WHEN TWO LAWS DON'T MAKE A RIGHT (Part 1)

            The Christian Scriptures instruct Christians to obey laws and respect those who adopt and enforce them.  Jesus orders His followers to “render unto Caesar” what is rightfully his. Paul states government is constituted as an instrument of God’s will for ordering human life.  But there are provisions for Christian behavior when government fails or perverts its mission.  In Acts 4 and 5 Peter and John are ordered by the Jewish high council to stop speaking in the Name of Jesus.  They reply that the council must do what it will, but they will obey God rather than men in cases of conflicting interests.

 

             Even then the default position is to operate within and through civil law.  Paul secures his chance to share his faith with the Roman emperor by appealing his case, not by storming the gates.  The greatest danger – when contemplating resistance to the state –  is that we will become self-righteous, step over the line, and excuse our own bad conduct with a “they made us do it” attitude.

 

            That said, I believe the Church has reached the uncomfortable position of Peter and John.  California laws SB 1172, AB 777, and SB 48 forbid psychotherapists to help gender confused youth on the one hand and compel teachers to declare homosexuality is good on the other – regardless of professional judgment or religious conviction.  Authorities in several states punish businesses for declining same-sex marriages albeit referring people to houses that will service them.  The Obama Administration penalizes refusals on faith to purchase abortions for employees.  I am not even mentioning cases of citizens forbidden to name or discuss God in public settings from shopping malls to city councils.  These violate First Amendment rights and the numbers keep rising.  Many are too intimidated to seek legal assistance, although it is readily available.

 

            Some law abiding citizens have had their guns confiscated and many laws are being adopted or proposed that clearly trash Second Amendment rights.

 

            It is not all about constitutionality.  AB 1266 – the Bathroom Bill – expects school children to tolerate opposite sex members using their bathrooms if they feel like the gender they are not.  This is potentially traumatizing to more than 99% of children and risks access for sexual predators – they come in all ages.  This law may not violate the constitution, but it certainly begs the right of children to be safe at school and should be intolerable to any parent.  It is not unconstitutional to charge landowners a tax labeled a fire fee and refuse to refund fees already collected when a court orders the state to do so – it is just plain illegal – and another example of government operating outside its own parameters.  But it is not acceptable, and should not be accepted.

 

            We won’t even start with murder in Benghazi, mobilizing the IRS to harass political enemies, or spying on law abiding citizens because government has the means to do it.  We’ll just ask what a law-abiding citizen who serves God should be doing about the situation.  There are at least two things that pass Biblical muster and promise positive results.

 

            First, enter a process of identificational and personal repentance.  We are not talking about wearing a hair shirt or beating ourselves up.  Of course repentance includes – usually begins – with a no-holds-barred self examination.  Repenting on behalf of lawless government officials means asking what issues of pride, self centrality, and the arrogance of playing God might motivate outrageous abuse of power.  But we had better turn that same unblinking eye on ourselves because none of us is any better than the people we choose to lead us.  Jesus says as much in Luke 13:1-5.  But repentance is useless if we do not use the opportunity re-focus on God, to seek a clearer vision of Who He is and the persons He would create us to be.  That’s the good and the lifegiving part. 

 

            Second, we enter a process of providing positive alternatives to the status quo we deplore.  To use the Bathroom bill as just one example, what would happen if churches trained a large number of parents and grandparents to volunteer on campuses to patrol restrooms and – gently and lovingly – tell the boy who wants to use the girls’ room he will have to wait until the girl inside comes out.  Would the schools benefit across the board with a host of new volunteers seeking only to bless as they protect?  Reality is that it is time for Christians to stand together to say, “No.”  But remember the One to Whom we say, “Yes,” is far more important than the ones to whom we say no.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

 

Truly Free Coverage

Rock of Ages, cleft for me.  Let me hide myself in Thee.

~Hymn written in 1763

 ______

Recently, an archeological dig in Israel uncovered what is believed to be the “Harbinger Bricks” from this verse in Isaiah 9:

The bricks have fallen down, but we will rebuild with hewn stones

This find has special significance in light of Jonathan Cahn’s best-selling book “The Harbinger” which claims America is due for a major catastrophe similar to the one that occurred in the ancient nation of Israel.  The Israelites were dragged away into Babylonian Captivity in 586 B.C. after refusing to repent from their wickedness despite repeated warnings from God.  Needless to say, they never got around to their grandiose rebuilding project. 

According to Cahn, all nine “harbingers” or warnings of pending doom have already manifested in the United States.  Unfortunately, we have not heeded any of these calls with national repentance yet so…it’s “crunch time.”

Revelation mentions judgment coming in three “waves” of seven for a total of 21 judgments.  The first seven are called “seals”--God literally pulls the “seal of approval” from his covenantal, bridal nation. Like a cheating, treacherous bride, our deceptive veil will suddenly be ripped off and we will be UNCOVERED. 

Interestingly, Obama”care” seeks to provide new “coverage” for our nation--  coverage for a multitude of sins.  It covers free birth control to encourage a continued profligate sexual culture (can you say Sandra Fluke?).  It covers abortions funded by American health policy participants who will now also have innocent blood dripping from their hands.  It covers abortifacients, now forcibly requiring employers to provide these death-producing drugs as part of their prescription plan.      

I believe we have seen some Revelation type judgments already:  the Newtown shootings, Navy Yard massacre, Boston Bombings, Hurricane Sandy, New Jersey Boardwalk Fire, Oklahoma epic Tornado, California Wildfires, and “Biblical” floods in Colorado.  Maybe you are thinking in comparison to the sound of the Revelation judgment descriptions:  “That wasn’t so unusual.”  Maybe your little section of American paradise hasn’t even been affected yet.

But like hurricane and tornado ratings, these judgments ramp up EXPONENTIALLY.  Let me explain:  The difference between a Hurricane Level 1 and a Hurricane Level 2 is not incremental.  That is, a Hurricane Level 2 is not just slightly or moderately worse than a Hurricane Level 1—it is DOUBLE the force and DOUBLE the damaging power.  The same rule applies to tornadoes.    

So it is with the Revelation judgments.  After the seal judgments comes the trumpet judgments.  Trumpet judgments will be exponentially worse than the horrors listed above and, like the reveille trumpet used to wake military personnel at sunrise, these are designed to give us a mega-WAKE UP CALL!  I can’t even imagine a storm double the devastation of Hurricane Sandy or a tornado double the size of the one in Oklahoma which had the highest winds ever recorded and the widest swath of damage on record.   

God help us…if this isn’t enough to send us straight to our knees in repentance, the third level of judgments in Revelation is BOWL judgments.  As in:  God will DUMP AN ENTIRE BOWL of judgment on our heads to get our attention.  Bowl judgments are so horrific, that the scripture says:

For then there will be great tribulation, such as has not been since the beginning of the world until this time, no, nor ever shall be.  And unless those days were shortened, no flesh would be saved; but for the elect’s sake those days will be shortened.

~Matthew 24: 21-22

  

God’s grace period is almost over…Sign up today.  You will particularly want to make sure it includes a….

Life Insurance Benefit

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

~Psalm 103:2

 

A dreadful battle must ensue. Almighty God, cover the heads of our countrymen, and be a shield to our dear friends..."

~Abigail Adams

REPENTANCE PRAYER: 

Lord Jesus/ Yeshua, we hear You. You are knocking at the door of our hearts. Help us to discern Your voice clearly. Teach us to open the door of our hearts to You. Help us to repent of our old sins, Almighty God. Purify us Lord and give us a heart of wisdom. We want to be arrayed in fine linen. We want to be part of Your Bride. Help us to turn from our old ways that are wicked and become more like You.  We personally add our individual acts of repentance today to similar acts of repentance in Your Church body and our communities. We pray that You will hear from heaven, forgive our individual sins, and the sins of our nation. Please heal our land. We pray in Your Holy Name above all names, AMEN."

~Posted by permission of Pastor Jeffrey N. Daly (Founder of National Day of Repentance)

Pastor Jeffrey N. Daly is the author of Repentance—God’s Strategy to Bless a Nation and Zeal to Repent!—A Key to Personal and National Restoration

–Both are available for FREE at The National Day of Repentance website: www.dayofrepentance.org

or by emailing him at

jdalylaw@aol.com

ANARCHY AND AWAKENING IN CALIFORNIA

I have been writing of the colossal lawlessness of California’s leaders in usurping power the Supreme Court never granted to re-define marriage, but this lawlessness is a broad pattern with deep roots. California was admitted to the Union in 1850 as a free state. Even so, prominent Californians held Native Americans as slaves while government winked. State funded militias broke treaties and massacred whole tribes at a state sanctioned feast. California remains a center for human trafficking while state officials offer free education, medical care, and welfare to illegal residents. The brazen defiance of state law and judicial decree by government is done even more openly today.

Senator Jim Nielsen reports that even though schools received new funding in the recently enacted budget no effort is underway to repay billions in coerced loans when the state raided education funds over the past several years. The purpose of Prop 30 in the last election was supposedly to fund schools, but – frankly – anyone who believed that has been smoking their medicine. The governor has meanwhile approved a loan of half a billion dollars from funds dedicated by law to reducing greenhouse gases, but this is not new; we have been “borrowing” gasoline tax monies legally intended for highways for decades. These loans will likely be repaid around the same time as the schools’ monies are restored and pigs begin to fly.

 

Nielsen also reports some twenty-five hundred small business persons paid into a state program called the QSBS tax incentive that promised tax breaks and an improved climate for entrepreneurs. An appellate court found the law unconstitutional and the state is now assessing these same investors back taxes with penalties and interest over the five years of the program – as though the investors were at fault – with no allowance for monies already received. After the courts reprimanded the state and redrew boundaries because rural residents had been charged for fire services outside their residential zones, the state refuses to refund fees already collected.

 

In recent weeks a federal appeals court found the legislature illegally cut Medi-Cal funding for rural clinics in defiance of both state and federal law when it wanted to save money without cutting programs like the state’s Dream Act for illegals. Shortchanged doctors are expecting no back pay.

 

The Church has been largely silent about this blatant bullying of citizens by the very government that is supposed to protect them from the bullies. Some leaders call themselves helpless to intervene and others declare their concerns are not of this world; the sacred shall not invade the secular. Yet Old Testament prophets regularly confronted kings with their wrongdoing and the New Testament apostles – while still an illegal community within the Roman Empire – effectively ended abortion and infanticide by standing against it. The feudal system was as brutal as it was corrupt, but the Church managed to limit it through Her witness of word and presence. It was dedicated Christian leaders – and their followers – who awakened a nation to the horror of slavery in the 19^th Century and Jim Crow in the 20^th – without violence. It is high time to stand again if we take seriously what we pray – that it shall be on earth as it is in Heaven.

 

God calls Christians to pray for and bless those in government (Romans 13 and 14) whatever their behavior. When we must stand against them we must do it in love and respect just as Moses, Daniel, and Paul prayed long life for the emperors whose anarchy they opposed. But if we claim to serve One who embodies Truth we had best be prepared to speak hard truth to powerful people. Anarchy tortures the powerless wherever it originates.

 

At the same time the Body of Christ needs to clean its own house and hands first. Divorce, abortion, and other social scourges are as high in our ranks as in the so-called world. Californian Christians were complicit in enacting nationwide trend setting legislation for no-fault divorce, signed by evangelical icon Ronald Reagan in 1969. If a commitment as fundamental as marriage is negotiable with us we are less than credible witnesses against what we call anarchy.

           

The good news is that conference calls and prayer meetings across the nation are all about repentance – re-focus – on the Lord and the identity we have in Him even as others scramble to blame any scapegoat that precludes personal responsibility. As we Christians get a clue we gather the moral credentials – through the abundant life we exhibit – to expect our leaders to get a clue. And abundant life – a Great Awakening – will follow across the board.

 

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

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We're Flunking Two of the Three "R's"

Have you noticed?  We’re experiencing extreme disasters:  500-year  hurricanes; huge month-long forest fires; ghastly shootings from terrorists;  devastating floods of “Biblical proportions. ”  

Speaking into TV cameras the first knee-jerk response of local and national leaders is: “We will rebuild.”

It’s as if the only actions required are “rescue” or “rebuild.”

That comment plays well to locals and to voters but it misses God’s signals.  There’s a Living God Who is Sovereign over all and Who speaks to us, even using disasters, to get us to return to Him. 

 Yes, rescue and/or rebuild (if necessary) are both part of the process.  But He’s seeking to have us rescue (show Mercy), but then we need to reflect on His message, and follow up with repentance, and only then, with His Wisdom and His healing, look for restoration.  In fact, God HIMSELF will restore us:

  Then I will rebuke the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of the ground; nor will your vine in the field cast its grapes,” says the Lord of hosts.

~Malachi 3:11

 

Our ancestors in this nation understood this spiritual principle.    When the Pilgrims faced a severe drought, they set aside a day of prayer, fasting and repentance.  At the end of that day the rains came, blessing their crops.  And in the dire stages of the Revolutionary War and Civil War national leaders set aside days of prayer, fasting and repentance.  In confirmation of Scripture, (2 Chronicles 7: 13-15), repentance by those believing in the Living God then triggered God’s supernatural miracles, blessing this nation.

Current leaders either don’t know our history or don’t know the Bible or are hiding under political correctness, afraid to offend voters by proposing a Biblical solution.

Story after story in the Bible recounts God’s use of disasters to attempt to awaken His People to reflect on their standing with Him, to repent of their ways, to return to His Divine Protection.   When in our human arrogance we vow to rebuild out of our own strength, it mocks God and spells disaster.  Rabbi Jonathan Cahn’s best-selling book , The Harbinger, clearly shows how repentance now is the only way to avoid the same disaster ancient Israel experienced when they vowed to rebuild out of their own strength instead of repenting and returning to their Lord.

 

But The Harbinger message is not reaching key leaders. For example, recently disaster again struck New Jersey, burning down the “FunTown” boardwalk.   Clearly it was a sign of the Lord’s displeasure:  only weeks earlier, instead of following God’s Word and encouraging persons to come out of and reject the same sex lifestyle, New Jersey politicians passed a law prohibiting a parent from seeking  professional  counsel for any child confused about their gender.

When sin is called righteousness and darkness is called light then the righteous will be called evil. Light will be called darkness.  Those standing up for Biblical principles will be adjudged as harmful to society and persecuted.   Persecution of Christians will seem to be the right thing to do.

 

This was also the conclusion of Justice Kennedy in the recent Defense of Marriage decision.  He declared that the drawing of distinctions between traditional marriage and “gay” unions is to “demean,” “humiliate” and “injure” gays.   Bible-believing Christians are now defined as those harming society!

 

“FunTown” is now in ruins on the New Jersey Boardwalk.  Yes, we need to help businesses rebuild.  But individually and as a nation will we stop to reflect upon what the Creator named in the Declaration of Independence is saying to us?  Having reflected, having sought the spiritual meaning of the disaster, will we sincerely repent for our apathy? ...For our apostasy for not standing up for Biblical Truths? ...For  fearing what others will say instead of fearing Him?  

 

So, like “Reading, Riting’ and Rithmatic”—we need to get back to the basic fundamentals.  We’re missing two of the three spiritual “Rs.”  Instead of rushing from rescue or rebuild, it’s time to add the critical elements of reflection and repentance, personally and nationally.

 

If we fail to do that, the beacon of Light and Liberty that once was the United States of America, now dramatically dimming as we watch with alarm, will be rightfully extinguished by the One Who is always sovereign.  That Living God is the One Who first placed that Light and Liberty beacon in our midst. It was His Divine gift for us to cherish and pass on.  Only sincere repentance will cause Him to relight it.

************

 

“Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth and ashes.   And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said: “ O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps His covenant and mercy with those who love Him, and with those who keep His commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from Your precepts and Your judgments….all this disaster has come upon us; yet we have not made our prayer before the Lord our God, that we might turn from our iniquities and understand Your truth.”             Daniel 9: 3-5, 13.

 

PRAYER:  Dear Heavenly Father, Most High and Holy God…We’re good at Rescue and Rebuild but, unlike our ancestors, we’ve omitted reflection and repentance before rebuild.

Lord, it is clear that we are living in turbulent times and if we do not stick to what You have said to us directly, we will be like the waves of the sea, tossed back and forth to drown in doubt and fear. We can not expect anything from You then, except painful discipline.  You have repeatedly told us (through Your prophets) that Your judgment on our nation has started, and in these first stages it is disciplining Your Church that we repent and return to You and Your Word; to Your purpose, principles and promises. Father, we cannot say that You haven’t been fair or patient; for You have been, more than we deserve.

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. If any of you lacks wisdom, he should ask God, who gives generously to all without finding fault, and it will be given to him. But when he asks, he must believe and not doubt, because he who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That man should not think he will receive anything from the Lord; he is a double-minded man, unstable in all he does.    

~JAMES 1: 2-8

. And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.

“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.

“By faith Abraham, when called to go to a place he would later receive as his inheritance, obeyed and went, even though he did not know where he was going.”  Hebrews 11:5-9

~by Pastor Jeffrey N. Daly

Pastor Jeffrey N. Daly is the author of Repentance—God’s Strategy to Bless a Nation and Zeal to Repent!—A Key to Personal and National Restoration

–Both are available for FREE at The National Day of Repentance website:  www.dayofrepentance.org

or by emailing him at

jdalylaw@aol.com

 

POST-MODERNISM AND evolving ETHICAL BEHAVIOR 2

By James Wilson

            In nature so-called evolution depends on a natural process called mutation.  New species can only be created if a genetic change occurs in specimens of an old one.  That is what distinguishes evolution from adaptation – which is a real phenomenon in both nature and human nature.  Adaptation simply describes a process in which natural traits that favor survival and prosperity come to dominate already existing species.  A famous example is the case of the English moths common to English towns during the Industrial Revolution.  Some were black and some were white.  The black ones were protected from predators by their ability to blend in with the sooty atmosphere; soon most surviving moths were black because the white ones had been eaten.  Ironically, when environmental and technological advances moderated the soot, the surviving white moths were better suited to survival and the adaptation process reversed.  It had nothing to do with anything called evolution.  In fact, every mutation observed in modern times – such as the occasional two-headed goat or even Dolly the cloned sheep – exhibits no survival capability and dies in a short time.  Mutations have never facilitated survival.  And no case of permanent genetic modification in a species has ever been demonstrated in fossil or nature – thus the phrase “so-called evolution.”  But why is this important?

            The same principle holds for human nature.  Human beings are the most adaptable creatures on the planet; we were created that way by our Creator.  We were created to engage with God and with one another, but with the capacity to disengage if we choose.  Engagement is the essence of high human living in the image of a God Who engages.  We honor those who sacrifice for others and reserve our highest praises for those who give their lives, whether Martin Luther King, who dies a martyr’s death, or the anonymous firefighter rushing into a burning building – or the cousin who donates a kidney.  Jesus said there was no greater love than the one who laid down his life for his friend.  Disengagement is the very essence of sin – original sin – depicted in the Bible through Adam and Eve disengaging from God to seek knowledge – independent of relation to Him – and later disengaging from one another when Adam blames the whole mess on Eve.  Once the original decision is taken to be persons of engagement or disengagement subsequent decisions tend to follow the line of the original.  This complex of traits tends to define each of us to this day.  When people of disengagement encounter the Son of God and accept His offer of eternal and abundant life they adapt to Him – over time; it’s a process – and become really human.  Rejection of the Son leads in the opposite direction.  Nothing has changed – there has been adaptation but no evolution – since time began.

            Fast forward to the post-modern world.  We are as hungry for quick and easy answers as Adam and Eve ever were, and we don’t like accountability any more than we like living in the tension between what – or whom – we know and do not know.  In our disengagement we still long for community and communion.  We side with those we think are like us.  In politics if we are conservative we trend to icons like talk-show hosts Rush and Hedgecock, and consultants like Gordon Liddy and Mark Fuhrman – conveniently forgetting Hedgecock was hounded from office for financial misdeeds, Liddy a common burglar, and Fuhrman just a cop who planted evidence.  (Limbaugh remains clean but fallible.)  If we are liberal we trend to icons like Hilary and Al Sharpton, conveniently forgetting the woman who claimed it didn’t matter why people died in Benghazi and the scandals associated with her name, or the fact that Sharpton began his career with the fictional rape of Tawana Brawley and advanced it with the trumped up rape charges against four Duke University athletes.  If these folks – liberal or conservative – speak in line with our prejudices we tend to applaud them.  If they resemble a type we call victim so much the better.  Many consider this retreat into subjectivism – just another name for tribalism – an evolutionary advance for human nature.

            The solution?  If not Christians we can seek – through innate integrity and strength – to discover a balance between objective assessment of facts in each case and the larger human realities behind them.  (Good luck with that; it never worked before.)  If Christians – or wanting to be – we can re-submit each of our values to the Creator of value.  He embraces and enables repentance.  But let’s not kid ourselves that there is anything new under the sun.

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

Two Weddings and a Funeral

I recently had the honor of reading the Bible scripture of the Wedding of Cana (John 2) precisely at the location where the event is believed to have taken place, now known as The Franciscan Wedding Church at Cana in Galilee, Israel. 

A section of the reading included this scripture verse where Jesus was responding to Mary’s request for help with the lack of wine provisions:

Jesus said to her, "Woman, what does that have to do with you and me? My hour has not yet come."

~John 2:4

At first glance, it sounds like Jesus was speaking somewhat disrespectfully or harshly to His Mother.  That is, until we get underneath to the true meaning of this scripture. 

Here’s a breakdown of what I humbly believe Jesus was ACTUALLY saying: 

Woman:  addressing the True Church/Bride of Christ

What does that have to do with You and Me?:  We are not the Bride and Bridegroom at this wedding.
My Hour has not yet come:  The End of the World, when Jesus will be the Bridegroom at the Final Wedding Supper

Like the gematria meaning of the numbers Chapter 2 & Verse 4, the End Times will be a time of DIVISION…Separating those who believe in LIFE from those who promote DEATH.   

2=Unity of Church/Division and Separation of Apostasy

4=Four Corners of the Earth/Worldwide

 Abortion and gay marriage—two issues that have come to the forefront recently with questionable comments by Pope Francis--both have to do with LIFE and DEATH.  Birth is the beginning of earthly LIFE and a man/woman marriage creates this LIFE.  Abortion is DEATH and gay marriage is ultimately DEATH for all of mankind—creating an inability to procreate as ordained by God.  The Chastising Judgment during the End Times will separate the “men from the boys”…forgive my pun regarding so-called homosexual “marriage.” 

And the angel said to me, “Write this: Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb.”

~Revelation 19:9

The scripture is CRYSTAL CLEAR on this matter, unlike the Pope’s ambiguous comments: 

"Or do you not know that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived; neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor homosexuals, nor thieves, nor the covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, swindlers, shall inherit the kingdom of God.

~1 Corinthians 6:9-10

Sadly…this scripture is not stated often by those wishing to tickle every ear.  We have most Christian denominations trying to put forth some “politically correct” doctrine so as to throw their parishioner net as wide as possible.  Yet, the Kingdom of God is one of WINNOWING down, a PECULIAR people walking a STRAIGHT and NARROW pathway.  BROAD and WIDE is the pathway to destruction!  There will be no heavenly celebration at the Final Marriage Supper for those who imbibe of gay marriage.

In ecumenical circles, there is some debate over whether it was truly wine or some sort of grape juice.  Some theologians question whether Jesus would really create a beverage that could cause intoxication?  However, spiritual insight tells me that it HAD to be “spirit”-filled wine.  It was a shadow-picture of the religious ecstasy and delirium we will feel as God pours out His Spirit on the Final Century Church in anticipation of the Marriage Supper of the Lamb. 

  

Kiss me, make me drunk with your kisses! Your sweet loving is better than wine.

~Song of Solomon 1:2

So, in God’s perfect order of the Universe, He started His earthly miraculous ministry by turning water (represents bland, tasteless apostasy) into wine (spirit-filled Christians, crushed by His chastisement into Repentance).  Think of these lyrics from “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”:

Mine eyes hath seen the glory of the Coming of the Lord

He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored

The song links the judgment of the wicked at the end of time with the horrors of the American Civil War.  Not coincidentally, the author of the lyrics, Julia Ward Howe, was inspired by Revelation 19!

So what does this have to do with a funeral, you may ask, as mentioned in the title of this blog?  When you drink too much, people claim the antidote is a “little hair of the dog that bit you.”  Interestingly, snakebite venom is the potent ingredient in the anti-venom!  Eve got “bit” by the snake’s lies saying “you surely will not DIE.”  I’m not advocating a vodka and orange juice for your “morning after” hangover, but perhaps there’s a spiritual analogy here. 

What “ails” human beings is DEATH.  Since the time of the Garden of Eden, Death has hung over us like a frightening specter.  We weren’t SUPPOSED to die in the original plan.  We were created in the Image of God, to be eternal beings enjoying fellowship with God forever.  Yet once Adam and Eve DISOBEYED God’s one and only command, at the urging of the Devil’s (snake) lies, they became subject to DEATH.  The exact opposite of what the Devil told them happened.  We need to be wary of anyone, including the Pope, who tells us when we disobey God, “you surely shall not die!”  

Jesus came so we can have LIFE and have it more abundantly.  Yet, in order to enjoy this abundant life, INDEED first we need to have a funeral…we have to die!

Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it abides alone: but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit.

~John 12:24

We must DIE to sin.  Then, and only then, can we enjoy the Second Wedding that Jesus will attend.  This time we will be the Bride and He will be the Bridegroom.

Then, we will be “sealed with a kiss”…just like an earthly wedding ceremony.  Judas sealed the Death sentence on Jesus with a Kiss.  Jesus HAD to die before He could impart LIFE.  We must seal the deal on Repentance with a kiss also…the kiss of Death to our old life. 

So, like a wedding and a funeral, I bring you some good news and some bad news today.  The Good News is the Gospel.  In the Old English, it literally means “Good News” translated as gōdspel (gōd "good" + spel "news").

Sadly, for the rest of the world there will be chastisement and judgment.  Jesus made note of the world’s unrepentant state in this scripture verse: 

We played wedding songs, and you didn't dance, so we played funeral songs, and you didn't mourn.

~Matthew 11:17   

Here’s the “bad news” for the Vatican and the whole world:  If you are living in apostasy or unrepentant sin….

It’s Terminal.

___

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.
~Jiddu Krishnamurti

A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.

~Marcus Tullius Cicero

Prayer: 

At this late hour this is my prayer:  Abba Father, in Yeshua/ Jesus’ Holy Name, I pray that Your Bride would today fully awaken to follow Your Words only and respectfully fear You more than man.  Forgive us for following our own thinking and for being slow to repent.  Lead us today in Your paths of righteousness for Your Name’s sake so that we will be ready for You at Your soon coming as the Bridegroom.   I pray in Yeshua/ Jesus’ Holy Name. AMEN. “

~Posted by permission of Pastor Jeffrey Daly

www.dayofrepentance.org

POST-MODERNISM AND evolving ETHICAL BEHAVIOR 1

On talk radio last July I heard a call from Cherie.  She believes Republicans should sympathize with illegal aliens coming here to meet their basic needs.  What struck me was not what she wanted, but why.  She said illegals have difficulty expressing their feelings, but if we listen – as she has – we find they are afraid, desperate and needing compassion.  That same day the Zimmerman trial featured a medical expert testifying that Trayvon Martin lived for anywhere from three to ten minutes after being shot and was in serious pain before death; the length of his suffering was the point of the report.  The common denominator between these anecdotes is their irrelevance – from my old school viewpoint.

 

            Don’t get me wrong.  I have led a ministry to homeless; many were illegal and I’ve never asked for immigration status before responding to need.  But I also vote to enforce existing law, I resent that officials are forbidden to identify status, and appalled that illegals get favored treatment in schools while Americans struggle to pay tuition and find and hold jobs.  I recognize that most gun running and child pornography are done by illegal immigrants – albeit not primarily from Mexico.  Above all I know that the issue is whether our laws are defied or respected, not how anyone feels about them.  That is still old school.

 

            Likewise, I care when people are in pain, but the issue in Zimmerman was whether he acted in self-defense, not how Trayvon Martin suffered.  Yet many Americans – many millions – think it is all about how people feel; they believe feelings are sufficient to govern the behavior of others.  They take a post-modern view – an evolutionary view – of ethical behavior.

 

            Post-modernism as a worldview popularized a profound desire to know the back story of mere facts, to appreciate context, and to identify with the people who populate events rather than cooly appraise them and move on.  It asked questions like, “Why did Indians attack wagon trains and railroad builders on the Great Plains?” or “Why did farm workers unionize under a communist in California?” and “Why did the Vietnamese revere Ho Chi Minh?”  These questions brought uncomfortable answers that revealed thousands of broken treaties, unspeakable conditions on farms that none before Cesar Chavez addressed effectively, and the reality that Ho stood against the French colonizers of his land while we defended them.  But every pendulum tends to swing too far and the evil we seek to avoid evolves into the evil we failed to anticipate.  Excessive objectivity gave way to excessive subjectivity and every person – or pressure group – becomes arbiter of right and wrong based on self-generated criteria.  The biblical Book of Deuteronomy says that in those days there was no king and everyone did as they pleased.

 

In our time we cannot seem to distinguish between whistleblowers like Daniel Ellsberg and Edward Snowden – who revealed government corruption and oppression without costing life – and Bradley Manning and Julian Assange – who betrayed our nation and cost many lives by giving information to the Taliban and Al Qaeda because Manning was conflicted about his sexuality – per his own account.  We are confused because we want to identify with the little guy taking on the perceived bully – even when the little guy is the bully – like the brothers who bombed the Boston Marathon and the shooters at Ford Hood and the Washington Navy Yard.

 

Jesus was no ethical evolutionist.  He identified with every human being, whether or not He approved their behavior.  He forgave all and died for all.  But He called sin what it was and offered no compromise; he said behavior has consequences and He knew whereof He spoke.  The stories of the women at the well and the Temple (John 4 and 8) are classic examples.  He refused to judge in each case, but He also declined to intervene until their behavior was submitted to Him.

 

Reality is we need both objectivity and subjectivity in our ethics.  We know a good and loving God who wrote the book on His created ones; solutions are simple.  For Christians – one at a time – take God’s promise of a coming Great Awakening seriously and His reminder that only a period of escalating re-focus on Him and on His whole revealed Word can open the door to it.  This is called repentance we have just celebrated the National Day of Repentance on Yom Kippur.  (Go to www.dayofrepentance.org for details.)  For those who know neither God nor his blueprint for abundant life – no hard feelings, but it’s time to get a clue that what we are doing is just not working.  

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net