, get them in on the wholesale plan.

“Well, that’s the idea of, ‘You perform and God will do; God will work a miracle if you do enough,’ but that isn’t how it happens. How’s it happen? The hearing of faith. You hear God’s Word, believe it, and the Word of God works. Now, the reason the miracles were being done (in the early part of Paul’s ministry) was to confirm the Word.”

(new article tomorrow)

Taking it serious, or not

According to the Wycliffe Global Alliance, there are still 1,800 languages, spoken by about 165 million people, who lack even a partial Bible translation.

In April, China banned more than 7,000 foreign nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from engaging in or funding religious activities, reports the August issue of Christianity Today magazine. “The measure could expel Christian groups that are doing medical, developmental, or educational work in the world’s largest country by population, with 1.4 billion people. China’s move is significant because of the number of people affected. But other countries have been moving in this direction for years.”

A Middle Eastern underground house church leader is quoted saying in another CT article, “Persecution is easier to understand when it’s physical: torture, death and imprisonment . . . American persecution is like an advanced stage of cancer; it eats away at you, and you cannot feel it. This is the worst kind of persecution.”

Skimming through books the other day in the “spiritual section” at Barnes & Noble, I came across the New York Times bestseller autobiography Traveling Mercies, written by ever-popular non-fiction author Anne Lamott. On one page, the San Francisco resident confessed: “I thought about my life and my brilliant, hilarious progressive friends, I thought about what everyone would think of me if I became a Christian, and it seemed an utterly impossible thing that simply could not be allowed to happen. I turned to the wall and said out loud, ‘I would rather die.’ ”

******

What I thought was a simple trip home to enjoy a long weekend celebrating Labor Day has turned into an unexpected goodbye to my hometown and to the house and neighborhood I’ve known all my life. This might be it for me and northeastern Ohio.

I was five years old when my parents sold our own house (the current one is my grandparents') in Akron and moved the family to San Jose, Costa Rica for a year of “training” to become missionaries in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador. We went to school with other missionary children from around the world as my parents attended school along with adult missionaries from all different denominations and organizations across the globe.

The other day, as I helped my mom clean out the house and pack up, she asked me if I wanted a little decorative ceramic skillet made in Norway that was a long-ago gift sent by my dad’s Norwegian relatives.

This led her to recall how the wife of a missionary couple from Norway who were friends of our family in Costa Rica made these unique little Scandinavian-style pancakes.

She mentioned the other missionary couple from Norway we knew there, telling me how the husband would complain about America and even the missionary group sponsoring him, specifically for making a currency exchange on U.S. donations rather than just allowing him to take the cash. 

She said, “I finally told your dad that I had had enough of hearing this (Norwegian) continually tear down my country and I wouldn’t be a part of it any longer. He didn’t say anything, but then how could he give me a hard time; he wouldn’t even attend the school. He'd go swimming all day at Ojo de Agua, telling me the lifeguard was teaching him Spanish."

Abel just an add-on next to brother

The same famous people who want us to believe we are evolved from apes personally believe they are “royal” descendants of Cain. “Fans” are to resign themselves to the fact that their own bloodline goes through Cain and therefore they cannot be saved and are doomed to hell.

Bruce Springsteen opines in his lullaby Adam Raised a Cain: “In the Bible Cain slew Abel
And East of Eden he was cast,
You're born into this life paying,
for the sins of somebody else's past,
Daddy worked his whole life, for nothing but the pain,
Now he walks these empty rooms, looking for something to blame,
You inherit the sins, you inherit the flames,
Adam raised a Cain.
Lost but not forgotten, from the dark heart of a dream,
Adam raised a Cain”

Bon Jovi sings in his Blaze of Glory: “When you're brought into this world
They say you're born in sin
Well at least they gave me something
I didn't have to steal or have to win
Well they tell me that I'm wanted
Yeah I'm a wanted man
I'm a colt in your stable
I'm what Cain was to Abel
Mister catch me if you can”

*****

Genesis 4 informs that “Adam knew Eve his wife; and she conceived, and bare Cain, and said, I have gotten a man from the LORD.
[2] And she again bare his brother Abel. And Abel was a keeper of sheep, but Cain was a tiller of the ground.
[3] And in process of time it came to pass, that Cain brought of the fruit of the ground an offering unto the LORD.”

Jordan explains, “Eve was trusting God’s promise, looking for the promised seed, so she names the boy Cain. The name Cain means ‘to possess; to acquire.’ He was the one she believed they were going to get it all back (i.e., the fallen creation resulting from eating of ‘the Tree’) through.

“Then she bears his brother Abel. The name Abel means vanity. He was just an add-on. He was useless, futile; he’s not going to do anything to ease their burden. All their hope was in Cain. And they signify that by the name.

“It says in verse 2 ‘Abel was a keeper of sheep.’ In the Bible, keepers of sheep are sort of not very important. You remember David was a keeper of sheep? Samuel comes to pick one of Jesse’s boys to be king. None of them qualify so he says, ‘You got anybody else?’ and they say, ‘Well, yeah, we got the kid out keeping the sheep. Somebody’ll have to send for him; it’ll take two to three days to find him because he’s out there by himself.’

“Cain was a tiller of the ground. You know what Adam did with Cain? It was, ‘Here’s my boy!’ He brought him into the family business: Adam & Son. He taught him what he knew about keeping the Garden. That’s what God gave Adam to do. Adam and Eve’s hope was in Cain: ‘Gonna be the Promised Seed!’

“When it says, ‘And in the process of time it came to pass that Cain brought the fruit,’ notice that time passes. They had some understanding. God’s Word was accessible to them. Mom and Dad talked to them. Cain knew God had created all things. Adam had actually seen God create things on the sixth day.

*****

“The family knew God had a plan and a purpose for man in the earth. They knew about the serpent; they knew he was an enemy. They knew he was a liar and they were supposed to stay away from him. They knew about sin and punishment; why they weren’t in the Garden any longer. They knew about God’s mercy and grace.

“They knew about that first sacrifice. I’m really struck by the fact Cain brought the fruit of the ground because you got to understand Cain—he’s the first Pharisee (Abel was the first prophet). Cain is Mr. Religious. Cain brings the sacrifice, the offering..

“Cain had a desire to have God’s approval. He longed for the day when God would say, ‘You’re the seed!’ He had that desire, that motivation, that fervor of religion to have God’s approval; to be the one who’s praised by God as the promised seed and magnified before all of his family as the ‘Chosen One.’

“The problem is he didn’t bring the right thing. He thought, ‘I’m gonna go and offer something to the Lord; I’m gonna make it the best it could ever be!’ And he worked and toiled and he made it the best HE could make it so that he could prove to God just how worthy he was to be the promised seed.

“Jesus said that’s where the Pharisees come from. Paul said that’s what he was—‘a Pharisee of the Pharisees.’ Paul said, ‘I had confidence in what I could do.’

“This was supposed to be Cain’s day and it didn’t work out. Cain’s best turned into rage and anger and blood lust for murder. It didn’t turn into good things. It didn’t bring peace and joy and happiness. It brought destruction to his brother and to all that followed him.

*****

“You go down through the rest of this chapter and you’ll see ‘the way of Cain.’ He develops a whole culture of people who follow him, and that generation that begins to follow him when Jesus comes along . . .

“Jesus looks at the Pharisees and He says, ‘You are of your father the devil, the lust of your fathers you will do!’ Cain bought into Satan’s lie and all the Pharisees in the ages . . . Paul says, ‘That’s where I was. I was over there trusting my works, my efforts, what I was going to accomplish, and I figured out that’s all just dung. Everything I do is just filthy rags.’

“You can translate that ‘dung-covered rags’ if you want to. You see, what’s going on in Philippians 3 is something that’s been going on all through the ages. There are just two choices and the question he asked Cain about ‘Why?’ is the question we have to answer today.

“Genesis 4 says, ‘And the LORD said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth? and why is thy countenance fallen?
[7] If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door.

“You see, he was giving Cain a hope even then. Cain wasn’t a helpless victim who was run by sin. He had the opportunity to make some choices; he could have believed God’s Word and God’s Word would have liberated him.

“Cain’s desire was to usurp God’s authority and trust his own resources. Abel had no confidence in his own ability and just believed God, trusting God’s Word and doing what it said. That’s life.”

(new article tomorrow)

Inspiration courtesy of Judas, not Jay-Z

In the Gnostic tradition, Judas is “the Enlightened enabler of Christ's secret mission.” In the Illuminati, Judas is the rebel to be revered. As Lady Gaga sings in her tune entitled Judas, “I’m just a Holy Fool, oh baby he’s so cruel But I’m still in love with Judas, baby.”

One decade ago now the National Geographic Society proudly unveiled, after 1,700 years missing, the ancient Coptic, or Egyptian Christian, manuscripts of the “Gospel of Judas.”

"This lost gospel, providing information on Judas Iscariot—considered for 20 centuries and by hundreds of millions of believers as an antichrist of the worst kind—bears witness to something completely different from what was said [about Judas] in the Bible," proclaimed a famed clergyman at the time.

In the found script, “Judas is Jesus' closest friend, someone who understands Christ's true message and is singled out for special status among Jesus' disciples,” explained National Geographic. “In the key passage Jesus tells Judas, ‘you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me.' ”

A chair of the Department of Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina was quoted by the magazine saying, "This gospel has a completely different understanding of God, the world, Christ, salvation, human existence—not to mention of Judas himself—than came to be embodied in the Christian creeds and canon."

*****

A subsequent New York Times front-page news story heralded the archaeological find (scholars knew of the existence of the 'Gospel of Judas' because of references to it in other ancient texts as early as A.D. 180), reporting:

“The discoveries of Gnostic texts have shaken up Biblical scholarship by revealing the diversity of beliefs and practices among early followers of Jesus.

". . . As the findings have trickled down to churches and universities, they have produced a new generation of Christians who now regard the Bible, not as the literal word of God, but as a product of historical and political forces that determined which texts should be included in the canon, and which edited out.

“ . . . For that reason, the discoveries have proved deeply troubling for many believers. The Gospel of Judas portrays Judas Iscariot not as a betrayer of Jesus, but as his most favored disciple and willing collaborator.”

*****

The reality is the Gnostic “Cainites” who produced the bogus Judas gospel would in no way be considered “early followers of Jesus.” Paul even warns about them in his epistles.

From the Bible, we know Judas was a half-breed Syrian Jew indirectly kin to Nimrod, a classic type of the Antichrist in the Word of God.

*****

The Illuminati’s love for raising one arm, hiding one hand, stretching out one or two fingers and giving the “Eye of Horus” (where they hide one eye, either by winking or covering it with their hand, etc.) is directly derived from the Bible’s Judas.

The name Judas Iscariot itself breaks down to mean “the man from Kerioth,” and as Jeremiah 48:24-26 reports, “And upon Kerioth, and upon Bozrah, and upon all the cities of the land of Moab, far or near.
[25] The horn of Moab is cut off, and his arm is broken, saith the LORD.
[26] Make ye him drunken: for he magnified himself against the LORD: Moab also shall wallow in his vomit, and he also shall be in derision.”

Jordan explains, “Notice there’s a man whose judgment comes at the Second Coming of Christ. If you look back at verse 15, it talks about the king whose name is the Lord of hosts. That’s Christ and he’s talking about the judgment coming, and in Moab, judgment’s going to be upon Kerioth, and upon a man who’s got a broken arm—a broken-armed man from Moab.

“Come to Zechariah 11 and watch all this stuff begin to come together:

[15] And the LORD said unto me, Take unto thee yet the instruments of a foolish shepherd.
[16] For, lo, I will raise up a shepherd in the land, which shall not visit those that be cut off, neither shall seek the young one, nor heal that that is broken, nor feed that that standeth still: but he shall eat the flesh of the fat, and tear their claws in pieces.
[17] Woe to the idol shepherd that leaveth the flock! the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye: his arm shall be clean dried up, and his right eye shall be utterly darkened.

“That word ‘idol’ there means like a statue, an icon. You know that fellow over there in Revelation 13 who sets up an image and they fall down and worship the image? That’s this guy right here!

“It says ‘the sword shall be upon his arm, and upon his right eye.’ That’s a reference to the deadly wound the Antichrist suffers in the midst of the week. Did you ever see a picture of Napoleon? He’s standing with his arm tucked into his coat like they do. People say, ‘I wonder why he did that?’ Well, I wonder why you see old Adolf and he’s walking around like that.

*****

“Then you see these pictures of baby Jesus and His finger’s out. You buy a Bible for kids and it’s got all these pictures of people who’ve got their hand out like that.

“You ever watch the pope bless somebody? It’s the same thing. That’s the sign of the papal blessing—three fingers out like that and two fingers out like that.

“And so you see the baby Jesus at Christmastime and His hand’s out like that, or His hand’s over here like this. And in Revelation 6, that Antichrist is described as an archer and he shoots that bow, and you know what the sign of an archer is?

“In a college archery class I took, the instructor would show us how to shoot and aim, and he said if you do it right—if you pull that bow out and pull it back, and you always seat that little ‘v’ in your hand right up next to your chin and then let it go—you come out like that with the sign of an archer.

“I’ll never forget him standing out there on that hill, holding those two fingers up, saying, ‘That’s the sign of an archer.’ I thought, ‘Aha!’

*****

“That Bible you’ve got in your lap, people, is the greatest scientific textbook on things you don’t understand. You see them and you say, ‘Go on, I don’t understand them,’ but it’s amazing.

“When I was a kid there was the song, ‘The one-eyed, one-armed flying purple people-eater.’ Well, there he is, right there. He’s one-eyed, one-armed and he eats people—‘he shall eat the flesh of the fat.’ He flies (Genesis 6) and he’s red, which ain’t too far from being purple.

“Go back to verse 12 of Zechariah 11 and notice why I bring that passage in. It reads, ‘And I said unto them, If ye think good, give me my price; and if not, forbear. So they weighed for my price thirty pieces of silver.’

“Where else do you read about 30 pieces of silver? Isn’t it in Matthew 26? That’s it! The next verse in Zechariah says, ‘And the LORD said unto me, Cast it unto the potter: a goodly price that I was prised at of them. And I took the thirty pieces of silver, and cast them to the potter in the house of the LORD.’

“So you’ve got a prophecy about the betrayal in verses 12-13, and there you have the 30 pieces of silver, or how much he’s going to betray Him for, and in the context, it’s the Antichrist.

*****

“In II Thessalonians 2:3 is a reference to the Antichrist. John 17:12—this is Jesus praying to God the Father about the 12 apostles—it’s Judas in the passage.

“People, Judas Iscariot in this  Bible, is associated as a type of the Antichrist and what you’re dealing with when you’re back here in Matthew 26 is a satanic operation designed to cause and bring about the destruction of the Lord Jesus Christ and the purpose and program of God Almighty.

“Matthew puts all the elements on the table for you. There’s the sovereignty of God and the foreknowledge of God: ‘I’m going to go die.’ There’s the religious plot of the religious hierarchy and then there’s the disciples just sitting around fat and happy, not knowing what’s going on.

“Then there’s that little group of people who really enter into it, and then there’s Judas and the Adversary coming in.

“In Exodus 21:32, you’ll see that 30 pieces of silver was the price that was paid for a slave when he was either killed or rendered useless. The guy that did it had to pay 30 pieces of silver to his master. So what Judas sold Christ for was just the price of a useless slave.”

*****

“In Matthew 26:21, when they’re in the Upper Room having supper, Christ says, ‘One of you fellows is going to betray me—one of you men, my friends.’ He wants the idea to sink into them.

“They say, ‘Is it me? Is it me? Could it be me?’ In other words, these fellows, all of a sudden, they’ve got a guilty conscience. All but one of them.

“In John 13:25, notice one of the disciples didn’t say, ‘Is it I?’ One of them didn’t have a guilty conscience. One of them knew it wasn’t going to be him. John doesn’t say, ‘Is it me?’ He says, ‘Lord, who is it?’ You see, John was the only one of those guys who had a clear conscience.

“In John 18:15-17, there’s old John with Jesus in the palace of the high priest while Peter’s standing outside. John stuck with Christ all the way there. In John 19, who is standing at the foot of the Cross that Jesus commits His momma to? John goes with Him all the way. John was true.

“There wasn’t but one of the apostles to whom Christ revealed who it was that would betray Him and it was John. John is a type . . . you’ll hear people say that in Revelation, John is a type of the church the Body of Christ. If he is, then the church the Body of Christ, in type, is going to have the Antichrist revealed to them and therefore they’re going to have to go through the tribulation.

“John’s a type, people, of the tribulation saints who have the Antichrist revealed to them and remain true to the Lord in the face of it.

“Now in Matthew 26, notice that while the other disciples ask, ‘Lord is it I?’ Judas says in verse 25, ‘Master, is it I?’ Judas Iscariot just could never bring himself to call Jesus Christ ‘Lord.’

“In John 13:13, Jesus says in the Upper Room to His disciples, ‘You call me Lord and Master.’ All the rest of them call him Lord, but with Judas it’s ‘Master.’ He just never could bring himself to be submissive to Christ as Lord.

“In this chapter, there are seven different times Christ tries to win Judas from doing his dastardly deed, and Judas went on in spite of all those attempts by the Savior to stop him.

“Judas went on his way and had his way in spite of the Savior’s attempts to change him. I suppose you and I will never fully understand what that means to live a godly, faithful life, as the Savior did, and then at the very end be betrayed by a trusted confidant—one that you thought enough of that you let him keep the funds for the group.

“He was someone Christ had confidence in and then to be betrayed by him. That’s a heartache that we’ll probably never fully understand, and yet it’s there.”

(new article tomorrow)

Lie: 'Hey, no need to get personal'

Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, on Fox News yesterday, specifically criticized Hillary Clinton for “impersonalizing” millions of fellow Americans by lumping them into “a basket of deplorables.”

Just two letters--i and m--tacked onto “personal.” God calls Himself "I Am" and Satan cops the title.

How many times I have heard or read about a famous unsaved person who says, “I believe in an impersonal God.” Of course, this is what the Eastern religions teach.

Merriam-Webster defines the word “impersonal” as, “Having or showing no interest in individual people or their feelings: lacking emotional warmth.”

*****

The American Heritage Dictionary defines allegory as, “A literary, dramatic, or pictorial device in which characters and events stand for abstract ideas, principles, or forces, so that the literal sense has or suggests a parallel, deeper symbolic sense.”

Bible expert R. Dawson Barlow, in his 2004 book The Origin of the Races, testifies that “after many years of studying the Holy Scriptures, I remain categorically convinced that the most effective tool of the ‘god of this age,’ the ‘prince of the power of the air’ (i.e. Satan), has had at his disposal, is the allegorical approach to the Bible.

“. . . My study of church history leads me to believe the deadliest of all the ‘cancers’ infecting the professing, apostate church of Christendom today, is this ‘Allegorical Method’ of interpretation of the scriptures.” 

*****

While people are told that (“Of course, DUH!”) Job was simply a fictional character set into a fictional situation to teach some life lessons, it’s obvious from the Bible that the Israelites once understood Job was as much a real historic figure as Adam or Noah.

In Ezekiel 14, a passage about the Day of the Lord and the judgment of Christ when He comes back to destroy His enemies and pour out His wrath, is the verse, “Though these three men, Noah, Daniel, and Job, were in it, they should deliver but their own souls by their righteousness, saith the Lord GOD.”

Jordan reasons, “If I were going to reference three men, I wouldn’t say, ‘Morris, John and Mr. Magoo,’ or, ‘Morris, John and Mickey Mouse.’ In other words, if I’m going to use two people, and if the third one isn’t a real person, there’s no reason to believe any of the people are real people, so there’s the assumption built-in of the real identity of Job. Now, I know there are a lot of people who don’t believe that.”

*****

Job is the first written book of the entire Bible and fits at the head of the five “poetry books” that deal with the heart of the believing remnant in Israel as it endures the plight of satanic captivity.

Just as the best physical description of Jesus Christ is found in the Song of Solomon (the last of the five books), the Book of Job gives the best physical description of the Antichrist.

“When you think about the fact Job was written early, that means Israel knew this information all along and could have understood some tremendous things,” says Jordan. “There are places in Moses’ writings where he’s literally using words out of Job to tell Israel what God’s going to do for them.”

*****

The author of the Book of Job is Elihu, a young man who appears at the end of the book and has kept a first-hand chronicle of all that’s been said to Job by his three friends, the “miserable comforters.”

Elihu understood that what he was writing was more than just the life story of the man Job. Job’s life and the things that were happening to Job were a parable. Job’s life paralleled something bigger.

Elihu says to Job in Job 33: “The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life. If thou canst answer me, set thy words in order before me, stand up. Behold, I am according to thy wish in God's stead: I also am formed out of the clay.”

Elihu did not have the benefit of Book of Genesis since Job was written years before, but yet he knew all about how God formed Adam out of the dust of the earth and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life to make Adam a living soul.

“When Elihu said what he said, nobody around him responded, ‘Wow, where’d you get that idea?!” because it was common knowledge in his day,’ explains Jordan. “This is not a bunch of ignorant dudes out in the backside of nowhere that don’t have any communication about what God ever did.

“The teachings have been handed down to them. Now, think about what isn’t talked about. There’s no reference to the Exodus. The Exodus is kind of a significant event in the history of the nation Israel, isn’t it? It’s the birthday of the nation.

“There’s no reference to Moses or the law of Moses that God gave. There’s no reference to the Red Sea and the passing of the deliverance of Israel across the Red Sea and the coming in of the nation. Job was undoubtedly written sometime after the Flood but before the birth of the nation Israel.”

*****

“From the beginning of the book, we know Job was an extremely prominent, powerful figure in the community in his day.

“You read in chapter 1 about the wealth he had and all the stuff, but he was not just a wealthy guy sitting off behind a fence somewhere. Job was a wealthy businessman who was involved in the government and judicial system of his community. Everybody knew who Job was and everybody loved him.

“He says, ‘When I went down to the courthouse to work, the young men saw me and hid themselves. The aged men rose and stood up.’ They’re honoring him. The young guys quit playing and got out of the way and the elders respected him—he was an honorable, respectable man.

“Further in Job 29, it says the ‘princes refrained talking, and laid their hand on their mouth’ and ‘the nobles held their peace, and their tongue cleaved to the roof of their mouth.’ That’s saying, ‘When E.F. Hutton speaks, everybody listens.’

“Job continues, ‘I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem.
[15] I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame.
[16] I was a father to the poor: and the cause which I knew not I searched out.
[17] And I brake the jaws of the wicked, and plucked the spoil out of his teeth.’

“He says, ‘When I see a wicked man going over and devouring somebody, I want to sock him right in the chops and bust the teeth out of his mouth.’ He’s upholding justice.

“Job goes on yet, ‘Unto me men gave ear, and waited, and kept silence at my counsel.
[22] After my words they spake not again; and my speech dropped upon them.
[23] And they waited for me as for the rain; and they opened their mouth wide as for the latter rain.
[24] If I laughed on them, they believed it not; and the light of my countenance they cast not down.
[25] I chose out their way, and sat chief, and dwelt as a king in the army, as one that comforteth the mourners.’

“He’s saying, ‘They just couldn’t get enough of me.’ You ever see somebody out in the rain try to get water like that? You get thirsty.

“He’s saying, ‘When I talked, people were so hungry to hear what I had to say it was just like that. If I laughed on them they believed it not--the light of my countenance. I dwelt as a king in the army.’

“You remember what the army of Israel said to David? They said, ‘David you can’t go, you’re the king! One of you is worth 10,000 of us! You’re too valuable.’ Job says, ‘That’s the way they looked at me.’

“And then, all of a sudden, it’s gone. And then Job’s sick, hit twice. Can you understand why he says over there, ‘I’m confused?’ . . .  This was not some isolated little fellow; a hermit off on a mountain somewhere who just got head lice and developed boils. This was the ‘big man on campus.’ ”

(new article tomorrow)