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Author: Parson Mike
A New Book Release!
At long last, the revised and expanded second edition of my book, The Salvation of the LORD, has been released! It goes on sale on Tuesday, April 23, 2024! It is already available for purchase from Amazon, Goodreads, and Abebooks, but it is just a matter of time before all the others catch up and begin carrying it, too. In order to find it on your favorite online bookseller’s site, just search on the book’s ISBN: 978-0-9888528-8-4 (try it with and without the hyphens).
I’m still working on the eBook conversion, but it should be available soon. I haven’t assigned an ISBN to the eBook editions, so you will need to search on the author and title to find it, and be sure to include “second edition” in the search to distinguish it from the first edition. Of course, once it’s available, I’ll provide the direct links to the sales pages here in my blog store and in the Parson Place Press Bookstore, as well as on my personal author website.
So, what makes the second edition distinct from the first? Besides correcting a couple of mistakes and revising some less-clear wording here and there, I also wrote an entirely new chapter on the doctrine of apostasy to explain what it is, how it can happen, and how to avoid it or counter it once it appears. The book was truly incomplete without this important chapter.
Please share this blog post with your family and friends or send them the links to both the print and eBook versions to purchase on their own. Also, once you’ve read my book, please, please, PLEASE write a review for it on at least two online bookstore sites, especially on Amazon. This will help immensely with getting the word out and with boosting sales. As an incentive for writing your review, send me the link to it once you’ve posted it and I’ll send you a special promo code to download the eBook edition of The Salvation of the LORD for free once it is available. If you’re interested, you may also browse and follow me on my Amazon Author page, too.
That’s all for now. I look forward reading your reviews and other comments soon!
Reflections on My Life and Military Service
I’ve been reading through the Bible this year using the “As It Happened” Bible Reading Plan in the YouVersion Bible app. Because I started it about a week after the start of the new year, I am a few days behind where I would be if I had started on New Year’s Day. Nevertheless, the reading for today (which happens to be July Fourth) is about the story of King Ahab and the prophet Micaiah, a variation on the name Michael, found in both 1 Kings 22 and 2 Chronicles 18. I wrote the following note and have reposted it here. “There are two very important points for us to glean from these passages of Scripture. First, how remarkable it is that God would solicit input from His heavenly host and then permit a lying spirit from among them to deceive the already false prophets of Ahab. Second, how astounding it is that God used “a random” bowman to fulfill His Word that Ahab would die in battle.
I used to teach a Bible study every Sunday morning for the young men in infantry training when I was at Ft. Benning, GA, and I used this story about Micaiah to illustrate the Army core value of “Integrity”. They always reacted with great interest and awe when we read this story. Of all the work I did as an Army Chaplain, teaching and preaching to these young men was the highlight of my career. I feel that this is where I had my greatest impact. Some of them went on to die in battle, but I pray they developed an eternal relationship with Jesus from attending the Bible studies and Chapel services I conducted there. One of the most rewarding experiences I had was at the end of their training when they would approach me as a group to express their gratitude for the spiritual support I had provided while they were in training. I get choked up every time I think of it.”
That is as much space as the app would allow for me to post my thoughts, so I had to leave it there. However, I have just a little more I want to share about this here. I think it is very fitting for me to reflect upon my life’s work for the Lord up to this point in my life. I have served Him, sometimes more faithfully than others, throughout my life since I was a child. I turned 62 years old earlier this year and, like most people as they age, I’ve started thinking more about how far I’ve come and how much farther I have left to go. I’ve especially given thought to my personal and spiritual legacy.
I walked the aisle to accept Jesus Christ as my personal Lord and Savior on a wood-shavings-covered floor underneath an open-air tabernacle constructed of solid wood and steel. It was sometime during the middle or end of July in 1973 at a camp meeting style revival for the Holmes County, Florida, Baptist Association. I received water baptism a few weeks later in the small-sized (less than 40) congregation of the Selma Friendship Baptist Church where I attended between the ages of six and eighteen. (It sold out to another denomination and ceased to exist many years ago.) The board of deacons for that little church voted to give me a license to preach, and the pastor presented it to me on Sunday, March 12, 1978. Inviting a “boy preacher” to preach to both youths and adults became somewhat of a curiosity over the next couple of years as I went wherever I could get an opportunity. I had also been the pianist at Selma Friendship, though I was never very accomplished at it, and I taught both children and youth Sunday School and R. A.s (Royal Ambassadors) classes whenever a substitute was needed. I even wrote and coordinated an original story Christmas play while there!
I met my wife-to-be while we were attending junior college, and I decided to join the Army as a Chaplain Assistant in August 1981. We were married the Saturday after Thanksgiving that year. Since my wife was a Methodist and uninterested in becoming a Baptist, I decided to become a United Methodist pastor upon my discharge from the Army in 1984. I joined the Alabama Army National Guard and resumed my college education while serving as a student pastor. After finishing my undergraduate and seminary degrees, I chose to return to the Army as a Chaplain in 1996 and served until 2005, when I transitioned into the Army Reserve for six months and then ultimately returned to the Alabama Army National Guard, where I finally retired at the rank of Major with over 30 years of service. I also resumed pastoral service in 2006 and opted to retire early from the United Methodist Church in 2011. I then chose to withdraw from that denomination in 2013 and have been working in various positions since then, including as a hospice Chaplain and as a Chaplain in a homeless shelter for men. Just like that, I have summarized my entire life of ministry—about 50 years—in just a couple of paragraphs!
Looking back over my life, I am reminded of the line that actor Anthony Hopkins delivered at his make-believe birthday party in the movie, “Meet Joe Black”, co-starring Brad Pitt as Joe Black. Joe Black was supposed to be a temporary incarnation of the Grim Reaper. Anthony’s character was reflecting on his life to that point, as I am doing now, knowing that he was about to walk over the hill and die at the behest of the Grim Reaper. As he mused about the short years of his life, he concluded by saying, “And don’t they go by in a blink?” While that is not a movie I can recommend to anyone, it nonetheless contains that one very poignant statement that is quite apropos to life. The Scriptures say it a bit differently: “. . . For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away” (James 4:14 NKJV; compare also Psalm 39:4-5).
I don’t know when my end is going to be in this world, but I am ready to begin the final leg of my journey toward Heaven. Depending upon whether Jesus continues to tarry another 50 years and if I live to be no older than a hundred, I have no more than 38 more years left to serve Christ faithfully. As the somewhat famous rhyme about Christian service states: “Only one life to live, ‘twill soon be passed. Only what’s done for Christ will last.” I intend to finish my race running harder than I began it. What about you?
A Matter of Pride
“Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty spirit before a fall.”
(Proverbs 16:18 NKJV)
This bit of wisdom from the Hebrew Scriptures has been so popularized throughout the millennia since its initial composition that even secularists who reject the idea of God and His holy Word (the Bible) acknowledge its truth and validity. Furthermore, those who eschew the truth of this statement cannot disprove its reality, no matter how vehemently they oppose it. No amount of angry attempts at refutation can succeed. In fact, the very act of attempting to refute it results in the accomplishment of its warning, because arguing against the truth of reality serves only to prove one’s arrogance and foolishness.
Taking this warning a step further, devoting an entire month to the celebration of pride–and pride in something God has pronounced as abominable, at that–will only hasten the consequence of this truth. The steady slide of American and, indeed, global morality over the past 50+ years, at least, has demonstrated God’s divine judgment upon humanity in general, and the United States of America in particular. His prophecies about the Last Days before the culmination of His Plan of Salvation have been fulfilling right and left over these past few years, and everything is falling into place for the final seven years of human government, called the Seven Years of Tribulation, to commence. The time of Jesus’ return for His Church is close upon us, and the time when He will take up His rule over the entire earth will follow soon thereafter.
If you have not acknowledged who Jesus is and what He came into the world to do for you, then you need to understand that time is quickly running out for you to decide whether to accept His offer of salvation. The very first step you must take and, indeed, the only one you can take before you can be saved, is to humble yourself before God. Until you bow humbly before your Creator, the Lord Jesus Christ, you cannot confess your sins or repent (i.e., turn away) from them, and until you confess and repent of your sinful lifestyle, you cannot be saved from its consequences. If reading these statements makes you angry and resistant to submission to God and His Word (the Bible), then you need to consider the end result of refusing to humble yourself before Him and accepting His offer of forgiveness. In case you are unaware of this result, you will be sentenced to eternal damnation in a fiery place called Hell. Refusing to believe in the existence of Hell does not change the fact of its existence or of your destiny to end up there by rejecting God’s offer of salvation. It’s like denying the existence of the Law of Gravity. Try jumping off a ten-story building and see whether denying the existence of the Law of Gravity prevents you from falling to your death!
If you have been deceived by Satan and one or more of his evil minions that constitute the horde of demons in the universe and have been convinced you were born homosexual, bisexual or a different gender than your physical genitalia obviously show, then consider why God would create you that way and then condemn you for being the way He created you. He simply doesn’t do that. Not only would it be unrighteous, which is impossible for God to be, but it would be illogical, which is just as impossible for God as being unrighteous. Moreover, if you are currently considering gender reassignment surgery, consider this, too: why did God assign your present gender at birth if He really meant for you to be the opposite gender? Does, or can, God make mistakes? Even if His divinity did not prevent Him from making a gender assignment mistake at your birth, can His divinity now prevent Him from correcting His previous mistake? Does He require the help of human sex-mutilation surgeons to correct His mistake? Once your sex organs have been surgically removed, they are gone forever. They cannot be reattached to you later if you change your mind and want to revert to your former gender.
Homosexual, bisexual and transgender ideologies are demonic lies devised by Satan to steer you away from the truth of God and His Plan of Salvation for your eternal soul. As long as you still have breath in your lungs, you can repent of these sins and receive God’s forgiveness for them so that you can spend eternity with Him in His Kingdom of Love, Joy and Peace. Repentance means abandonment of all sins, including idolatry, lying, stealing, blaspheming/profaning God and His name, adultery, and fornication, as well as those aforementioned perverted sexual ideologies, and then redirecting and living your life in accordance with the Word of God (the Bible). Don’t depend on letting someone else, like a pastor, evangelist, Bible teacher, or even me, tell you what the Bible says, but read it for yourself. There’s no better way for you to discover the truth about everything than by reading and contemplating what the Bible says. The final decision ultimately rests with you.
For more information about God’s Plan of Salvation, I invite you to read my book The Salvation of the LORD. It’s available in e-Book from the Shop menu here on this blog. I’m working on the publication of its second edition right now and hope to release it in the coming months. Watch for the announcement here on this blog.
When Lawlessness Abounds
Jesus warned His disciples that in the Last Days — meaning those days that occur just before His ultimate return to take charge of His Kingdom on earth — that lawlessness will abound (Matthew 24:12 NKJV). What, exactly, do you suppose He meant by that? To answer this, all we need to do is define the words “lawlessness” and “abound”. Lawlessness is the practice of being lawless. Lawless, by definition, can mean one of two things: 1) having no law in place, or 2) behaving as though no law is in place. That second definition means, essentially, ignoring whatever law is actually in force. If you have more confidence in Merriam-Webster’s definition of lawless, you can read it in their online dictionary.
The word “abound” is the root of the word “abundance”. So, having an abundance of anything is having more than enough of it. An abundance of lawlessness, then, means more than enough of it, which, in turn, means it’s basically everywhere you look. You can read Merriam-Webster’s definition of abound as well, if you like.
Truly, there has always been lawlessness among men since the fall of Adam — it evidently was the hallmark of the time which prompted God to send the Great Flood (Genesis 6:5-6) — but such an ethos of lawlessness has not existed globally on the earth since that time. Indeed, this sudden acceleration of lawlessness in our time appears to be one of the other key harbingers which Jesus has warned us to watch for: “. . . as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man . . .” (Luke 17:26 NKJV). By “the days of the Son of Man,” Jesus means the days of His return, His Second Coming.
In my humble opinion, the reason for this abundance of lawlessness is because Satan understands that he can accomplish so much more if he simply convinces his human minions to ignore all those laws — enacted by both God and men — that either hinder or outright bind him/them from accomplishing what they want to do, while simultaneously holding truly law-abiding humans to strict adherence to those same laws, even though their adversaries are obviously not obeying them. In the case of God’s laws, God wants our obedience to be voluntary, but He certainly wants us to understand the consequences of disobedience before we make our decision. I believe Satan was fully aware of this voluntary option for obedience or disobedience from the beginning, yet he chose disobedience. Furthermore, I believe it is because God created the angelic beings with near-unfettered access to His Presence and a full comprehension of His Divine Nature that He did not offer an opportunity for redemption to them as He has done for humanity. In fact, Jesus said this is precisely the reason that Hell was created (see Matthew 25:41).
The prophets Isaiah (14:3-27) and Ezekiel (28:1-19) both explain all about Satan’s rebellion and demise. Don’t be confused by the address of these biblical statements to the king of Babylon and the prince of Tyre. They all refer to one entity, the being we call Satan. The name/word “Satan” is actually the Hebrew word for adversary. When you read carefully the descriptions of these individuals by Isaiah and Ezekiel, you can easily see that they could not possibly refer to any mere human beings, because they possess super-human characteristics, including a wisdom that exceeds that of the great prophet Daniel. Ezekiel 28:3 states that “There is no secret that can be hidden from you.” Really? No secret? What mere mortal man possesses that ability? Ezekiel 28:13 states, “You were the seal of perfection, Full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God. . . .” How was the prince of Tyre “perfect in beauty,” and when was he ever in the Garden of Eden? The Garden of Eden was most certainly destroyed from the earth at the time of the Great Flood, if not earlier, and the prince of Tyre lived a couple thousand years after that event. Furthermore, Ezekiel 28:14-15 makes the case complete when God says, “You were the anointed cherub who covers; I established you; You were on the holy mountain of God; You walked back and forth in the midst of fiery stones. You were perfect in your ways from the day you were created, Till iniquity was found in you.”
When was the human prince of Tyre ever an “anointed cherub who covers” anyone or anything? When we read what the Apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, however, it is easy to understand that the king of Babylon and the prince of Tyre are descriptions of one and the same entity — a spirit principality we call Satan.
Now, back to Jesus’ warning that in the Last Days lawlessness will abound. Have you looked around at the world lately, especially here in the USA? Have you noticed that what started as a seemingly isolated incident in government when Barack Obama directed his attorney general, Eric Holder, to flatly refuse to enforce the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) has now become a full-blown, open defiance of any and every law that is intended to restrict governmental control and over-reach? Time and again throughout the late-summer and early-autumn of 2020 leading up to the November 3, 2020, national election we saw federal officials, state officials, and city officials all around the nation flatly ignore the election laws that were in place to prevent election fraud. Why? It was for the express purpose of flaunting those laws and stealing a Presidential election right in front of the world! If you don’t believe the 2020 U. S. Presidential election was stolen, go to LindellTV and/or FrankSpeech and watch the archived video evidence there. If you don’t watch any others there, be sure to watch Absolutely 9-0 and China Puts Biden in the White House. Using the cover of the so-called COVID19 pandemic, they illegally amended election laws and suspended long-established election day practices, such as extending voting hours beyond the usual time frames and accepting absentee and/or mail-in ballots after the posted deadline for counting them. In fact, many of these bogus ballots did not even contain a signature or other means of proper voter validation, yet they were still accepted. Interestingly, all of these bogus ballots were cast for Biden, not Trump. What are the odds of that happening without intention? In the wake of all this apparent election fraud, we hear an increasing clamor to enact stricter election laws. Folks, we don’t really need stricter election laws; we just need to enforce the election laws we already have enacted!
Government isn’t the only arena where we are seeing this increase in lawlessness. Throughout 2020, we saw repeatedly where rioters were permitted to loot and burn businesses in presumed protest over supposed racial injustice. That was merely a pretext to create chaos and mayhem, otherwise known as lawlessness. Those rioters weren’t required to follow the same pandemic rules set forth for every other citizen. They weren’t arrested for theft or arson, despite being caught in the act on video. They weren’t even fined for organizing a protest without a permit. Meanwhile, law-abiding citizens who wanted to protest were required to obtain a permit before they could hold a truly peaceful protest, and many times they were even denied those permits.
Unfortunately, the lawlessness doesn’t end with corrupt government officials or even with the hoodlums on the street. No, lawlessness is even rampant in the Church now. Pastors and lay leaders all around the globe have gone all-in for ignoring God’s Word not to “forsak[e] the assembling of ourselves together” (Hebrews 10:25 NKJV) and to “obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29 NKJV) when it comes to a choice between submission/obedience to God and His Word or submission/obedience to governmental officials who couldn’t care less about God or obeying His Word. Perhaps this is what Jesus meant when He said the kingdom of God “. . . is like leaven, which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal till it was all leavened” (Luke 13:20-21 NKJV). Folks, leaven doesn’t represent righteousness; it represents unrighteousness! This is partly why God commanded the Israelites to remove all leaven from their homes prior to the start of the Feast of Unleavened Bread (Exodus 12:15 NKJV).
I don’t know what you are thinking right now, but I am thinking we are at the threshold of Jesus’ rapture of the Church! I personally believe the rapture will occur on a future Yom Truim (or Day of Trumpets; read my blog post about this assertion a few years ago, where I cover it extensively). When is the next Day of Trumpets? It begins at sundown on September 6, 2021, and ends at sundown on September 7, 2021. However, with so much inaccuracy in calendars, including the Jewish calendar for observing their feast days, it’s entirely possible that the actual Day of Trumpets could be on another date which God knows but of which we have no idea! Perhaps this is just one more reason Jesus said, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, but My Father only” (Matthew 24:36 NKJV).
Are you ready for that day if it were to happen today? Do you know where you will spend eternity if you die in your sleep tonight or in some freak accident today or from some dreaded disease like cancer, heart failure or even COVID? You can be sure where you will spend eternity! You simply have to humble yourself so that you can confess and repent of (that means turn away from) your sins and call upon the name of Jesus Christ to be both your LORD and as well as your Savior. The Bible has promised in multiple places in both the Old and New Testaments that “. . . whoever calls on the name of the LORD shall be saved” (Joel 2:32; Acts 2:21, and Romans 10:13 NKJV). Making Jesus your LORD means you will submit to (that means obey to the best of your ability) His Word. The Apostle Paul — that same Apostle of Grace that everyone likes to quote from Ephesians 2:8-9, also wrote in Hebrews 12:14 that we are to “Pursue peace . . . and holiness, without which no one will see the Lord . . .” (NKJV). What is holiness? It is a sanctification, a distinction, a separateness, a differentiation between righteousness and unrighteousness. In other words, it is being set apart for eternal fellowship with the One True and Living God.
In order to receive this salvation, you must start by humbling yourself, because until you do that, there is simply no way you will ever acknowledge your sinfulness or personal need of divine forgiveness. Once you can kneel before God and confess your need of His mercy, you can then call upon Him for pardon and salvation. After you have accepted His mercy and grace, you should then rise to your feet with a fiery zeal to live a life that is pleasing unto Him — that is, a life of holiness, righteousness, love, kindness and gentleness.
Contrary to popular misbelief, this does not mean that you become a pacifist pansy who never fights back or defends yourself, your family or friends, or what is right and good. While a Christian will seek to avoid conflict with others insofar as it is possible (read Romans 12:18), he/she will not shrink from defending truth and righteousness according to the Word of God — the Bible.
If you’d like to read more about what this salvation is all about, why it is necessary and how you can obtain it and know you’ve obtained it, I invite you to read my book The Salvation of the LORD. It’s available here in the Parson Place News and Views Shop in both EPUB and Kindle eBook editions, or you may purchase the print edition from the publisher’s online store.
If you made a decision to call upon Jesus Christ for salvation after reading this article, would you please let me know? I would be absolutely elated to know that and will gladly offer you any mentoring or discipling you may request. Just send an email to
at your convenience. 
Overcoming the Spirit of Fear
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.” 2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV
I’ve noticed a lot of irrational fear among Christians during this COVID19 “pandemic”, as it’s being called. God does not want His people behaving like scared rabbits, nervous cats, or cackling chickens. For millennia, human beings have walked about infecting each other with various pathogens which have resulted in weakness, sickness, and yes, even death, without resorting to wearing masks or social distancing. When we compare the death rates, COVID is currently a little worse than the seasonal flu and a lot less worse than the Black Plague. In fact, after deducting the deaths falsely attributed to COVID, it may even be a lot less impactful than the seasonal flu. Granted, COVID is quite dangerous to certain members of the population, but those are the people who should be quarantining and limiting their exposure to the public, not the whole populace! So, let’s take the usual precautions of practicing good personal hygiene and sanitation, cover our coughs and sneezes, and get on with the business of living. It’s past time for us to return to our former way of living and resume our normal routine.
As for us Christians, we should be asking ourselves whether our faith is truly in God during crises like this. After all, if we trust God with our very souls, can we not trust Him with our health and lives? The Good News for Christians is that we get to live until we die, and then we get to live forever with Jesus! It’s a win-win, no matter how we look at it! As the Apostle Paul put it, “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain” (Philippians 1:21 NKJV). Cowering in our homes and hiding behind masks is hardly reassuring to anyone that we have genuine faith in God to watch over us. The same deadly germs for all manner of diseases were lying on surfaces and floating through the air the day before the Wuhan Virus was manifest among us as they are right now, yet none of us was too frightened to leave our homes for work, shopping, or worship back then. Moreover, the presence of these pathogens in our environment never did require the use of face masks in public or six-feet-apart social distancing. Were we simply blissfully ignorant and naïve or merely confident that we could deal with whatever illness came our way? Did God exist prior to our learning of the existence of the Wuhan Virus? Does He still exist now, and do we still believe He is able and willing to protect us from such dangers if we place our trust in Him?
I am absolutely stunned at the reaction of Christians to this overplayed crisis and at how willingly they have gone along with every ridiculous political leader’s mandate, particularly limiting worship attendance or cancelling it altogether and forbidding singing of praise to God! Rev. John MacArthur made news recently because he has finally understood the danger of blindly obeying human governmental leaders, especially when they issue commands contrary to the Word of God. As the Apostle Peter and the other apostles said, “We must obey God rather than men” (Acts 5:29 NASB). I also agree with Joshua, who said, “. . . as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord” (Joshua 24:15 NASB).
So, what do you say? Shall we relax, take the usual safety precautions for preventing the spread of diseases as we always have, and get back to the former routine in our lives? I’m ready. Are you?
The Danger of Deception
“Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, ‘Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?’ And Jesus answered and said to them: ‘Take heed that no one deceives you’” (Matthew 24:3-4 NKJV).
One evening, during the week that would end with Jesus’ crucifixion, He was leaving the temple, and some of His disciples remarked at how beautiful it was. He stunned them by informing them that the temple would one day be destroyed. This prompted them to approach him privately to ascertain when they could expect this terrible tragedy. The two verses quoted at the beginning of this article, what biblical scholars have named “The Olivet Discourse,” begin Jesus’ response. During this discourse, Jesus lists a number of signs to watch for as the Day of the LORD draws near. The very first thing He mentions is the danger of deception. Deception is dangerous because we rarely know we have been or are deceived until it’s too late. After we are finally confronted by/with the Truth, we realize the deception, but it is often too late to do anything about it. If the deception involves a life-or-death matter, we very well may lose our lives as a result.
Jesus warns us not to allow ourselves to be deceived, but how, exactly, are we supposed to do that? In order to avoid deception, we must first know the Truth. So, where do we find the Truth? Jesus reveals this to us in His prayer to the Father for His disciples on the night before His crucifixion. Jesus prayed, “Sanctify them by Your truth. Your word is truth” (John 17:17 NKJV, emphasis added). Truth is whatever God says, because “. . . it is impossible for God to lie, . . .” (Hebrews 6:18; Titus 1:2 NKJV). Thus, anything which contradicts God’s Word is a lie and not the truth.
Now, how can we protect ourselves from deception? The best and most effective way to separate truth from falsehood is by filling our minds with God’s Word. This can be done ONLY by the frequent reading, studying and memorizing of God’s Word, the Bible. If we compare everything we hear and read with what God says in the Bible, it will be much easier to identify falsehood. It will also be much easier to know what God expects of every one of us as we live out our lives.
In those instances when what is being said is not necessarily something being contrasted directly with God’s Word, we must use spiritual discernment and refrain from accepting it until we have determined whether it is actually true. In most cases, we should begin with a suspicious mind, simply because of the source of what we’re hearing/reading. A source that has a history of lying is not to be trusted until it can establish a new history of truth-telling. On the other hand, a source that has a history of truth-telling can be more readily believed because of its history of truth-telling. Any source which outright rejects any part of the Bible as God’s Word of Truth, however, should never be trusted.
In recent years, there has been a lot of talk about “fake news.” This term has come to mean a deliberately slanted or falsified news story. I remember when that was defined as propaganda or out-and-out lying. As Shakespeare wrote, “A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” In other words, a thing is what it is, regardless of what we call it. Fake news, propaganda, whatever we may call it, is still lying, and lying is sin. There are numerous sins listed frequently in the Bible as abominable acts, and lying is very often included on that list. For only a few of these references, read Proverbs 6:16-19 (lying is actually included twice on this list), 1 Timothy 1:8-11, and Revelation 21:8. Note that these lists are about people who are not on God’s “good list.” This is why deception is so dangerous–it can actually cost us our soul.
Since we are bombarded with so much propaganda–er, fake news–and other outright falsehood nowadays, we truly need to be on our guard against embracing a lie and rejecting the truth. Filling our minds with God’s Truth has, perhaps, never been more urgent than it is now because of the prevalence of lying in our society. Whereas, not so long ago, we used to be able to trust our journalists (for the most part) in both print and broadcast media, we find now that every story must be vetted before we can believe it. A journalist and renowned author from around 150 years ago once remarked that “A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes” (Mark Twain). In the age of satellite TV, the Internet and social media, a lie can now loop the globe multiple times before the truth even starts.
There are all kinds of lies for us to be wary of, including political, cultural, and theological or religious, but perhaps the ones we most need to be concerned about are theological/religious. Without a right understanding of God and His requirements of humanity, we are doomed to deception. God Himself has said, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. . .” (Hosea 4:6 NKJV). Furthermore, there are many liars standing behind pulpits and lecterns in churches, colleges, and governmental agencies who are more than willing to spread their deceptions to anyone who will listen. Don’t trust a speaker’s word simply because he/she wears a robe or clerical collar or affiliates with a particular religious denomination or parachurch group, or because he/she dresses up in an expensive outfit, or because he/she is famous, or because he/she looks just like you or tries to imitate you in as many ways as possible. Like the adage says, “In God we trust. All others must be verified.”
Where does all this deception come from? Why, Satan, of course! Jesus said Satan is “. . . a liar and the father of lies” (John 8:44 NKJV). Therefore, whenever we discover a pattern of deception–whether in the Church or in the world–we can rest assured Satan is behind it. If you don’t want to be a participant in Satan’s schemes, take special care who and what you trust for your source(s) of information. Before we click on the “Send” button in our email or social media, and before we pass along that shocking or incendiary bit of opinion or news, take a moment to consider: “Is this really true, or could someone have an agenda here?” If we can’t be sure, it’s best not to pass it on. Naturally, I am including myself in this admonition every bit as much as anyone else.
If you want to make sure you know and embrace the Truth, read, study and memorize God’s Word, the Bible. Fill, renew, and transform your mind with it. Make time for it in your every day schedule. Time is the one commodity we all have the same amount of in every given day. Not only will knowing God’s Truth save you from embarassment, it will save you from eternal damnation.
Jesus Is Coming Soon
Jesus at the Rapture I’ve been proclaiming that Jesus is coming soon for most of my life. However, I’m convinced that it is now upon us and I’m actually starting to get quite giddy about it! After listening to other respected evangelists preach and teach about the fulfillment of end times prophecies over the years, I’ve gained a great deal of insight both from their instruction and from my own research about these two events we call the Rapture of the Church (which I personally believe will happen just before the start of the Seven-Year Tribulation) and the Return, or Second Coming, of Christ (which happens at the very end of the Seven-Year Tribulation). Naturally, since world news is pointing more directly every day toward events that are prophesied to occur during the Tribulation, I’m looking for the Rapture of the Church to happen very, very soon.
One of the insights I’ve learned over the years that helps me understand this more clearly is that the seven feasts which God instituted for Israel to observe each year actually have prophetic significance as well as historic significance. When we look at each of these feasts from a broad perspective we see that they are laid out in the order of the annual seasons. You can read each of God’s commandments concerning them in Leviticus 23.
First, Pesach (or Passover) happens in the spring and is to be the beginning of the year for Israel (see Exodus 12:2), although somewhere along the way they changed their New Year to Yom T’ruim or the Day of Trumpets, better known today as Rosh Hashanah, which literally means Head of the Year. I’ll say more about that one when I get to it.
The second feast actually follows the day after Pesach, and it’s called Yom Matzoh or Day of Unleavened Bread. This feast lasts for seven days, and somewhere during that week is a regular weekly Sabbath (or Shabbat). The first day after the Sabbath following the Day of Unleavened Bread is observed as Yom Reshyth or Day of First-fruits. Thus, all three of these feast days occur within the space of one week. Then there is a period of 50 days, counting from the Day of First-fruits, which includes seven Sabbaths or weeks. The fiftieth day is called Yom Shavuot or Day of Weeks, better known to us as Pentecost (which is derived from the Greek word for 50 days).
It is interesting to note here that Jesus fulfilled each of these first four holy days at His first coming. He was crucified on the Day of Passover; He was entombed during the Day of Unleavened Bread; He resurrected on the Day of First-fruits; and finally, just ten days after His ascension back into Heaven, He sent His Holy Spirit on the Day of Pentecost to launch the Church Age. The long gap between the Feast of Shavuot (or Pentecost) and the Day of Trumpets signifies the longer-than-expected duration of the Church Age to allow time for the Good News of Christ’s Salvation to be spread all around the globe.
Since Jesus fulfilled each of these first four feast days to the very day during His first coming, can we expect Him to do the same with the remaining three feast days at His second coming? I think we can. So, which is the next feast day in line for fulfillment? It is the Day of Trumpets. And which event will Jesus use to fulfill this feast day? It is the Rapture of the Church. What is the evidence for that? Well, it is the sounding of the trumpets, of course, and as the Apostle Paul stated so clearly in 1 Corinthians 15:52, it is “at the last trumpet” that “the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.” He writes similarly in 1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, “For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up [raptured] together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And thus we shall always be with the Lord.”
Note here in both of these passages that Paul uses the pronoun “we”. He clearly expected this event to happen during his lifetime. For all of the revelation God had given Paul about this event, He kept hidden from him the fact that it was not going to happen for quite some time. However, we are nearing the time when the Rapture is about to take place.
Of all the feasts of Israel, the Feast of Trumpets appears to be the least understood. It seems to have no major significance to them, because it does not appear to commemorate any historic event as the others do. Passover commemorates when God spared them while He punished Egypt by killing the firstborn of every household and even of the livestock. Unleavened Bread commemorates their departure from Egyptian bondage. First-fruits commemorates the sacrifice God commanded them to give from their first harvest in the Promised Land and from every harvest thereafter. Shavuot commemorates their receiving of the Law of Moses on Mt. Sinai. Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement, commemorates God’s annual examination of His people to determine their worthiness for blessing or judgment, and the Day of Tabernacles commemorates Israel’s wanderings in the wilderness and their living in tents (temporary dwellings) for 40 years prior to their entry into the Promised Land.
Since the Feast of Trumpets represents Christ’s Rapture of His Church, the Day of Atonement represents the Seven-Year Tribulation when God will once again turn His attention to delivering His chosen people — the nation of Israel — from their sins and the Feast of Tabernacles represents Jesus’ millennial reign on earth prior to the Final Great White Throne Judgment and the commencement of our eternal life with Him in the New Heaven and New Earth.
See now how Jesus will fulfill these final three feast days with His second coming. When the time to close the Church Age has come, Jesus will call up His Church in the event known as The Rapture. The word “church” comes from the Greek word “ecclesia” (pronounced ek-lay-SEE-ah) which means “called-out ones”. These are called out from the world to be His own people. Nevertheless, His people called Israel who have not acknowledged and accepted Him as their Messiah, along with all the wicked and those who pretended to accept Jesus without actually living for Him, will be left on the earth for judgment and revelation. Only those who finally accept God’s revelation will receive deliverance. This will take place during the Seven-Year Tribulation.
One of the strongest arguments against anyone trying to determine the time of Jesus’ return to Rapture His Church has always been Jesus’ words, “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32 NKJV). This hasn’t stopped some, like Harold Camping and others, from setting dates nonetheless, but others have so eschewed the idea of trying to ascertain the time of Jesus’ return that they quote this Scripture as their proof text that we are not even to consider it. Since Jesus Himself commanded us to watch, how are we supposed to watch without seeming to set a date for His return? Consider this analogy: If you’re watching for the cab which you personally called, is it bad if you mistake a blowing horn or the flash of yellow of another passing car as the cab you are watching and waiting for? Of course, not! That’s just part of the process of watching and waiting. The same is true with our earnest and hopeful watching for Jesus’ return.
The reason Jesus said no one would know the day or hour of His return is because of a couple of facts. First, because it is a secret which God has kept to Himself, no one can know it for sure. The very word “know” means to have absolute and certain information about someone or something. Since God hasn’t revealed the date of Jesus’ return, we can hazard a lot of guesses, but we can’t know any of them to be true.
Secondly, we can’t know the day or hour of the Rapture because of the nature of time and the position of the earth in relation to the sun. At any given time throughout every 24 hour day, half of the globe is in light and half is in darkness. This is what Jesus was referring to when He said, “I tell you, in that night there will be two men in one bed: the one will be taken and the other will be left. Two women will be grinding together: the one will be taken and the other left. Two men will be in the field: the one will be taken and the other left” (Luke 17:34-36 NKJV). Let me ask you: What women grind at the mill at night, and what men work in the field at night? Why did Jesus say “in that night” instead of “in that day”? Due to the global undertaking of the Rapture, half the earth will be asleep and half will be awake. Furthermore, at some point during every 24 hours half the earth will be on one day of the week while the other half will be on the next day of the week. It is because of these two facts — that God, first and foremost, has kept the date secret and, second, that half the earth will be in the night and half in the day — that no one can know the day nor the hour of Jesus’ return.
This, however, does not mean we cannot speculate about the approximate day of Jesus’ return. Since the Rapture is signified among the divine feast days as the Day of Trumpets and since Jesus fulfilled the first four feasts to the very day during His first coming, I think we can expect Him to fulfill the final three to the very day at His second coming. While we can’t know which Day of Trumpets He will choose to rapture His Church, we can expect that He will do so on one of them in the future; and while we can’t know the hour of the Rapture (because various segments of the earth’s population will be at a different hour of the 24 hour day) we can believe that it will be sometime during that day. In fact, because the Day of Trumpets is the only one of the seven feast days that begins on a New Moon (or the first day of the lunar month), and because the official declaration of the beginning of that day must be corroborated by two witnesses (priests) when they see the first sliver of the New Moon, there is a period of two days in which no one knows the day or hour they will actually see the New Moon. It is entirely possible that the Lord could rapture His Church at the precise point when the day side of the earth is at the end of the Day of Trumpets and the night side of the earth is just beginning the Day of Trumpets. While God can do this any way He chooses, it seems most reasonable to be me that He would do it this way.
For those who may wish to accuse me of setting a date for Jesus’ return, please tell me which date I have set here. The nearest I have come to setting a date is to say that Jesus will Rapture His Church on a future Day of Trumpets, but the date is yet unknown. Will He choose the year 2015, since it is the conclusion of another seventh Shemitah (or year of rest for the earth) and the commencement of another Jubilee, which occurs once every 50 years? Your guess is as good as mine, but it certainly seems to me that either 2015 or 2016 would be an excellent time to do so, especially since 2017 will be the next time the celestial alignment of the stars will match the description in Revelation 12:1. You can also watch a nine minute video depicting some very interesting points for consideration. Of course, the author of this content was thinking of a possible 2013 Rapture.
You see — no one (and that certainly includes me) can know the day or the hour of Jesus’ Rapture of His Church. However, if you happen to be among those left behind after the Rapture, you can calculate the precise day of Jesus’ return to the earth to set up His Kingdom and begin His millennial reign on the present earth, because it will be exactly seven years to the day from the day “the prince who is to come” (Daniel 9:26, better known to us as the Antichrist) enacts the seven-year peace treaty with the world (see Daniel 9:27 where the phrase “one week” refers to a week of years or seven years). Since we can calculate to the day when Jesus will actually return to earth to establish His Kingdom, Jesus must have been referring to the mystery of the Rapture when He said no one would know the precise day or hour when He would come for His Church.
Even though we can’t know the precise time of the Rapture, we can know it is near. As I said at the start of this article: Jesus is coming soon. Are you ready? Ready or not, here He comes!
Full-Tilt Perversion
The rainbow is a sign of God’s covenant with all of His creation that He will never again destroy the earth with a global flood. He initiated this covenant with Noah and his family following the Great Flood. You can read about it in Genesis 9:8-17.
One truly disturbing aspect of the homosexual movement is that they have co-opted God’s covenant sign to be associated with their perverted lifestyle. Even the Obama Administration has joined in this perversion by bathing the White House, the official residence of the President of the United States, in the colors of the rainbow. I would call this a full-tilt perversion. I understand why it matters so much to homosexuals that the world accept and condone their perversion, but I wonder why this matters so much to the President and to other heterosexual sympathizers. It is particularly disturbing to me that people who call themselves Christians think perhaps God simply overlooks this sort of behavior. Let me warn you: God hasn’t changed His mind about this matter.Perversion — in case you need enlightening — means using something in a way it was not designed or intended to be used. Sexual activity, for instance, is reserved by God between a single man and a single woman who have entered into a lifelong covenant with each other to love, honor, and support one another and to engage in this sexual activity only with each other until one of them dies. This is the true definition of marriage. To define it any other way is to pervert it, to apply it in a way God never intended. The fact that God has instituted this holy estate of matrimony as one of His very first acts following creation is all humanity needs to know. He didn’t create Adam and Steve; He created Adam and Eve, and from them came all of humanity. The fact that two homosexuals cannot procreate with each other is further proof that they are acting against God’s design and intention.
Since the rest of the world tends to watch and follow the USA’s actions on a great many matters, it won’t be long now before other nations begin adopting the same governmental approval of this perversion. In fact, the country of Ireland actually has the distinction of being the first to adopt approval of homosexual marriage as a nationally-condoned lifestyle (see article at CNS News). Once this contagion of perversion begins spreading around the globe, the end of the age will have fully arrived.
Once Jesus comes on the scene and sets up His own throne for the final 1,000 years before eternity begins, He will rule with a rod of iron (compare Psalm 2:9; Revelation 2:27; Revelation 12:5; and Revelation 19:15). By ruling with a rod of iron, I think it means He will not use the same mild-mannered approach He took during His first coming when He allowed Himself to suffer and die at the hands of evil men. In other words, He won’t govern by democracy; He will rule as the King of kings and Lord of lords forever.
I, for one, can’t wait for that day to come. Until then, however, I will continue to speak against the evils of this present world and warn the wicked to repent. As Jesus preached during His earthly ministry, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17 NKJV). If you aren’t ready for Jesus’ return, there’s no time like the present to get ready!
A Redefining Moment
U. S. Supreme Court Last week’s 5-4 decision by the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) to mandate the acceptance of homosexual practice in American society was truly a redefining moment in our nation’s history. What I mean by redefining is that they have redefined both what is to be identified as marriage and what is to be accepted as normal sexual behavior. Even now, if you look up the word perversion in Merriam-Webster’s online dictionary (at least, until they update it with their new definition) you will find that it lists at the very first on its list of definitions “sexual behavior that people think is not normal or natural”. (Of course, it really does not have anything to do with what people think, but that just proves the already politically correct leaning of the Merriam-Webster editors.) The next two definitions are “something that improperly changes something good” and “the process of improperly changing something that is good”.
After millennia of following the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, the SCOTUS has fulfilled the second and third definitions on Merriam-Webster’s definition list and redefined (that is, they have perverted) the good and correct understanding of marriage for all of America, regardless of whether we all choose to accept their new perverted definition or not. They have done what God warned not to do through His prophet Isaiah: “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who put darkness for light, and light for darkness; Who put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, And prudent in their own sight! (Isaiah 5:20-21 NKJV).
What will soon follow this perverse redefinition of marriage is an organized persecution of anyone who does not accept or approve of it. If you are a true Bible-believing Christian, you’d better start preparing yourself, because the attacks are coming. You must make up your mind now whether you are going to avoid persecution at any cost by compromising your beliefs to pander to the popular public opinion or whether you will open yourself up to the loss of social reputation, loss of personal property through lawsuits, fines, or vandalism, loss of freedom through incarceration, and perhaps even the loss of health and life through brutal physical attacks. If you think I’m overstating this point, just compare the results of only a few recent court cases against Christians who dared to speak against homosexuality:
- Christian bakers
- Christian photographer
- Christian florist
- Christian wedding chapel business
- Pastors under threat of incarceration
- Many more too numerous to list here!
This is only the beginning. Mark my word: the worst is yet to come.
As for me, I’m joining in with those truly principled Christians who are promising to practice civil disobedience. Are you in or are you out? I wonder: what would Jesus do?