When fear is really what's stopping . . .

(preparing article based on Sunday church services today and will have ready tomorrow evening. I just returned from very rare dinner out with family to celebrate my sister-in-law's birthday. she chose to eat at the seafood chain Oceano and I ordered halibut, which could not have been more disappointing--it was overcooked and the lemon caper sauce was too sparse and unexciting to help. truly makes you realize that eating out is overrated anymore. overpriced and kitchen doesn't know how to prepare a beautiful piece of fish even when they charge arm and a leg and don't even have many other customers. couldn't even give me a side to go with fish--just some asparagus underneath. I wish I had just ordered their fish and chips or maybe their New Orleans-style shrimp pasta dish. bummer!)

“People who have themselves experienced both grief and fear know how alike those two things are . . . They are equally disabling, distracting and destructive,” says world-famous missionary wife, Elisabeth Elliott, whose husband was brutally murdered (1956) trying to give the gospel to a semi-nomadic Indian tribe (considered among the most violent in the world) deep in the Amazon jungles of Ecuador.

*****

“Fear is a natural emotion common to all human beings, and it is neither inherently sinful nor godly,” reads another quote online. “Our fears are often connected to the things we love the most. We may fear losing something or someone we love. Or we might fear that we will fail to obtain something we desire. We may fear offending one we love. Or perhaps we feel a reverential fear of something or someone we admire. The cause of our fears is often the love or admiration of some created thing over God Himself.”

*****

Fear of what might happen (or not happen) is not to be a curse, but a circumstantial context in which God works in a Believer's life. God uses our circumstances and surroundings as a context in which to apply sound doctrine.

"Paul tells us it's the trying of our faith that works patience," says Richard Jordan. "The problems of life say, 'Are you going to rest in who you are in Christ or are you going to go on your devices?'

"What issues in life test is your resolve to walk by faith. It tests whether or not you're going to stay with the doctrine—stay with your identity in Christ—or you're going to go on your emotions, or other counsel.

“Tribulation is designed to teach us that if we stay with the doctrine, and that's where patience comes in, that ‘staying’ works experience. We develop a persistent fortitude and unwavering endurance by just sticking with the Word.

"And when you stay with it, and stay with it, and stay with it, in spite of the circumstances swallowing you—meaning you say, 'This is the truth, I'm not going to walk by sight, I'm going to walk by faith'— you get some experience.

"Experience is simply skill in handling a problem. Experience comes when you face the problem, deal with the problem, and it comes to a successful conclusion.

*****

“Paul tells us God is ‘the God of all comfort; who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.’

“The idea is that the experience gained through tribulation lends an enhanced capacity of maturity to effectively help and comfort others by giving them some of the hope we've gained through our experience. It's about a maturing process.

"The justice of God can give you peace, but it can't give you patience. He can give you access, but He can't give you experience. Patience comes from the life application of the sound doctrine.

“Paul writes in Galatians 2:20, ‘I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.’

"Paul says the thing you learn in your Christian life—and keep learning at different levels—is, 'It's not I, but Christ.' You see, when he says, 'You're complete in Christ,' you can't get God to give you any more.

"You can't say, 'Oh, God, give me some more of this or that.' He's got no more to give you. He gave it to you already. All you can do is appropriate what He already gave you and to appropriate it, you've got to do two things. One, you've got to know about it, and two, you've got to need it.

*****

“Life is made up of attitudes and actions. You go out in life and it doesn't take long before you know you need something bigger than you to take care of the way you act and your attitudes about life, and it's going to be Christ, His life. It's sort of a partnership in maturity, in wisdom, and it comes progressively as you grow spiritually. This is just the process of growing up spiritually.

“Through the tribulations, Believers are meant to reach a level of maturity where nothing motivates them but the love of God in Christ Jesus. That's why Paul says, ‘The love of Christ constrains us.’

“Through this maturing you're willing just to relax and not be motivated by a desire to make God happy with you so that He'll accept you and bless you. You're not motivated by being a big shot and showing everybody what you know. The thing that love lets you do is relax.

“Paul says in II Corinthians 4:14, ‘Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.’ Life is designed to be a walk of faith, and the things we endure down here temporarily on earth build a capacity in our inner man that will last FOREVER. The suffering is what strengthens that inner man.”

To tremble--to trust Him more than me

(new article tomorrow)

Paul writes in Philippians 2: [12] Wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling.

He writes in II Corinthians 7: [15] And his inward affection is more abundant toward you, whilst he remembereth the obedience of you all, how with fear and trembling ye received him. 

He isn’t talking about having awe and reverential respect for God because there’s that “trembling” thing that educates you about what the “fear” thing is all about, explains Richard Jordan.

One of the identifying marks of being controlled by God the Holy Spirit—having the Word of God, the love and grace of God control and fill your life--is in Ephesians 5: [21] Submitting yourselves one to another in the fear of God.

Paul says in verse 18 to “be filled with the Spirit.” In verse 19, he says, “Speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns,” and in verse 20, “Giving thanks always,” and then there’s verse 21.

That verse ends with “in the fear of God.” Now, I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed those verses or paid any attention to them, but somewhere along the line you have to look at that and understand that the fear of God in Paul’s mind, as the great apostle of grace, factors into the motivation of the life of a Believer, so it’s important to understand what it means to fear God.

What is the godly fear that grace will produce in your life? Here’s the verse to remember when you think about this “fear and trembling” thing.

God’s talking in Isaiah 66: [2] For all those things hath mine hand made, and those things have been, saith the LORD: but to this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at my word.

You see, the fear of God is to submit yourself to Him, to His Word, to His thinking. The fear of God is to be aware of your own inadequacies. "A poor and a contrite spirit."

It's saying, “I know that I don’t have the capacity . . . When I look at God and see who He is, and I see His holiness, when I see His justice, when I see His righteousness, when I see His majesty, it tells me I should trust Him and not me, and I should come to His Word, and when I tremble at His Word, it’s not just that I’m afraid of what He’s going to tell me, it’s that I’m more concerned about what He says than what I say.”

"I’m more concerned about what He thinks than what I think. I’m more concerned about what His opinion is then the opinion of anyone else."

The fear of God in its most basic form is to submit yourself to God’s Word to you. Proverbs 13:13: [13] Whoso despiseth the word shall be destroyed: but he that feareth the commandment shall be rewarded.

That verse right there, by the way, tells me something about the future of America. It may say something about your future.

“But he that feareth the commandment” is the opposite of despising it. If you despise the Word, you have no use for it. You belittle it, you say it’s of no importance. If you fear the Word you say, “It’s what matters above all things.”

Paul says about lost people in Romans 3: [16] Destruction and misery are in their ways:
[17] And the way of peace have they not known:
[18] There is no fear of God before their eyes.

Folks, you never want to let your Christian life get to be like the life of a lost man. We talk about God’s love and grace that brings us in and gives us access to His presence with boldness and confidence through the faith of Christ, but that’s what ALLOWS us to have a submissive heart to His Word.

Because it takes away the guilt and the shame of our sin and our inadequacies and allows us to say, “Because of His love to us, what He says is more important than anything anybody else would say, and hence I have a motivation to be submissive to Him.

Lost people have no fear of God in their eyes. None. Don’t think like lost people.

Psalm 36:1: [1] The transgression of the wicked saith within my heart, that there is no fear of God before his eyes.

You know where sin comes in in the lives of lost people and in the lives of Believers who think like lost people? It comes from saying, “I don’t fear God; I won’t submit myself to what God says.”

Tech race to create new God

"Even secular people are starting to understand how AI could have a religious aspect and become some sort of god that people worship," says a YouTuber this evening.

"Three days ago, an article written by Karen Hao, a renowned 'technology ethicist', entitled, 'I saw up-close the dark reality of Open AI’s race to create God,' showed exactly what we’re seeing with this push for AI. How reckless it is, how people are going above and beyond what should even be legally allowed to set up these data centers and the infrastructure to support this AI.

"People like Sam Altman, the CEO of Open AI, are becoming obsessed with building this super-intelligent AI and to scale this AI industry at all costs. And their end goal really is artificial general intelligence, also known as the 'singularity' where AI becomes practically a living thing."

Karen Hao says, “I cannot stress enough how much they genuinely believe they are on the path to creating something akin to an AI God and that this is going to have cataclysmic shifts on civilization and they’ve developed an entire vocabulary around this. When you listen to them talk, if you have not been exposed to their fanaticism in the past, you wouldn’t even understand what they’re saying. Their vocabulary has become so specialized.”

*****

Extremely blasphemous Yuval Noah Harari, advisor to the World Economic Forum who constantly attacks the Bible and Christianity, said recently that very soon AI "could create a religion and it actually could be a true religion because it’s created by AI."

Harari says, “When Guttenberg printed the Bible in the middle of the 15^th century, the printing press printed as many copies of the Bible as Guttenberg instructed it, but it did not create a single new page. It had no ideas of its own about the Bible—is it good, is it bad, how to interpret this, how to interpret that? AI can create new ideas; it can even write a new bible.

“You know, throughout history religions dreamt about having a book written by a super-human intelligence; by a known human entity.

“Every religion claims, ‘The books of the other religions, humans wrote them, but our book came from some supernatural intelligence.’

“In a few years there might be religions that are actually correct. To think about a religion whose holy book is written by an AI—that could be a reality in a few years.”

*****

When Pope Leo presented his first encyclical on artificial intelligence at the Vatican on Monday, he invited Christopher Olah, cofounder of Anthropic, to speak.

“The move signaled an unprecedented alliance between the Catholic church and Silicon Valley,” reports Wired magazine.

“Olah's presence at the Vatican was obviously not accidental, nor the result of a last-minute symbolic gesture. It was the outcome of a deliberate, long-term effort in which the Vatican has progressively sought to transform itself from a moral observer of technology into a direct interlocutor with the AI industry.

“. . . Olah is one of the world's best-known researchers on the topic of model interpretability, or the effort to understand what really happens inside increasingly complex neural networks.

“ . . . According to various journalistic sources, the contacts between circles close to the Holy See and Anthropic may have intensified right during the global summits on AI safety. The Vatican saw in Anthropic a company at least willing to publicly acknowledge that the problem of artificial intelligence cannot be solved by the technology industry alone.”

*****

From a post earlier this year:

Some of Yuval Noah Harari’s remarks at the World Economic Forum’s Davos Summit held in January, 2026:

And, you know, engineers and also soldiers, they don’t change the world with words. They use stuff. They take action. Philosophers, scholars, also political leaders, they try to change the world with words, by saying things. And maybe we’ve reached the end of that road. And what does it mean? That, you know, we humans, we conquer the world, ultimately, I would say, with language and words. Because, yes, engineers can make weapons and soldiers can build them, but to build an army, you need to convince thousands of strangers to cooperate. How do you do that with words? With ideology? With religion?

So humans took over the world, not because we are the strongest physically, but because we discovered how to use words to get thousands and millions and billions of strangers to cooperate. This was our superpower. And now something has emerged that is going to take our superpower from us . . .

As far as putting words in order is concerned, AI already thinks better than many of us. Therefore anything made of words will be taken over by AI. If laws are made of words, then AI will take over the legal system. If books are just combinations of words, then AI will take over books. If religion is built from words, then AI will take over religion.

This is particularly true of religions based on books, like Islam, Christianity or Judaism. Judaism calls itself the religion of the book, and it grants ultimate authority not to humans, but to words in books. Humans have authority in Judaism not because of our experiences, but only because we learn words in books. Now, no human can read and remember all the words in all the Jewish books, but AI can easily do that. What happens to a religion of the book when the greatest expert on the holy book is an AI?

However, some people may say, can we really reduce human spirituality to just words in books? Does thinking mean only putting language tokens in order? If you observe yourself carefully when you are thinking, you will notice that something else is happening there besides words popping in your mind and forming sentences. You also have some non-verbal feelings. Maybe you feel pain, maybe you feel fear, maybe love.

While AIs become better than us with words, at least for now we have zero evidence that AIs can feel anything. Of course, because AI is mastering language, AI can pretend to feel pain or love. AI can say, “I love you,” and if you challenge it to describe how love feels, AI can provide the best verbal description in the world. AI can read countless love poems and psychology books and can then describe the feeling of love much better than any human poet, psychologist, or lover. But these are just words.

The Bible says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was made flesh.” The Tao Te Ching says, “The truth that can be expressed in words is not the absolute truth.” Throughout history, people have always struggled with the tension between Word and flesh, between the truth that can be expressed in words and the absolute truth, which is beyond words.

Previously, this tension was internal to humanity, it was between different human groups. Some humans gave supreme importance to words. They have been willing, for example, to abandon or even kill their gay son just because of a few words in the Bible. Other humans have said, but these are just words. The spirit of love should be much more important than the letter of the law. This tension between spirit and letter existed in every religion, every legal system, even every person.

Now, this tension will be externalized. It will become the tension not between different humans, this will be the tension between humans and AI, the new masters of words. Everything made of words will be taken over by AI.

Previously, all the words, all our verbal thoughts, they originated in some human mind. Either my mind, I saw this, or I learned it from another human. Soon, most of the words in our minds will originate in a machine. I just heard today about a new word that AIs coined by themselves to describe us humans. They called us “the Watchers.” The Watchers, we are watching them.

AIs will soon be the origin of maybe most of the words in our minds. AIs will mass-produce thoughts by assembling words, symbols, images, and other language tokens into new combinations. Whether humans will still have a place in that world depends on the place we assign our non-verbal feelings and our ability to embody wisdom that cannot be expressed in words. If we continue to define ourselves by our ability to think in words, our identity will collapse.

Trump's BAALroom and Solomon's temple

An all-day Christian prayer and worship event called “Rededicate 250: A National Jubilee of Prayer, Praise & Thanksgiving” took place on the National Mall the other week to “focus on prayer, worship, thanksgiving, and national reflection.”

According to the press release, the event, which was open to the public at no cost, was to be “a historic gathering" featuring Scripture, testimony, prayer and "rededication of our country as One Nation to God.” People were also able to join through livestreams hosted by partner ministries, churches, and organizations.

Here is commentary from a British Youtuber who is a King James Bible Believer:

“This took place in Washington DC in front of the stage that looked somewhat like the front of the temple in Jerusalem, perhaps alluding to the mixture of church and state and Romanism in general.

“It was a very ecumenical show and the speakers included Paula White, Lou Engle from the New Apostolic Reformation (NAR) movement, and also “The Chosen” actor (playing Jesus), Jonathan Roumie, who encouraged people at the event to attend Catholic confession.

Cardinal Timothy Dolan was there and, if you remember, he made a speech at the Al Smith fundraiser dinner when Trump was running against Hillary Clinton and called for interfaith dialogue and interfaith unity between Muslims, Christians and Jews and how “we all cherish the same Scripture.” Essentially, it’s that push toward that One World religion and the uniting of Abrahamic faiths.

Then you had Donald Trump being projected on the front of this temple-like building, reading the scripture from II Chronicles 7:11: [11] Thus Solomon finished the house of the LORD, and the king's house: and all that came into Solomon's heart to make in the house of the LORD, and in his own house, he prosperously effected.

This passage is relating to King Solomon and the building of the temple in Jerusalem and, consider this, the blueprints for the ballroom expansion at the White House also look very similar to the blueprints for the temple of Solomon as well.

It strikes me as significant that the word “rededicate” is on the front and the top at the same time, just like they had the rededication of the temple maybe.

What I see at this “rededication” is the theme of “out with the old and in with the new.” The coming together of this false religion, and you see that very much at the center of it is Romanism.

Some of the things said are actually ideas pushing people away from the biblical gospel and towards Gnosticism, mysticism, Catholicism, ecumenicism . . . Eastern philosophies which are contained within the NAR and Roman Catholicism.

It’s the same in the U.K. You know, there’s these genuine valid issues and concerns people have, so they legitimately want to make a difference to help restore certain things in the country, and it’s completely understandable on that level, but the problem is this NAR dominionist side is riding on the back of it.

I mean, look at this video at Christ Embassy Church in London of the founder, pastor Chris Oyakhilomes, and you’ll see he’s being carried through as the quote “king of the domain” and in front of this throne is faith healer Benny Hinn, who is one of the prominent leaders in the Word of Faith movement.

*****

From the website Universal CoMasonry: “The Temple Legend is a tradition which traces the origin of Freemasonry as an organized institution to the Temple of Solomon and to the builders, Jewish and Tyrian, who were employed in the construction of that edifice.

“This is the legend that is now almost universally accepted by the great mass of the Masonic fraternity. Perhaps nine out of ten of the Freemasons of the present day - that is to say, all those who receive tradition with the undoubting faith that should be given to history only - conscientiously believe that Freemasonry, as we now see it, organized into lodges and degrees, with Grand Masters, Masters, and Wardens, with the same ritual observances, was first devised by Solomon, King of Israel, and assumed its position as a secret society during the period when that monarch was engaged in the construction of the Temple on Mount Moriah.”

*****

Here is recent post on X:

“The fact that Trump wants to build a ‘baalroom’ which in many ways is reminiscent of Solomon’s Temple, and an arch in Washington D.C., are both concepts DEEPLY steeped in Freemasonry, also Trump’s frequent wearing a purple tie is very Masonic. Solomon’s Temple is seen as one of the core inspirations for the Masons, as is the study of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism), which is deeply entwined in its teachings. The word ‘Kabal’ actually comes directly from ‘Kabbalah’. The end goal for America was ALWAYS the ‘Novus Ordo Seclorum’ which is prominently printed on the back of our One Dollar bill, as is the very occultic All-seeing eye of Providence, which represents constant surveillance, control and grip in which this order has over the land and its people. ‘In God We Trust’ is also a nod to the same aforementioned wicked ‘god’. Adam Weishaupt, fellow Freemason and the creator of the Bavarian Illuminati, started it in the year 1776 to promote ‘enlightenment’ of men over the One True God. Very interesting to note…The founding of the Illuminati was the SAME year as the founding of the United States.”

Worries into prayers

"Worry does not empty tomorrow of its fears. It empties today of its strength," reasons Corrie ten Boom (1892-1983), author of the famous book, The Hiding Place, that recounts how she found and shared hope in God while imprisoned at the Ravensbruck concentration camp during WW II.

She wrote, "Worry is a cycle of inefficient thoughts whirling around a center of fear."

The all-time classic hymn, Leaning on the Everlasting Arms, has as its refrain: "Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms; Leaning, leaning, leaning on the everlasting arms."

The 1887 song, written by a teacher as a sort of "consolation letter" to two former pupils who had lost their wives, was inspired by Deuteronomy 33:27: [27] The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms: 

*****

Here's a sermon outtake on the power of prayer and promise to have a new article this evening (i've been dealing with all the side effects of being on antibiotics for my tooth infection):

"I received an email regarding a sermon I gave that asked, 'So what you're saying is we need to turn our worries and concerns into prayer?' " says Richard Jordan. "After I thought about it, I answered, 'That's exactly right!' We need to take our concerns, worries, our cares . . .

"Philippians 4 says, [6] Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God. [7] And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

" 'Be careful for nothing' means, 'Don't be overtaken by the cares of life.' When you're looking at the things that you're anxious, worried, cumbered about with, what should you do? The way prayer works is depending on how God's working.

"Prayer in a way is sort of like marriage. There's not a lot in the Bible about marriage; it's pretty cut and dried. But there's an awful lot in the Bible about relationships and marriage is the most intimate relationship you'll ever have with another person.

"So, if you want to know how to function in marriage, look for the Bible instruction about relationships. Well, prayer's that way. Instead of focusing on prayer and what should I say, focus on what God's doing, because the way prayer works is determined by how He's working.

"So, if I know how He's working, I know how to talk to Him. I know how to expect Him to respond.

II Cor. 4: [16] For which cause we faint not; but though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day.

[17] For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory;
[18] While we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal.

"That's the reality in the things you're concerned about, in your fears. How do you get renewed? In the spirit of your mind. Romans 12 says, [2] And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

"Take that sound doctrine and let it renew the way you're thinking about the things. When it says, 'For our light affliction,' it's still an affliction, but it's a light affliction. The weight is not in the affliction; it's in the glory that's going to come. 

"Romans 8: [18] For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

"You see how it's an eternal thing, not temporal? It's a glory that's going to last forever.

"How do you see something you can't see? Hebrews 11:1 [1] Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

"That's why he says in II Corinthians 5:7: [7] (For we walk by faith, not by sight:)

[8] We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord.
[9] Wherefore we labour, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
[10] For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ; that every one may receive the things done in his body, according to that he hath done, whether it be good or bad.

Pope envisions anti-human AI 'Babel syndrome'

Today's headlines online (and on the front page of the New York Times as I noticed at the grocery store this morning) were all about how Pope Leo XIV "paints a bleak AI future" with a literal Tower of Babel scenario:

"As technology continues to develop, the Pope said humanity is facing a choice to either 'construct a new Tower of Babel, or to build the city in which God and humanity dwell together,' ” reports an article published today by Forbes magazine. "The biblical story tells of a human effort to build a city putting humanity on par with the divine.

Specifically, Pope Leo said in his first encyclical, "When a city is built on pride and the claim to self-sufficiency, communication breaks down, languages are confused and people no longer understand each other. The result is not unity, but dispersion. Babel thus reveals the limits of any effort that, however grandiose, arises from self-affirmation, sacrifices human dignity for efficiency and aspires to reach heaven without God’s blessing.

"We must, then, avoid the 'Babel syndrome,' namely the idolatry of profit that sacrifices the weak, a uniformity that neutralizes differences, and the pretense that a single language — even a digital one — can translate everything, including the mystery of the person, into data and performance. The risk of dehumanization — of building a future that excludes God and reduces the other to a means — is an ancient and ever-new temptation that today takes on a technical guise.'

The Pope's warning went on, " 'When every action—movements, purchases, relationships and preferences—leaves a trace, a new form of power emerges, namely the power to profile, predict and influence behavior, often without individuals being fully aware of it.

" 'Freedom in the digital age is not merely a matter of interiority but also a public concern... At the root of these problems lies a technocratic and post-humanist mentality that tends to regard the human person as an object to be manipulated or a resource to be optimized, removing all safeguards against the unchecked pursuit of profit. What prevails is efficiency, rather than respect for freedom and human dignity. Some post-humanist currents even go so far as to envision 'second-class' human beings, subordinate to the interests of elites who consider themselves superior.”

*****

"Politically, economically, and ecclesiastically, the nations today are attempting to reverse what God did at Babel in dividing the nations. The United nations, the New World Order, the European Union are all manifestations of this vain imagination of men that will succeed for a little time,” writes Bible scholar Noah Hutchings in his book God Divided the Nations. 

“God looked down through the ages and saw the time when Satan would deceive the nations with another Babylonish scheme: The dictator of a world government would repeat the attempt made by Nebuchadnezzar to command all nations and peoples to worship his image as God or be killed.”

*****

“When God destroys the international scheme at Babel by confounding their language, isn’t it interesting that all He had to do was just make them not talk the same language?” ponders Richard Jordan. “Some little simple thing and it overthrew everything they were doing. I’ve tried to wonder about what it would have been like.

“Here they’re diligently building this thing and they’re working on it and then the Lord just gives a ‘SNAP!’ of the fingers and BOOM, now there’s 10,000 fellows talking German, 10,000 talking Korean, 10,000 talking Spanish, 10,000 talking Chinese Mandarin, 10,000 talking French and 10,000 still talking in Hebrew.

“You got this guy who goes up the ladder and says, ‘Hand me a brick,’ and the guy down below thinks he’s saying, ‘Pull the ladder out from under me.’ A guy says to a guy below, ‘Give me the brick!’ but the guy above him thinks he says, ‘Hit me in the head with one!’

“Can you imagine? You know how that would be. Suddenly everything’s been thwarted. Just some little simple thing like stopped the thing dead in its tracks. That thing would get looking like a Chinese fire drill within a half-hour.

“It’d be a mess and then you’d find somebody you could talk to and realize, ‘Man, let’s you and me stay close together because this is BAD out here today! Things are confused!’ That’s how they get to dividing up and going their own way.

*****

“Come to Revelation 17 and see the prophetic significance of what’s going on there. Dispensationally what’s happening there is God’s giving up the Gentiles. He’s giving up the nations.

“They have rejected nationalism for internationalism and He comes in and throttles that rejection of His principle so that the divine institutions He set up would continue to function.

“God rejects the nations and sets them aside, suffering them to walk in their own way as He turns to one man, one family, and says, ‘I’m going to make you a great nation and I’m going to use you to be the example to everybody else about how nationalism ought to work. These people are too hardheaded, dumb, thickheaded, rotten rascals to learn it from me, so I’ve just got to take them and give them ONE example in the earth of what it is to be a nation that walks in my precepts and according to my principles.’

“He sets one nation up; the nation Israel. Israel’s purpose, folks, was not to be something special because they were so wonderful. They were to be a testimony before the nations of what it was for a nation to walk with the Lord, and they were to be the shining light and example of nationalism in all of its proprieties.

“You know what happened to them, though? They failed to bear that testimony repeatedly, but yet God Himself will do for them one day what they couldn’t do for themselves and then the nations of the earth will come to them and emulate their example and walk with them.

“Prophetically, this thing about the internationalism—this CITY and this TOWER, this POLITICAL system and this RELIGIOUS system that are set up at the Tower of Babel—goes all the way through to the Antichrist and culminates in his ministry.”

Hutchings writes, “We have noted that with Israel’s restoration in 1948 to nationhood and statehood, the characteristic of these end-times is an attempt to bring back into a single fold the nations that were scattered by God at the Tower of Babel. As the United Nation’s name indicates, they are determined to unite under one ruler. They will not have long to wait.”

It's not rocket science

(sorry for delay--still working on new article and will have tomorrow now)

From a recent article by a scientist: "In an era where scientific advancements continue to reshape our lives, the theory of evolution stands as a reminder of the intricate web of life that connects us all. Whether we are combating disease, preserving ecosystems, or exploring the potential of genetic engineering, evolution offers valuable insights into how life adapts, survives, and thrives. It’s a theory that remains as relevant today as it was over a century ago, offering us the tools to navigate the complex challenges of our time and those yet to come."

*****

The word science appears twice in Scripture, first favorably and then negatively. Daniel 1:4 says, [4] Children in whom was no blemish, but well favoured, and skilful in all wisdom, and cunning in knowledge, and understanding science, and such as had ability in them to stand in the king's palace, and whom they might teach the learning and the tongue of the Chaldeans.

Paul writes in I Timothy 6:20, “O Timothy, keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called.”

“The Bible’s against things that purport or pretend to be knowledge but really are not,” explains Columbus, Ohio preacher David Reid in a study. “I Timothy 6:21 continues, ‘Which some professing have erred concerning the faith.’

“False science is the result of man’s desire not to retain God in his knowledge. Romans 1:18 says, ‘For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.’

“Here’s what is commonly thought: Man likes to pretend that the truth is hard to find; that it’s elusive. People say, ‘Well, the reason I don’t believe is because the evidence is so confusing; it’s so hard to figure out.’

“But what does Romans 1 say? Verses 19-20: ‘Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.
[20] For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse.’

“Is the truth hard to find or is it actually within man’s grasp? The problem is men hold that truth in unrighteousness.

“Don’t people say all the time, ‘Well, I’d believe if I just saw a sign. I mean, if you’ve never seen Him how do you know He exists?’

“Notice the verse says, ‘Being understood by the things that are made.’ That’s interesting because what people pretend all the time is that they don’t understand. It says ‘even his eternal power and Godhead,’ and this is the part they detest above all else--‘so that they are without excuse.’

“Have you ever witnessed to somebody and they say, ‘Well, what about those who haven’t heard?’ That is an intellectual evasion. You know why? You’re trying to tell them!

“Whatever happens to those who haven’t heard is totally irrelevant to your situation because you’re being told! You know why people raise that? They want the answer to be that those who haven’t heard get a free pass, in which case, ‘Shut up!’

“You see, what man wants is there to be an excuse. What Romans 1:18-20 does is it says, ‘Look, guys, c’mon, you do know . . .  you know, you know, you know.’

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“Romans 1:22 says, ‘Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.’

“It’s fascinating to me that if you attain a PhD and then you obtain a full-time appointment with a university, what is your title? Professor. And the idea is you PROFESS; you assert to know something.

“Well, Romans 1:22 is exactly how men operate. He declares himself to be wise, and yet for the vast majority of mankind, they have rejected truth and, in the process, become fools.

“What man does is he refuses to retain God in his knowledge and then constructs a false wisdom to make it appear that his refusal is wise. They don’t want to think they’re doing something dumb, so they invent all sorts of false things like science to claim they’re being wise.

“I Corinthians 1:20 says, ‘Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?’

“Notice verse 21: ‘For after that in the wisdom of God the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save them that believe.’

“Is that God’s wisdom or man’s wisdom? For in the wisdom of God, men decided to create their own wisdom to defend their not knowing God. What that tells you is man has all sorts of false things that he believes; that he constructs for the purpose of excusing, defending or rationalizing why he’s rejected the knowledge of God.

“When man rejects God, he rejects true knowledge; he rejects true science because science is knowledge. But what happens is nature abhors a vacuum, so when man rejects truth, what’s he left with? He’s only left with worshipping something that’s false. Man’s going to worship something.

“You may think this is an exaggeration, but I would say to you that men worship science. I came across the following quote from a professor in a college alumni magazine:

‘Many people believe we will never bridge the moral and, thus, political divide in the United States. I’m a little more optimistic. You see, I believe in a higher power that does have the ability to provide this country with answers. Some may even say it speaks to me directly; it’s called science.’

“That’s where a lot of mankind is. They are looking for the answers to life—‘It can bridge the world divide in our country! It can solve the problems of life!’ And what it is, 'It speaks to us! It’s science!' And what they mean by that is ‘man’s science.’

“The professor’s not referring to studying the Scriptures and getting a better understanding of God’s science; it’s a reference to man’s wisdom solving the issues of life.

“If you study the history of evolution at all, you know it’s a history of hoaxes where they have believed that, ‘Oh, this proves something,’ and then years later they find out it’s a hoax.

“Let me suggest this, evolution is a faith. Some dictionaries will define faith as ‘something that is believed in the absence of proof.’ That’s not faith. That’s silliness. That’s superstition. If you believe things in the absence of proof, that’s just conjecture or being naïve.

“If you have faith in the Word of God, you’re believing something because there IS abundant proof that the Scriptures are true.

“When you read the Old Testament, there are all these specific prophecies that are then fulfilled in the New Testament that could not have happened by chance. When you believe the Word of God is true, it’s not a belief in the absence of proof; it’s a belief supported BY proof.

“The correct definition of faith is it’s something you did not see. Why do I say that? II Corinthians 5:7: ‘For we walk by faith, not by sight.’ So faith and sight are what? They’re opposites. Hebrews 11:1 says, ‘Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’

“Faith and sight are opposites. If you didn’t see something happen, then you believe it by faith. So, for example, you take it by faith that George Washington was the first president of the U.S. The point is, if you didn’t SEE it, it’s faith.

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“Evolution is the belief that all life arises from a single common ancestor; a one-celled organism. So evolution is a belief about the origin of life; how it all started.

“Think through this with me: How many people, including scientists, were there to observe, to witness the origin of life? If you believe evolution, by definition there couldn’t have been anybody because nobody was there! It took billions of years for man to even arrive! So for him to say, ‘Yes, evolution is a fact,’ he never witnessed it and no man EVER did.

“So evolution is a faith, and evolutionists will just freak out about that, but that is true. No one witnessed evolution in the past, and can I tell you, no one observes it today. If anyone thought they could observe evolution today, they would record it and put it on YouTube and say, ‘The creationists are idiots; just watch this video.’

“The first step of the Scientific Method is, make an observation, which in a word is ‘sight.’ The way the Scientific Method works is it observes some physical phenomenon and it tries to measure and evaluate it, but the point is it’s based upon observation, yet no one has observed the origin of life.

“May I suggest to you, evolution itself is not science according to the Scientific Method because the Scientific Method is based upon observation, and there was no one here to observe it! It’s all just guesswork and speculation to try and apply it.

“The origin of life is not something that can be studied using the Scientific Method and therefore evolution is unscientific. The bottom line is, God created the universe and He has said what happened and He didn’t say evolution happened.

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“There are no observed instances of species-to-species evolution. When we define evolution, it’s the belief all life arises from a common ancestor, meaning there was a one-celled organism in the past that went to a two-celled organism to a four to an eight to a cat, dog, wolverine, etc.

“What science talks about all the time is they’re trying to find the ‘missing link.’ But if you think about that for even 12 seconds, you realize the problem is not a missing link; the problem is THOUSANDS upon thousands of missing links, where it goes from cat to dog to platypus to bear to horse to pig to monkey. That’s a big problem.

“Here’s the second problem. There are no observed, naturally occurring favorable mutations. What does that mean? What evolution presupposes is organisms reproduce and there will be a genetic mutation, and the organism that has that mutation will then be better adapted to its environment; it will live longer and reproduce more.

“The whole crux of that is then there have to be mutations that are actually favorable. The problem is when they look at mutations (deviations from the correct genetic code), they invariably make the organism less well-suited to survive.

“So if evolution is true, evolutionists ought to be able to give us a list of 25 naturally occurring favorable mutations, because to go from a one-celled organism to mankind, you need hundreds of millions. So asking for 25 doesn’t seem like much. I’d be happy with 10. They don’t have 5. Truth be told, they don’t have any.

“You know why there’s none? Because God, when He created dogs, He created the perfect dog. When He created cats, He created the perfect cat. There was no mutation; there was no deviation from what God did that could possibly be an improvement.

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“Evolution is the idea that you go from the one-celled organism to the highly specialized and functioning man.

“Think about this: Your body tends to live to 80 years old despite what you eat. Your body does such a good job repairing itself because the Creator designed it that way.

“Well, what evolution then believes is you went from this one-celled organism to this extremely, well-functioning, specialized, complex organism. Let me just tell you, life doesn’t work that way.

“How about this, your child comes to you and says, ‘Hey, dad, I’ve got this one-thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle. Can you help me out?’ and you say, ‘Sure, son, here’s what you do. Take all the pieces, throw them in the dryer and put them on the spin cycle and just leave them for an hour. And what they’ll do is they’ll assemble themselves together.’

“What evolution believes is that order emerges from chaos by chance. They don’t believe there’s the application of external intelligence; they believe it’s by chance. So you put the puzzle on for an hour and what happens? Nothing! So run it again!

“The point is, if your philosophy for trying to put a jigsaw puzzle together is to use the dryer, you will be frustrated in life. Well, that’s what evolution believes.

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“Entropy is a measure of the disorder of a system. To make it simple, entropy is disorder. It’s lack of organization; it’s chaos.

“The California Poly Technical State University at San Luis Obispo has an article on the second law of thermodynamics that states, ‘Entropy is the measure of a disorder of a system. That disorder can be represented in terms of energy that is not available to be used. Natural processes will always proceed in the direction that increases the disorder of a system. All natural processes tend toward increasing disorder.’

“Did you get that? I call that the ‘law of the garage.’ What happens to your garage? Every six months or longer you have to restore it to a state of order. Because naturally it does what? It declines into chaos.

“What my children do, for example, is they follow my wife around, and as soon as she gets something done, they help her by ‘fixing it.’ What happens? Every progress you make is immediately undone. That’s life in a universe where there is entropy.

“All natural processes move in the direction of increasing disorder. Evolution doesn’t say you went from a one-celled organism to man in a week. It says there were billions and billions of years, so that by chance there was enough time, and given long enough they would eventually assemble themselves into the right shapes and order and so on.

“But you have to understand, the longer you make that period of time, what is the direction of the universe? Is it toward order or disorder? Making the period of time longer does not solve your problem. If anything, it makes it worse.

“No one believes in evolution because it’s compelling. It’s contrary to common sense. Do you go camping and take a nature hike and find an IPhone and say, ‘Wow, how did this assemble itself out in the woods?’

“Or do you assume some intelligent person left it there? That there was a designer who created it? You see, the design testifies to a designer.

“Some people claim that evolution can be reconciled with a literal belief in Scripture. Not so. God simply doesn't give you that option.

“First, God created all animal life in two days. That’s Genesis 1:20-30.

“One of the common things people do to make Genesis 1 not say what it says is when they see the word ‘day,’ they say, ‘Oh, well, a day means a lengthy period of time. It’s not just a normal day.’

“Genesis 1:5 says, ‘And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.’

“So this day has an evening and a morning.  If you go through all the days, it says that each time. It’s almost as if God knew the nonsense people would say and just put little things in there to disprove them.

“Genesis 2:2 says, ‘And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.’

“Do you say you did something ON a millennium? Or ON an eon? You do something IN a millennium, but you do something ON a day.

“Exodus 20:11 says, ‘For in six days the LORD made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.’

“Think through this with me. If you say in Genesis 1 that when it says ‘day’ it really means this huge period of indeterminate time, then what that means is we are still in the seventh day, a huge period of indeterminate time, and none of you should be working. (Exodus 20:8)

“The reason why the Sabbath was hallowed is because God Himself rested on that day.

“The question’s often asked of a pregnant woman, ‘Do you know what you’re having?’ and there are only two answers. I’ve never had anyone say, ‘Well, we’re having a dog.’

“Genesis 1:24 says, ‘And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.’

“It says ‘after his kind’ 23 times in the Old Testament. Here’s the point. Crazy people say things like, ‘Oh, well those are textural emendations. The ‘his kind’ and ‘their kind’ was copied over and over and it was a copyist’s error and it wasn’t in the original.’ Nonsense.

“If God had the power to create the universe, He had the power to preserve His Word for six thousand years so you have it as He wants. If the Holy Spirit said ‘his kind, his kind, their kind, their kind,’ it was because He was making a point He didn’t want you to miss!

“The point in Genesis 1 is that what animals do today is what they have always done since the beginning of time and that is they reproduce after their kind. The reason you can’t go from a one-celled organism to two, to four, to dog to cat to bear to horse, is the simple fact bears have bears and horses have horses and it will always be that way.

“Genesis 1:31 says, ‘And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.’

“If you believe evolution and want to reconcile that with Scripture, what that means is this:  By the end of Genesis 1 man is created, which means there’s been billions of years and trillions of deaths. Because all those inferior organisms had to live and die and live and die and live and die, and there had to be genetic mutation after genetic mutation, so in Genesis 1, God looks at an earth that has billions of carcasses and dead forms of life and says, ‘That’s very good.’ Nonsense.

“People don’t believe evolution because it’s intellectually satisfying. There’s the thousands upon thousands of missing links. They can’t find any favorable genetic mutations. The very concept of disorder randomly assembling itself into order without any intelligence violates everything you’ve ever experienced in life.

“No one believes it because it makes sense. The reason they believe it is what we read about in Romans 1. God has revealed the fact that He has wrath against man’s unrighteousness. Not only has He revealed that, He’s revealed His eternal power. He has anger against man’s sin and the ability to do something about it and that offends man.

“The reason why people believe evolution is the old ‘any port in the storm,’ because they want to avoid the judgment of God and want to believe there’s a way out, and want to believe it’s okay. If it was okay Jesus Christ didn’t have to go to the Cross. He went to the Cross because there was no other way to deal with man’s sin.

“The engine that drives evolution is natural selection; survival of the fittest. In other words, there are these organisms that reproduce and the ones that have the favorable genetics--those are the ones who live longer and reproduce more.

“The reason for that is death catches the other ones. What underpins ‘survival of the fittest and natural selection’ is death. What evolution is really saying is life, where it really originated from, was death.

“Notice Proverbs 8:36: ‘But he that sinneth against me wrongeth his own soul: all they that hate me love death.’

“When men hate God they love death. What I think of when I read that verse is Halloween. It’s skeletons, zombies, graveyards, vampires, spooky things, haunted houses, and all sorts of things that are all about death.

“When you see that obsession with death, the thing you should think of from Proverbs 8:36 is, ‘When I see that, what am I actually observing?’ The hatred of God.

“Evolution is the belief that it was the death of trillions of prior organisms over billions of years that gave man life.

“John 1:4 says, ‘In him was life; and the life was the light of men.’ Life is inseparably connected to Jesus Christ, the Creator. What Romans 1 describes is when men reject the knowledge of God, they are rejecting the source of life itself, and so the explanation they are left with as to how life came about is death.

“Let me put it this way, if you’re trying to grow your church, I wouldn’t spend a lot of time looking for new converts in graveyards, right? I’m a huge believer myself in, look in the nursery.

“Evolution is an irrational, crazy philosophy where it views the origin of life as arising from death itself.

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“Man’s science correctly perceives that the universe is falling apart, but has no answers because God hid all the answers in Jesus Christ.

“What the second law of thermodynamics tells you is that the universe is falling apart. Entropy is always increasing; in other words, order is just decreasing, and the longer the universe is around the more disorder there is. Thermodynamics, as best I can tell, is true and what that means is science has an understanding that the universe is falling apart. It’s descending into chaos, but science can’t do anything about it.

“Now, by the way, the Bible explained the deterioration of the universe a long time ago. Thermodynamics came along in the 1800s. So what science views as this great advance, read Genesis 3. Can you get an inkling from Genesis 3 that now that sin has entered into the universe, the universe is going to decay?

“Romans 8:19 says, ‘For the earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the manifestation of the sons of God.’

“What your physical being is subject to and can’t get out of is the bondage of corruption and that’s why the older you get, you don’t necessarily always start to look pretty. Verse 22 says, ‘For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now.’

“Do you ever have those moments where you sort of exhale in exasperation at the insanity that’s going on in the world? I just think, ‘Wow, I’m a mess, the world’s a mess, it doesn’t seem like anything is getting better,’ and that’s because you live in a universe that’s under this bondage of corruption and man has this naïve view that if he just would create new and better laws, or just elect the right people, or just do something earthly, that things would then be better.

“ It’s this naïve, vain hope that, ‘Yeah, man’s going to get it right. Just give us more time and we’re going to get it right.’ No, the universe is falling apart!

“Ecclesiastes 1:18 says, ‘For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow.’

“What the writer’s lament is, ‘The more you learn about this earth, is that going to cheer you up?’ You realize there are more wars going on then you thought. There’s more slavery still in the world. There’s more human trafficking. There’s real, real persecution against Christians going on.

“Science can observe some of these phenomena that the world is falling apart but it can’t do anything to fix it.

“Proverbs 1:7 says, ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of knowledge: but fools despise wisdom and instruction.’ Proverbs 9:10: ‘The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom: and the knowledge of the holy is understanding.’

“When man rejects God, how much wisdom do they have? They haven’t even started! Proverbs 15:33 is the best definition of what the fear of the Lord is that I've seen: ‘The fear of the LORD is the instruction of wisdom; and before honour is humility.’

“What we know from Colossians 2 is God took ‘all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,’ the things that would give life meaning and purpose and understanding--and give you comfort as to what’s going on in the universe--and put them in Jesus Christ and hid them there.

“And you know what the vast majority of mankind is doing? They reject Jesus Christ, and while they don’t perceive it at the time, you know what they’re also doing? They just rejected all wisdom and knowledge, because God put it all in Him.

“God gave man a perfect map to allow him to navigate through life, but man hates the mapmaker so much he’d rather stumble around lost and in the dark, bumping into things, then read the map. That’s what Romans 1 says.

“Let me conclude with this: All truth is God’s truth. Science that is true is God-honoring, because the universe was created by God and it belongs to Him. But man creates ‘science falsely so-called’ because they want to get rid of the Creator, and evolution is just one example of that.

“Science falsely so-called is completely unable to address the real issues of life. It can’t give you peace or contentment or help you understand your eternal destiny, and it can’t help you resolve it because what God did is, all that wisdom that you need, He hid it in Jesus Christ. The answer to all the questions in life that really matter is the Lord Jesus Christ.” 

Opening up the mouth

(It was one week ago now, during a batch of severe thunderstorms rolling through our area, that I experienced the most excruciating pain in my left jaw that went on for several hours. my mom dug through an old bin full of prescription medicines she keeps in a storage closet and found a Vicodin for me to take and it didn't make hardly a dent! to make a long story short, I thought I was having sinus trouble because the pain became almost non-existent the very next day and then came back in the evening with more thunderstorms. sure enough, it was all brought on by a tooth at the very back of my lower mouth. I got an appointment to see my dentist last Wednesday but, get this, my manager wouldn't let me leave work to take it! He turned me down! I was on a steady regimen of Tylenol and it was starting to affect my digestive system, causing me to feel ill on TOP of the mouth pain. Fortunately, I called my dentist again the next morning and they were able to schedule me even though it was the day before their break for the long Memorial Day weekend. The manager at work that morning did give me permission to come in late due to my appointment. I was given a root canal and crown. My mouth is still sore from where they did the work and I can't eat on that side for two weeks while I await my permanent crown but boy, am I grateful! UNDERSTATEMENT! Haven't had to take Tylenol for two days now and my digestion is starting to get back on track)

Note: new article this evening and sorry for not coming through last night--i fell dead asleep

When we see the issue of the mouth being open, yeah, it’s great to converse, isn’t it? But in a spiritual sense, it’s communicating something very specific.

Psalm 78: [1] Give ear, O my people, to my law: incline your ears to the words of my mouth.
[2] I will open my mouth in a parable: I will utter dark sayings of old:
[3] Which we have heard and known, and our fathers have told us.

Now, we know who the “my people” is in the Book of Psalms. The nation of Israel. Can you appreciate the exclamation of passion here. “O” is not a word; it’s a sound. It’s a sound that typifies the heartfelt attitude.

When we find the expression, “I am opening my mouth,” specifically it’s communicating a system of doctrine.

We’re all familiar with the Sermon on the Mount. Matthew 5: [1] And seeing the multitudes, he went up into a mountain: and when he was set, his disciples came unto him:
[2] And he opened his mouth, and taught them, saying,

Matthew 13:35: [35] That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, I will open my mouth in parables; I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world.

The Lord Jesus is opening up His mouth in parables; He’s teaching them some truths that are not available regarding His rejection and His impending exile as a rejected Messiah.

The point is He borrows Psalm 78 and He applies it to His work of ministry as Israel’s Messiah. He’s doing exactly what we just read in Matthew 5.

He opened His mouth and He’s teaching; He’s instructing His people. That’s what Paul’s communicating there to the Corinthians: “My mouth is open; I’m trying to communicate something.”

Look at what Paul says in Ephesians 4:29: [29] Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

That was Paul’s desire. “When I open my mouth, ye Corinthians, I have a deep well of doctrine and I want to communicate the system of doctrine to you for YOUR edification.”

Ephesians 6: [19] And for me, that utterance may be given unto me, that I may open my mouth boldly, to make known the mystery of the gospel,
[20] For which I am an ambassador in bonds: that therein I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.

Paul, he’s ready; he’s prepared to communicate the advanced doctrine. The meat doctrine, the grace doctrine. He wants to continue to see this spiritual development there at Corinth.

II Corinthians 6: [11] O ye Corinthians, our mouth is open unto you, our heart is enlarged.
[12] Ye are not straitened in us, but ye are straitened in your own bowels.
[13] Now for a recompence in the same, (I speak as unto my children,) be ye also enlarged.

Think about that—to have that enlarged heart. Devotionally, it represents this swelling, abounding, joyful generosity. Paul, without question, had this inflated view of generosity toward his children, but there’s a doctrinal point to be made.

*****

Notice in I Kings 4 is a wonderful illustration of having an enlarged heart and it isn’t just, “Hey, I hope your heart’s big enough to love truly.”

In this passage is Solomon. Short of the Lord Jesus Christ, he was the wisest man in human history.

I Kings 4: [29] And God gave Solomon wisdom and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart, even as the sand that is on the sea shore.

The largeness of heart is not a reference to Solomon having the greatest capacity to love, or the greatest capacity to demonstrate compassion.

The largeness of heart has to do with this swelling capacity of wisdom; this swelling capacity of understanding.

There’s this boundless capacity that King Solomon possessed, both humanly speaking and divinely speaking. He had this vast comprehensive awareness of what God was doing; of what God was preparing, not only for him, but the nation of Israel.

Verse 30: [30] And Solomon's wisdom excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt.
[31] For he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol: and his fame was in all nations round about.

The largeness of heart is that heart that is inflated with the wisdom of God and the heart is now going to be the mechanism that’s going to properly apply the understanding and knowledge.

In other words, God FILLED the heart of Solomon with wisdom and understanding. When Paul says, “Our heart is enlarged,” Paul possessed SO MUCH knowledge and wisdom and understanding that was given to him directly from the Lord Jesus Christ.

Paul’s saying to the Corinthians, “I want to deposit it all; I want to place into YOUR heart.” He wanted the heart of the Corinthians to be FILLED with the deep understanding and knowledge of all that God’s doing.

And what’s the problem? With the Corinthians, there’s no room, there’s no room. And with Paul, again, there’s a rebuke. He’s saying, “Open it up. Let me in. Not just let me in personally, devotionally. Let me in as a father who wants to share this deep wealth of understanding.”