Our surveillance future in plain sight

News out of Washington, D.C. ahead of Christmas, as reported by Shore News Network:

“President Donald Trump announced a sweeping directive declaring that the United States will ‘lead the world in 6G development,’ setting in motion a nationwide effort to secure technological dominance in next-generation wireless communications.

“In a presidential memorandum titled Winning the 6G Race, Trump framed 6G networks as critical to America’s national security, economic growth, and leadership in emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics, and implantable devices. The document outlines an aggressive federal strategy to identify and repurpose key spectrum frequencies for commercial use while protecting existing military and intelligence operations.”

As one news outlet reported: “Speaking on live TV, Trump was quoted as saying, ‘So we’re into 6G now, yeesh. 5G — I was a leader on 5G, getting that done, and now they’re up to 6. What does that do, give you a little bit deeper view into somebody’s skin? See how perfect it is. I liked the cameras of the old days. Sort of just had a nice feature. Now they cover every little, let’s see Michael, you’re in good shape, you’re not going to… but I tell you… so the six is coming, hunh? It’s coming. Does it ever end? And what happens? You’ll be into seven, right? Before six gets old, you’ll be into seven.’ ”

Here is commentary from a Christian YouTuber:

“Trump asks, 'What does that do, give you a little bit deeper view into somebody’s skin?' How is that for a Freudian slip?! Donald Trump is even admitting that 6G, which is the human augmentation, bio-digital convergence--the mixing of man and machine and computer and AI--will enable Big Brother to see under your skin.

“Of course, laughing it off, using humor. Even the articles that were out there on the story of Trump announcing 6G were trying to peddle away from what he actually said and make it seem like he is a delusional old man.

“Articles like, ‘Trump bizarrely links 6G to camera tech in confusing remarks on nex-gen networks.’

Headline from MSN: ‘Trump sparks mockery after slurring through 6G speech, mistakes it for a camera lens in viral clip’

Headline from Daily Beast: ‘Grandpa Trump, 79, Struggles to Get His Head Around 6G’

“No, what he said was 100 percent truth and they laugh it off and dismiss this stuff because the truth is always in plain sight and they know that the majority of the citizens in this country won’t have the slightest clue about what’s coming forward with the 6G bio-digital convergence.

“What we’re talking about is metabolic energy harvesting, bio-field hijacking, mRNA immuno-suppression. What they won’t tell you about 6G is how they’re going to lean on terahertz frequencies and these frequencies go deep. So deep that it will allow them to actually see under your skin.

“What the majority of people believe is that all 6G will do is allow them to download things faster; it’s going to make their internet faster, as if anybody is complaining about their internet speed anymore at this point.

“You’re not going to see a difference between 5G and 6G in regards to how fast you can download music, but that’s what they’re going to tell you: ‘Oh, it’s more convenient.’

“What they won’t tell you is how it’s going to be able to penetrate your clothes and you skin. This is what 6G surveillance is going to look like. We’re talking about wearable implants, things like ‘smart tattoos,’ nano-tech, which will connect to networks such as health-tech, which is why they’ve been sabotaging the healthcare system as we know it. They’re doing it by design.”

New Year's Advice: Forgive and FORGET

New Year’s Day is upon us and now begins the annual flood of idolatrous advice about how to improve your life--by losing weight, exercising more, learning to slow down and experience mindfulness, better appreciating your self-worth, practicing small acts of kindness and gratitude, meditating daily on peace, love, happiness, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. None of it mentions the need for belief in Jesus Christ and God’s Word. 

When Paul writes in Philippians 3:12, “Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus,” he’s saying, “I’m not where I want to be yet but I follow after that I may seize it.”

“Apprehend means to take hold of,” explains Columbus, Ohio preacher David Reid. “In other words, Christ Jesus had taken hold of Paul and Paul wanted to take hold of that life he knew he could walk in. He says in the next verse, [13] Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, [14] I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.

“He’s saying, ‘I don’t count myself to have apprehended; I’m not there yet. But this one thing I do, ‘FORGETTING those things which are behind.’ The message is we need to forget the past.

“As we go through life there’s lots of things we can ponder on, and our minds can go in a million different directions. Have you ever said anything you wish you hadn’t said?

“I’ve done that a lot and there’s times after I do something that I think, ‘Well, I wish I could hit Control Z.’ You know what that is? That’s after you mess up the document and you don’t know what you did, you just hit Control Z and undo it. It’s one of my favorite functions because it just lets you get back to where you were.

“But you can’t get back the words you just spoke. You wish, ‘Why didn’t I handle this differently?!’ and if you dwell on those things, they’ll mess you up. You can spend all of your present—all this emotion and unending guilt because of that stuff in the past.

“Think about Paul for a moment. When Paul says he was the chief of sinners, he doesn’t mean he committed more crimes or had a bigger crime organization than anyone else. He’s saying he’s the leader of the persecution of the church. When you think about Romans 10: ‘How shall they hear without a preacher?’ . . .

“I will tell you this, what I think is the most wicked thing that can be done on the earth today doesn’t involve drugs or any of the fleshly sins we think of. The most evil thing that can be done today is to inhibit the proclamation of the gospel.

"The gospel’s the thing that delivers people from an eternal hell. So anything that’s done to inhibit that is the most wicked thing there is. That’s why Paul says he was the ‘chiefest of sinners.’

“Do you think Paul had some guilt issues? While he’s giving his voice, consenting unto people’s deaths, persecuting them even unto strange cities . . . In other words, he’s not just mad enough that, ‘Hey, the guys in my neighborhood preaching this false gospel need to be dealt with.’ He goes to the chief priest and says, ‘Hey, give me some letters because there’s people far away I’ve got to go find and persecute.’ Paul would look back at that and have guilt.

*****

“We have our own things in our lives that we regret and you just have to let those things go. Life is full of spilled milk. What’s the saying? ‘Don’t cry over spilled milk.’ The point is, you’ve got to let it go. I think that’s incredibly liberating because you can rehearse that stuff in your mind forever and ever and ever.

“Now, when Paul says ‘forgetting the past,’ is that just the 'Power of Positive Thinking,' or is it something greater than that? Look at Colossians 2:13: [13] And you, being dead in your sins and the uncircumcision of your flesh, hath he quickened together with him, having forgiven you all trespasses.

“If God the Father considers all of our trespasses forgiven, we need to agree with Him about that. We need to not let the past mess up the present.

"One of the things a lot of athletic coaches say is, ‘Get ready for the next play.’ If you play any sort of sports, you learn you can’t stew on whatever bad happens. If you sit and stew and mope, you know what? You’re going to miss the next play.

“When Paul says, ‘I press toward the mark,’ the issue is, ‘Where are you going?’ When Paul says this, he’s not talking about, ‘I’m doing this now so I can get all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in the future.’ Paul already has them and he can’t lose them. What he’s talking about is his experience of those blessings in THIS life.

*****

Micah 7:19 says, [19] He will turn again, he will have compassion upon us; he will subdue our iniquities; and thou wilt cast all their sins into the depths of the sea.

Richard Jordan explains, “I love that statement, ‘He will subdue our iniquities.’ He literally will subdue. He’ll take care of your sin when you can’t. He’ll lick it. He’ll beat it for you. We sing that song ‘Glorious Freedom.’

“You couldn’t get freedom from your sin no matter how hard you tried, but God Himself promises to take care of it for us. When He says He casts it into the depths of the sea, that means never to be remembered. The extent of forgiveness in this regard is total. God doesn’t forgive piecemeal and He doesn’t forgive on probation. Forgiveness is an absolute thing. The sin is gone.

“Psalm 103:12 says, ‘As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.’ That’s total removal. If you said, ‘As far as the north is from the south,’ if you go far enough north, your compass will tell you that now you’re going south because of the way magnetic field in the earth is. But if you get in an airplane and you start going east, your compass will never tell you that you’re going west because east and west never meet.

“By the way, this is one of the verses that proves the earth is round. I can’t figure out the east and west, where they never meet, if the earth’s flat.

“When He talks about forgiveness, He’s saying, ‘I’m going to separate your sin from you so far away that you never meet them again.’ That’s what that word ‘remember’ means. Something that is a member of something is a part of it. If it’s sent away, it’s not part of you anymore. He’s saying, ‘I’ll never take your sins and make them part of your account again.’

“Isaiah 38:17 is another verse to help you. King Hezekiah is sick and recovering and says, [17] Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back.

“If something’s behind you, you can’t see it and when it says God ‘cast all my sins behind thy back,’ that means He’s going to take the sins and put them out of His sight where they don’t remind Him of anything. They’re not seen and they’re not things He’s going to bring up again. That’s just another way to describe the completeness of the forgiveness God provides.

“Isaiah 43:25 says, [25] I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins. That’s what Acts 3:19 said: [19] Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out, when the times of refreshing shall come from the presence of the Lord.

“He’s literally going to remove the transgressions from the record. When you blot something out, you cover it over, you erase it, you make it like it wasn’t there anymore. That’s what the issue of forgiveness is.

“Paul uses the term ‘remission.’ I’ve heard people say remission isn’t permanent, but if I remit a check to someone to pay a bill that’s pretty permanent. They say, ‘Well, you can have cancer and it not go into remission.’ These are not medical terms in the New Testament and it’s not the same idea. The word ‘remission’ is an accounting term where a payment is made and it completely satisfies the debt and now the debt doesn’t exist anymore.

“Colossians 2:13 says He’s ‘forgiven you ALL trespasses.’ How many is ALL? That would be all of the past, present and future. Your forgiveness in Christ is total and complete.

******

“You’ll learn more about human psychology in I and II Kings than you will reading Rogers, Jung, Freud, or whoever else you want to study,” says Jordan in an old study. “You can read all the Christian psychology; you can follow Chuck Swindoll and listen to Chuck Stanley and all these guys who belch out this Christian psychology with their scriptural pabulum on the subject. You can listen to Dr. James Dobson . . .

“You’ll learn more about Christian psychology in I and II Kings than anywhere else, I guarantee you. I’ve read those books for years with my mouth just agape about how they reveal human nature to you.

“See, the difference is the Bible doesn’t just tell you about it; it tells you why it’s that way, looks under the surface and gives you some information, and fortunately, it also tells you what to do about it.

“The keenest observer of human nature really doesn’t understand what’s going on in the inner man of a person. It takes the Scripture to pierce that. I and II Kings will do it for you. But I and II Chronicles look at the same events from a divine perspective.

*****

“In the Old Testament you have some books that repeat things. For example, what’s in I Kings and II Kings is repeated in I and II Chronicles. God didn’t need to write two accounts of the same story just because He thought you didn’t read it enough the first time. There’s a completely different viewpoint.

“You know when you study Matthew, Mark, Luke and John you have four pictures of the life of Christ. You know it’s not designed to be a harmony, or one life of Christ. God could have written that if He had wanted to. But rather He gives you four pictures, four perspectives of Christ and there’s prophetic reasons for that. In fact, the Old Testament tells you there’s going to be a four-fold picture of Christ looking at the same person and same events from different perspectives.

“In Kings and Chronicles, it’s the same way. Kings looks at it from the human viewpoint. But when you look at same events in Chronicles, you’re looking more from the divine viewpoint.”

(will have a new article this evening for certain)

The Spirit's CHILL and ready to do the job for you

(new article tomorrow)

Paul advises in Galatians 5:16, “This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.”

“This is critically important because every one of us will be lustful,” says Alex Kurz. “The word ‘lust’ at its root means to long for something and our old self life in Adam LONNNGS for a lot of things. 

“When you begin to possess that desire and this sort of strong passion, how do you not fulfill that longing? Walk in the spirit. How do you do that?

“Verse 17 says, ‘For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.’

“This verse has nothing to do with YOU fighting your flesh; you’re going to lose!  Let the Spirit fight for you!

“When it says ‘the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,’ this has nothing to do with the flesh being in hand-to- hand mortal combat with the Spirit.

*****

“Some people live in kind of this dual, split personality kind of a thing where they tell you, ‘Wow, what a battle; every day I’m fighting the flesh.’

“The battle isn’t you suppressing, controlling, restraining your flesh. The Spirit has the answer. When it says ‘the flesh lusteth against the Spirit,’ it’s talking about the two operating systems that are completely diametrically opposed to each other.

“So here’s the key. The Spirit will never ever utilize the avenue the flesh is going to utilize. The way the flesh works is completely contradictory to how the Spirit works, and if you’re just walking over here, don’t worry, you’re not going to fulfill the flesh over there. 

“Let’s just demonstrate this. Romans 6:11-12 says, 11] Likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin, but alive unto God through Jesus Christ our Lord.
[12] Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that ye should obey it in the lusts thereof.

“Do you see the contrast being made? You know what the Spirit says? ‘Reckon.’ Count what those verses say about you to be true and by doing so you will not obey the lust--the affection, the desire, that innate longing that your flesh has.

“The answer is to reckon; it’s in the realm of the THINKING in contrast to the realm of the lust.

“Romans 13:14 says, ‘But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.’

“You know what it means to put on the Lord Jesus Christ? Renew the way you’re thinking. If you renew the way you’re thinking, as the verse says, you’re not going to fulfill—it doesn’t say you will never have inordinate lust. It says you’re not going to what?

“You know, that actually is a help because when you begin to long for something that is quite contrary to what you already possess in Jesus Christ, you need to say, ‘Wait a minute, am I thinking properly?’

“When you have a lust, don’t fall to the ground, condemn yourself and be overcome by shame, guilt, fear and this sense of unworthiness. Let it lead you to recognize, ‘I got to change the way I’m thinking.’ Nothing mysterious there; not some strange working. You see that? It’s not some metaphysical operation; it’s simply thinking.

*****

“I don’t want to belabor all this, but to walk after the Spirit is not complicated. People are looking for the Spirit to do some things, and they’ve been deluded by some teachings regarding how the Spirit is going to move and shape and lead and yearn, when there’s just this clear comprehensive knowing something.

“Ephesians 4:17. Verse 20. We got to learn some truths; that’s the answer to the lustful impulses that will drive and lead.

"When Paul says in Romans 13, ‘Put on the Lord Jesus Christ,’ he’s saying, ‘Put on the specific doctrines that are being taught,’ and it’s in this category called 'the grace of Almighty God' that we renew our thinking. We have to change the way we understand some things. By doing so, you’re putting Him on and you’re putting this guy off.

“You see this battle? The flesh says, ‘NOOO, you’ve got to operate in the realm of how you feel about things!’ The flesh is going to convince you that your feelings are a legitimate authority. The Bible says, ‘No, what you feel is NOT authoritative! The words that God the Holy Spirit is teaching—that’s the authority!’

"As Jeremiah 17:9 says, 'The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?' 

“It’s good to be able to turn the pages of the Book,  and when you’re feeling beat-up and down and whatever else you might be FEELING, you read one verse and, ‘Wow, I’ve got to change the way I’m thinking about some things!’

*****

“Another passage in this regard, and these are just some of the more obvious passages, is Colossians 3:5: ‘Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry.’

“Verse 10 says, ‘And have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him.’

“To mortify means you just put it to death. How do you do that? Verse 9 says, ‘Lie not one to another, seeing that ye have put off the old man with his deeds.’

“The Spirit by the way, He’s chilled. He’s relaxed. He’s not fighting anybody!

“I just really want you to grasp that when Paul starts talking about being contrary, don’t envision having this struggle every day. No, it’s just two competing systems and which one are you choosing to operate under. That’s all it is.

“The Spirit’s relaxed and He’s already provided the resources. We already have the provisions. All we have to do is put it on.

“How do you put it on? That’s why Bible study has to be a very personal thing between you and God. No one else can do this for you. I hope when you study the Bible it’s so that you truly are minding what the Spirit is minding.

*****

"So when that lust starts rearing its ugly head, what do you have to do? ‘I got to think about what the Spirit’s thinking about and He just thinks about Jesus Christ.’

“In Galatians 5:17, what Paul’s saying is, ‘If you’re operating and abiding in the realm of the flesh, the realm of the emotions, you know what’s going to happen? You can’t do it.

“Paul says in Romans 7:19, ‘For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do.’ He’s talking about living under the law! Verse 20 says, ‘Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me.’

“Sin is going to deceive you. The weakness of our flesh; it deceives us into thinking you have the energy and the capacity to control your life and to live for God and to restrain evil and to produce good and to live.

“Paul says, ‘I’m over here. I can’t do what I want to do!’ Why? There’s something inherently wrong and flawed in the realm of your inner person.’ That’s why the law will always fail. It can’t change you. Oh, it can be a yoke and it can control you, but it can’t change something inside.

“Paul says, ‘Listen, you want to operate under the law system, you’re not going to succeed. You’re going to fail every single time.’

“Galatians 5:18 says, ‘But if ye be led of the Spirit, ye are not under the law.’ That’s the language of Romans 8. In this particular context, when Paul says, ‘If you be led of the Spirit,’ what does it mean to be led of the Spirit? It’s to mind the things of the Spirit. What is the Spirit mindful of?  Who you are; your life; the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus.

*****

“Galatians 4 says, [1] Now I say, That the heir, as long as he is a child, differeth nothing from a servant, though he be lord of all;
[2] But is under tutors and governors until the time appointed of the father.
[3] Even so we, when we were children, were in bondage under the elements of the world:

“The Galatians were gravitating back to that child system of the law but the Spirit will never violate your position as an adult. You know what’s expected of an adult? You better start thinking. No more of the yoke and the chains of some system that operates in the realm of external constraint.

“The Holy Spirit will never do that. He treats you like a grown-up and the only motivation that honors and pleases our heavenly Father is the internal compulsion; the internal change of character. That’s what it means to be an adult!

“Being an adult means no one’s going to grab your hand. God’s not going to make you do anything. That’s high ground. You have Christians who seek comfort in the law like a little child, and God the Holy Spirit says, ‘I’m not going to violate who you are. You’re an adult. You can choose to mind the things of the Spirit. We can choose to walk that way.’ ” 

Alien agenda gospel?

In an interview Elon Musk was asked, “Who do you look up to the most?” He answered, “The creator.”

He was then asked, “What’s your current position on God?” He answered, “God is the creator.”

Interviewer: “You don’t believe in God, though, do you?”

Elon: “I believe this universe came from something. There are different labels.”

Commentary from a Christian YouTuber: “They’re all coming to the consensus that yes, there is indeed a creator; there’s no way we evolved from apes, but what they’re telling you is that that creator is some sort of an alien entity.

“They’re pushing an alien agenda gospel. They’ll mention creator, but they mean an alien creature which is nothing more than a fallen angel and a demon.”

Here’s an outtake from the Christmas Eve Bible study at my church:

Jeremiah 10 begins: [1] Hear ye the word which the LORD speaketh unto you, O house of Israel:
[2] Thus saith the LORD, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.
[3] For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.
[4] They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

The Lord’s saying, “Don’t start doing this star-gazing astrology, getting your doctrine out of the way the planets operate.”

The people are carving an idol. They bring the idol in and then they DECK it. You take it and hang fruit on it so that it looks like it’s alive. So you DECorate it and then you worship it.

Now you try and tell people they shouldn’t have a Christmas tree and watch them go berserk. If you go to a home that has a tree and you sit there on the couch and they turn the lights down so you can watch it glow, you get that warm feeling of worship and there’s an attraction to that.

Where this stuff comes from is part of the vain religious system of Baal worship.

When you talk about the stargazing, understand that what they’re doing is counterfeiting the original truth.

Listen, there’s a reason they use December 21-25; they’re counterfeiting the things God put in His creation.

Genesis 1: [14] And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
[15] And let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.

When it says He made the stars also, that means He made the stars also to rule the heaven and the earth. There’s some truth God puts up there and they’re for signs. They’re designed to teach doctrine; sound doctrine, truth.

But when Satan corrupted things and the angelic host follows him . . .

Look what happens to them in Deuteronomy 4: [19] And lest thou lift up thine eyes unto heaven, and when thou seest the sun, and the moon, and the stars, even all the host of heaven, shouldest be driven to worship them, and serve them, which the LORD thy God hath divided unto all nations under the whole heaven.

That’s what the nations did. They started getting their doctrine--stargazing, prognosticating--so what they did is they literally corrupted the things God put in the heavens to teach truth, and they used these physical signs as messages from the invisible powers of the universe.

My point is, things God out in His creation to teach sound doctrine get corrupted, so it isn’t like Satan invented December the 25^th; he corrupted December 25^th.

Taking on supernatural provisions

(new article tomorrow for certain)

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.

Whole circuit of interplay with life

In II Timothy, the last epistle Paul wrote, he laments, "For Demas hath forsaken me, having loved this present world, and is departed unto Thessalonica."

“Imagine, a guy’s got his name positively mentioned at the end of the Book of Philemon and then at the very end of Paul’s ministry he forsook Paul," says Richard Jordan. "You read down through that list in II Timothy and you don’t expect to find him there. It’s like, ‘What’s he doing there?!’

“You know what, folks, Demas is a warning. You might get all the way up there, but it’s a walk of faith; a daily application of faith to apply God’s Word to your life.

*****

“Two times in Paul’s epistles he warns against ‘enticing words.’ In I Corinthians 2:4, he says, ‘And my speech and my preaching was not with enticing words of man's wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power.’

“In Colossians 2:4, he says, ‘And this I say, lest any man should beguile you with enticing words.’

“That idea of enticing words—it’s w-o-r-d-s that are really enticements, where you’re trying to entice somebody into doing something for some other reason than what the REAL issue is.

“Paul writes in I Corinthians 1:17, ‘For Christ sent me not to baptize, but to preach the gospel: not with wisdom of words, lest the cross of Christ should be made of none effect.’

“That ‘wisdom of words’; that’s talking about making your own way, giving your own explanation. It’s human viewpoint, and what it does is ‘make the gospel of none effect.’

“That doesn’t mean you don’t believe the gospel; it just means it doesn’t have its impact. It doesn’t mean you don’t know the Bible, or read and study it; it just means the Bible doesn’t have the impact on your life God’s designed it to have.

“When Paul talks about ‘fleshly wisdom,’ he’s talking about making a religious show. Galatians 6:12 says, ‘As many as desire to make a fair shew in the flesh, they constrain you to be circumcised; only lest they should suffer persecution for the cross of Christ.’

“This thing about ‘constraining you to be circumcised’; it’s not really an issue of stopping sin because the people trying to get you to do the religious operation—they don’t keep the law either. They don’t perform to perfection either.

“They’ve got something they’re promoting and it gets to be this big fleshly operation. Paul talks in II Corinthians 11 about the Corinthians ‘being corrupted from the simplicity that’s in Christ.’

“He starts out in the chapter by saying, ‘For our rejoicing is this, the testimony of our conscience, that in simplicity and godly sincerity, not with fleshly wisdom, but by the grace of God, we have had our conversation in the world, and more abundantly to you-ward.’

“He’s saying, ‘It’s been with simplicity; that’s how I’ve held my conversation with you. My manner of life has been such that it’s just been who God has made me in Christ that’s the issue; not a bunch of human viewpoint.’

***** 

“Sometimes you hear that word conversation, and oftentimes it’s chaffed at because it’s an Old English word that has more meanings to it than what we generally talk about.

“We usually mean our speech. You know, sit around and have a conversation, discussing things with people. But a conversation is more than just a conversational chat; it’s an entering into an interplay.

“I Peter 3 says, ‘Likewise, ye wives, be in subjection to your own husbands; that, if any obey not the word, they also may without the word be won by the conversation of the wives; While they behold your chaste conversation coupled with fear.’

“Now, notice that’s the wife’s conversation; it doesn’t say that they may hear  your conversation. If the word conversation was only meant to refer to something you’re saying, they would say ‘when they hear your conversation.’

“But what does it say they’re going to do to your conversation? Behold it. Your conversation is not simply something that you hear with your ear; it’s something you can see with your eye. It’s more than just words. It’s something literally that you can see in someone. It’s the way they converse with life; it’s the way they interplay with life.

“Somebody said conversation means ‘a manner of life.’ It’s more than that, though; it’s literally life itself and it’s something that can be held.

"I say that so you understand the translators of the King James Bible, when they used that word, they did not use it simply to refer to words, because you cannot behold words. It has to do with who you are and the whole circuit; the WHOLE of what your life is about.

******

“Paul writes to Timothy in II Timothy 3:10, ‘But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, longsuffering, charity, patience.’

“He’s saying, ‘You’ve known the things I taught you and you know the way I live--my purpose, my faith, my longsuffering, my charity, my patience, my persecutions and afflictions.’

“Timothy knew all about Paul and it mattered to Paul that Timothy knew more than just the doctrine. He wanted him to know how the doctrine lived in his life and how he ministered that to others.

“Paul says in Philippians 1:29-30, ‘For unto you it is given in the behalf of Christ, not only to believe on him, but also to suffer for his sake; Having the same conflict which ye saw in me, and now hear to be in me.’

“That’s his conversation: ‘What you see in me, what you hear to be in me’; his manner of life. And Paul says to the Corinthians, ‘When you looked at my life, you know the way I’ve lived with you, and it’s been in simplicity. It’s not been a duplicitous life. I haven’t been one way over here and another way there. And it’s been in godly sincerity.’

“He writes in II Corinthians 4:1-2, ‘But have renounced the hidden things of dishonesty, not walking in craftiness, nor handling the word of God deceitfully; but by manifestation of the truth commending ourselves to every man's conscience in the sight of God.’

“I think that’s one of the greatest verses in the Bible to give to a preacher or a Believer—anybody who does the Lord’s work—on HOW to do it.

“We’re just going to teach the truth and if teaching the truth will commend itself to your conscience, then your conscience and my conscience are at one.”

Taking the club out of their hands

(new article Tuesday evening)

Paul writes in Romans 8:34, “Who is he that condemneth? It is Christ that died, yea rather, that is risen again, who is even at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us.”

“Somebody going to come along and condemn you?” says Richard Jordan. “Hey, by the way, you condemn yourself better than they would do. When somebody says something about you and you get all proud and huffy, if you’d just sit down for a minute and realize that you can think about yourself a lot worse things than they’re saying about you.

“You can, and in fact, you do at times. That’s what makes you so aggravated when other people do it because you know it’s true.

“Winston Churchill said it: ‘There’s nothing more exhilarating than being shot at and missed.’ Maybe what they’re saying about you isn’t exactly true, but if they knew all the stuff you know about you, you’d be mute. So who is he that condemneth? Who really has the ability to condemn you?

“Romans 14:4 says, ‘Who art thou that judgest another man's servant? to his own master he standeth or falleth. Yea, he shall be holden up: for God is able to make him stand.’

“Paul said in Romans 2 about some people trying to get around responsibility:  ‘Therefore thou art inexcusable, O man, whosoever thou art that judgest: for wherein thou judgest another, thou condemnest thyself; for thou that judgest doest the same things.’

“So who is it really who’s going to condemn you? It doesn’t help to say, ‘Well, you did it, too,’ does it? Because that’s really not an excuse.

*****

“You look at all this stuff going on down in Ferguson, Missouri, and it’s who gets the best press. The kid or cop. Everybody’s just looking for a way to condemn the other guy and excuse themselves.

“Pointing your finger at someone else for doing something bad to excuse yourself is the height of absurdity. Either you’re guilty or you aren’t guilty; it doesn’t make any difference what anybody else did. And, by the way, you’re probably guilty.

“That’s why that verse 34 in Romans 8 is so important. Somebody comes along and wants to condemn you; it’s Christ who died . . . Two thousand years ago God knew everything I was going to do and He died for all of it; none of it caught Him by surprise.

“Someone called me the other day and said, ‘My husband’s an unbeliever and every now and then I’ll mess up and he’ll  get mad and look at me and say, ‘If those people at the church knew about you and knew how you acted here at home, they wouldn’t let you open the door!’

“She asked, ‘What should I do?!’ I said, ‘You need to look at him and say, ‘You know, sugar, you’re absolutely right.’

“You know what you just did? You took the club out of his hands. Because he is right but you can acknowledge the fact you made a mistake and did wrong.

“One of the most powerful things you’ll ever do in relationships with other people is you look at them and say, and I deal with this in marriage and inter-personal conflicts all of the time, ‘They’re 95 % wrong and I’m 5% wrong.’

“Let’s say that’s true. If you say to them, ‘You know, friend, I’ve been wrong and I’m sorry,’ you may only be confessing 5% of it in your mind, and they’re guilty of the rest, but that’s them and this is you and you know what, that is such a powerful thing in relationships.

“You say, ‘How can I do that?’ ‘Who is he that condemneth? It’s Christ that died.’ If He doesn’t condemn you, what matters if anybody else does? Can I say to you God is for you.

“In verse 26 Paul says, ‘Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered.’

“An infirmity is somewhere where you have a weakness. In my mind, the weakness in this verse is defined for you. ‘Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought.’

“The ultimate weakness you have in life, especially in your prayer life, is you really don’t know how you ought to pray.

“When it comes to taking what God says and applying it to the circumstances of your life, you often throw up your hands and say, ‘I’m not really sure,’ because there are more places where He doesn’t tell you what to do directly.

“He never says buy that car, marry that person. He’ll say, ‘Don’t marry that one,’ but He never says, ‘Marry that one.’ Isn’t that interesting? God expects you to make some of those choices. He expects you to work with Him. Take His word, let it work in you and make some choices and some decisions.

*****

 “I was raised in a religious system where every time you did anything you were happy about you figured it was your flesh because you couldn’t be happy. That’s flesh.

"I remember reading that verse in I Timothy 6 about how ‘God’s given us all things richly to enjoy,’ and I used to puzzle over that and think, ‘If He’s given us all things richly to enjoy, then why do I have to be miserable all of the time to be pleasing to Him?’

“Then it dawned on me one day that I didn’t have to be. I could have some joy that had nothing to do with it being attached to my flesh.

“The Spirit of God takes His Word and makes intercession. He’s for you. You’re not left abandoned. God’s for you.”

Mary to Gabriel: 'I get who I am'

According to Encyclopedia Britannica, the nimbus, or radiant circle of light used to depict the head of the Roman Madonna and her child Jesus, was “avoided in Early Christian art” because it symbolized paganism’s Sun-divinity, but then “became customary in the 6^th century for the Virgin Mary and other saints.”

As Scottish theologian Alexander Hislop argues in his monumental book exposing Catholicism, “The Two Babylons,” first published in 1853, “Let any one compare the nimbus around the head of Circe (Pompeii’s “daughter of the Sun”), with that around the head of the Popish Virgin, and he will see how exactly they correspond. Now, could anyone possibly believe that all this coincidence could be accidental.

“ . . . When it is evident that the goddess enshrined in the Papal Church for the supreme worship of its votaries, is that very Babylonian queen who set up Nimrod, or Ninus ‘the Son,’ as the rival of Christ, and who in her own person was the incarnation of every kind of licentiousness, how dark a character does that stamp on the Roman idolatry.

“. . . What will it avail to mitigate the heinous character of that idolatry, to say that the child she holds forth to adoration is called by the name of Jesus? When she was worshipped with her child in Babylon of old, that child was called by a name as peculiar to Christ, as distinctive of His glorious character, as the name of Jesus. He was called ‘Zoro-ashta,’ ‘the seed of the woman.’

“If these things be true (and gainsay them who can), who will venture now to plead for Papal Rome, or to call her a Christian Church? Is there one, who fears God, and who reads these lines, who would not admit that Paganism alone could ever have inspired such a doctrine as that avowed by the Melchites at the Nicene Council, that the Holy Trinity consisted of ‘the Father, the Virgin Mary, and the Messiah their Son’?

“Is there one who would not shrink with horror from such a thought? What, then, would the reader say of a Church that teaches its children to adore such a Trinity as that contained in the following lines?—

“Heart of Jesus I adore thee; Heart of Mary, I implore thee; Heart of Joseph, pure and just; 'IN THESE THREE HEARTS I PUT MY TRUST.’

“If this is not Paganism, what is there that can be called by such a name?”

*****

The Bible passage Roman Catholicism has loved to twist for its pagan-goddess initiative probably more than any other is Luke 1: 42-48:

“And she spake out with a loud voice, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb.
[43] And whence is this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?
[44] For, lo, as soon as the voice of thy salutation sounded in mine ears, the babe leaped in my womb for joy.
[45] And blessed is she that believed: for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.
[46] And Mary said, My soul doth magnify the Lord,
[47] And my spirit hath rejoiced in God my Saviour.
[48] For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden: for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.”

“When it reads, ‘from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed,’ she’s not authorizing, you know, the Catholic Confession: ‘Hail Mary, full of grace, blessed art thou among women; blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus,' " explains Richard Jordan.

“That’s not the idea where everybody’s going to call ME blessed. She’s not identifying just herself, but she’s seeing embodied in herself what’s going on here in God’s plan and purpose for the nation Israel.

“You’re probably familiar with the corresponding passage in Malachi 3 because of verse 10, or maybe verse 8, where the prophet talks about being robbed ‘in tithes and offerings,’ and being ‘cursed with a curse for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation.’

“Now, in the next verse, is God’s corrective to Israel about her failure: ‘Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the LORD of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

[11] And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, and he shall not destroy the fruits of your ground; neither shall your vine cast her fruit before the time in the field, saith the LORD of hosts.’

“All of that’s talking about the Fifth Course of Judgment Israel’s under, where the land isn’t going to bring forth its fruit, and they’re going to be cast out among the nations, and the devourers are going to come and take of them. And He says, ‘If you’ll obey me, if you’ll honor me—if you’ll be faithful, believing remnant—I will restore you.’

“When Malachi 3:12 says, ‘And all nations shall call you blessed,’ that’s exactly what Mary’s talking about over here. She’s quoting Malachi, applying the passage about when God’s going to redeem Israel and set them in their kingdom.

“She’s applying that to her, not because she thinks she’s the issue, and that she ought to be held up personally, but she understands that she is representing all of what her nation is designed to be; she is who Israel is called and chosen to be. And she has an understanding of what’s going on in the birth of Christ as the Messiah.”

*****

Mary’s statement in Luke 1 that “he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden,” refers back to verses 26-38 where head angel Gabriel comes to Mary and first tells her she’s going to be the mother of the Messiah.

The passage reads, “And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth,
[27] To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary.
[28] And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women.
[29] And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
[30] And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God.
[31] And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS.”

“When he says, ‘Blessed art thou among women,’ Mary understands from what Gabriel communicates to her that she’s going to be the mother of the Messiah. She got that.

"When she says she’s the ‘handmaiden of the Lord,’ she says, in other words, ‘I understand who I am.’

“Look at Psalm 116:16 and notice this term: ‘O LORD, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: thou hast loosed my bonds.’

“You’ll discover that the context of these psalms right in here, over and over, will be exactly the context of the Messiah and Him being the Deliverer and Redeemer in Israel.

“The writer here, and speaking as the Messiah, identifies Himself as ‘the son of thine handmaid.’ That term ‘handmaiden’ was someone who was going to be the mother of the Deliverer in Israel, and so when Mary picks up these terms, she’s not just saying, ‘Well, I’m your servant,” but she understands something about who she is.

"She understands that the ‘seed of the woman’ became the seed of Abraham, became the seed of David, and now there’s going to be the ‘seed of the woman’ through Mary.

“In other words, she’s the mother of the seed line, and she’s got that. She understands that she’s fulfilling prophecy, and when she says, ‘For he hath regarded the low estate of his handmaiden,’ she’s recognizing that the nation Israel is under that Fifth Course and is in a lowly estate.

"They are the ‘tail of the nations, not the head,’ because of their failure and their unbelief, and yet now the Redeemer of Israel is here.

“Notice that salvation for Israel was not just holiness and righteousness before Him, but it was also delivery from their enemies to be established in their kingdom.

"It was the whole panoply of what God promised Israel and Mary understands, ‘I’m gonna be that vehicle—the one who is the INDIVIDUAL who does ultimately what God chose the NATION to be, and that is to be the one who brings the Messiah and the Redeemer into the world!’

“She’s got a handle on who she is and she’s thrilled about the privilege and doesn’t exalt herself but magnifies the Lord and rejoices in ‘God my Savior.’

"By the way, she knew she needed a Savior. There’s none of this ‘Immaculate Conception of Mary without a sin nature,’ and all that kind of stuff that that pagan religion tries to impute to her.”