Glimmers of Another world, if you are paying attention

I don't intend this to be apost about politics but I have this line in my head I want to get written down before I go on to what I do what this post to be about, which is:   Most of the news these days can be summed up as the lies and lying accusations of the Left against something Trump or his cabinet did or said perfectly ledtimately or innocently.  Period.  That's it, that's all of it.  YOu clan stop listening to the news now, unless it's about something other than politics.

The topic I did have in mind for this post is probably going to be a framble among many topics or at least facets of a topic, I'll find out as I go I suppose, but I guess I could start by saying I'm thinking about how this is a fallen world and nobody seems to know it.  Maybe some Chfristians sort of know it but nobody talks about it much even mong Christians.  Qew all more or less atalk about this world as THE world, as if this is the world God created, as if God intended this world to be as it is vfrom the begining.  This is OUR world, this is THE world.  Certainly nonChristians talk about it that way.  We are all born into this world and this is our home and wat's it.  If we have ideas of an afterlife, outside of the Christian framework anyway, they don't change our idea about sthis world.  Christianity is the only religion that has a theology of the Fall, or a chang in the status of things that happened to the world and to human beings as well, after a period in which the world was a lace of innocence and perfetlyion.  The thoeology presents our original parents, Adam and eve, as disobeying God who had told them not to eat the fruit of a particular tree or they would surely die.  They disobeyed, with the help of Satan the Serpent who told Eve that God wasn't telling her the truth, that she would be made a god if she at e of it.  So she did, and she gave it to Adam who also ate of it, although in the New testament we are told that he knew the truth and was not deceived as was EDve;  so we conclude that he ate of it because he didn't want to be separated from eve as he would have been if he had remained in obedience to God while she had to endure thje punishemtn of her disobedeicne.

Because of the Fall we endountger conditions in this world tht are not "normal" in a certain sense, although anyone who isn't thinking in terms of the Fall regards them as normal.  The fall changed Adam and Eve and it changed the world.  All we find out fro scripture is that the world now had thordbnbs and thistles growing in it whereas presaumably they had not been there fobeofe the Fall, and Adam and Eve DID die, not immediately in the physical sense, but thinking og it as ocfurring in phases or stagews, they dided in small ways and we are all still dying in small ways until we did in the big way that removes us altogether from consciousness of this world.   The first death is generally understood to be the faculty or sense by which they knew God.  That having died they hid from God and were no long er in communicatyion with him as they had previously been, or not as easily.  We of course are born without any sense at all of there being a god and without any idea of comunicaing with Him.  If during our llives we hear evidence that God must exist we may accept it or not and that way some become believers, but otherwise we have no natural faculty or snese by which to know Him.

A nonCHristian isn't going to think along thee lines at all, and all the philosophical probings human beings may do in this fallen state will never ever lead them to the biblical understanding of thsese things, to the idea that we are sinners in need of a savior for instance, or that we once had a faculty or organ for knowing God and no longer have it.  Philosophy is necessarily restricted to the terms of the fallen world itself, as are all our human endeavors.  that is what makes this world feels  feel like tHE world, which for all intents and purposes it is for all of us who are born into it and never become Christians, or UNTIL we cbecome Christians.    AltAthei   Atheism is of course the most natural state of mind in this Fallen world.  Without a sense that causes us to be aware of a God we conclude that there is o God.  Everybody does you see.  Until we may hear about God and be persuaded of the idea and believe it, but that still won't be a feeling or an experiencing of God, only belief.  Which is of course why faith is the crucial thing to a believer in this life.

What salvation is, in brief, the restoration of our sense of the reality of God, or sense that He is YThere, and that we can communicate with Him.  this iswhat happens when we are born again.  As Jesus sYS IN jOHN tHREE, uNLESS YOU ARE BORN AGAIN YOU CANOT SEE THE KINGDOM OF gOD, AND A FEW VERSES LATER, YOU CANNOT ENTER INTO THE KINGDOM OF gOD.   bRING BORN AGAIN IS TO HAVE THE FACIULTY OF NOWING GOD RESTORED TO US, WHICH IS THE ERECETION OF THE hOLY sPIRIT TO INDWELL US AND GUILDE US.  tHIS IS GIVEN ONLY TO BELIEVERS IN cHRIST, THOSE OF US WHO KNOW THAT jESUS DIED ON THE CROSS AS OUR SUBSTITUTE, BEARING OUR OWN SINS IN hIS BODY SO THAT hIS DEATH PAID OUR DEBT TO gOD OR TO THE mORAL lAW FOR OUR ISINS, WHICH IS WHAT KEEPS PEOPLE OUT OF HEAVEN.  wITH OUR SIN DEBT PAID IN FULL BY THE DEATH OF jESUS WHO IS BOTH gOD AND mAN, WE BECOME CHILDREN OF gOD IN A SENSE THAT PEOPLE WHO ARE ONLY BORN ONCE, AS THEY SAY, ARE NOT, ALTHOUGH IN OTHER SENSE THEY ARE ALSO CHILDREN OF gOD HAVING BEEN MADEW IN hIS IMAGE AND SO ON.  bUT YOU HAVE TO HVE THE hOLY spIRIT IN YOU OR YOU ARE NOT A cHRISTIAN AND ARE NOT SAVED, CANNOT ENTER INTO THE kINGDOM OF gOD, CANNOT KNOW GOD, CANNOT BE SAVED.

bLESSED ASSURANCE, jESUS IS MINE

oH WHAT A FORETATSTE OF OF GLORY DIVINE.

hEIR OF SALAVATION, PURCHASE OF gOD

gbORDN OF THE sPIRIT, WASHED IN hIS BLOOD.

sO IT ISN'T GOING TO OCCUR TO MOST PEOPLE THAT THEY ARE ENYTHING BUT WHAT THEY ARE BORN TO BE, OR COULD BE, OR THAT THE WORLD IS SOMETHING OTHER THAN gOD ORIGINALLY CREATED IT TO BE, BUT THAT WQE ARE CREATURES WHO NOW SUFFER FROM ALL KINDS OF MALADIES, INJURIED, DISEASES AND DEATH OF ALL SORTS, AND THE ANOMALS TOO SINCE gOD PUT THEM UNDER THE CURSE FOR OUR SAKES,. AND THE WORLD IS A MUCH HARDER PLACE TO LIVE IN THAN IT WAS BEOFRORE THE fALL.  aND GTHEN THERE WAS THE GREAT gLOOD OF nOAH WHICH MADE AN EVEN BIGGER RECK OF THE PLANET, CREATING MANY UNINHABITABLE PLACES WHERE BEFORE THE WHOLE PLANET WAS LUSH, A PARADISE FOR ALL LIVING THIGNS.  nOW WE HAVE UNINHABITANBLE MOUNTAIN TOPDS AND ARCTIC REGIONS AND DESERTS.  wE HJAVE TO WORK TO LIVE ON THIS VERSION OF OUR PLANET, WORK HARD IN MANY CASES.

aLTHOUGH IT'S A FALLEN WORLD, i THINK IT'S INTERESTING THAT cHRIST'S COMING INTO THIS WORLD HAD A CGENWRAL EFFECT WHEREVER hIS APPEARANCE WAS TAKEN SERIOUSLY, OF IMPROVING THINGS FOR PEOPLE.  tHAT WOULD BE PREDOMINANTLY THE wEST, AND MOST SPEICIFICALLY THE usa.  oF COURSE  THERE ARE PLENTY OF FORCES ARRAYED AGAINST IT AND TRYING TO TEAR IT TDOWN, UNDER THE INSPIRTATION OF THE DEVIL OF COURSE, AND IT LOOKS LIKE THEY'VE JUST ABOUT SUCCEEDED AT TIMES, MORE AND MORE AS TIME GOES ON.  bUGT HISTORICALLY THE EFFECT IOF cHRIST WAS TO LIFT HUMANITY ABOVE BARBARSISM INTO A RATIONAL AND SANE STATE OF MORALITY I WHICH WE LEARNED TO LOVE OUR NEIGHBOR AT LEAST MORE THAN THE BARBARSIANS DID, AND MADE PROVISION TO CARE FOR PEOPLE, AND HAD PRACTICES TYHAT PROMOTED PROSPERITY AND GENORISITY, UNDER A GENERAL SENSE OF THE IMPORTANCE OF HGONESTY, HOHNOR, TRUSTWORTHINESS, KINDNESS BECAUSE OF THE EXAMPLE OF cHRIST AND THE TEACHING OF THE bIBLE.  THIS MENTAL SET DOWNS NOT OCCURR ANYWHERE OTHER THAN WHERE chRIST HAS AHAD A STRONG  INFLUENCE.  tHIS IS WHY YOU CAN'T TAKE THE SUCCESSES OF THE wEST AND EASILY TRANSPLANT THEM TO OTHER CULTURES, SSUCH AS THE dEMOCACY THT WAS SO FOOLISHLY THOUYGHT TO BE TRANSPLANTABLE AT ONE TIME OR ANOTHER.    dEMOCRATIC PRINCIPLES ARE ONLY POSSIBLE IN A PLACE WHERE THE PRINCIPLES OF cHRIST ARE DOMINANT AND NOHWHERE EWLSE.  mOST OF THE WORLD IS STILL fALLEN AND UNDER THE RULE OF GTHE fALLEN MINDSET..      wELL, SO IS THE wEST TOO OF COURSE SINCE ONLY INDIVIDUASLS CAN BE BORN AGAIN, WHOLE CULTURES CAN'T, BUT THE WHOLE wEST AS CULTURE HAS BEEN BROUGHT UNDER THE GENERAL INFLEUNCE OF cHRISTIAN VALUES AND THAT'S WHAT AKES THE DIFFERENCE.

i'M THINKING IN PARTICULARLY OF A       Oh drat how long ashas the caps lock been on.

I'm thinkig particularly of one episode of the podcast U&ncommon Knoweldge, hosted by Paeter Rbopinson, with guesets Tom Holland, Douglass Murray and Steven Meyer.  Both Holland and Murray spoke of their appreciation of the fact that the West is essentially Christian and how we are all "swimming in Christain waters" whether we are Christians or ot if we live in tghe West.  Hollynad said he had learned over tiem as he'd studied history that we are not as influenced by Greece and Rome as he had once thought, that the mmore he looked at their moral views the less he felt  his own had come from them, in fact much of it he found repugnant, and after a while he hgad to admit that the West's values are funamentally CHristian.   He and Muray are both nonCHristains, atheists too I think but I'm not sure.  the progam is title Does God exist and it's numbert 385if anyoe wants to listen to it.   Although they appreciate the influene of Christian morality on the WEest they don't seem to think of themselgves as in any danger, as it were, of becoming Christians i the sense of believing the theology of CHristiaity.    Murray said something like how the nienteenth century has happened and that kind of kills it for him, although I really don't see how myselfjCertainly the ninteenth century produed many antiChristains but  to my mind they are easily shown to be wrong.  But then I suppose I'm biased to the point that I ust think they are silly anyway.

As usual, the hard part is giving up your sins.  Some of us have sins we are quite fond of.  And Christiost requires us to given them up.  Without holiness you will not see the kingdom of heaven either.

Jesusprovides us the power to mortify our sins, although we do have to work at it ourselves.  He saves us without any help from us, and in fact if we claim to be of help in our salvagtion we are simply not saved, because it is God who saves and we have nothig to do with it.  It is not by works lest any man should boast.  

Anyway, I kind of think it would be intereting and helpful if we were all taught in school that this is a fallen world and that the reason we don't believe in god is that we lost the organ for communicating with God way back at the beginning of the Creation.   Some will of course continue to scoff and  disbelieve, but there might be some who would ponder it and eventually make their way to Christ.  I like to think so anyway.

Or they'll go to other religions.  More sophisticated you now.  Or sionetgubg    Or something like that.  There is only one Truthy though ad tht is CHristainity.  '

Oh that's wht I was tryibg to remember.  Doublass Murray said that even if we should all agree that our sudden flashes of feeling tht tell us we really belong to some other world were taken seriously it wouldn't nbe the Christain religion necessarily that would explain it.

Or so he may hope, but of course it is the only religio that coudl explain it.  Because it is the only religion is that is true.  Yup.  

antichrist again

 Sometimes I am forced to wonder how I can hold on so tenaceiously to the idea that the Antichrist is the Pope in the face of all the sincere confident opinion that he is only going to be revealed at the very end just before he takes the rieins of world rulnership for the last part of the great tribuiotn .  They stronly believe this, and I just heard a little montage of a number of them sayig so, those who subscribe to the pretribulation eschatology that is the most popular eschatology tin the Church these days.   Well, it's hared to be at odds with so many strong leaders of the Church, but I just don't have any other reason to wavewr.  I got convinced through my own researches when I started this blog back in oh seven or so, by Richard Bennett for starters, but also by the calculation of the number  six six six that I had already known about for a number of years efore that.  Later Chris Pinto became a source as well.  But I think maybe the number is what is the strongest of my foundations.  

It's just oo perfect a calculation for that number to be wrong.  There is nop way anyone will come up with anything more convicingh for that number.  It's embedded in a gtitle of the Pope that in itself just about defines the Antichrist, meaning Subsitutute for the Son of God in Latin, vicariuvs filii dei, a Latin name of rhte Pope from which the number is calculationed in Roman Nnumberals.  And the Roman connection is quite clear in the Book of Revelation, in Chapter seventeen, as well as the first beast of chapter thirteen.  Rome Rome Rome.  All the things they try to put together to add up to this Roman identity just don't fit like this one does, they are all quite tenuous by comparison.    o no, I'm not giving this up.  I just have to go on cringeing when others carry on abou this other version of the concept that I have to regard as simply false.  And probably concocted by the Roman Church too, as critics of the futiurist eschatology used to say.  Nobody has much to say about  or against the roman Church these days, and that in itself is a clue I think, paving the way to his taking the role by surprise in the end.  

There are definitely two different descriptions of the coming of CHrist, the second coming that ios, in Matthew twenty four, where Jesus is answering His deisciples' questions about how to recognize the End and His return.  Two different descriptions is what makes the Rapture  idea compelling to me, aas nothing else does.   He will come twisde, once to get His Church and snatch us away to Heaven some time before the Great tribulation plays out on earth during which the Antichrist will reign and those who becomine believers will have to do it the hard way, the hardest way, maybe even harder than the believers did under the Inquisition in the Middle Ages.    Then at the very end He will return in fulll glory and visible to all on Earth.  

Romanism and the Book of FRevelation Again

 Serendipitous events, two discussion of the Book of Revelagion dropped in my path, so I guess it's time for another post on that subject.    It's frustrating because I don't like popposing the best teachers out there and that's what happens with this subject.  Well, also creationism I have to admit.  I hope I'm not just a gadfly but I suppose Im at least that.  Just thinking things through on my own I arrive at opinions these other guys don't arrive at and find myself in opposition to thejm.   Qell, I'm trying to follow the leading of the Lord and if I'm wrong I'm wrong, but maybe I'm not wrong.  He'll have to be the one to promote what He wantsa to promote in the end, that's not up to me.

John MacArthur, one of my favorites, and the guys at Understanding the Times Radio now that Jan Martell has left, and others who work from the Pre Trib Pre Mill eschatology.   I guess it's because they've concluded that Revelation Four shows the Rapture of the Church, which puts the Church in heven during Revelation four and five, and the opining of the seals after that, all of it being pushed to the verny end of the tend times.  

But it doesn't make any obvious sense to suppose that the seven seals are opening only tghat late in history.  Jesus of course qualified to open them after His ascension in the first century, what would be the reason to wait two thousand years?  His own teaching in Matthew Twenty four covers the same events as described in the first four seals, the so called Four Horsewment of the Apocalypse, the sequence of false Christs, wars, famines and death from all sorts of causes as the "beginning of sorrorws, after which, He tells us, comes the End, starting from the Abomination of Desolation standing in the Holy Place and continuing for three and a half years.  All that is of course found in Revelation and not earlier, but the BVeginning of Sorrows includes the sort of things we've seen throughout history and has no spewcial reason to be confined to the Book of Revelation, the false Chrissts, wars, famines, pesilences and martyrdomes.    So  if the seals reveal God's judgments on the earth, these could have beguin right after Jesus' ascension to heaven.  Qhy not?   That's how I've been tentatively thinking of it.

And it firtrts with my having been persuaded that the Protestant Reformers weere right to identify the papacy as the seat of the Antichrist, each successive Pope ascending to that role in the world for timethje time of his reign.  Now we have Leo.  QWill he be the Final Ancichrist, the one of Daniel twenlve?  or is it nine?  "They" are waiting for this Antichrist to be revealed at the very end, but I'm confinced by the Reformers that he was revealed wway back ion  606 AD when the Bishop of Rome took on the title Universal Bishop, essentially usurping power to himself over all the other bishops.   Even one of the Popes hismelf said that was the taking on of the role of the Antichrist, and here were many Chirstians outside the Roan Church doewn the centuries who identified the opopes as CAnctichrist.  Chris Pinto has a DvD on that subject.

Leo just recently, for the second time I think, had the effrontery to denounce the US for our supposed mistreatment of "migrants," meaning of course illegal aliens who don't belong here and must be deported.  They are not mistreated at all.  He wants to be sure they get Catholic rites or some suich, hoo boy.  In ;my mind, this efforontery makes Leo a solid Antichrist already.  But I thought Francis was dgoing to be the Final Antichrist, so I'm not oing to stick my neck out atgain and say the same about Leo.  I don't know.  He might not be the Final one.  Wait and see.  If he makes a deal with Israel for seven years, I'd say that's the sign that he is definitely the one.

I do not get why MacArthur thinks Daiel Eleven is about the Roman Anctichrist.  Isn't it very clearly about the Greek version, that is, Anticiohes Epiphanes, who was the abomination of desolation dealt with by the Macabbees?    As I understandi it , all those military movements describe that Greek or Seleucid leader and theree are some who can describe them all in historical terms.  Not the Roman Antichrist.  A preucurser, a harbinger, not the One.

MacAerthur explains the jsixth seal of Revelation as showing the people of the world finally getting around to realizing that the world is coming under God's judgment.  Seems to me if you just read it straight, in order, it is the point at which the final wrath of God begins, or the seven year tribulation peierios, the previous seals bieng he Beginning of solorrow but not the tribulation wrath.   The martyrs of the fifth seal would be the millions killed under the Popes and their various inquisitions.  They are told to wait for the martyrs yet to be made under the Tribulation.  And since they are described as "souls" and clearly not yet in their glorified bodies, they were not rapituresd, and if anyuthing I'm saying is right, the rapture does not occur in Revelation four.  I don't like being in this posisiton, but there you have it.  I don't as yet have a clear idea of where in the historical sequence the rapture occurs, but it has to be after the sixth seal.

Seems to me, if you stop and think about it anyway, that it's pretty obvious that the papacy has no place in true Chrsitain history.  And since he takes on titles that belong only to Christ and even the Father and the Holy Spirit as well, he's clearly a usurper of high degree.  Yet Catholics have no idea.  Most of them were born into their religion and have no knowledge of the hstiroy of any of it, and of course feel offended if you suggest their Church isn't the true Church.  But it isn't, and the wosonnooner they learn that the better for them.   Years ago,, when I was reading my way to becoming a Christian, I went through a phase where I thought I would be a Catholic.  I was reading a Catholic theologian who said that the Pope is the ehad of the Church, and I knew there was something frwrong with that idea, in fact it disturbed me quite a bit.  It's standard in Romanism though.  But ehre are two places in scripture where it is clearly said that Christ is the Head of the CHurch.  Not the OPope, and the Lord showed mew both those places ina  amiraculous way one day, which is what ended any idea I had had of becoming a Catholic.

It is veruy disturbing to reaslize how little anyone knows any more about the false claims of the Roman CHurch.  It's all been forgotten by the majority of Protestantsm, although there was a time when it was pretty well known.  It's the reason the pilgrims came to America of course.  You could start there.  And then you can find John Adams, our second Presicdnet saying that the Jesuits are the most evil organization on earth.  Long long time since any such sentiment was heard in America.  Sad and dangerous.  And you'll hear naive statemewnts like how it makes no sense for us to critizie Catholicsm because the docgtrinal disgferences are so small and inconsequential.  That is a monumental historical blindness since it may have been millions of proto Protestants who died under the Inquisition for their refusla to affirm the idea of Transsubstantiation.  No minor disctrinal difference to them.   And then I found out that Charlie Kirk, who I thought was pretty good at arguing against Catholicism, was found to have a "St. Michael's medal attached to the chain around his neck on which he also wore a cross.  Very distrubing to think he had a Catholic talisman like that on him.  

There are plenty of deceptions fogging up the atmosphere we live in these days, but obne of theworlse is no doubt this acceptance of the Antichrist system, the Roman CHurch.

Next day:  In case it wasn't clear, I think the first five seals are ongoing throughout the time since the Lord ascended to the right hand of God, that is, He opened them then, as John shows in his vision of Rvenlation.  I think the opening of  the sixth seal is still future, and certainly the seventh is, which I take to be the tribulation itself, the seventieth week of Daniel as well as the seven years to the return of Jesus.    John MacArthur speaks of the martyrs in the fifth seal as if they are living saints facing martyrdom rather than souls already martyred waiting under the altar for God's vengeance on their behalf.  I think that's how it sounds anyway, though it's hard to believe that's what he really means.  I think they are the martyrs madew throughout the previous two thousand years, most of them under the Roman Inquisitions.  here are certainly Christian martyrs being made today, thousands of them in Nigeria for instance, all joining those under the altar I suppose.  

But the sixth seal shows dramatic celestial events among other things that haven't yet occurred, and reads like an introduction to the final period of God's wrath, although MacArthur reads it as if it's connected to the first five seals, and that I don't get at all.  Those first seals reveal nothing out of the ordinary in the life of this world, false Christs, wars, famines, diseases and death, nothing new there.  It may be God's judgment but it's not in the same category as the judgmgnets that come in the seventh seal, which definitely show the hand of God in destructive natural events and strange phenomenoa.  The difference in content seems to me to be a straong reason to take ther seventh seal as the time of the tribulation, the last hhalf of it being the Great Tribulation, the time being given both in Revelation and in the Book of Daniel.

I supooses the Rapture could occur at any time as is believed by those who believe the Pre Trib PreMill escahatology, perhaps just before or even during the opening of the sixth seal which I take to be yet future, but as I've mentioned a few times by now, I think the main sign that the end period has beggun will be the Antichrist's making of a treaty of some sort, or "confirming" such a treaty, with Israel, for seven years, which he will break at the halfway point, three and a half years into it.  Followed by the Great Tribulation.

You Must be Born Again

 I realize that I take for granted that anyone who could profit from the idea of learning to depend on God alone, the subject of my previous post, would be born again, would already be saved and have the Holy Spirit given by God gto those who have believed on Him for salvation.  Nobody else could possible live that way, so it needs to be said.

And I've had in mind for soe time wriging on the subject of being born again, which needs to be revived as atopic at least now and then because otherwise people who think they are Christians because they go to Church and known something of the Bible and like the Biblical moral teachings and so on but do not have the Spirit of God, will only deceive themselves further.  YOu have to get saved first, you have to get born again first or you can't possible live the Christian life.    Anyone who does not have the Holy Spirit is "none of HIs" says Paul.

But I'm jas so often happens these days, too tired to write a owhole post on this subject.  I just have to get that much said and hope to come back to it soon.  

Learning to depend on God

 I love this kind of story.  Ron Daley, a sixtyfive year old man who lies in Fresno, Califoria, went o a huting trip he planned for half a day, got lost and then stranded and when nobody came to find him after twetnty days he walked for nine hours until he met some hunters who rescued him.   But here's the real sotry.  He's a believer and prayed a lot while he was in that situation.  I thik the first thing we ay wonder is why on earth did the Lotf let him suffer so long, surely he could have rescued him a lot sooner.

But no, first his struck broke down and while he had enough food for a couple of weeks that started runing out too.  When he finally started walkeing he hadn't eaten in almost a week.   Although he'd been praying and praying it wasn't until he was at the end of all his resources that the Lord finally led him to safety.

And that, I believe, is gthe real sotory here.  Another acount of how GBod goes to great extremes sometimes in His efforts to teach us to depend on Him alone instead of on our own resources.  Sure He could have rescued Ron a lot sooner but He didn't do it until Ron was out of, well, everythig.  In fact, it was at the point of exhaustion, after walkeing for hours, that he scalled on the Lord sayig he had no more energy to walk any further and please help me now.  And when he looked up from his prayer, there was the truck with its headlights on just ahead of him o the road.  It was at the exact omet that Ron ran out of absolutely every bit of his own resources, down to the last gasp of his phyiscal energy, that the Lord acted.

So what am I saying?  Well, the Lord engineered this whole drama from beginning to end and the whole point of it was to teach Ron to depend on Him alone instead of on what the Biblce called "th arm of flesh" meaning our human strengths and resources.   It's a lesson the Lord tries to teach all of us but we often hardly notice His acting on our lives for this purpose, some of us never get the message and some of us gett it only late in life, which is a shoe that fits me.  And I still haven't learned it.

It's what Andrew Murray wrote about in his book, Absolute Surrender, it's what all the best Christian writers and teachers present as the problem of learning how to deny ourselves as the LOrd commands us to do, deny yourself, take uip your cross ajnd follow Me.  And if you won't deny yourself "you canot be My disciple."    Give it u, give it ALL usp.  And He gies us time to learn it, but we're awfully obtuse about it, and keep ascriging things to human and worledly causes that are really arranged by the Lord for our good if only we knew how to read the signs.  And een then, alas, even when we sort of get the message, as I have many times over, we still fail the test.  It's a ery hard less to learn.

Happy is Ron Daley if he gets it.

*****

More thoughts on tghe same subject.  

It happens to be a subject I've rebeen reading about a lot over the last few weeks, so of course the timing is great for this story to appear in the news when I'm able to make this connection.   As I said it'as a ery hard lesson to learn.  I'm disappointed in myslef at how obious it is what the Lord has done from time timo time throughout my life and I fought Him because I didn't see His hand at work in it, and even after I knew intellectually that this is how He works in our lives I still didn't see it until after the fact, and I still don't know if I've learned very a small gbit of the practical lessons H wants me to learn.  I'm grateful that hHe's given me a long life and tht He might continue it for a while longer so maybe I still have a chance to learn it.  

As my reasding has been making clear this is a very important lesson to learn because the Lord can't work with our fleshly soulish strengths, He wants to work with the renewed Spirit He has put within us and that has to become the power we must learn to edepend on and learn to put our own strengths aside.  I know this theortetically far better than I know it in any practical sense at all, alsas, alas.   

fThe letter kills, but the spirit is life.  Adam was a living souls but Christ a life giving Spirit.  Walik by the Spirit and you will not fulfill the lusts of the flesh,.   He who would sae his soul will lose it, but he who would die for My sake will lie to eternal life.  I'm getting the words wrong but I think I got the gist of it.  

Watchman Nee's book, The Release of the SPirit, is oje of my current sources for this teaching.  For the Lord to be able to use us for His own work, to do His will, we must give up our own will, our own ideas, our own methods, and wait entirely on Him for the guidance and the strength to do what He wants us to do.  Often our Spoirit is "buried" beneath our flesh and we must learn to release it for it to become useful to us for the Lord's purposes.  

I think it helps a lot if ewe at least grasp that giving up our own ways is something we should do  even if we keep failing to actually do it.  At least we have the right idea, which is a lot better than the usual habitual way of living where we just do whatever we want to do or what we thing is right.  

I't s a very hard lesson to learn.  I ope the Lord will make me learn it because I reall y do want to be useful for His kingsomdom.  The world wo so desperately needs spiritually guided CHristians right now.  If we just do what we thihk makes sense we won't really accomplish the spiritual blessings this world needs, at best we might teach a few truths, but god wants to be able to use us in spiritual power to effedt real lasting change in this benighted world.  

Again, I really do hope Ron Daley gets even a smidgen of the message I think is written all over his harrowing experience lost in the woods.  Wrecked truck,  No cell phone service.  Heavy snow adds to the idifficulties.  Running out of food and finally runs completely out.  Rationinst it nut by nut finally before it runs out.  Finally the Lord tells him to start walking, but He doesn't help him until he's finally so exhausted he can't walk another step an prays accordingly.   The Lord takes anway everything before He gives us the spiritual resources He wants us to have.  

Die to self.  Take up your cross.  Deny yourself.  Lose hyour life for His sake and you will gain it for eternity.  Lose, give up , die,  that's the message of the cross we all need to learn and so few of us learn it, just fight it all the time in favor of self preservation which seenms so natural to us, well, it IS natural to us, it's the natural that has to go if the spiritual is to thrive.  

May I get it.

And again, if Ron Daley gets it even a little, blessed is he.

No Kings insanity but ot happy with Trump poop panne either

 Late getting to this but it's perennial so not too big a deal.  I'm not happy with trump's so called meme flying the plane above a crowd of No Kings protestors and dumping blogs of I guess poop on them.  Q We don't need this level of response, we need a little dignity here.  Leave the barbarism to them, they are so good at it.  And I'm not happy with Trup's use of the F word either.  Time to pull badk on that kind of things in my opiion.  

But of course No Kings is gruly insane, the product of years of propaganda,all lies, and although there are clearly a lot of ordinary everyday liberals drawn into it, it's no doubt primarily fundaed and organized by Soros and his tribe.   

I get tired of turning on any media outlet and hearing mostly anti Trump opinios.  I guess the liberals don't notice but I certainly tdo.  We are already living in a society run by autocrats, and they are on the left.  They are the lones who have been cancelling us conservatives for a long time now, getting us booted off social media for so calledf Misinformation when it's just personal opinion and often the truest dstatement out there.   They are the fascistsa  as usual trying to get the labnel to stick to the other side.  This isn't America but they use all the rhtetoric and confuse people.  Trump is no king, far from it, he was elected and he is hampered at every turn by leftist neverending lawswuits or whatnot, most of which turn out to be illegal in themesleves, but they have to be waited out.  If Trump erwere a king they wouldn't be waited out, he'd just give orders no mater what, but gthe left doesn't think at all about anything, they kjust emote.

Saw this poor lady in her seventies being interviewed at a No Kings protest, weeping copiously about how scared she is with Trump in orroice although nothing was said about exactly what it was that was scaring here.  It's scary to me that this sort of emotion is stirred out by lies and we on the right have just about no way to answe her.  The Left have managed to block our public presence whenever they like so we can't be heard.  I'd like to reassure that woman that she'sl suffering from propaganda, and that she has nothihng to b scared of except the people who have lied to her.  Trump is working hard to tdo her and all the rest of us some reas dl good after years of leftist destruction of the nation at every level.   She'll never see my blog and even wif I weren't lehgally blidnd I don't know how I'd get a message to her to calm her down.  She's a victim, she's a pawn, it's sad.She doesn't uhnderstand how any one could have  voted for this person, she weeps.  Well, if we had any access to her wqe could explain it to her but swe don't.   If she only tunes in the propagandists she'll only continue to be scared for o good reason.    We are living in evil times and the evil is all coming from one direction, stifling the voice of truth and goodness and WEmrican patrioticsm, while even pretending all that is on their side.  It's truly diabolical.  

And of course they blame tTrump for the government shut down although it's the Demotcrats who have voted for it every time the vote is called, and the Republicans vote to reopen.  They want to blackamail Trump into giving up his hard won policies in previous legislateion.  I hope he doesn't given in.  He's trying to provide funds to help those hurt by the shut down too but that is also hampered in various ways.

Prayer is the sonly solution.  All this is beyond us mere human beings, beyhond [olitical solutions, God is going to have to change things and that could happen if huge number sof us pray for it.

asOME OF MY USUAL RUMINATIONS ABOUT GEOLOGY AND BIOLOGY

 Tthere is evidence, which I've shown many times efore, that there was no tectonic distubance before or during the Flood, but only after all the strata were laid down, which would have to have been during the Flood.    Just to remind myself of this if nothing else.

I still cannot fathom how anyone thinks any of the strata were laid down by any other means under any other circumstances than the GFlood.  Yeah, but I'm just an ighnoramus I guess.

ND, JUST TO BE A REAL PAIN IN THE NECK i'LL ADD THAT i DON'T THINK nATURAL sELECTION HAS MUCH TO DO WITH THE FORMATION OF NEW POPULATION PHENOTYPES, i THINK IT'S FAR AND AWAY ALMOST ALWAYS THE RESULT OF SIMPLE GEOGRAPHIC ISOLATION OR REPRODUCTIVE ISOLATION, WHICH IBNN ITS OWN WAY IS A FORM OF SELEDCTION, BASED ON THE MIGRATION OF SOME SMALLISH PORTION OF A LARGER POPULATION  WHICH BREEDS TOGETHER OVER A NIMBER OF GENERATIONS TO BRING OUT THE CHARACTERISTICS AVAILABLE FROM THE MIXTING OF THE NEW GENE FREQUENCISES OF THE FOUNDING POPULATION.  pOD mRCARU LIZARDS.

yEAH i'M A DOPE.

nd I still like my little insight into how the camel Kind prolduced the llama, but of course that REALLY makes me a dope.

I must be having a bad day.  I think I'll go get a mug of tea.

TGhe Charlie Kirk Effect

 A lefty recently described to me the Charlie Kirk reactoion on the right as "hayateria."  What is it about the left that theyu think they know why people o the right do what we do?  they think they can read trump's mind, and of course it's always something sleazy like he's just looking for some kind of political advantage.  None of us are sincere at all according to them, based on nothing whatever, just their own ideologically cramped definitions of everything.   

The Charlie Kirk phenomenon is something truly unusual and unexpected, no hysteria.  A lot of us have been amazed to find out how deeply it afected us, all of us from those who hardly knew him or much about him to thosre who knew him well,  all have been surprised at the depth of the feeling that followed his death.   And the changes in people, the great numbers who started reassing differently because of hi, who started going to church, who made resolutions to live a better life, or even just some of us who realized we can't let thie politilcal situation continue unchallenged as we so often do,, we have to do SOMETHING, maybe even start a fight with a enightbor, not that a fight is what we have in mind at first, we just don't want to keep covering up our politilcal opinions for the ssake of peace and qujiet because all that means is that the left goes on acting on their violent murderous slanderous delusions without resistance.

Political Mayhem

 The pundit ith the phd offers her opinion that the conditions do not apply for applying the insurrection act as Trump wants to do, since she of course knows SO much better than Trump or anybody else whether they apply or not, he and all his advosors just a bunch of fools.    We aren't going to hear anything different from this from the left on this subject and since just about all anyone hears comes from the left on any subject whatever, thanks to the media blackout against all conservative voices, her opinion, utterly illegitimate as it is, is going to prevail in the public mind.

Looks to me like the conditios are right for it, and surely y opinion counts too in this weird  atmosphere.

According to Mark Levin the Insurrection Act has been used by quite a few Presidents starting with Thomas Jerrfrson, and Trump's use of it would be in the same kind of situation, riotoing that is not being handled by the local authorities.  Handled effectively.  So that mobs are running wild beating people up and burning things down and notghing is stopping them.  LOokis like a situation calling for federal intervention to me.  If the lady above mentioned prevails, the city will just burn to the ground while the governors and majors sayin  say no it's all just a protest within bounds and they are handling just fine thank you ver much.   We can see from our own news sources that's a lie, but of focoudlre the Left only sees thwhat the dominant media tell them, all leftiwing propaganda.   Rachel Maddow had on the Govetrnor of Ordgon reently who said there is no need for any help from the governmetn while we on the right had been hearing for some time about how it was out of control, wven hearing it from Portland residents who want Trump to intervenee.  But nowo, Maddow just let the governor's lies prevail.   Of course.  Why is sometimes hard to fathom.  They WNT  the city to burn to the ground?  Sure seems that way.

For a long time I've believed it should be possible to talk through the differences between right and left, even though it  comes to rancoorous shouting matches and loss of freidships if necessary, because I'm so aware of how little the let knows about all the things we know.  They think it's equal on bitoth sides but it isn't.  They are in the dark about just about all of it because they are fed lies they don't bother to investigate.  even when they are pointed out to them they sometimes just blow them off, somethig i discovered recently which rather flummoxed me.  

For instance, although the poit was made that the image of Trump peurveyed b the media that he had mocked a man for  his disability was disproved by the display of many other situation sin which he'd mocked others in eaxactlyu the same way who weren't disabled, the facct that this exposed the media manipulation to create a false impession of trump mattered not at all to some people.  It proves beyond a doubt that Trump was not mocking a man for his disabilitry, whioch is what the whole thing was about but golly gosh, they don't care because they don't like the meway Trup did th emocking, no matter who was the target of it.  So the main point is just buried under a pile of  stupid irrelevancies.  It matters not what what Maryl Streep said at the Acadmy aards a few years ago was false, matters not one whit, matters not at all that the media lie to create a false impression of Trump, matters not at all, because  they can glaean a nasty inpresion of him anyway from the truth just as well as the faslehood.   

This sort of mental muddling could drive me to ...  I dunno, a heart attack maybe.  I don't know how anyoe can uncritically think this way.  I don't.    

Oh and  it's supposed to be the definitive answer to those of us who have reason to think sone of the protests we hear about  have been organized and paid for, by point ing out that ordinary people join in such protests and THEY don't get paid.  Again, what is the matter with people's minds these days?  WHAT IS THE MATTER?  

I keep feeling I need to explain the truth about the above two examples for the benefit of those whose minds are so muddled but I just can't  get myself to do it.

Golly gosh, Trump is just a dictator and a fascist and a Nazi and a white supremacist and and and and  so are all we who voted for him, tnhat that's all there is to that I guess.  That in fact he is acting as President according to the Constittuional definition of his responsibilities is buried under a mountsinan of Trump Derangement Syndrome,  all emotion, not reasonableness anywhere.

Oh, and I was also assured that although it may not be clear whether I would fight for the right of a leftist to speak his mind, certainly they on the left would fight for my right.  About my defending the leftist, I guess I'd have to be in the situatio because soe of that jthey say is nothing short of treasonalous in my mind.  But anyway, as for their assurance that they would defend my right, given the experience we on the right have had over the last ten years and more of being cancelled on social media I'm not so sure they know what they are talkintg about.  For one thing they don't even know we hav been experiencing such a thing as that rampant cancellation.  I guesss we're all just folo.s again, just wrought up hallucinators or whatever to think such things are happening to us.  I was salogythmically cut off from an audience years ago but that must be my imagination, you know ho w things can get all confused on the iterenet and so on, and my two first posts were unceremoniously delectted from Facebook overniight and that too was just not believed.   I'd put up those posts as a test and my suspicion was correct that Facebook wasn't going to tolerate my view of whatever it was, maybe the COVID treatment wars or somethig ike that?   One lefty did inform tme that I shoudl understand that misinformation could hurt people and that's why some posts are delected.  Golly godsh ya don't say.  Some unknnown uninformed lefty social media employee has the authority to decide whether scientific information is misinofrmation and that's all it takes.  Golly gosh.  What a world we llive in.

Need to add that although treasonaous is the word that came to mind for somethig a letist might say , I shoould have said something inciting violence or even murder, becauase there is certainly a lo tof that I would have a lot of trouble defending their right to say such things.

Later:   Add slander to the ist of speech issues I expect to hear from the left that I would have trouble defending.  There are, after all, categories of speech the framers neer intended to protect with that smendment and the Left is particularly fond of most of that type.  

I also want to add to the bit about being cancelled for " misinformation" which is a black joke if you ask jme,  that not only are those who do the cancelling utterly unqualified to make such decisions, but on a site where ordinary people gather to offer personal onions the idea that any message short of something inciting violence or the like should be censored by the site is out of bounds by traditional American standards.  Of course since they are a business they can put out warnings to one knows what is allowed and what is't, and anyone with undesirable politial opinions can just stay away.  because it is all political tre is no misinformation invovlmved, they jyust don't want to let certain aideas have an audience because they conflict with their own.  Simple.

And I didn't really get said how I used to think it possible and necessary to try to talk things through becteween left and right, even if it had to lead to hard feelings, because it's the only way we have a chance of getting across the necessary information, which otheriwise is censored by the leftist media and social media gatekeepers.   Even if we have to expect some shouting matchjes from time to time eventually surely the actual facts would emerge and both sie s could take them into account.  Seems riht to me still, in the abstract.   but as I go on to say, it probably isn't going to work out that way in reality, as I recently found out.  Not only do we inhabit different universes because they are deprived of information, but they are dug into their information so ddeply they willl say absurd and crazy things to defend it.  I suppose I still hold to some hope discussion , even shouting matches at times, could lead to the truth, but that hope has been getting smaller.

antichrist system lying sigsn and wonders

 Qhile listening to the book, Dominion, How the Christian revolution RemaDE THE woRLD, BY tOM hOLLAND, A FEW MONTHS AGO, i WAS REMINDED OF THE MIRACLES THAT cATHOLIC SAINTS ARE SUPPOSED TO BE ABLE TO SHOW IN ORDER TO QUALIFY FOR  THAT STATUS.  hOLAND DOESN'T SAY UCH ABOUT THE cATHOLIC cHURCH AS SUCH, SO WHEN HE MENTIONS THESE SO CALLED SAINTS NOW AND THEN HE APPEARS TO BE THINKING OF THEM SIMPLY AS A cHRISTIAN THING, NOT SPECIFICALLY A cATHOLIC THING, IF HE MAKES ANY DISTINCTION AT ALL.

uNFORTUNATELY MY MMEMORY IS PRETTY BAD THESE DAYS AND i DON'T REMEMBER THE SPECFIC IDEA THAT LED KME IN THIS DIRECTION, BUT IT OCURRED TO ME THAT THE MIRALCES PERFORMED BY THESE "SAINTS" ARE PROBABLY WHAT wATCHMAN nEE IN HIS GOOK thE lATENT pOWER OF THE sOUL, IDENTIFIES AS sOUL pOWER, RATER THAN GENUINE MIRACLES THAT COME FROM goD.  iT WAS SOME WAY THEY WERE DESCRIBED IN hOLLAND'S BOOK THAT MADE ME THINK ALONG THESE LINES, AND THAT IS UNFORTUNATELY THE THING i CAN'T REMEMBER. tHIS KIND OF PROBLEM IS PARTICULARLY HARD FOR ME BECAUSE i CAN'T SEE TO JUST GO TO THE BOOK ITSELF AND LOOK UP REMFERENCES TO THE IRACLES OF SAINTS.   

i'VE LISTENED TO nEE'S BOOKS, THE lATENT pOWER OF THE sOUL    drat, the caps lock was on, sorry.    and The Release of the Spirit, at least twice since then.  These are hard lessons to understand, let alone learn to live by, and my memory problems make ammany listenings necessary anyway.    Nee's books, particularly the oe about soul power, evoke the Hindu category of Siddhis, or attainments or powers that some adepts can reach.  Neew says soul powers are cultivated in all the religious practices that aim to suppress the body and liberate the soul, which include asceticisms and medictations and varieties of both.  The siddhis can be released by those who practice these things most energetically I gather.  

I just ow looked up Siddhis on You Tube and found a program called Enlightenment Today where a man explains the siddhis, and they are very much what the Catholic saints could do.

I should have mentionsd before that I just finished another audible book, They FLew, by historian Carlos Eire, which is his rather obsessive puruist of information about the particularly  particular power or siddhi of levittion.  That is one of the siddhis mentioned by the guy in the video I just saw.  For some reason it caught Eire's interest and most of his book focuses on reports of this particular power as practiced by Catholic mystics mostly in the sixteenth ad seventteenth centuries.   Bilocation is another such power they  some of them also exhibited though more rarely.  Levitation was fairly common it turns out, and in fact that one is often used as the miracle that qualifies a mystic for sainthood according to the Catholic system.  

Nee doesn't mention Levitation for some reason, which is rfrustrating at this point, but he oes mention bilocation or the phenomenon of a person's being in two places at the same time, where he or she is able to interact with people in both places, and with the physical environment.  Sometimes the person is in a trance at the original location, but in some accounts is conscious in both places.

Eire's book has some very specific descriptions of levitation events.  The body seems to be utterly insaensate during the event, sometimes cdescribed as light as a feather so that it could be blown around easily by people nearby, but also nearly impossible to pull back to earth, even when many people exerted themselves in the effort.   Eire mentions that often these people who levitated  also had other abilities such as telephaathy or the ability to read the minds of other people, bilocation, already mentioned,  the ability to see hear and feel thihjngs at a distance, the ability to know future events and so aon.  All these things are mentioned by the Enlightenment guy in the previous ly mentioned video.   So it is certainly fair to cal all these things Siddhis though that is a Hindu ter for them, and Nee's term is Soul Powers.

It is very clear in Eire's accounts that these powers are released by the extreme ascetic practices engaged in by these Catholic mytics, often extreme fasting or food deprivtion, the wearing of hari shirts, which are garmed made of goat's hair that are veryu  irritating to the skin, metal objects wornsn next to the body where they can cause pain , chains on the body, sleeping on hard surfaces, in some cases on a wooden cross without softening materials.   As Nee says, suppresing the body is one of the ways the soul powers can be released and although that doesn't seem to be at all the aim of these pracitces in the Catholic context, clearly it is the method that does lead to their release.  The mystics are seeking deeper experiences of God, not powers of any kind.  THere are some frauds, which Eire' also reports, but most of them sounds quite legitimate.    They are trying to mortify the flesh and its sins to become worthy to be in God's preence or some such idea.  But in so doing they are inadvertently releasing allthes soul powers that Nee says are hidden in the bodies of all human beoiings ever since the Fall of Adam and Eve.

In the Easetn religions where the term siddhis is used, the aim is toward enlightenment, and ascetic practices are apparently prat of that practice, if I understood him correctly,  Unless the asceticism is for the purpose of liberating siddhis, which are not always desired by a particular discipline but are by some.    In themselves they have no particular alue, not in any of the religious contexts, not towsrd enilightenment, or toward closeness to God.  In a sense they could be said to get in the way of those ultimate aims, but in the Eastern context apparently they are vluled as part of the spiritual journey in some of the religious systems.

My interest has been to try to understand what things are of God and what are not, as Nee makes it very clear that the soul powers are definitely not of God and are to be avoided.   So now that I've become convinced that these miracles of the Catholic saints are indeed the same thing as the soul powers and the siddhis Ihave to at least tentatively say they are not of God.  Which in some cAAE  Qhixh in aomw xAWA IA  painful becuase the people are so clearly trying to daraw near to god whom they appear to love genuinely, or at least they love what they think is God and since they are draw to what we know top be genuinely attributes of God I have to say that to that extent they are genuinely seeking God himself.  At that is painful if I have to realize that they are failing mightily in their  aim and only releasing a power of their own souls that does not come from God.I feel very sorry for them.  They are misled by their religion.  Which is how I think of Catholics in general anyway, but it hurts when you see epopel so isincerely trying to find God on all the wrong paths.

Asceticism is already a clue that they are not on the right path as scripture itself tells us that won't accomplish anything wheer in the CHristian life.  Then when it ceoms clear that the so called Virgin Mary has a big part in all these thigns for most of them I ust want to bury my head in d crayy.  How sad.  Mary is way too big a part of many of these people's experiences.  urely the deil is guiding all these things and leading them all to disaster.   

So the very evidences the Roman church uses to determine if a particular mystic deserves sainthood are  actually evidences that they aren't anywhere near the mos basic level of relationship with God.    I noticed over and over that nowhere is the gospel as Protestants understand it mentioned at all in the accounts of these levitating and bilocating mystics.  Jesus is called the redeemer, all too often co redeemer which his mother, oh unholy fact,  but what exactly one does to get recdeemed is not mentioned anywhere.  

It looks to me like these soul powers are probably the Lying Wonders JwuJesus says will be on display at the very end just before He returns.  It's interest ing to me that al lthe things , or I guess I should't say ALL, but many, of the things we are to expence of the very last days are to be seen in the thoudsand year reign of the Catholid Church through the MIddle Ages, the so called Holy Roman Empire.  The Anitchrist, who is the Pope, was revealed when the Bishop of Rome took on the role of Universal Bishop back in the seventh century, though the futurist end times system of teoday says he won't be relevealsed until afte rthe true Church is raptured.  Not so,   He's been in plain sight for over a thousand years, and recognized in may writings by many true Christians outside the Roan arena down the centuries as the Antichrist.  The Reforemers were belated joiners of that group.   

They've disissed the idea that the Pope is the Antichrist and I'm afraid that is a big big isake.  There are other clues to the end times system that have also been fulfilled in the Medieval Catholic CHurch, such as the making of all those martyrs through the Inquisitions, those martyrs we see in the Book of Revelation, and the Lying Signs and wonders too, it seems to me now, as the supposed miracles claimed by the Romean shucrch have been there all along and are not just something to be brought into play at the very end, though perhaps those and all the rest of it wil be an extra intense version of all of it.

Also I realized thathe Antichrist iais also worshipped.  You'd think maybe that would wait until the end, but if you think about the throng that gatherwed in St Pet'ers square to see the anouncement of the new Pope a couple of moths ago , many praying, using their pagan rosary beands and so on, you have to call that worship.

I cringe when I hear Cathaolis recite the Lord's prayer or the Hail Mary and call those things praying, and I especially cringe when they come to that last line that asks Mary to pray for us sinners, as if she could hear prays by millions of people just as god can, and answer them.  tghe prayer to be prayed for.  It's still a prayer, it's making Mary into God.   I swish I could jolt a few of them out of their delusion.

It's a hard delusion to bereak because so many of them asre such nice people, ice patriotic Americans, kind people etc etc etc.  And they enjoy their community life among their fellow Catholics.  Hard delusion to reak indeed.

But Lord, please save many of them.

Great was the Company of the Preachers

 I wanted to use that as my title for the Kirk memorial but it turned out there were other things I wanted o say.  I use it now just because I like it and it's still more or less true.  That was quite a long line of people who got up that day ad gave some sort of Christian gospel rppresentation, including all the governement people who would normally not say any such thing in public.  Very impressive.  .  

The great company of preachers line is biblical but I always hear it in my ind as sung in the Chorus of Handel's Messiah, referring to the gospel bgoing forth to all the world after His ascension to GOd.    The memorial did give us quite an array of preachers, a great and motley company indeed.  

And that is a sort of revival after all, especially when we take note of the fact that churches allover the country had a surger of attendance, mostly of younger people, in the aftermath of Charlie's murder.  It's fair to call that revival even if it isn't the falling down under the power sort of revival I always hope the Lortd will send us.  The increased churche attendance included increased baptisms too and those don't occur iunless the people make a credible profession of faith in Christ, so let's call it revival and hope it grows.

Neverthleess the country is under seige ore and more too.  We need God to flood the land with revival to give us the needed strength to deal with the corruptions and sheer evil that have been growing for decades now, and not letting up, even intensifying after Charlie's death.   All public people on the right are getting death tghreats and it's pretty scary.   Christians have nothing to fear in death but it's hard not to feel fear anyway even if you are willing to face it knowing it will only take you into the presence of the Lord Jesus.    But the country has been overrun with murderous messages fruom what you would have thought were just ordinary people.  People on the lieberal side who are quite willing to say that anyone they disagree with is a legititmate target for murder.  One study had it fifty person, even more, who think it's just fine to furder Trump or Elon Musk.  I can hardlyu believe the country has come to such a state.

Of course once we'd abandoned all reference to God and the Bible in schools on a bogus reinterpration of the first amendment, and building on that allowed laws to be passed that are in direct violation of God's Moral Law, from granting freedom of speech to pornography, to legitimaizing gay marriage, sancioning the murder of jhyjuman beings in the womb and so on, trearing down the Ten Commandments from public places  what could we expect.  God is judging us for all that.  

You can kind of track how each of the secdon d table of the ten commandments has been officially violated over the last vfew dewcades, atarting with adultery or sexual freedom, and legalizing porn, destroyhing marriage with the ridiculous idea that there's any reason for homosexuals to marry, even to murdewring babies and now political opponents, even more or less legalizing setealing as consequances have been lifted in blue states and the police have been hindered from doing heir jobs.  Lying or course is always in fashiong abut the Left does seem to havea taken it to a new level, even a specialized art form that is fvery effective at deceieving people who aren't paying much attention to the political world.

I do see in Matthew 24 That Jesus described two different kinds of second comings for Jesus, which of course makes the Rapture idea viable, the one that could come at any moment, while the other is clearly described as folling after the great tribultion.  Both descriptions can't be true of the same event, either we won't know at all or we'll expect it after the tribultion.  So I guess it could happen any day and I of course would like it to happen right now.  Excpet for the fact taht I do know a lot of people who aren't believers yet and I hate the idea that they will have to stay behgind and go through the tribultion whehere they will need extraordinary courage to hold onto their salvation in the face of seductive offers to be safe from harm by selling their soulds to the antichrist.

So we're hapving a lot of powerful good going on in the country, and a lot of powerful bad at the same time.

More on the memorial service and hopes for revival

 Many, I haven't heard how many but many, people inspired by Charlie Kirk and moved by his murder, went to church the weeked afer.  It does seem like a revival and I hope it is but it's hard to tell at this point.  They would have been moved by an appreciation of Charlie's life and talks and sadness and anger at hjis death.  That's impressive because there were so many who were touched in that way, nearly a hundred thousand showing up for the memorial and some say a hundred million who tuned in to it in one way or another.  That's a lot of people affected by this one young man.  He had quite a reach.  In death it turns out he was a lot bigger a person than a lot of us had any idea.  A good man, a true Christian and a dedicated worker for the good of America.  

But as I said in my first post on the memorial, that isn't enough for a true revival.  Emotionas and intellectual understanding and appreciation aren't Christian conversion.  

Many may continue anyway.  I hope so.   Eventually they may become converted and be true Christians.  But moved only by iind or emotion they aren't yet that.   Unfortuately I think many who spoke about their friendship with Charlie and they own appreciation of CHristian values as if they themselves were also Christians just aren;t.  So often people think Christian conversion is a merely mental thing, and if you stick with it that is evidence enough that it is real.  But often it's just like belonging to a clugb where you feel at home and no real conversion has taken place.

Revival would make true converts.  Christian conversion is a supernatural thing, it is the new birth by which we become indwelt by the Holy Spirit.  This comes about when we believe what wwe are taught to believe about Jewsus' death for us on the cross, to pay for our sincs so that we don't have to go to Hell for them.  And believe that He rose from the dead.  These must be firmly embraced beliefs.  And while there isn't always a clear sign that someone has been born again a change in the life is the usual way it is recognized.  I instantly lost my foul mouth for instance.  Oh it's coe back now and then much later on under the influence of bad copany, but I've lost it again and it never took hold as it once had hold of me.  And I was enraptured with the things of God, the Bible, Christian books and so on.  Most of my worldly interests just dropped away.   And most of those are still gone and never came back, though I've gone too far into worldly things of a different sort from time to time and had to give those ustp too.  I'm actually regretting all the years I spent pursuing the creation evolution debate.    I think by getting so involved in that I lost a lot of early connectio with God and all those lovely spiritual experiences I had in the early days may never retrun.  It made me terribly sad just last night as I was listening again to Tozer's the Pursuit of God to realize how long it has been since I felt His presence the way I used to.

Speaking of presence,  His presence that is, some said they felt it at the memorial.  Humming like a tuning fok fork someone said.  Harir stood on eand another said.  Could feel the prayers being said, actually feel them.    

It was that sort of remark that reminded me of Watchman Nee's book The Latent Power of the Soul, because I don't think those things are how the HOly SPirit is felt.  I may be srong but I think usually those things are how what Nee calls soul power is felt, how a gigantic crowed of people all vfocusing their attention in one way projejhcts a pwoer not of the Spirit ofbut of the human soul or personality that can actually be fewlt and actually have effects on people at the receievinbg receiving end of it.    Concentrated emotion, repeated musical phrases and so on, are not the Spirit but of the soul and can project a lot of power that can be felt.  

I can't be absolutely sure there wasn't some of the HOly Spirit there in power , all I can say is it doesn't seem likely to me.  The conditions weren't present for Him to come.  The conditions that were present were for the manifestation of a lot of emotion and that is a completely different thing.

But Christian conversion is supernatural, it is spiritual.  Emotion may cewrtainly be a big part of it but the change itself is spiritualand it wouldn't be expressed by the sort of emotion that was felt for Charlie Kirk, perfectly appropriate in that memorital service, what everyone was there for, God would be the subject of it all and the diifference should have been obvious.

In saying these things I'm not criticizing the memorial serive.  I think it was excellent as a memorial service.  I'm suust saying that if we cwant revival to come out of all this something more needs to happen and it hasn't happened yet.

I would love to see that more come about but I don't see where it is ging to come from yet.  

Later:  When I sais d I thought the memorial service was xcellent as a tribute to Charlie Kirk I left outr y one main complaint, which is that repetitive music phrases, singing chorsuses over and over again, is a tactic used to drum up emotion, which some apparently think is the Holy Spirit or will bring the Holy Spirit and I want to be emphatically clear that that is not the case.  You do not brig the Holy Spiorit that way.  You may bring some kind of effect you take for the Holy spirit but it is either the effect of human personalities all focused on one thing which can actually project a power of its own, or in some cases the evil spirits can mannifest from such huponotizing music.   Humns are one thing, soothing mesmerizing music is quie something else, evn if the words seem to uplift God or Christ.   There was way too much of that at the memorial.   If we cant revival we aren't going to get it that way and it would be a big mistake to let ourselves be deceived into takeing such a counterfeit for the real thing.

Charlie Kirk Memorial: Revival, Promise and Pitfalls

qell, again, same as when I was praying for Charlie right after hearing he'd been shot, I found myslef  listening to the Memorial serice on Sunday and having the "wrong" reaction which distressed me greatly.  Everythibg else seemed to be deeply moved by the worship before the program began, and by the whole event for that matter.  Many said they felt the Holy Spirit there and just wahat a wonderful memorial it was for Charlie and what a wonderful expressio of Christianity for the world to see.   

I agree it was avery impressive event and a great memorial service overall for Charlie, very well put together, well thought out, and the speeches were all inspiring in their own way.  The gospel was preached in almost every speech and that was wonderfl.  The worship usic was high calibre, very progressional, emotionally moving, the voices of the singers beautiful and powerful.  I understood only a few days later that these were the top tirer of Christian performaers in the music culture, hugely talented.  I only knew one name among them.  I'm juist not into pop style worship music, though I admit that some of the songs are very nice.  

But I kept feeling I should be more moved and involved in all this, shoultn' I?  Why isn't this affecting me the way it is affecting everyone else>  I do appreciate the speeches, the preaching of tthe gospel by such a disparate group of people, all that , but it's just not moving me at all.  And I assume that's my afault.  Lord, what's wrong with me.  All these wonderful people are finding YOu there in that huge stadium, what's  wrong with me?  If I wre  actually there would I have a differeing  reaction?  

It was wonderfully organized.  The Turing Point team pulled off a program that seemed to flow just about seamlessly, having had only a short while to accomplish it.  Quite a feat I think.  They are a well organized group of people and hard workers and I'm oimpressed.  And I'm certainly not doubting the importance of the gospel's being so front and cetnter from beginning to eld.  But shouldn't I be happier about all that?  hat is the matter with me?

I'd listening to the Charlie Kirk show every evening since his murder allnd that was very inpspiring.  They had some great conversations with people who knew Charlie well, good stuff.  They are a deply committed Christian group of people, that comes across clearly.  I should have been happy with the memorial service.  I'd been saying how I think Charlie's death could be the impetus for a great revival, and for the most part I haven't lost that idea.  I still think it will be a vrevival to some extent but I'm not sure to what extent.  It seemed to many that the memorial was jut the beginning of something big as far as spreading the gospel through the culture.  I hope it is.  But I wasn't feeling it as I thought I should during the memorial.

Well, nobody wants to be a party pooper.  It took me a few days to consolidate the impressions that put a damper fo r me on the revival claims, that I kept dismissing at the time and for a couple days safterward.  It took a while to begin to take them seriously and think about what they mean.

Not that I didn't think these things at the time, I just kept teling metyslef no, I must be missing somethig.  But for instance, I thought, Oh no, too much trying to drum up ane n emotional reaction in the audience by the worship music, too much repeating of short lines, too much engagihjng the drowed in the repetitive strinas.  Emotion is not the Holy Spirit.  ANd emotion hcan be very powerful in its own right, can move  croweds of people.  But we want the Holy Spirit, we on't want emotion.  Unfortunately Christians are just not able to appreciate the difference.  It is very easy to confuse emotions that center around God and beautiful things of the ChristiaN FAITH FOR THE WORK OF THE sPIRIT.  

i KEPT FEELING, THE sPIRIT IS OT HERE NO MATTER WHAT THEY ALL ARE SAYING, hE JUST IS NOT.  nOT THE WAY hE COMES IN REVIVAL ANYWAY.  i'M SURE hE'S HERE BECAUSE hE'S ALWAYS WITH hIS PEOPLE, BUT h'ES NOT HERE THE WAY hE COMES IN REVIVAL.tHAT'S THE THOUGHT i KEPT THROWING OUT, TELLING MYSELF THERE'S SOEMEHITNG WRONG WITH ME FOR THINKING THIS WAY.  bUT AFTER A FEW DAYS OF WORKING THGROUGH MY THOUGHTS i'M MORE CONVINCED THAT i WAS RIGHT.  i'M VERY CONVINCED THAT THOSE FEELINGS AND THOUGHTS WERE RIGHT, THAT LACK OF FEELING.i DIDN'T WANT TO THINK IT, i WANTED IT TO BE A POWERFUL REVIVAL EVENT.  iT WAS  CERTAINLY A VENUE FOR THE GOSPEL TO BE PREACHED, BUT IF THE GOSPEL WASN'T CARRIED BY THE hOLY sPIRIT, HOW LONG WILL ITS EFFECTS LAST?

lAST NIGHT i FINALLY GOT AROUBND TO LISTENING AGAIN TO THE BOOK BY wATCHMAN nEE, THE lATENT pOWER OF THE sOUL, IN WHICH HE VERY CAREFULLY  DISCRIMINATES BETWEEN SOUL AND SPIRIT TO MAKE THE MAIN POINT THAT SOUL CAN BE MMADE TO COUNTERFEIT THE WORKING OF THE hOLY spiRIT TO THE DETRIMENT OF THE cHURCH AND THE cHRISTIAN'S SPIRITUAL LIFE.  

There is more I want to write bbut I'm going to stop here and come back to it later.

    Oh no, how long as the caps lock kep been on?  Oh no.  self at the 

Later:

Nees little book is a little strange compared to his wother writings and I'm not sure he's right about his picture of the soul power possessed by Adam and Eve before the Fall.  It just sounds odd to me.  I do thionk he's right that they must have had great powers that were lost, cetrtainly at least strengths that have been lost bit by bit over the millennia at least, geneitc protections for instance.  And I don't necessarily doubt Nee's view of their having powers that seem supernatural by our standards, I just don't see clear evidence of it in the scripture.  He's a lot more spiritually advanced than most Christians, however, do I'm not going to argue with him behoyound saying this much.  

Also, since he's writing in the early part of the twentieth century hgis references to the sciences of parapsychologigy and mesmerism sound very sdated.  ARE dated.  We hear little or nothing of these things today and the terminology is just not  something we would use today.  In the fifties when I was in my teens I got interested in the work of J B Rhine on telepathy and clairvoyance and pscyhokenesis and that sort of things but Nee had written this book some years before Rhine, so that although Rhine is certainly dated today, Nee's references are even more dated.   

Nevertheless I think his general point is likely true, that is, that we do have powers that are not availbe to us in our fallen condition, perhaps hidden in our flesh as he describes it, and only occasionally accessibly to individuals here and there over the millennia since the Fall.  I think the general idea must be right and it accounts for things that are otherwise very hard to explain.  Such as the strange powers described by some Hindu adepts, such as Paramahansa Yogananada.  I read his book when I was on my way to becoming a Christian.  I took a lot of strang sdetraous like that.  Yogananda desdcbribes being able to project your consciosness to great distances and see and hear things there, even manifest  in a body gthat looks like us in order to talk to people who knows us at such distances.   And of course telepathy and seeing things without being transported, and being able to move objects with the mind and those Hindou feat of lying on a bed of nails or walking on hot coals and so on.  When I read that book I had no idea what to think aof aoll that.  It doesn't sound very holy, very worshipful, just strange.   Yogananda's organization which he founded in California is called the Self Realization Fellowship and that's very approrpaite in the litght of Nee's presentation.  It is the Self, or Soul, that is produscing all these strange phenomena and can even produce miraculous seeming things that deceive people into accpeting them as the Holy Spirit.  It is ot the Spirit.

Fallen manm sodoes not have he Spirit.  I'beve heard people in the last few weeks who are certainly reliegious people in a way, often Catholics, who clearly have no idea what the Holy Spirit is because they are not born again, so they impute religious feelings of many sorts to the Spirit.  But you do not have the Holy Spirit unless you are born again, and you aren't born again if you sear like a sailor as one person does, and probably ot if you use the rosary which is a pagan instrument having nothing whatever to do with Christianity, ask Mary to pray for us which they all do in one of their repetitituve rosary recitations.  Nohje of that is compatible with being born agaIN.  i SUPPOSE IT'S POSSIBLE TO GET BORN AGAIN AND STILL HOLD ONTO SOME OF THAT BUT i CAN ONLY SAY POSSIBLE BECAUSE IT SEEMS HIGHLY UNLIKLELY TO ME AND i REALLY DON'T KNOW HOW FAR OFF TRACK YOU CAN GO AND STILL BE BORN AGAIN.

jJust noticed I managed to kick on the caps logk again.  I wish the light were brighter so I'd know when it happenes.

My guess is that the church needs a lot of cleaning up and throwing out of such pagan thigs among other problems before we can have a real Holy Spirit revival.  How I yearn for such a revival, but the Church is in bad cshape.  I'm certainly glad that many seem to be coming to the Lord in the last days since Charlie was murderered, and I'm sure some of that will hold, but I'm worried now that becaue the Church is not wary of  the many subtle counterfiets the devil can pull off, thogugh our soul power and other means, that it could unfortunatley fizzle out way too soon.

Need  Nee advises praying that the Lord will keep us alert to such things, protect us against them, that we need to be very serious about the  armor of God, and the main thing is dying to self.  If we are always carefully putting down the self so that the spirit can take charge we will be better prepared for a real Holy Spirit revival.  TWhich would take the Church to a new level of spiritual power.     And oterhwise the devil will have succeeded in keeping us in his control.

All the religious of the world try to release the soul powers according to Nee, and that certainly makes a lot of sense of what they do with their meditations and ascetic practices, which aim to keep the flesh in subjection so that sould can come forth.    There is no HOly Spirit in thoe relgions and the devil can't work with the Holy Pirit anyway, only the human sould.  That makes sense.

But if we get carried away by emotion, which in itself is no fault of course, but I mean if we get carried away and think it is the Holy Spirit instead, we cannot have true revival, which in most cases begins with a powerful convicion of sin that haaas people crying out for God's forgiveness, or at least that's one way it comes about.  The HOly sSpirit convicts of sin first of all and although we supposedly repetn or say we repetn anyway, it's ooften a very superficial thing.  If it's real then we'lll be born again if we believe the right things, but it still usually needs to be a lot sdeeper than the first conversion repentance.  When the Holy Spirit comes in power He bowls us over, He possesses us, He doesn't just make us emotional, in fact we may not get  emotional at all.  Or it will be a for a differnet reason.

I want Charlie's death to bring us a real revival, but there'as a lot we need to learn for that to happen I think.

Charlie Kirk / THE BLOOD OF THE MARTYRS IS THE SEED OF THE CHURCH

 It was one of the early Church Fathers who lsaid that, I always thought Athanasius but someone recently attributed it to Tertullian so now I'm not sure.  Anywauy I'm more and more convinced that the death of Charlie Kirk is God's plan for something very big both for His Church and for the country, and prhaps the world.

Unless a seed fall to the ground and die, it abideth alone, but if it die it will bear much fruit.  

I think I did a better job o quoting that this time than I did a few posts below.  Yes, I was thinking then that this was probably God's plan, that He took Charlie;s life so that soeme great , very great, fruition of Christianity in this country coul;d come about.

And yes, I am more and more sure of that as time goes on.  I've now heard two others mention that this could be revival, oh that wonderful vreivvial that has eleuded us for decades though so many of us have prayed our hearts out for it.   Yes yes yes, oh may it have come.

That it would take a great sacrifice to bring it about would not have occurred to me, and I think it has taken all of us by surprise.  Those who do think  this is God's plan.  

As I say in my previous post about Charlie Kirk I didn't have much of an idea about him except that he was a young conservative who debated college kids and spoke openly of his cChristian faith, a very nice combination to discover in a young guy so I has happy to know we had him working for our causes.  But what I had NO idea about has only been developing since his death, that he was a much bigger personality than I had any idea.  Recognized as a great man even when he was very young, for instance as destined to be President, reocgnized by many as having that kind of greatness hin him.  I had no idea.  And he was not just the acquaintance of but the close friend of many movers and shakers from the President and Vice President to a whole slew of talk show hosts and politicians and pastors, as well as popular with the thousands of young people he talked to on the college campuses, havingconverted quite a few of them to his political views.  And, it turns out his Christianity as well.  I keep hearing that the churches have been packed since his death with young people, annany of whom had never been to church before.  Some spoke to news people of wanting to change their lives for the better in the model of Charlie, to be better men, hysbands and fathers.   

Some described the scene at the Phoenix Arizona headquarters of Charlie's organization, Turning POInt, as reminiscent of the outpouring of love for Princess diana of Britain when she died, a huge array of teeddy bears and balloons and flowers and messages.   I had NO idea Charlie was that big in our world.

ASome of it hs grown up dsince his death as many have been discovering him who never heard of him before, but still those who did know of him and follow him are a much larger crowd  than I had any idea.  This event to honor him that is planned for Sunday is to be held in a stadium that holds  73 thousand people.  

This seed that has fallen to the ground is one huge expensive seed, a truly great human being who had accomplished a prodigious lot in his short life.  A big man in the ture meaning of the word.  And as a big man whe will be a big seed for a giganitic outpouring, that fruitful result of the death of the seed and the blood of the martyrs.  On a great scale.  Because he was big, so much bigger than I had any idea.

A few days ago I got into looking up the meaning of names, since I like all kinds of symbolism, and I found out that the name Charles means Man, or Manly.  I already knew that the name Kirk is sScottish for Church.  Many and Church.  Wowo, how appropriate for Charlie Kirk.  And then I looked up Eric, because his wife ahds the feminine fversion of that name, Erica, and it means Honoirable Ruler.   I'd already had the idea that she was going to become a big part of the organization now, based on her inspiring speech of Friday night, and then this morning she was voted by the Turning POint staff to be their new CEWO.   They all said she would carry the persona of Charlie as well as his mission more recognizably to the public than any of the other memebers of his staff, and besides, he'd told them that it was his wish that shee succeed him if something like this ever happened.

Wonderful things going on.  We've been sliding father and father into the darkness for soi many years it's been hard to beliee that we could ever get out of it.  But God knows how to do the impossible.  We would never have thought of any of this, but God, God knows hw to do things we can't even deream of.  Things we couldn't descire either?  The death of a great man like Charlie?  We couldn't dream that.  We wouldn't.  Bug God knows what He is doing.   All things work together for good to those who love God and are called according to His purposes.

Praise You Lord, praise You and thank You.  I know it is no time for us to get complacent.  It's time to work harder than ever, pray harder than ever, seek Your will in everythig we do.  Help us to stauy on Track, Lord.00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000Especially watch over Erica and Turning POInt.

The sad story of Tyler Roninson

 And we don't even know that story yet.   I just know it's sad.  What I have heard is that he comes from a nicew quiety patriotic Mormon family in Utah, Rebublicans who no doubt voted for Trump and if they were familiar with Charlie Kirk no doubt supported him.  Tyler was a straight A student, a kid to make his parents proud, with two brothers who were apparently folliwng in his worthy footsteps.

jUntil sometimehthin radicalized him.  As his family tells us, over the last few years Tyler became radicalized, obviously on the Left, as his messages call Chrlie Kirk a fascist and a hater, typical leftist smeark of anything conservative.    Seomething radicalized him onto the Lerft.  We need to know what that was.   It's going to be a very sad story.

Knowing the little I do about his background I'm now feeling very sorry for him and of course for his familay.  I'm ghoing to be praying for him.  I want him to repent and see that he was wrong, and I want him to be saved.     The death penalty is the only right puishement for ssomeone who committed murder, God Himself says that in Genesis Nine right after the Flood, Whoever takes a human life, by man shall his life be taken.   And should be taken, it's obvious justice.

But when it seems the murderrer ight have been manipulated or seduced int to his evil act out of a rightoeoue family it takes on a differenrt coloration and now I'm hoping here will be time for him to repent and udnerstand the reality and the truth of what he did.    It sounds like before he was radicalized he might have been a good addition to the Turning POint mission, is it too mu

h to pray that he ight still be made somehow to suerve such a role?  Tht's ewhat I'm praying nyay.

Eventually the only right thing is execution, but maybe that could be put off.  IF he repents.  I'm praying for that.

Antichrist Five: Pope Leo Addresses Nations As If H'es King of the WQOrld

 My AleWhich the popes used to be, back in the days of the "Holy Roman Empire" which Voltaire said was neither holy , nor Roman, nor an empirse, which still amuses me.  

But anyway..  On the occasion of a big party thrown for him at the Vatican apparently for his seventieth birthday , on Sunday the fourteenth, he accused natyions who object to the growing illegal immigration problem of inhumaity in trying to keep out the great hordes of "migrants" who have been flooding in.  Of course many of them have been invidted and now the original citizens are getting unhappy about it.   A giant protest in Britain this weekend at the very time Leo was chiding them for usch unkindness.    And he referred to the plight of the poor "migrant" who encounters a "jwall" to keep him out.  Which of course must refer to America.   

But of course the Pope is King of the World, isn't he?  Or course.  He certainly will be that  if he turns out to bw the Final Antichrist during the Great Tribultion of the last days before Jesus' return.  

GHe also chiden Elon Musk for daying to make a lot of money, this trillion dollars he's ben promised by his company Tesla if he meedts certain business goals on behalf of the company.  

One thing we can conclude fro these concerns is that Leo, like Francis before him, is a Marxist.  He has no respedt for soverign national identity and no respect for capitalism.   Just another Leftie out tyo destroy the basic greatness of the West, the prospertiy and freedoms, which, ironaically perhaps, orignated in the Christian vision.  Pope Leo's sorta kinda ries to sound Christianish but it' isn't Christian at all, it's Marxist, it's AntiChristian.  

Well, I'm watching for the moment when this King of the World decides to make a deal with Israel for seven years.  Then I'll know the Seventieth Week of Daniel has just begun ticking and that unimaginable horrors are going to be unfolding in about three and a half years.  

According to the popular Pretribulation Prremillennial End Times position, the Chruch is to be raptures d to heaven before all this unfolds.    As I've been studying the Book of Reveltation over the last few years I've been coming closer to the idea that this may not be a correct understanding of the scripture, although I would like it to be.    I've been unable to conclude anything certain about this for a long time so whatever happenbs I guess I'll most likely only understand it at that wpoint.d which is why I'm referrig to 

Thte Murder of Charlie Kirk: Something Miraculous on the Wing?

 Even the young men shall faint.  But they who wait upon the LORDD shall renew their srength;  they shall rise on wings of eagles, they shall run and not walk, they shall walk and not faint.

That's  from Isaiah forty something.  I'm also rememberinga line from Psalms somewerhe I think that says They shall bear fruit even in old age.  

Sinc I'm in old age I'm clinging to that one.  I've wanted to die off and on for years now because I think there's nothing for me to do here as I grow blind and lose more and more options in other ways as well for accomplishing anything, as even writing this blog has become almost impossible.  I'm grateful to the Lord that I can still more or less dothis although since I can't read it I'm tying blind and make an awful lot of mistakes I an only hope dn't too seriously garble up the message.  Usually they don't seem to, when I can listen back on the Read Aloud function to find out.  So that is a lot to be grateful for.

But this is to be bout Charlie Kirk.  I was surprised at how hard it hit me.   I like Charlie Kirdk,  he's on the radio here from nien to eleven at night and I often hear at least some of it.  But I didn't have much of a sense of him as a person or personalitiy.  I saw some of his debates on college campuouses that would come up from time to time on You Tube.  To my mind he was one of many patriotic oivoices on the right to celebrate, but he didn't stand out from the crowd in my mind.   Of course to hear he'd been shot wuld be upsetting, but I was surprised at HOW upsetting it was.  I sank into a very sad mood.  I prayed hard during that first hour for his survival.  

But strange things ere already happening.  I kept having the thought as I prayed that maybe it would be a good thing if he died, maybe that would get some TTENTION FOR THE CAUSE, BUT i FELT ABOUT BAD ABOUT THINKING THAT AND WULD APOLOGIZE TO TEH lORD FOR THINKING IT AND TRY TO REDOUBLE MY EFFORTS TO PRAY.  tHEN HE DIED AND i CRIED.     

bY THE STRANGE STUFF i MEAN EVIDENCE OF THE HAND OF gOD IN IT, EVEN IN MY OWN LITTLE HEARING OF IT AND LITTLE KNOWLEDGE OF HIM AND LITLE APPRECIATION OF HIM.   i HAD BEEN DOING SOMETHING IN ANOTHER WROOM BUT FINISHED UP AND SAT DOWN TO LISTEN TO THE MORNING TALK SHOW ON THE RADIO AND THE MOMENT i TURNED ON THE RADIO OUT CAME THE WORDS "bREAKING NEWS, cHARLIE kIRDK HAS BEEN SHOT."  thAT MAY NOT BE A VERY BIG THING BUT THAT KIND OF PRECISE TIMING USUALLY ONLY  HAPPEN S WHEN SONETHING IS EVERY IMPORTANT TO ME OR ON MY IND, THE SITTING DOWN AND TURNING ON THE RADIO EXACTLY TAT THE MOMENT BEFORE THE WORDS bREAKING nEWS COME ON.  eXACTLY.  tHEN vINCE cOLOGNASE, THE TALK SHOW HOST SPOKE ON THE SUBJECT UNTIL THE ENDING OF HIS SHOW NOW LONG AFTEREWARD, WHILE AS FAR AS WE KNEW cHARLIE WAS STILL ALIBVE AND WE WERE ALL PRAYING FOR HIM.   tHEN i WAS HAVIG ALL THESE THOUGHTS ABOUT HOW MAYBE IT WOULD BE BETTER IF HE DIED AND THINKING i NEEDED TO REPENT FOR SUCH THOUGHTS.  iT WAS OVER AN HOUR AFTER THAT THAT THE NEWS CAME IN THAT HE HAD DIED.   i'D REALLY THOUGHT WE MIGHT HAVE ANOTHER MIRALCCLE LIKE THE ONE THAT SAVED tRUMP.   eVEN THOUGH THE REPORTS WERE THAT BLOOD HAD IMMEDIATELY GUSHED FROM THESIDE OF cHARLIE'S NECK SHEN  HE WAS HIT, WHIH DOES NOT SOUND LIKE SOMETHING ONE SURVIVES EASILY IF AT ALL i'D STILL HOPED, EVEN AGAINST ALL THOUSE OTHER THOUGHTS.  tHEN HE DIED AND i SANK INTO A TEARFUL STATE FOR ANOTHER HOUR OR SO, AND ANGRY, ANGRY AT THE lEFT WHO ARE ALWAYS CALLING cHARLIE AND tRUP AND ALL US CONSERVATIVES FOUL NAMES, FASCIST, HATERS, ALL LIES TO PROVOKE PEOPLE INTO HATING US AND MAYBE WANTING TO KILL US.  tHAT'S WHAT KILLED cHARLIE, i KNEW IT THEN AND i KNOW IT NOW, ALTHOUGHT ALL THESE SUPPOSED REASONABLE VOICES CAME ON SAYING hEY WE DON'T KOW WHAT MOTIVATED THIS SHOOTING, HOLD OFF UNTIL WE KNOW.   yEAH YEAH  YEAH, SURE THERE COULD BE SOMETHIG TOTALLY WEIRD ABOUT THE PERSON'S MOTIVSTION BUT NO, NOT REALLY.  pWEOPEL WHO HAVE BEEN CONDITIONED BY THE lEFT TO HATE cHRALIER AND gRUMP AND ALL OF US ON THE rIGHT ARE THE REASON cHRARLIE WAS SHOT, i KNEW IT THEN ALTHOUGH i REFRAINED FROM WRITING A BLOG POST UNTIL i KNOIEW MORE OFR SURE.  aND NOW THAT i DO i JUST KNOW THE SAME THING ONLY i KNOW IT FOR SURE.

bUT THERE WAS THIS ODD THING THAT gOD HAD LED ME TO HEAR THE FIRST ANNOUNCEMENT OF HIS BEING SHOT AT EXACTLY THE RIGHT MOMENT.  nOW i'M THINKING HAT WAS THE hoLY sPIRIT TELING ME THAT cHARLIE WAS GOING TO DIE AND IT WOULD BE A GOOD THING, THE THOUGHT i KEPT FEELING i NEEDED TO APOLOGIZE FOR.  i DON'T THINK THAT WAS MY OWN THOUGHT NOW, i THINK IT WAS gOD SAYING cHARLIE IS GOING TO DIE AND i WAS TOO OBTUSE TO RECOGNIZE hIS VOICE.  

nOW i'M EVEN THINKIUBG HOW THAT PERFET SHOT TO THE JUGULAR WAS A SORT OF MIRACLE LIKE THE MIRACLE THAT SAVED tRUMP, ONLY IN THIS CASE IT WAS A CLEAN DEADLY SHOT cHARLIE COULD NOT POSSIBLY HAVE SURVIVED.  gOD ENGINEERED THIS ONE TOO THOUGHT.  hE COULD HAVE MADE IT MISS AS HE DID THE SHOT AT tRUMP, OR hE CULD HAVE MADE IT ISS IN SUCH A WAY THAT HIS LIFE WOULD HAVE LINGERED QUITE A BIGT LONGER BEFORE HE DIED, BUT NOW IT WAS A CLEAN DEADLY SHOT, ONE SHOT, TO THE JUGULAR.  eVEN AT CLOSE RANGE THAT IS A PRETTY MIRACLULOUS SHOT.

tHEN OVER THE LAST COUOPLE OF DAYS i'VE HEARD VOICES ON THE RADIO OF PEOPLE WHO KNEW chARLIE, SO MANY OF THEM,  ALMOST PICTURING AN USUNUSUAL GREAT MAN, A GREAT SAINT, A GIANT AMONG MEN.   i THOUGHT BUT WOW IS THIS BECAUSE OF THEIR GRIEF THAT YOU ALWAYS HAVE TO SAY SOMETHING SO OVER THE TOP LAUDATORY OF THE PERSON?  sURELY HE WAS A VERY GOOD GUY WHO WORKED HARD AND HAD A BIG TALEN FOR HIS CALLING TO THE YOUNGER ENERATION, i DON'G DOUBT THAT, BUT THEY WERE MAKING HIM INTO SOMETHING BIGGER THAN THAT.  aND WHEN i HEARD HIS WIFE'S SPEECH YESTERDAY AND THEN THE PROGRAM HE USUALLY HOSTED IN WHICH FOUR OF HIS STAFF REMEMBERED HIM, THE IMPRESSION CONTINUED THAT THEY WERE SAYING HE WAS BIGGER THAN YOUR ORDINARY HARD WORKING cHRISTIAN PATRIOT.  i THINK NOW THEY MEAN IT, THEY SEE HIM THAT WAY, ALTHOUGH HE WAS ONLY THIRTY ONE.  hE WAS SOME KIND OF DYNAMO AND RULY DIRVEN BY HIS FAITH IN THE lORD jESUS TO ACCOMPLISH AN AENORMOUSJ UNDERTAKING TOWARD BRINGING THE YOUNGER GENERATION TO A TRUE UNDERSTANDING OF THE aMERICAN VISION AND TO cHRIST AS WELL.   tURNING poiNT IS WHAT HE NAMED HIS ORGANIZATION, AND IT SOUNDS LIKE IT'S BEEN STAFFED WELL BY HUNDREDS OR EVEN THOUGHSANDS OF OTHER HARD WORKERS FOR THE CAUSE AND IT WILL GO ON, AND HIS WIFE SOUNDED  STRONG AND DETERMIEND TO MAKE IT GO ON.  i'M VERUY IMPRESSED AND NOW i'M THINKING THIS IS gOD'S PLAN, gOD IS GOING TO ELEVATE tURNING pOINT AND ACCOMPLISH SOMETHING GRULY MIRACLULOUS BY THE DEATH OF cHARLIE kIRK.

i HAVE MANY HOPEFUL THOUHTS ABOUT WHAT COULD BE ACCOMPLISHED , MAY MANY MANY.  aND i COULD WRITE A LOT MORE BUT NOWT NOW, MAYBE LATER.

qWLL AT LEAST  A LITTLE MORE NOW.   

i HEARD AN NTERVIEW WITH THE UOING MAN AT THE UNCERSITY IN uTUAL WHO WAS ONE OF THE FIRST TO CHALLENGE cHARLIE AT THE MIRACLE  GOOD GRIEF i WROTE MIRACLE AND MEANT TO WRITE MICROPHONE.  aNYWAY HE WAS TRYING TO CONVINCE cHRARLIE THAT HE WAS WRONG ABOUT THE VIOLENCE ON THE lEFT, ESCPECIALLY AMONG THE TRANSGENDERS i THINK, WHEN THE SHOT RANG OUT AND HE WITNESSED cHARLIE BEING HIT.  aCCORDING TO THE DESCRITPIONS i HEARD THE YOUNG MAN PUT HIS NANDS OVER HIS FACW AND VERWAS VERY SHAKEN UP.  fUNNY THAT MANY HAD SPECULATED THAT MAYBE HIS QUESTION WAS SOME KIND OF SIGN OT THE SHOOTER, MAKING HIM INTO A CONSPIRATOR TO KILL cHARLIE BUT AS HE HIMSLEF DESCRIBED HIS EXPERIENCE IT BECAME VERY CLEAR THAT HE WAS IN NOW WAY INOVLVED.  hE WAS TRULY SHAKEN AT THE DEATH OF cHARLIE AND SPOKE AS IF TO THE SHOOTER, HAVE E LOST TRACK OF THE FACT THAT THIS IS A HUNAN BEING.  hE DIDN'T AGREE WITH cHARLIE ABOUT A LOT OF THINGS BUT HE WAS A HUNAN BEING, A HUSBAND AND A FATHER, AND SO SAID THE YOUNG MAN WAS HE WHO HAD ASKED THE QUESTION.  wqE DON'T KILL THOSE WE DISAGREE WITH.  hE WAS CLEARLY TRULY UPSET AND i'M VERY GLAD TO HEAR A PERSON ON THE lET SAY SOMETHING SO CLEARLY HEARTFELT AGAINST THE OTHERS ON HIS SIDE WHO ARE ALL GLEEFULLY BLAMING cHARLIE FOR HIS OWN DEATH, SAYING HOW HE WAS A DIVISIVE VOICE AND A PROVOCAGEUR WHEN ALL HE WEVER DID WAS QUIETLY AND KINDLE STATE HIS OWN CONSERVATIVE OPINION ON MANY SUBJECTS.  tHEWY ARE THE HATERS, NOT cHARLIE.  tHEY ARE THE FASCISTS, NOT cHARLIE    bUT THIS YOUNG MAN, APPARENTLY ALSO A HUSBAND AND FATHER, ALTHOUGH HE IS ALSO ON THE lEFT, ALSO A dEMOCRATE, aLSO IN OPPOSITION TO cHARLIE ANDTHE REST OF US ON THE rIGHT.  HE DOESN'T SHARE THOSE ALL TOO COMON HATEFUL CALLS TO KILL PEOPLE THEY DON'T AGREE WITH, FIRST DEHUAMNIZING THEM AS EVIL FASCISTS AND HATERS.  sOMEHOME ON ONE OF THE SHOWS LIKENED THIS ATTITTUDE TO THE VOICE ON THE RADIO IN sWANDA THAT CALLED THE tUTSIS "COCKRAOSCHES" AND DEHUMANIZED THEM IN THE SAME WAY, SETTING THEM UP FOR THE GREAT SLAUGHTER OF THEM THAT SOON FOLLOWED.  tHAT'S THE PREDICTABLE CONSEQUENCE OF DEMOMIZING HYOUR OPPOSITION AND THAT IS WHAT GOT cHARLIE KILLED.  aND WHY THEY KEEP TRYING TO KILL tRUMP.  tRUMP IS NOTHING BUT A STRONG PATRIOT AND HARDPOWRKING pRESIDENT WHO WANTS TO RESTORE THE TRUE VALUES OF aMERICA BUT THEWY TRY TO TURN HIM INTO SOME KIND OF MONSTER AND APPARENTLY A SCARY LOT OF THEM BELIEVE THE PROPAGANDA.

i WAS RECENTLY PRAYING ABOUT ALL THIS.  hOW TDO WE FIGHT THE LIES?  sOME LISTEN FROM TIME TO TIME AND ACTAULLY CHANGE THEIR MINDS.  tHAT'S WONDERFUL , BUT IT'S VERY FEW AND THERE ARE EVEN SOME WHO APAPRENTLY CAN SEE THEY'VE BEEN LIED TO AND STILL DON'T CHANGE THEIR VIEWS THAT WERE BASED ON THOSE LIES.  i DON'T GET IT BUT i'VE SEEN IT HAPPEN.  sO THE TAKS OF CHAING MINDS SEEMS INSURMOUNTABLE.  i WAS PRAYING ABOUT THAT.  hOW, lORD, DON'T yOU HAVE TO ACT?  wE CAN'T DO ANYTGNG.  tHEY HAVE US SILENCED.  tHE lEFT HEARDS ONLY THE PROPGANDA MACHINE AND THEY DON'T BOTHER TO GO LOOKIN FOR ANY OTHER POINT OF VIEW.  iT'S ALL OUT HERE BUT THEY WILL; NEVER FIND IT BECAUSE THEY HAE NO REASON TO LOOK FOR IT.  lORD, yOU MUST ACT.

i WAS PRAYING THAT NOWT LONG BEFORE i GOT THE NEWS ABOUT cHARLIE kIRDK.  nOW i'M THINKING HOPEFULLY THAT MAYBE i'M SWEEING THE BEGINNING OF THE ANSWER TO THAT PRAYER.   cHARLIE HAD THE EAR OF MANY IN THE YUYOUNGER GENERATION.  tHAT WAS HIS MISSIO.  i'M HOPING IT WILL ONLY GROW FAST AND FURIOUS FROM NOW ON.

aND i WAS VERY IMPRESSED WITH cHRARLIE'S WIFE eRICA AS SHE SPOKE ABOUT HIM, TEARFUL BUT ABLE TO CONTROL HERSELF.  a TRUE cHRISTIAN SPIRIT COMES FRO HER AND FROM cHARLIE.  tHAT'S WHAT WE NEED.  tHE KNOWLEDGE THAT THE lORD IS IN CHARGE OF ALL OF IT EVEN WHEN WE DON'T KNOW WHAT OR WHY hE IS DOING ANY OF IT UNTIL AFTER WE START TO SEE THE RESULTS, SOMETIMES LONG INTO THE FUTURE.   bUGT i THINK WE CAN SEE HIM WORKING ALREADY.  i CAN.   aND eRICA SOUNDED so SRONG IN HER DETERMINATION TO KEEP tRUNING poINT A DRIVING FORCE IN aMERICA.  kNOWING THAT THE lORD IS IN CHARGE, i WAS SAYING, THAT'S THE cHRISTIAN MINDSTET.  eVEN WHEN hE TAKES OUR BELOVED HUSBAND WITH A PROMISING , VERY POROMISING CALLING IN THE WORLD, YOU KNOW hE KNOWS WHAT hE IS DOIG EVEN IF YOU DON'T.  cHARLIE HAD TO DIE.  uNLESS A GRAIN OF WHEAT FALL TO THE GROUND A ND DIE IT BEARS NO FRUIT, OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, jESUS SAID.  iT WAS FALL TOT HE GROUND AND DIEDE AND THEN IT WILL BECOME A GREAT AND FLOURISHING PLANT.    jUST THE FACT THAT SO MANY OF US WERE SO FIRED UP AT HIS DEATH IS A START.  i HAVE NO PARTICULAR REASON TO BE FIRED UP AT THE DEATH OF cHARLIE kIRK, AS i KEEP SAYING.  sAD, SURE, O H THEY GOT ANOTHER ONE OF US BUT WE'LL JUST KEEP GOING ETEC ETC ETC.  nOW THERE'S SOMETHIG MUCH BIGGER AND CSTRANGER TABOUT THIS ONE.  lETT IT BEAR FRUIT, lORD.

eRICA ALSO COMES ACROSS AS A TRUE cHRISTIAN IN HER SOLID BELIEF THAT SHE WILL SEE cHARLIE AGAIN, THAT HE IS OF COURSE ALIV AND WITH THE loRD.  sOMETIMES PEOPLE SAY SUCH THINGS BUT IT DOESN'T CARRY MUCH CONVICTION.  wITH eRICA YOU KOW SHE BELIEVES IT.  sHE KNOWS gOD HAS A PLAN, SHE KNOWS gOD KNOWS WHAT hE IS DOING,  SHE KNOWS HER JOB IS JUT TO KEEP THE PLAN ALIVE AND WORK HARDER THAN EVER, SHE KNOWS THAT aLL THINGS WORK TO THE GOOD FOR WTHOSE WHO LOVE OD AND ARE THE CALLED ACCORDING TO hIS PURPOSES.  sHE QUEOTED THAT AND i THINK i HEARD cHARLIE QUOTE IT RECENTLY SOMEWHERE TOO.  rOMAND EIGHT?  TWENTY EIGHT.    

oH oLORD  oH lORD, IS THIS THE REVIVAL SO MANY OF US HAVE PRAYDED FOR OVER THE YEARS?  fINALLY?  oH ONE MORE THOUGHT.   fUNNY THOUGHT.   aS cHARLIE'S tURNING poINT STAFF WERE TALKING ABOUT HIM ON THE RADIO SHOW LAST NIGHT  ONE OF THEM MENTIONED THAT HE HAD SOME RATHER PECULIAR EATING HABITS, APPARENTLY DUE TO HIS CONCERN TO STAY HEALTHY.  sUCH AS EATING NOTHING UBUT ONE FOOD FOR A WHOLE MEAL, SUCH AS ALL MEAT FOR ONE MEAL FOR INSTANCE.   

oNE OF HIS MEALS MIGHT BE A GIANT BOWL OF NOTHING BUT BROCCOLI.  aND THAT MADE ME LAUGH, BECUASE i'V HAD THAT SAME MEAL MIYSELF TWICE ISN THE LAST WEEK.  i COOK THE BROCCOLI FOR ABOUT TEN MINUTES IN CHICKEN BROTH AND EAT THE WHOLE THING, ABOUT A , NO, ABOUT TWO HEADS OF BROCCOLI CHAPOOED UP ACCORDING TO THE INSTRUCTION FO cHRIS wARTK IN HIS BOOK cHRISTS   cHRIS bEAT cANCER WHICH i'VE BEEN LISTENING TO LATELY.   hE GIVES GENERAL ADVICE FOR A DRASTIC HEALTH PROMOTING DIET IN HIS CHAPTERS EIGHT AND NINE AND i'VEW BEEN LISTENIG OVER AND OVER TO THEM AND TRYING TO ICOROPORATE THE ADVICE INTO MY OWN SITUATION AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.   hE WOULD EAT THE BROCCOLI RAW AS PART OF HIS GIANT DAILY RAW SALAD, BUT i DON'T LIKE IT RAW ALTHOUGH i LIKE ALL THE OTHER VEGETABLES RAW, SO i EAT THEM IN A SALD OR SOMETIMTES JUIST MUNCH THEM WHOLE IF i'M TOO TIRED TO MAKE A SALAD, BUT i COOK THE BROCCOLI AND EAT IT SEAPRATELY.  cHRIS wARD WOULDN'T ADD CHICKEN BROTH BECAUSE HE GENERAL AVOICES MEAT PERODUCTS, NOT EXCLUSIVELY BUT MOTCSTLY AND CHICKEN BROTH GRANULES ARE OF COURSE A PROCESSED FOOD WHICH IS TO BE SHUNNED BY ANYONE TRYING TO GET HEALTHY.   aNYUWAY IT HELPS WE LIKE THE BROCCOLI BETTER.  sO i'LL EAT THIS GIANT BOWL OF CHICKEN BROTH FLAVORED BROCCOLI.   aND THEN i FOUND OUT THAT cHARLIE kIRK MIGHT EAT SOMETHING SIMILAR ONCE INA A WHILE.     

jUST ANOTHER LITTLE WAY THE lORD SEEMS TO BE LINKING ME UP WITH cHARLIE, SAYING HPERHAPS i'M TO WORK TO SUPPORT HIS MISSION SOMEHOW OR SOMETHING LIKE THAT, WHICH i'D BE QUITE HAPPY TO DO IF THERE IS ANY WAY i CAN DO IT.  wELL, i CAN WRITE ABOUT IT AS i'M DOING HERE, AND THAT MAY BE THE BEST i CAN DO BUT IT'S SOMETHING.  i SUPPOSE THE lORD IS LINKING UP A LOT OF chRISTIANS TO cHARLIE'S WORK THESE DAYS.  i'M STARTING TO THINK tURNING pOINT IS hiS BIG PROJECT RIGHT NOW AND WE'RE ALL BEING DDRAWN INTO IT.