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.