How deep, thorough? 'Don't trust anybody'

Micah 7: [4] The best of them is as a brier: the most upright is sharper than a thorn hedge: the day of thy watchmen and thy visitation cometh; now shall be their perplexity.

He's saying, "All it's going to do is stick you and tear up your clothes." In other words, "The day of wrath is coming, the day of visitation, the day of vengeance, the day of God straightening things out is coming."

Verse 5: [5] Trust ye not in a friend, put ye not confidence in a guide: keep the doors of thy mouth from her that lieth in thy bosom.

That's how deep and how thorough the corruption is: "Don't trust anybody."

That's not a verse you want to put in your daily reading and say, "That's the verse I'm supposed to follow." That's a verse with a context but, in general, it's good advice, says Richard Jordan.

Psalm 118: [8] It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in man.

[9] It is better to trust in the LORD than to put confidence in princes.

It's always better to trust what God says instead of what men say if what men say contradicts what God says. Confidence in anyone ahead of confidence in God is a fool's errand. 

Notice another context like Micah in Jeremiah 9: [1] Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!

[2] Oh that I had in the wilderness a lodging place of wayfaring men; that I might leave my people, and go from them! for they be all adulterers, an assembly of treacherous men.
[3] And they bend their tongues like their bow for lies: but they are not valiant for the truth upon the earth; for they proceed from evil to evil, and they know not me, saith the LORD.
[4] Take ye heed every one of his neighbour, and trust ye not in any brother: for every brother will utterly supplant, and every neighbour will walk with slanders.
[5] And they will deceive every one his neighbour, and will not speak the truth: they have taught their tongue to speak lies, and weary themselves to commit iniquity.

They literally take aim at people and deliberately lie about it. That's why he says about them in Micah 7:2: [2] The good man is perished out of the earth: and there is none upright among men: they all lie in wait for blood; they hunt every man his brother with a net.

The good men have perished that everybody does evil with both hands--eagerly, earnestly. The princes, and the judges, and the great men--they all are out with both hands trying to do evil. So don't trust people.

Verse 3 says "they bend their tongues like their bow for lies." Think about that. You teach your tongue to speak lies. They literally have an education process, a training process, where they develop better ways to deceive people. You say, "Whoah."

When I was a kid coming out of high school, it was, "You gotta get your education. Education is the answer." You read passages like that and you think, "Uh . . ."

Verses 6-7: [6] Thine habitation is in the midst of deceit; through deceit they refuse to know me, saith the LORD.

[7] Therefore thus saith the LORD of hosts, Behold, I will melt them, and try them; for how shall I do for the daughter of my people?

The Lord says, "I'll melt them." You know what you melt somebody with? He's going to turn a blowtorch on them; put the fire on them.

So what's the believing remnant to do? The believer in Israel is not to trust human viewpoint, not to trust the lies of the religious system out there, not to trust the lies of the political system, the economic system. The answer's not in ANY of those things.

The answer is in verse 7: [7] Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

Go to Jeremiah 17: [5] Thus saith the LORD; Cursed be the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from the LORD.

[6] For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land and not inhabited.
[7] Blessed is the man that trusteth in the LORD, and whose hope the LORD is.
[8] For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.
[9] The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?
[10] I the LORD search the heart, I try the reins, even to give every man according to his ways, and according to the fruit of his doings.

You want the curse, that's how you get it. You want the blessing, that's how you get it. Now, that's a general truth and it's a specific truth for these people in Israel at this time. Then he says,"'I will wait for the God of my salvation."

When I read that I think, "We just read back in Micah 1:3: [3] For, behold, the LORD cometh forth out of his place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth."

So, when he says, "I'm going to wait on the Lord, the God of my salvation," it's like he's saying, "He's coming, I know He is, so I'm just going to wait on Him. I'll wait on the good ride; I won't jump on the bus right now."

Micah 7: [8] Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the LORD shall be a light unto me.

[9] I will bear the indignation of the LORD, because I have sinned against him, until he plead my cause, and execute judgment for me: he will bring me forth to the light, and I shall behold his righteousness.

"'Don't get a big head, you see me go down," talking about Israel, "because I'm going to rise." You know why? Because the Lord's going to be a light unto me, and when they sit in that darkness waiting, look at who they're waiting with. 

Verse 7: [7] Therefore I will look unto the LORD; I will wait for the God of my salvation: my God will hear me.

There's the Father, the Son and the Spirit. They've got the triune God on their side and they're just going to wait and trust Him to do what He told them He would do, and they tell their enemies, "Don't get the big head because He's going to set it right."

New, ultimate religion coming for human history

The Lord Jesus Christ didn’t wear robes or religious paraphernalia; He wore the common clothing of His day when He walked the earth. He didn’t stand out in the crowd based on the way His outfit looked or how His hair was cut.

Jesus had short-cropped black hair like any Jew in His day would have had, like anybody in the world of His day had, explains Richard Jordan. If He was sitting in this crowd tonight there wouldn’t be any way to point Him out.

You know one of the ways you know that? From the Garden of Gethsemane, the night before He was crucified when Judas was going to betray Him. How did Judas betray Him? They said, “I’ll take you out and I’ll point Him out to you.” It wasn’t, “He’s the guy wearing the funny clown outfit.”

Christ was so common, so blended into the crowd that Judas had to go over and plant a smacker on His cheek, kiss Him, before they were sure they had the right guy. He was just like everybody else.

*****

II Kings 10: [20] And Jehu said, Proclaim a solemn assembly for Baal. And they proclaimed it.
[21] And Jehu sent through all Israel: and all the worshippers of Baal came, so that there was not a man left that came not. And they came into the house of Baal; and the house of Baal was full from one end to another.
[22] And he said unto him that was over the vestry, Bring forth vestments for all the worshippers of Baal. And he brought them forth vestments.

You see how it says “and the house of Baal was full from one end to another”? They got a big church building going, and they’ve got them all inside the house of Baal where the place was full—there wasn’t an open spot to to sit anywhere. “Our attendance is up, the crowds are big, offerings are going through the roof, we got everybody going, this is exciting, look what God’s doing!” Does that sound familiar to you?

The verse says, “Bring forth vestments for all the worshippers of Baal.” Vestments are the special clothing; they were long robes. Hence, you have in today’s church vernacular the “vestibule.”

I Kings 19:18: [18] Yet I have left me seven thousand in Israel, all the knees which have not bowed unto Baal, and every mouth which hath not kissed him.

The word “Baal” means bull and when you go into the house, bowing down is real important, as well as kissing. You with me?

Hosea 13: [1] When Ephraim spake trembling, he exalted himself in Israel; but when he offended in Baal, he died.
[2] And now they sin more and more, and have made them molten images of their silver, and idols according to their own understanding, all of it the work of the craftsmen: they say of them, Let the men that sacrifice kiss the calves.

Kiss the ring, kiss the hand. This is where all that stuff in religion comes from!

*****

Lucifer’s job was to go out and lead creation in worship of Almighty God but he was lifted up by pride and decided he wanted to be like the Most High; take God’s place.

He developed him a system whereby he would have a mediator who would be worshipped and worshipping that mediator would be to worship Satan. Satan has one who will go and orchestrate the worship of his mediator, the Antichrist, and that’s the false prophet.

What you’ve got here is the functioning of the unholy trinity to counterfeit the activity of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost.

Just like the Antichrist is a counterfeit of Jesus Christ, the false prophet’s function will be to counterfeit the function and activity of the Holy Spirit, and he’s going to go out and seek to cause people to worship the beast whose deadly wound was healed.

Revelation 13: [14] And deceiveth them that dwell on the earth by the means of those miracles which he had power to do in the sight of the beast; saying to them that dwell on the earth, that they should make an image to the beast, which had the wound by a sword, and did live.

The basis of the worship of the Antichrist is going to be his miraculous resurrection. You see  there’s an absolute fascinating counterfeiting of what went on in Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and the early Acts period in our Lord’s ministry and His empowering of His disciples.

There’s this deadly wound and it’s healed and he lives from it and the false prophet takes this event of the death, and then the resurrection of the Antichrist—he takes this event in earth’s coming human history and then reduces it to a religious system and what he does is he develops a NEW religion.

Of course, there’s been a religious system in place prior to this point. In Revelation 17 there’s this woman, this religious system, clothed in scarlet and purple, that starts out back with Nimrod (Genesis 10-11) and goes all the way through human history and she rides on the back of the beast for a period of time. But what people forget is that then the beast turns around and destroys the woman and what he does is he takes all the sham, and all the various forms . . .

In the Bible, the religious system is called Baal worship and what the Antichrist does, when the middle of that week comes, he develops and sets forth, through his death and resurrection, a new, ultimate form of Baal worship and negates all that went before, destroying it, registering it null and void, setting up his OWN religion.

II Thessalonians 2: [3] Let no man deceive you by any means: for that day shall not come, except there come a falling away first, and that man of sin be revealed, the son of perdition;
[4] Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.

He’s going to do away with all of the other religions of the world “so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.”

He’s going to do away with all of the other religions of the world and establish a NEW one based solely and completely upon him.

Now, that religion is a new one and yet it’s not really new. Unfortunately, because of a lack of real right division of Scripture, most Christians, even dispensationalists, when you talk about the religion of the Antichrist, they immediately identify a church. What church is that? Rome.

Martin Luther, John Calvin, Zwingli, Bullinger, all those great reformers, they saw the church and then they saw Rome and Rome was the Antichrist and the pope, and anything associated with him, was the Antichrist.

I mean, Luther said of the pope sitting in his day, “He’s the one; he’s the Antichrist!” and of course we know better than that. They didn’t understand too much about what prophecy was about or the distinction between the Body of Christ and Israel and so forth, so there’s a lot of things that get “brought over.”

The point is when the Antichrist comes, the pope will have been involved in there, pitching with the guy, as well as the Buddhists and Muslims and all the rest, and the Antichrist’s just going to wipe the whole bunch off and set up a new one; set up his own and there will be his own church and all the world is going to hail HIM.

And this new, ultimate form—there’s a mindset in religion. The mindset goes along like, “You know, you’ve got what you’ve got and it’s an ancient idea, but we have a more recent revelation from God.” You go out and study world religions and that’s the idea.

If you go study the way they think, you see they don’t have an absolute authority—they don’t look at life the way you and I do with the Bible being the authority. They look at life where their attitude, their thinking, their education, their scholarship, their tradition, the vastness of the subject, is the authority.

Chicago’s a great center of theological discussion. One of the great centers in the world is at the University of Chicago, only challenged by Union in New York and then you have to go to Germany to find where the resident theologians of the day live.

But if you sit down and talk to these people about personal faith in the Lord Jesus Christ like you and I understand it, you begin to think, “Well, what exactly is it that you guys believe?!”

What you find out is they have a philosophical commitment to a philosophy of life and it’s different from the way you and I understand it.  The reason it’s different is the source book and the basis of authority.

We’re called “Bible thumpers,” which I don’t mind that term, and then they get way over to, “You actually believe you know where it is and what it is and you have the audacity to say you have it in your own language?!” and they just go, “Wow, you’re cuckoo!”

For most of the world it’s not a living thing inside of them; it’s a piece of paper that they read and recite and think when they did it, they did good and they can go home feeling good about themselves.

All that stuff’s going to be wiped off the scene and the false prophet is going to establish for the Antichrist, in his name, a system—he’s going to take his resurrection and use it to codify and reduce it down to a religious system and the system is going to be called Baal worship.

The majority of Protestant prophecy preachers in our day forget about Israel and identify everything as popery. The fact is that when the Antichrist establishes his church under the leadership of the false prophet, it isn’t going to be Catholicism, or Protestantism, or Islam—he’s going to wipe those off and take things from them and amalgamate them all into this new religion.

Lessons on finishing

“Always remember, our ambassadorship is INSIDE of us living out THROUGH us. It can NEVER be carried on by our outward man."--Richard Jordan

*****

I don't know why writing about my time before transferring to Ohio State seemed to go so easily and now I'm struggling with how best to continue on with my "testimony," which I see as the last component to finally finishing my book.

It's the most ironic thing, but the same journalism professors who gave me my wings for what has been a life career are the ones who helped instill in me this whole competition thing where, to this day, I'm always afraid my ability to put material together is not good enough and that I need to work hard at being informative and enlightening so as to capture my audience's attention and not have them reject/dismiss what I've written.

My worst fear is I will do my subject matter, whatever it be, a disservice by "writing it up" poorly; being too wordy and boring--going too deep in the weeds or not making it understandable enough, on and on and on.

The way I was taught journalism is you had to always have the best story, beating out the other newspapers. Your lead, or first paragraph, had to be masterful. The meat of the story (with the who, what, when, why and how) had to strategically flow from that first paragraph to give the reader an entertaining, gripping ride through your article. You were to seamlessly answer any question the reader might have without subjecting them to any clunkiness, repetitiveness, longwindedness, etc., etc.

All of this, I realize, has been what's stopped me dead in my tracks (cliches were absolutely verboten in journalism) as far as putting my book into a final form. I simply feel underqualified.

But now that I've put it out there in such a big way that I think my time on earth is short (and I don't even know if there's time still for me to have a finished product in print!!) I can't worry about the results--I just have to act before it's too late.

To be succinct about Ohio State, I feel I couldn't have received better training in the trade of journalism. My education there set me on a life path of being interested in the truth; finding it and investigating it. I will continue with this tomorrow for sure. I'm done with postponing and postponing to give myself more time to think how I should best proceed--"Enough is enough, Lisa!"

*****

Jordan says that when talking about living in the identity God gives you in Christ, “You’re talking about having a truthful, honest scriptural memory of your past as well as your future.

“Because as a Believer your past goes back to where? It no longer goes back to Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden; it now goes back to Christ and Calvary. You see that is a memory about your past. That is a way you understand your past history and the radical change that’s been in it. And that does affect the way you think about yourself in the now, doesn’t it, and what’s going to happen to you in the future?

"The biblical definition of the word 'submit' is 'to give your heart over to another person’s will.' Sub is under. You put yourself under them. You give your heart over. That’s the challenge; that’s the dare of love. It’s the dare of faith. And if you dare to do it by faith, because God said to do it, you’ve made the decision based upon the truth of what God’s Word is.

“My emotions can follow the truth, the decision, and if they don’t, I’m still doing what’s right. If I’ve allowed my emotions to look at something and say, ‘NO, I won’t follow!’ . . . if they look at your balance and it’s overdrawn, your emotions aren’t going to follow.

“And if you know what God’s Word says to do and you do it by faith and your emotions don’t follow, it’s because that bank account with your name on it is empty! If it has a balance, your emotions will look at it and say, ‘Oh, hey, there’s a guy/gal that values me; I can feel good about them!’

“But if your will says, ‘Here’s your Savior, you’re to serve Him, submit to Him,’ and your emotions look at a bank account that’s overdrawn, they say, ‘Oh no, that won’t mean me good.’ And they respond that way.

"This is terribly important for you to understand. You can’t allow the tyranny of your emotions to run your life and make decisions or you’re going to wind up in the can. You’ll wind up in error; you’ll wind up in a kind of destruction.

"It doesn’t work to let your emotions run you. That’s why some little strategies don’t work. That’s why the selfish demands, the disrespectful judgments, the angry outbursts, the independent behavior--none of it works. They’re not strategies for success; they just get you more of the same!"

Satan took the commanders first

Genesis 3: [4] And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

[5] For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.

These gods are living creatures and they know good and evil. Eve is acquainted with them because obviously if she didn't know who they were it would have been no temptation at all, explains Richard Jordan. 

She sees these angelic creatures functioning on the earth. Adam and Eve's responsibility is to win the earth back from them so she knows who they are; she knows they have knowledge.

Idols and images that are made by the heathen are made to represent these creatures in the spirit world. Psalm 96: [5] For all the gods of the nations are idols: but the LORD made the heavens.

The gods are God-made living creatures, but they inspire their followers to make representations to them. You see in I Corinthians 10:20 that in their worship service they have cups of devils and a table. They have counterfeited God's program with the nation Israel to the place where they just reproduce it, but they corrupt it.

In Job 48, the sons of god are there when God laid the foundation of the earth. When He goes through that six-day creation in Genesis 1, these angels are already there. They're shouting, being educated by what He's doing there.

Jesus told them in Matthew 25 that hell was prepared for the devil and his angels. I mean, these creatures have been around for a LONG time.

Ephesians 6: [11] Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.

[12] For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.

That "high places" there is not saying someone's the mayor or the president. They are high; they're UP there in the heavenly places. But they're 'spiritual wickedness.'

There's a real battle; a real conflict that is not visible to the flesh-and-blood realm. Only the eye of faith can see it. That battle's been there all along.

In the heavens, Satan took the commanders first and decimated the government of heaven that way. They chose him to be their god. Humanity did the same thing.

II Corinthians 4: [4] In whom the god of this world hath blinded the minds of them which believe not, lest the light of the glorious gospel of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine unto them.

That's why Satan could take Jesus up on the high mountain and show Him all the kingdoms of this world in a moment of time and say, "These are all mine, and whoever I give them to." Why? Because he stole them; he usurped them. He's taken them away.

Joel 2:11: [11] And the LORD shall utter his voice before his army: for his camp is very great: for he is strong that executeth his word: for the day of the LORD is great and very terrible; and who can abide it?

What you're reading about here in these first 11 verses is a detailed description of a supernatural army that will accompany the Lord Jesus Christ when He comes out of heaven. In Revelation 19 He comes out of heaven and the armies of heaven follow Him at the Second Advent.

Joel 2:7: [7] They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march every one on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks:

In other words, they're going to be moving straight forward and they're not going to break their ranks; it's just going to be one column of these soldiers coming and following the Lord.

[8] Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path: and when they fall upon the sword, they shall not be wounded.

When you read that you know immediately this is a supernatural army that has the capacity beyond what humans have. 

[9] They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief.

There's going to be house-to-house urban warfare; they're literally going to come back and swarm like ants over the territory as they go through it and they're going to take out everything that offends and destroy it.

[10] The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining:

We already studied that in Joel 2 about the atmospheric turbulence and so forth that surrounds this army as they come through that region.

******

Throughout the Old Testament, Israel was constantly tempted to bring physical idols into their temple, the physical house of God for expressing His truth.

All the physical starts with the spiritual; "out of the heart are the issues of life." The piano is a physical instrument with a physical piece of sheet music in front of it that the pianist plays off of, but you know really the music is a spiritual thing. It's not a physical entity. It has a spiritual origin. You can take a sledgehammer to the piano and burn up the sheet music, but you didn't destroy the music; just the physical representation.

The physical is the expression of the life and idols were an expression of a doctrine of error, of the gods.

In II Chronicles 33, Manasseh had a great daddy, Hezekiah, but he wasn't much of a son. He was 12 years old when he began to reign and he reigned 55 years in Jerusalem.

The passage says 'he did that which was evil in the sight of the LORD, like unto the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.

[3] For he built again the high places which Hezekiah his father had broken down, and he reared up altars for Baalim, and made groves, and worshipped all the host of heaven, and served them.

He goes out and reestablishes all of the false religion that his daddy had run out of Israel by taking the Word of God. Manasseh lets the darkness come back in.

Notice verse 4: [4] Also he built altars in the house of the LORD, whereof the LORD had said, In Jerusalem shall my name be for ever.

He literally brings in this Baal worship, with all these idols and idolatry, and puts an altar in the temple of the Lord for worship of all that false religion.

Verse 5: [5] And he built altars for all the host of heaven in the two courts of the house of the LORD.

All the angelic intervention, all the angelic host, all the stuff that goes all the way back to Genesis 11 when they built the Tower of Babel, where on the top they were going to reach to heaven.

Manasseh, by the way, was to the southern kingdom of Judah what Ahab was to the northern kingdom of Israel. Ahab made Baal worship the official religion of the northern kingdom. Manasseh did for 55 years the same in the southern kingdom.

His focus was so corrupt he brought it all the way into both the temple's outer and inner courts, and there he's sacrificing children to the gods, putting them through the fire. He's got all these abominations. He completely pollutes the whole thing with idolatry.

Taking on supernatural provisions

(new article tomorrow)

This issue we struggle with in life is a personal one, and it’s also a very confrontational one because it brings into accountability the fact that for most of life we aren’t very content.

For most of life, we’re much more discontent than we are content. We’re much more into the idea of gaining and getting and striving and pushing in life, rather than being just in a condition of peace, says Richard Jordan in a study of Philippians 1:

[21] For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain.
[22] But if I live in the flesh, this is the fruit of my labour: yet what I shall choose I wot not.
[23] For I am in a strait betwixt two, having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better:
[24] Nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you.
[25] And having this confidence, I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith;
[26] That your rejoicing may be more abundant in Jesus Christ for me by my coming to you again.
[27] Only let your conversation be as it becometh the gospel of Christ: that whether I come and see you, or else be absent, I may hear of your affairs, that ye stand fast in one spirit, with one mind striving together for the faith of the gospel;
[28] And in nothing terrified by your adversaries: which is to them an evident token of perdition, but to you of salvation, and that of God.
[29] For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake;
[30] Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.

Contentment is that emotional stability. Philippians is a tremendously emotional passage. There’s rejoicing, there’s peace, there’s confidence and there’s contentment. To define it scripturally, it’s not being up one minute and down another in your heart, but it’s to be able to have that stability that comes from that relaxed mental attitude—faith—of dependence on the supernatural provisions God has given you already in Christ.

It's not trying to gain your peace of mind and heart from the circumstances out there (good or bad, positive or negative) but rather it’s living from a life, and a confidence, inside. That’s where peace has to be.

The peace of God that passeth all understanding that the passage talks about is something internal. It isn’t conditioned upon what’s happening in life. It isn’t conditioned upon the circumstances you find yourself in.

It’s the capacity inside to have this relaxed mental attitude; just being able to relax in who God has made you in Christ and understand that the supernatural provisions that are yours in Him have made you capable, and able to live in whatever circumstances, in a way that is for His glory and your own good.

When life comes it will carry you up or it will carry you down in your reactions to them. It’s about letting the supernatural provisions be the things that work in you and control your life.

Paul makes it clear there are four things needed to be content. First, you need to be grateful; you need to be rejoicing. Contentment is not tied to your circumstances. That's that verse in I Thessalonians 5: [18] In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Not FOR everything, because there are all kinds of things that come in life that you can’t be grateful for in the sense that they’re wonderful, exciting things. When Paul’s in poverty, suffering need, hungry—you don’t look at an empty plate and say, “Well, bless God,” the same way you do if you’ve got a big 24-ounce porterhouse in front of you and you say, “Whew, bless God I’ve got food.”

This is not tomfoolery we’re talking about. It’s not just blind, stoic, stiff upper lip kind of stuff that says, “Whatever happens it really doesn’t matter,” so you become so emotionally detached from life that you can’t be touched with life.

That’s not the issue; it’s to be right there in it and to understand there’s some resources that allow you live in it in a different way and it starts with gratitude.

If you can’t find something in the circumstances to be grateful for, you can at least thank God that in the circumstances, you’re blessing Him. If you can’t do anything else, you can at least go back and say, “Oh, how I love Jesus.” You can sing that song:

1.  
• Oh, how I love Jesus,
  Because He first loved me!
2. It tells me of a Savior’s love,
   Who died to set me free;
   It tells me of His precious blood,
   The sinner’s perfect plea.
3. It tells me of a Father’s smile
   Beaming upon His child;
   It cheers me through this little while,
   Through desert, waste, and wild.
4. It tells me what my Father hath
   In store for every day,
   And though I tread a darksome path,
   Yields sunshine all the way.
5. It tells of One whose loving heart
   Can feel my deepest woe;
   Who in each sorrow bears a part
   That none can bear below.
6. It bids my trembling heart rejoice;
   It dries each rising tear;
   It tells me, in a “still small voice,”
   To trust and never fear.

Or you can say, "When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, Thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.

Though Satan should buffet, though trials should come,
Let this blest assurance control,
That Christ has regarded my helpless estate,
And hath shed His own blood for my soul.
My sin, oh, the bliss of this glorious thought!
My sin, not in part but the whole,
Is nailed to the cross, and I bear it no more,
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, O my soul!

You sing that song to yourself. That song, by the way was written by a man who had lost his family. You know the story. He’d lost his family in a sea voyage and he later made a voyage across the same area and the captain of the ship had made an arrangement with him that when they got to the place where his family’s ship had sunk in a storm they’d have a little memorial.

He wrote that song, having lost his wife and two daughters, to memorialize that event. “Sorrows like sea billows roll”—they literally rolled in his life. And yet he had a peace and contentment that wasn’t tied to that—it was something supernatural inside, and it started with being grateful to God for the provisions that He’s made.

Ugly times

Nursing my sore foot all day today (I have returned to work but am walking around in a boot, which is throwing off my “good foot,” as well as giving me knee pain), I thought about getting home into decent air-conditioning (they have a system compromised by a bad remodel job at my job) and having a nice meal.

Well, this WHOLE evening has been about me having the worst heartburn I’ve ever had in my life! I’m still in the throes of it and I don’t know how I can even think about lying down to go to bed.

I mean, this is THE worst EVER and all I can blame is the fact that I had Starbucks brewed coffee today and made for dinner a homemade marinade for our salmon that included garlic, teriyaki sauce and dark sesame oil. Oh, and we had leftover portions of a scalloped-potato casserole my brother made on Sunday that was loaded with fresh garlic, onion, butter and cheese.

In my absolute unreal agony, I clicked on a YouTube video by a guy who is very highly regarded in the “truth community.” I just thought I would share what he said because I’m in such incapacitation that I can’t focus on anything but these horrible waves of pain and discomfort with belching and chest heaviness.

*****

“We’re being set up BIG time in every single solitary way we possibly can. With all the time, energy and effort I’ve put into making more than 4,000 videos, not much has changed--this entire thing is still heading straight down the path that it’s heading. They’re going to get their 2030 Agenda.

“Recently, a buddy of mine sent me information from a friend of his that works at Raytheon (U.S. defense contractor), and coincidentally enough somebody I know who works at General Electric got the same thing—they’re both having an ‘All Hands’ meeting. The last time they had an ‘All Hands’ meeting (GE and Raytheon at the same time) we had lockdowns the following week. So take that for what it’s worth.

"It should be fairly obvious this is what they’re doing; they’re trying to start unbelievable chaos in the country. They have started it; it’s happening right now.

"We’ve got elected officials telling people to go out there and protest while we can show proof all day long that these people are being paid. Twelve thousand dollars to be a protester! That’s even if you don’t protest and you’re just ‘on call’! This is crazy, man. This is totally crazy.

 “. . . We’re going to lose the power (electricity). They have to do that. I don’t believe we’ll lose cell phones because there’s Starlink. You see what I mean?

“We’re already having food shortages. Whole Foods got hacked and I’m thinking to myself, ‘C’mon, man.’ Be ready for this. I can’t stress this enough. This is really going down. I don’t know what else to tell you. It’s just a matter of how far they have to push us to get this done.

“I’m not talking about things like India Air. I mean, we got our own fish to fry right now, but I do find it ‘odd’ that one person walked away. India Air exploded into a fire ball like an airplane’s known to do and one dude walked away. Yeah, I’m not buying any of it.

“They said it was ‘33 seconds of horror.’ That’s ridiculous. 33. And this guy was in seat 11.

“So, with everything that’s going on in the country right now, this is what one of our Jesuit governors’ had to say. He’s promoting violence, death.

“Their motto is ‘Ordo ab Chao.’ ‘Order from Chaos.’ I’ve been telling you this for 15 years. Florida Governor DeSantis says, ‘If they’re around your vehicle and threaten you, you have a right to flee for your safety. So you drive off and you hit one of these people, that’s their fault for impinging on you.’

“We literally have a governor in the United States of America telling citizens it’s okay to run people over. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? You know how many people are going to abuse that and it’s going to backfire and blow up in their own faces?

“And if Snopes is fact-checking it and it’s legit, you KNOW it’s part of the plan. You know it’s part of the agenda. There’s no two ways about it.

“Here’s the deal. The CIA is behind all these riots. It’s no secret. The government is run by very wealthy people and bloodlines that go back I don’t even know how long. They want a New World Order. They showed it to us at last summer’s Paris Olympics.

“They’ve showed it to us in countless videos and movies. Every place. They can’t stop showing it to us and people still don’t get it. They still don’t get it.

“They’re taking the country down and America is going to be one of their special little places, because they gave us everything we needed to defend our Constitution and we didn’t. They’ve distracted us with drugs and video games and talking heads on television and then social media.

“Social media was made to literally figure out every solitary thing you were thinking, how you would think about a particular topic and it was made to steal your time. That’s exactly what it does. Period.

“This is going to get ugly. Then, of course, we have Israel. This dude, Douglas McGregor, a retired U.S. Army colonel, sums it up nicely:

“ ‘First of all, President Trump, whether he admits to it or not, has made us a co-belligerent. He’s essentially admitted by his actions and some of his words, we were in on this from the very beginning. This is really disturbing because from this point forward I don’t think anything we say, anything this government says is going to be taken seriously by anyone in Moscow, in Beijing or Tehran, or Ankara, or anywhere else.

‘That’s the worst part because clearly he helped to lull the Iranians into a false sense of security and set them up for this disastrous attack. The other thing is short run, everybody’s running around in Israel and declaring victory. Israel’s supporters (I should say their paid agents in the U.S.) are telling everybody how happy they are, but in truth, this looks an awful lot like an Iranian Pearl Harbor to me.’

“Douglas McGregor is considered an expert on things like this, but here’s the thing he’s leaving out. He’s still part of the game (part of the club).

“Just like all of these guys are part of the game. They’re giving the public perception that Israel is now going to be smoked by Iran and all of its friends—Russia, China, etc. But they’re all in this together. This is just how you set up an absolute moral war and that’s what they’re doing.

“We’re going to have civil war, we’re going to have famine, we’re going to have pestilence, we’re going to have war from every single angle and Israel attacking Iran; all that does is open America up for attacks, or the excuse for attacks.

“We’ve got pending lockdowns, civil war and World War III all set up and ready to go. They’re making their moves. This is really, really happening. Everything we’ve ever talked about is coming to fruition right now. I don’t even know how to explain it anymore succinctly. Seriously.

“And to wrap all this up, Bilderberg is having their meetings right now.”

Blueprint for WW III?

With another Juneteenth here and gone, here's a bit of trivia from 2020: President Trump personally ordered for a statue of Confederate General Albert Pike to be put back up after protesters toppled it on June 19.

"The Albert Pike monument is the only outdoor one in Washington DC that commemorates a member of the confederacy," reported the Daily Mail at the time. "Two sources told NBC News on Wednesday that President Trump personally called Interior Sec. Bernhardt and asked the Park Service to put back up the statue of Pike, who was a senior officer of the Confederate States Army who commanded the District of Indian Territory in the Civil War."

From a PDF:

Gen. Albert Pike is the only Confederate general with a statue on federal property in Washington, DC. He was honoured, not as a commander or even as a lawyer, but as Southern regional leader of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry. The statue stands on a pedestal near the foot of Capitol Hill, between the Department of Labor building and the Municipal Building, between 3rd and 4th Streets, on D Street, NW.  

*****

From Albert Pike's letter to Giuseppe Mazzini in 1871 regarding a conspiracy involving three world wars, planned in an attempt to take over the world (Pike's letter was on display in the British Museum Library in London until 1977):

"The Third World War must be fomented by taking advantage of the differences caused by the 'agentur' of the 'Illuminati' between the political Zionists and the leaders of Islamic World. The war must be conducted in such a way that Islam (the Moslem Arabic World) and political Zionism (the State of Israel) mutually destroy each other. Meanwhile the other nations, once more divided on this issue will be constrained to fight to the point of complete physical, moral, spiritual and economical exhaustion… We shall unleash the Nihilists and the atheists, and we shall provoke a formidable social cataclysm which in all its horror will show clearly to the nations the effect of absolute atheism, origin of savagery and of the most bloody turmoil. Then everywhere, the citizens, obliged to defend themselves against the world minority of revolutionaries, will exterminate those destroyers of civilization, and the multitude, disillusioned with Christianity, whose deistic spirits will from that moment be without compass or direction, anxious for an ideal, but without knowing where to render its adoration, will receive the true light through the universal manifestation of the pure doctrine of Lucifer, brought finally out in the public view. This manifestation will result from the general reactionary movement which will follow the destruction of Christianity and atheism, both conquered and exterminated at the same time." 

*****

From an online expose: "Very few outsiders know about the intimate plans of Albert Pike and the architects of the New World Order. In the 19th Century Albert Pike (a known Satanist) established a framework for bringing about the One World Order.  Based on a vision revealed to him, Albert Pike wrote a blueprint of events that would play themselves out in the 20th century, with even more of these events yet to come.  It is this blueprint which we believe unseen leaders are following today, knowingly or not, to engineer the planned Third and Final World War."

*****

This is from a PDF I found on the internet:

Albert Pike (December 29, 1809 – April 2, 1891) was an American author, poet, orator, editor, lawyer, jurist and Confederate States Army general who served as an associate justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in exile from 1864 to 1865. He was also a 33rd-degree Freemason, Occultist, Grand Master and creator of the Southern Jurisdiction of the Masonic Scottish Rite Order of Freemasonry in the USA and a prolific Masonic writer who wrote Morals and Dogma.

Giuseppe Mazzini was an Italian revolutionary leader of the mid-1800s as well as the Director of the Illuminati.

The quote below is from famed Hollywood playwright, Myron Fagan, who in 1967 gave a talk,

"The Illuminati and the Council on Foreign Relations which exposed the Devil’s plans in America. In 1834 the Italian revolutionary leader, Guiseppe Mazzini, was selected by the Illuminati to direct their revolutionary program throughout the world. He served in that capacity until he died in 1872, but some years before he died, Mazzini had enticed an American General named Albert Pike into the Illuminati. Pike was fascinated by the idea of a one-world government and ultimately he became the head of this Luciferian conspiracy."

******

Below is an article from The Millennium Report:

"Albert Pike was born on December 29, 1809, in Boston, and was the oldest of six children born to Benjamin and Sarah Andrews Pike.  He studied at Harvard, and later served as a Brigadier-General in the Confederate Army. After the Civil War, Pike was found guilty of treason and jailed, only to be pardoned by fellow Freemason President Andrew Johnson on April 22, 1866, who met with him the next day at the White House. On June 20, 1867, Scottish Rite officials conferred upon Johnson the 4th to 32nd Freemasonry degrees, and he later went to Boston to dedicate a Masonic Temple.

"Pike was said to be a genius, able to read and write in 16 different languages, although I cannot find a record anywhere of what those languages were.  In addition, he is widely accused of plagiarism, so take with a pinch of salt.   At various stages of his life we was a poet, philosopher, frontiersman, soldier, humanitarian and philanthropist.  A 33rd degree Mason, he was one of the founding fathers, and head of the Ancient Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry, being the Grand Commander of North American Freemasonry from 1859 and retained that position until his death in 1891. In 1869, he was a top leader in the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

"Pike was said to be a Satanist, who indulged in the occult, and he apparently possessed a bracelet which he used to summon Lucifer, with whom he had constant communication.

"He was the Grand Master of a Luciferian group known as the Order of the Palladium (or Sovereign Council of Wisdom), which had been founded in Paris in 1737. Palladism had been brought to Greece from Egypt by Pythagoras in the fifth century, and it was this cult of Satan that was introduced to the inner circle of the Masonic lodges. It was aligned with the Palladium of the Templars. In 1801, Issac Long, a Jew, brought a statue of Baphomet (Satan) to Charleston, South Carolina, where he helped to establish the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite. Long apparently chose Charleston because it was geographically located on the 33rd parallel of latitude (incidentally, so is Baghdad), and this council is considered to be the Mother Supreme Council of all Masonic Lodges of the World.

"Pike was Long’s successor, and he changed the name of the Order to the New and Reformed Palladian Rite (or Reformed Palladium). The Order contained two degrees:

• Adelph (or Brother), and
• Companion of Ulysses (or Companion of Penelope).
• 
  
• Pike’s right-hand man was Phileas Walder, from Switzerland, who was a former Lutheran minister, a Masonic leader, occultist, and spiritualist. Pike also worked closely with Giusseppe Mazzini of Italy (1805-1872) who was a 33rd degree Mason, who became head of the Illuminati in 1834, and who founded the Mafia in 1860.

"Together with Mazzini, Lord Henry Palmerston of England (1784-1865, 33rd degree Mason), and Otto von Bismarck from Germany (1815-1898, 33rd degree Mason), Albert Pike intended to use the Palladian Rite to create a Satanic umbrella group that would tie all Masonic groups together.

"Albert Pike died on April 2, 1891, and was buried in Oak Hill Cemetery, although the corpse of Pike currently lies in the headquarters of the Council of the 33rd degree of the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in Washington, D.C.  (see The Deadly Deception, by Jim Shaw – former 33rd degree Mason and Past Master of all Scottish Rite bodies.)

*****

"Adam Weishaupt (1748 – 1811) formed the Order of Perfectibilists on May 1, 1776 (to this day celebrated as May Day throughout many western countries), which later became known as the Illuminati, a secret society whose name means “Enlightened Ones”.  Although the Order was founded to provide an opportunity for the free exchange of ideas, Weishaupt’s background as a Jesuit seems to have influenced the actual character of the society, such that the express aim of this Order became to abolish Christianity, and overturn all civil government.

"An Italian revolutionary leader, Giusseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), a 33rd degree Mason, was selected by the Illuminati to head their worldwide operations in 1834.  (Mazzini also founded the Mafia in 1860).  Because of Mazzini’s revolutionary activities in Europe, the Bavarian government cracked down on the Illuminati and other secret societies for allegedly plotting a massive overthrow of Europe’s monarchies.  As the secrets of the Illuminati were revealed, they were persecuted and eventually disbanded, only to re-establish themselves in the depths of other organizations, of which Freemasonry was one.

"During his leadership, Mazzini enticed Albert Pike into the (now formally disbanded, but still operating) Illuminati. Pike was fascinated by the idea of a one world government, and when asked by Mazzini, readily agreed to write a ritual tome that guided the transition from average high-ranking mason into a top-ranking Illuminati mason (33rd degree). Since Mazzini also wanted Pike to head the Illuminati’s American chapter, he clearly felt Pike was worthy of such a task. Mazzini’s intention was that once a mason had made his way up the Freemason ladder and proven himself worthy, the highest ranking members would offer membership to the secret ‘society within a society’.

It is for this reason that most Freemasons vehemently deny the evil intentions of their fraternity.  Since the vast majority never reach the 30th degree, they would not be aware of the real purpose behind Masonry.  When instructing Pike how the tome should be developed, Mazzini wrote the following to Pike in a letter dated January 22, 1870.  Remember that Freemasonry wasn’t started by Pike – rather it was infiltrated by the Illuminati who were looking for a respectable forum in which to hide their clandestine activities:

“We must allow all the federations to continue just as they are, with their systems, their central authorities and their diverse modes of correspondence between high grades of the same rite, organized as they are at the present, but we must create a super rite, which will remain unknown, to which we will call those Masons of high degree whom we shall select. With regard to our brothers in Masonry, these men must be pledges to the strictest secrecy. Through this supreme rite, we will govern all Freemasonry which will become the one international center, the more powerful because its direction will be unknown.” 1

"After Mazzini’s death on March 11, 1872, Pike appointed Adriano Lemmi (1822-1896, 33rd degree Mason), a banker from Florence, Italy, to run their subversive activities in Europe. Lemmi was a supporter of patriot and revolutionary Giuseppe Garibaldi, and may have been active in the Luciferian Society founded by Pike.  Lemmi, in turn, was succeeded by Lenin and Trotsky, then by Stalin. The revolutionary activities of all these men were financed by British, French, German, and American international bankers; all of them dominated by the House of Rothschild.

"Between 1859 and 1871, Pike worked out a military blueprint for three world wars and various revolutions throughout the world which he considered would forward the conspiracy to its final stage in the 20th Century.

"In addition to the Supreme Council in Charleston, South Carolina, Pike established Supreme Councils in Rome, Italy (led by Mazzini); London, England (led by Palmerston); and Berlin, Germany (led by Bismarck). He set up 23 subordinate councils in strategic places throughout the world, including five Grand Central Directories in Washington, DC (North America), Montevideo (South America), Naples (Europe), Calcutta (Asia), and Mauritius (Africa), which were used to gather information. All of these branches have been the secret headquarters for the Illuminati’s activities ever since."

Come, Thou Fount's poor unhappy man

(will have to post new article tomorrow now)

Can you guess what all-time great hymn has this as its last stanza, rarely sung: 

"On that day when freed from sinning

I shall see thy lovely face,
Clothèd then in blood-washed linen
How I’ll sing thy boundless grace."

England native Robert Robinson wrote "Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing" at the age of 23 in 1757. His life story has a surprising twist to it, though. It makes his lyrics, "Prone to wander--Lord I feel it--Prone to leave the God I love," seem sadly prophetic.

A widely told (though never verified) story, found in most any account of Robinson's life, is about how he was riding a stagecoach one day and struck up a conversation with a woman he noticed was deeply engrossed in reading a hymn book.

The woman began to hum a hymn and asked Robinson what he thought of it. It was 'Come, Thou Fount.' He said to her through his tears, "Madam, I am the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago and I would give a thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then."

Robinson, born in the small market town of Swaffham, Norfolk, was raised in a home “devoid of piety, and his parents’ marriage was described as a disaster," according to a well-researched 2019 paper by Regent College (Vancouver) theology professor Bruce Hindmarsh.

"By the time young Robert was entering his teens, his dissolute father was being sued for debts. His father abandoned the family and died soon afterward," writes Hindmarsh. "Although his mother’s family had wealth, lands, and houses, Robert’s grandfather resented the marriage and as a cruel gesture left his daughter only half a guinea (about $100 in today’s terms).

"Robert’s mother could see that her son had some intellectual capacity, so to keep him in school she took in boarders and 'plied the needle' as a seamstress. Soon it was all too much, though, and by the time Robert was thirteen, his formal education had to be given up.

Robinson moved to London to become an apprentice in the barber trade. "This meant he would become the charge and responsibility of his master for seven years, until his apprenticeship was complete," writes Hindmarsh. "He would spend his teen years away from home in the big city.

"One historian talks about 'the guilty apprentice syndrome,' meaning that there were many young men who left the morally reinforcing social structures of the countryside and got into trouble when immersed in the anonymity and temptations of a city like London. When such young men happened upon the evangelical preaching that was spreading throughout the metropolis, their consciences were easily wounded."

*****

According to Christianity.com: "One day Robert's gang of rowdies harassed a drunken gypsy. Pouring liquor into her, they demanded she tell their fortunes for free. She pointed her finger at Robert and told him he would live to see his children and grandchildren. This struck a tender spot in his heart. 'If I'm going to live to see my children and grandchildren,' he thought, 'I'll have to change my way of living. I can't keep on like I'm going now.' "

That same day they visited famed Evangelist George Whitefield’s Tabernacle at Moorfields to heckle the preacher and mock his attendees, but Robinson was haunted by Whitefield’s sermon preached on the text: "O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come?"

As Hindmarsh tells it, "Day and night he was troubled as he recalled the message. This unrest culminated three years later in his wholehearted conversion. We know this from a cryptic notation he made in Latin on a blank leaf in one of his books. It said that on Tuesday, December 10, 1755, he 'found full and free forgiveness through the precious blood of Jesus Christ.' No wonder he would soon write in his famous hymn:

Jesus sought me when a stranger,
Wandering from the fold of God;
He, to rescue me from danger,
Bought me with his precious blood.

***** 

It was near the completion of his barber apprenticeship that Robinson began to think about entering ministry as a Methodist and "would practice preaching sermons to himself for up to an hour at a time."

A year before writing "Come, Thou Fount," Robinson, now returned to the countryside near his hometown, was "preaching without notes and gathering a society in the village," according to Hindmarsh. "He was soon invited to preach at James Wheatley’s Tabernacle up the road in Norwich. It was in a hymnbook published by Wheatley that Robinson’s famous hymn was first published.

"Though his time in the Norwich area was short, it was significant. It was here that he met and married Ellen Payne, with whom he would have twelve children. Here too his convictions led him to dissent from the Established Church, with whom the Methodists were still closely connected, and to set up an Independent Calvinistic church (editor's note: he later abandoned Calvinism) in town. Then he went on to receive adult baptism. He would be a Baptist ever after.

" . . . His ministry began with 34 people huddled in a 'damp, dark, cold, ruinous, contemptible hovel' in a town that despised Dissenters. Still, he remained faithful to his calling, and in time a new church meeting house was erected, and within 15 years there were 200 families in the church, with morning congregations of six hundred and evening gatherings of eight hundred.

"He reached a thousand more through his itinerant preaching in surrounding villages during the week. At a time when the percentage of Dissenters was falling in most of the counties around Cambridge, Robinson’s influence increased their numbers significantly in Cambridgeshire.

"Robinson was unquestionably a beloved and effective pastor for three decades in Cambridge. This was his principal ministry. We don’t know a lot about his continued use of hymns, but there is a note in the church book that will seem familiar to anyone today who has met with conflict over styles of music in church: 'Heady people . . . found fault with certain tunes.' These were the so-called 'sprightly tunes' introduced in the Sunday evening lectures, designed to reach a wider 'town and gown' audience. Evidently some church members did not like Robinson’s 'seeker friendly' methods."

Hindmarsh's account continues:

"In the mid-1770s, Robinson was increasingly drawn into public activism to defend religious and civil liberties. He was keenly aware that the laws of the land still imposed disabilities on Dissenters. Robinson was driven to study church history to defend the cause of Nonconformists. For him, the Reformation was principally about freedom of conscience, rather than doctrinal statements. 'The right of private judgment,' he wrote, 'is the very foundation of the Reformation.' He came to dislike the binding of anyone’s conscience by a statement of faith.

"In the political sphere, he was an active voice for parliamentary reform (and was mentioned by name in the House of Commons by Edmund Burke). He was also an early opponent of slavery and the slave trade, preaching and petitioning against it. He stated clearly that slavery was incompatible with Christianity. On the same principal of liberty, he welcomed the American and French Revolutions. In fact, he was visited by General Reed, Washington’s second-in-command, who offered him passage to America and land if he would drop everything and come.

"Robinson was a man open to other viewpoints and tolerant — perhaps to a fault. He was friendly with political and theological radicals, including Unitarians and others who denied Christ’s divinity (Socinians). There was a small Socinian group in his congregation in Cambridge, and he refused to take sides against them when division opened up over the question.

"Like many others before and since, Robinson wanted to appeal only to the Bible and not to any statements of faith or creeds. But there is always a danger that this way of thinking can lead to an unhealthy elevation of private judgment."

*****

In its 2014 article entitled, "The Strange Case of Robert Robinson," the Baptist Bible Tribune reveals, "It was no small accomplishment for an unschooled Baptist pastor to draw the hypercritical college crowd to hear him, but Robinson was ever the diligent student (he learned four or five languages) and a zealous reader, even from his youth, and he was a public speaker of no small ability.

"Besides his Cambridge congregation, Robinson had some 15 preaching stations in the villages around Cambridge. Weekdays found him evangelizing the residents in these locations.

"For a time, Robinson had been engaged by the Baptist pastors of London to undertake research at the British Museum with a view to writing a history of the Baptists. When the theological drift of Robinson away from orthodoxy toward the end of his life was discovered, this sponsorship was quickly withdrawn.

"Robinson continued these labors on his own behalf after he obtained permission to make use of the university library in Cambridge. The fruit of this research was two immense volumes, both published posthumously, namely, The History of Baptism (1790), and Ecclesiastical Researches (1792), the latter of which is highly prized by some Baptists, though it is throughout a defense of the orthodoxy of Unitarianism.

"Though Robinson had published a vigorous defense of the Deity of Christ in 1776, he soon became enamored with Socinian and Arian errors (denials of the Deity of Christ and of the Deity and personality of the Holy Spirit), influenced in part by Joseph Priestly (a staunch Unitarian).

"Once having abandoned Trinitarianism, Robinson became increasingly brazen in his attacks on this orthodox doctrine. The last sermon he ever preached was in Priestly’s meetinghouse in Birmingham, in which sermon Robinson ridiculed and mocked the doctrine of the Trinity with sarcasm and invective far stronger than anything Priestly, by his own admission, had ever said or written. The following Tuesday, Robinson was found dead in bed in the home of William Russell, a prominent member of Priestly’s church, where he had been staying."

Hindmarsh concluded his paper this way:

"We should also remember with some sympathy that Robinson was, late in life, a broken man. By 1790, the year he died, he was physically and mentally ill. His sermons became incomprehensible, and some described him as insane. He never recovered from the death of his 17-year-old daughter Julie in 1787. He faced a financial crisis that could have sent him to debtors’ prison. And many of his friends had turned against him.

"Thinking of his suffering at this distance, the final verse of his great hymn takes on more poignancy. The verse isn’t sung much anymore, but we can perhaps imagine Robinson at the end singing its first quatrain, trusting, as we all must, in Christ’s 'boundless grace' as the ultimate hope in the face of death:

On that day when freed from sinning
I shall see thy lovely face,
Clothèd then in blood-washed linen
How I’ll sing thy boundless grace.