Logic theorem
POPULARITY
28 episodes with excluded middle
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3 episodes with excluded middle
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2 episodes with excluded middle
3 episodes with excluded middle
2 episodes with excluded middle
2 episodes with excluded middle
Seriah is joined by Barbara Fisher and Greg Bishop to take a deep dive on the documentary podcast “The Telepathy Tapes” that involves severely disabled autistic youth who appear to communicate psychically and have other paranormal experiences. Topics include autism, neurodivergence, fetishization, super powers, Dean Radin, the social work community, the Americans with Disabilities Act, public school policies, iPad spelling for the non-verbal, learning for people on the autistic/neurodivergent spectrum, educational support, resistance to the reality of psychic activity, the novel “Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls” by Jane Lindskold, the 1980's de-institutionalization government policy, criticism of the show, numerous scientific studies showing evidence for psychic phenomena from the late 1800's to the present, James “the Amazing” Randi and his antics, Rupert Sheldrake, Carl Sagen, materialist-reductionist ideology, uninformed opinions, the value of anecdotal evidence, the gradual acceptance of a broader mindset in academia, Robert Schoch and the link between measurable psi phenomena and solar activity, Joseph McMoneagle and remote viewing and astronomical positions, possible scientific explanation for astrology, Clever Hans the counting horse, subtle even unconscious cues, newborn learning process, Barbara's child's experience overcoming developmental delays, severely autistic children and physical limitations, Robert Anton Wilson, fundamentalist skepticism as a belief system, Greg Bishop's magazine “The Excluded Middle”, an analogy between psi and medical efficacy, the picking and choosing evidence game, evolution and psi, animals and earthquakes, non-human psychic ability, the power of belief, why the paranormal is not a threat to materialistic science and technological advances, Seriah's psychically linked friend, Barbara's psychic link with her mother, Seriah's experiences mentally contacting a different friend, personal experiences of precognition and telepathy, Greg's remote viewing experiences, emotions and psychic testing, voluntary sensory deprivation and psi, Ky Dickens, “going to the hill”, the dystopian sci-fi TV series “Silo”, the hill as a sort of psychic zoom call, ancient peoples using psi instead of technology, shamans as neurodivergent, the hill as a sacred space, the Seth material, the limitations of spoken language, spirituality, God as an anti-entropic/procreative force, communication with the dead, Joshua Cutchin, Edgar Cayce, concurrent lives, collective co-creation, the Akashic record, pre-birth memories, spiritual families that spend multiple incarnations together, John Thomas, commercialization, NPR, Michael Masters and future telepathy, the Greek and Hindu beliefs in a cycle of ages, Sirius as a binary star to our Sun, Walter Cruttenden, the observer effect, the Electric Universe theory, the book “Information and the Nature of Reality”, and much more! This is a dream team for discussing what seems like a ground-breaking podcast!
Seriah is joined by Barbara Fisher and Greg Bishop to take a deep dive on the documentary podcast “The Telepathy Tapes” that involves severely disabled autistic youth who appear to communicate psychically and have other paranormal experiences. Topics include autism, neurodivergence, fetishization, super powers, Dean Radin, the social work community, the Americans with Disabilities Act, public school policies, ipad spelling for the non-verbal, learning for people on the autistic/neurodivergent spectrum, educational support, resistance to the reality of psychic activity, the novel “Brother to Dragons, Companion to Owls” by Jane Lindskold, the 1980's de-institutionalization government policy, criticism of the show, numerous scientific studies showing evidence for psychic phenomena from the late 1800's to the present, James “the Amazing” Randi and his antics, Rupert Sheldrake, Carl Sagen, materialist-reductionist ideology, uninformed opinions, the value of anecdotal evidence, the gradual acceptance of a broader mindset in academia, Robert Schoch and the link between measurable psi phenomena and solar activity, Joseph McMoneagle and remote viewing and astronomical positions, possible scientific explanation for astrology, Clever Hans the counting horse, subtle even unconscious cues, newborn learning process, Barbara's child's experience overcoming developmental delays, severely autistic children and physical limitations, Robert Anton Wilson, fundamentalist skepticism as a belief system, Greg Bishop's magazine “The Excluded Middle”, an analogy between psi and medical efficacy, the picking and choosing evidence game, evolution and psi, animals and earthquakes, non-human psychic ability, the power of belief, why the paranormal is not a threat to materialistic science and technological advances, Seriah's psychically linked friend, Barbara's psychic link with her mother, Seriah's experiences mentally contacting a different friend, personal experiences of precognition and telepathy, Greg's remote viewing experiences, emotions and psychic testing, voluntary sensory deprivation and psi, Ky Dickens, “going to the hill”, the dystopian sci-fi TV series “Silo”, the hill as a sort of psychic zoom call, ancient peoples using psi instead of technology, shamans as neurodivergent, the hill as a sacred space, the Seth material, the limitations of spoken language, spirituality, God as an anti-entropic/procreative force, communication with the dead, Joshua Cutchin, Edgar Cayce, concurrent lives, collective co-creation, the Akashic record, pre-birth memories, spiritual families that spend multiple incarnations together, John Thomas, commercialization, NPR, Michael Masters and future telepathy, the Greek and Hindu beliefs in a cycle of ages, Sirius as a binary star to our Sun, Walter Cruttenden, the observer effect, the Electric Universe theory, the book “Information and the Nature of Reality”, and much more! This is a dream team for discussing what seems like a ground-breaking podcast! Recap by Vincent Treewell of The Weird Part PodcastOutro Music is Stever with Idiot Savant Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Atheist Armin Navabi tackles Matt Slick's version of the transcendental argument for God (TAG) in chapter 14 of his book, "Why There Is No God." TAG is an attempt to demonstrate the existence of God using the Laws of Logic. These laws would include the Law of Identity, the Law of Non-Contradiction, and the Law of Excluded Middle. Armin believes that while the argument is structurally sound, it commits the fallacy of equivocation. He states, "The phenomena these laws refer to would continue to exist regardless of whether a deity or anyone else thought about them... Minds are necessary only to describe that phenomenon, not to make it true." Is TAG a good argument, or should it be discarded as a failed attempt to demonstrate that God exists? This will be the topic of today's show! As always, come join the show and bring your questions! Callers welcome at the end.
October 21, 2024 Hello and Happy Day! This is Dr. MaryAnn Diorio, Bible Teacher, Novelist, and Life Coach, welcoming you to another episode of Winning with the Word. Today is Monday, October 21, 2024, and this is episode #19 in Series 2024. This episode is titled, “Why Jesus Is the Only Way to Heaven.”Recently, Pope Francis told the world that there is more than one way to Heaven. Well, with all due respect, the pope is wrong.The Holy Scriptures make very clear that there is only one way to Heaven, and that one and only way is through Jesus Christ. Jesus Himself said as much.Let's look at the Gospel of John, chapter 14, verse 6: Jesus was talking with his disciples and was explaining that He would be leaving them soon to prepare a place for them and that He would one day return to take them with Him. He added that they knew the way to the place where He was going. Thomas, one of the twelve Apostles, questioned Jesus: "Lord, we do not know where You are going, so how can we know the way?” Jesus answered Thomas' question with these words: "I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me." To say that there are many ways to Heaven is to believe a lie. And believing that lie is sending countless numbers of people to Hell. So, I want to set the record straight in this blog post and podcast by explaining why Jesus is the only way to Heaven and why believing in Him is the only way to be saved.In order for Jesus to be able to save us, He had to be two things:1) He had to be God.2) He had to be a man.Jesus Christ was both.But why did the Savior of humanity have to be both God and man?1) The Savior of humanity had to be God because only God could satisfy the wrath of God. Sin is an offense against a perfect, infinite God and demands the payment of a perfect, infinite price. Only someone who was perfect and infinite was qualified to pay that price. Jesus alone was qualified. No other human being fit the bill because no other human being was perfect. Not Buddha. Not Mohammed. Not Hare Krishna. Not anyone but Jesus. 2) The Savior of humanity also had to be man. He had to be human because He had to represent the human race He was saving. In order to represent them, He had to be one of them in order to stand in their place. No other so-called god gave his life to save his followers. Only Jesus Christ did.So, let's put our heads together and do a little reasoning together, shall we? In other words, let's have a rational discussion about why believing in Jesus is the only way for anyone to be saved.In an outstanding article titled "3 Reasons Why Jesus is the Only Way," Dr. Tim Stratton says this: "There are three fundamental Laws of Logic that are always required in rational discussion." We will use these laws of logic in our discussion. These laws are:1) The Law of Identity2) The Law of the Excluded Middle3) The Law of Non-Contradiction.The Law of Identity states that a thing is what it is. In other words, a thing has specific qualities that make it what it is. For example, a square is a square because it has four equal sides. If it had three equal sides, it would not be a square. It would be a triangle.The Law of the Excluded Middle, attributed to the Greek philosopher Aristotle, explains that a a statement that asserts or denies something is either true or its negation is true, thereby eliminating a third option. In other words, either a statement is true or its negation is true. There is no third option, no middle ground. For example, I can say that water is wet or water is not wet. Water is wet is a statement that asserts, and water is not wet is a statement that denies or negates. It has to be one or the other. There is no middle ground because water cannot be half wet and half dry.Applied to Jesus, we could say that He either rose from the dead or He didn't. There is no middle ground. He could not have half risen from the dead and half not risen from the dead.
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Seriah is joined by Mat Festa and Roejen in a deep dive into the bizarre events surrounding Gef, a self-described talking mongoose in an isolated region of the UK in the 1930's. Topics include the “Project Archivist” podcast, “Paratopia” with Jeff Ritzmann and Jeremy Vaeni, the book “Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra-Special Talking Mongoose”. by Christopher Josiffe, the Isle of Man, poltergeist activity, trickster behavior, “woo” Bigfoot encounters, family stresses and paranormal phenomena, investigators and their interactions with the family, outside witnesses of a mysterious small animal, rock throwing, urination by Gef, tulpas/thought forms, Gef's various explanations for his identity, hoax allegations, Fae activity, the Malk- a Faerie cat, Roejen's childhood experiences with a bizarre black dog, the movie “Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose” and its serious flaws, the difficulties with photographic proof of the paranormal, self-negating evidence, investigators Harry Price, Hereward Carrington, and Nandor Fodor, the personal nature of paranormal experiences, “The Dreams in the Witch House” short story by H.P. Lovecraft, Gef's apparent psychic abilities, attempts to make plaster casts of his footprints, the film “Late Night with the Devil”, Gef as a cryptid, Joshua Cutchins, Fae as an explanatory concept, similarities with Mothman, forensic testing in that era, alleged photographs of Gef, present day fakery on video, “The Excluded Middle”, and much more! This is riveting conversation on a fascinating series of incidents!
Seriah is joined by Mat Festa and Roejen in a deep dive into the bizarre events surrounding Gef, a self-described talking mongoose in an isolated region of the UK in the 1930's. Topics include the “Project Archivist” podcast, “Paratopia” with Jeff Ritzmann and Jeremy Vaeni, the book “Gef! The Strange Tale of an Extra-Special Talking Mongoose”. by Christopher Josiffe, the Isle of Man, poltergeist activity, trickster behavior, “woo” Bigfoot encounters, family stresses and paranormal phenomena, investigators and their interactions with the family, outside witnesses of a mysterious small animal, rock throwing, urination by Gef, tulpas/thought forms, Gef's various explanations for his identity, hoax allegations, Fae activity, the Malk- a Faerie cat, Roejen's childhood experiences with a bizarre black dog, the movie “Nandor Fodor and the Talking Mongoose” and its serious flaws, the difficulties with photographic proof of the paranormal, self-negating evidence, investigators Harry Price, Hereward Carrington, and Nandor Fodor, the personal nature of paranormal experiences, “The Dreams in the Witch House” short story by H.P. Lovecraft, Gef's apparent psychic abilities, attempts to make plaster casts of his footprints, the film “Late Night with the Devil”, Gef as a cryptid, Joshua Cutchins, Fae as an explanatory concept, similarities with Mothman, forensic testing in that era, alleged photographs of Gef, present day fakery on video, “The Excluded Middle”, and much more! This is riveting conversation on a fascinating series of incidents! - Recap by Vincent Treewell of The Weird Part Podcast Outro Music is by Pandora's Lunchbox with John Henry has a Hammer, and the White Man is a Mountain. Download
One of the three fundamental laws that dictate formal logic is the law of excluded middle. In propositional logic it looks like this:A v ~AA or not AIn life, this looks like choice. When we are faced with a decision, we have the option to make a choice, or abdicate that choice. But what we don't have before us is the option to opt out. Support the REDACTED Culture Cast at redactedculture.locals.comSSP and boutique products at redactedllc.comFollow us on Instagram at @redactedllc
Interested in “facts that don't fit” from an early age, in 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called THE EXCLUDED MIDDLE, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. It ceased publication in 1999. WAKE UP DOWN THERE!, which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited Publishing.Greg's second book was PROJECT BETA: THE STORY OF PAUL BENNEWITZ, NATIONAL SECURITY, AND THE CREATION OF A MODERN UFO MYTH (2005 Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books), which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. WEIRD CALIFORNIA, a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was released by Sterling Publishers and Barnes & Noble in 2006. Greg contributed about 75% of the material and photos.From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His last book was IT DEFIES LANGUAGE. It is composed, for the most part, of entries from that blog along with older material and brand new articles written just for the collection. In 2019, along with co-writer Adam Gorightly, he co-wrote A IS FOR ADAMSKI: THE GOLDEN AGE OF THE CONTACTEES about the UFO contact movement.For two years, Greg hosted THE HUNGRY GHOST, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. His current show, RADIO MISTERIOSO is available at www.radiomisterioso.comHe is currently running a project called THE UFOLOGY TAROT, which honors and examines the history of UFO research and events in the tarot card format. The 22 Major Arcana cards have recently been completed and Kickstarter pre-orders are about to ship.Greg visits with Dean to share a peek and discuss some of the card artwork (beautifully realized by artist Miguel Romero, aka "Red Pill Junkie"). They also chat about the process that went into their creation, and the significance of the cards themselves. As well as recent trends in UFO belief in research.Do not miss this insightful and fascinating conversation with one of the leading thinkers in Ufology today!This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4602609/advertisement
Greg Bishop is my guest this week! On this episode we talk about his UFO Tarot project, the evolution of personal ideas, high strangeness and home cooked meals. Greg is the host of the wonderful Radio Misterioso Podcast https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/radio-misterioso/id444424848, and is the author of: Project Beta, It Defies Language, The Excluded Middle to name just a few. Also...he's a great human being. Enjoy!
I'm going to give you a quick intro to formal logic by teaching you the 3 Laws of Logic. In part 3, you'll learn about the Law of the Excluded Middle and why it matters. When you can recognize the foolishness, you won't get fooled by it! Want to test yourself on how well you can recognize fallacies in real life? Take the Meme Fallacy Quiz! www.filteritthroughabraincell.com/quiz. Send me any questions, comments or even the fallacies you're seeing around you! think@filteritthroughabraincell.com Or, tag me on Instagram: @filteritthroughabraincell Sign up on my email list at: www.filteritthroughabraincell.com/contact
Writer, artist and mystical hermit Red Pill Junkie reflects on his year-long alchemical process manifesting artwork for the Ufology Tarot project! We discuss Tarot cards as talismanic objects and the creative process as a form of mediumship, imbuing art with intent, archetypes and hidden symbology. Along the way we often lose our train of thought and discuss seances, the intricate history of ufology, Biblically accurate angels, and the not-so-secret but equally enigmatic group behind the Ufology Tarot project: The Excluded Middle! Check out the amazing Ufology Tarot project on their Kickstarter ...or by following the Twitter hashtag #UfologyTarot ====================== Huge THANK YOU!!! to Red Pill Junkie for emerging from his dark underground bunker to share the colorful background and thought process behind his greatest artistic project to date! ❤️ Follow him on Twitter @red_pill_junkie or on Instagram @red_pill_junkie Read his blog posts at www.dailygrail.com Check out his personal website as well at absurdbydesign.wordpress.com (yes, my dude here is a professional weirdo) ====================== Send us suggestions and comments to tracingowlspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @tracingowls or Twitter @TracingOwls Check our Linktree: linktr.ee/darwinsdeviations Intro sampled from "Something strange lurks in the shadows" by Francisco Sánchez (@fanchisanchez) Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com
We are proud to present our long-awaited community project! Strange Semantics is an in-depth look at the language that we use to describe this incredible field that we find ourselves in. Terms like paranormal, supernatural, otherworldly, supranatural, supernormal, paraweird, and Fortean are examined through the input of 30 of the most fascinating people in the Fortean community. Podcasters, authors, philosophers, and artists from all over the world provide invaluable insight on a criminally overlooked aspect of Fortean studies. So, sit back and enjoy a trip across the spectrum of paranormal research! Listen to the project on Campfire: Tales of the Strange and Unsettling: Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/strange-semantics/id1577035566?i=1000583282928 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3b7tbySaeeksl2SOnlM8ap?si=c1367a8cf7bd4017 ====================== Huge THANK YOU!!! to ALL of our collaborators listed below who made this project possible! We have been so excited to share all of your voices and hear what the phenomenon means to you and how it shapes your creative endeavors ❤️ Aaron Deese, host of Hey Strangeness, author of the upcoming book The Texas Dogman Triangle Abby Carroll, paranormal investigator, host of Mysteries of the Past & Present on YouTube Ainsley Cullen, paranormal investigator and blogger at Sydney Spooks⠀ Alan B. Smith, host of Paranormal Now and Coffee & UFOs, creator of HALF LIGHT documentary AP Strange, discordian weirdo and donut wizard, friend to goblins everywhere Belief Hole, podcast hosted by 3 brothers, covering conspiracies and the paranormal Christopher F Cogswell, PhD, host and creator of The Mad Scientist Podcast Chris Xydas, artist and sculptor at Cryptid Curio Cole Herrold, researcher for the New World Explorers Society Dasos Crowsong, druid, writer, crafter and head wand maker at Morgan's Wand Emporium⠀ David Perkins, fortean writer, researcher and expert in the cattle mutilation phenomenon Fred Andersson, mystery aficionado, writer and fortean television producer Greg Bishop, author, publisher of The Excluded Middle, host of Radio Misterioso Heather Moser, author, folklorist and researcher for Small Town Monsters Jeff Foran, artist and creator behind Strangeology Dr. Jack Hunter, author, anthropologist and fortean researcher Jeremy Vaeni, author, host of Paratopia Podcast and former alien abductee Joshua Cutchin, author, musician, researcher and comparative folklorist Dr. Karen Stollznow, doctor of linguistics, researcher, author and host of Monster Talk⠀ Karly Latham, aka The Village Tarot Witch, practicing medium, tarot reader, writer and artist⠀ Lisa and Shane, hosts of Dark Notes Podcast and experiencers of high strangeness Lon Strickler, Fortean researcher, published author, creator of Phantoms & Monsters Luke Greensmith, writer, folklorist, filmmaker, creator of LukeLore Podcast Marc Storrs, graphic designer, web nerd and host of Cryptonaut Podcast⠀⠀ Matthew Schang, experiencer, community-builder and host of Mothboys Podcast⠀ Molly Briggs, writer for Paranormality Magazine, host of Weird Like Me UFOs and Other Phenomenon Podcast Rick Belcher, Bigfoot fanboy, community-builder and host of Spooks, Creeps & Assorted Devilries Podcast Stephanie Quick, writer, synchronicity-seeker and researcher of erotic mysticism⠀⠀ Todd Purse, artist, musician, comic creator and host of Create Magic Podcast
In this episode Cody Roux teaches some interesting concepts that people care about in Mathematics and Logic as a way to try to understand what is going on in the universe around us! In particular we will try to explain concepts such as Impredicativity, Excluded Middle, Group Theory, Model Theory, Kripke Models, Realizability, The Markov Principle, Cut Elimination, and other stuff! Links Cody's website Cody's dblp
In this episode Cody Roux teaches some interesting concepts that people care about in Mathematics and Logic as a way to try to understand what is going on in the universe around us! In particular we will try to explain concepts such as Impredicativity, Excluded Middle, Group Theory, Model Theory, Kripke Models, Realizability, The Markov Principle, Cut Elimination, and other stuff! Links Cody's website Cody's dblp
In this episode Cody Roux teaches some interesting concepts that people care about in Mathematics and Logic as a way to try to understand what is going on in the universe around us! In particular we will try to explain concepts such as Impredicativity, Excluded Middle, Group Theory, Model Theory, Kripke Models, Realizability, The Markov Principle, Cut Elimination, and other stuff! Links Cody's website Cody's dblp
Interested in “facts that don't fit” from an early age, in 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. It ceased publication in 1999. "Wake Up Down There!," which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited.Greg's second book was "Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth" (2005 Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books) which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. "Weird California," a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was released by Sterling Publishers and Barnes & Noble in 2006. Greg contributed about 75% of the material and photos.From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book "It Defies Language" is composed for the most part of entries from that blog along with older material and brand-new articles written just for the collection.For two years Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. His current show, Radio Misterioso, can be heard at radiomisterioso.com. Interviews with fringe-topic researchers and weird music are the usual fare.
Is animism a dirty word? How is this belief system interpreted by different cultures? I have no idea, but I sure as heck know my own slavic culture started as animistic! Where do Early Slavs fit on the animistic spectrum? For the sake of inclusivity, I unify all the Balkan Slaviic cultures and share a small portion of our folkore, our beliefs of inanimate objects possessing a soul, and the deliberate destruction of our true spiritual origins! WARNING: Our folklore is very fucked up. You will hear stories of women being walled into castles as a blood sacrifice, dead unbaptized infants haunting their own parents for not conforming to Christian propaganda, and even watermelons turning into vampires! ====================== Send us suggestions and comments to tracingowlspodcast@gmail.com Follow us on Instagram @tracingowls Intro sampled from "Something strange lurks in the shadows" by Francisco Sánchez (@fanchisanchez) Sound effects obtained from https://www.zapsplat.com ====================== FURTHER READING: The Legend of Rozafa Castle in Albania | Culture Trip Rozafa Castle | Wikipedia Early Slavs | Wikipedia Slavic paganism | Wikipedia Roots Revival: How Slavic Faith Returned to Poland | Culture.pl Slavic Native Faith | Wikipedia Vampire pumpkins and watermelons | Wikipedia Serbia The Birthplace of Vampires | Culture Trip Plakavac | Monstropedia Myling | Wikipedia Tiyanak | Wikipedia A History of Animism and Its Contemporary Examples The Survival of Animism in Russia – and Its Destruction in the West The Mystery of Bosnia's Ancient Pyramids | History Cyril and Methodius | Wikipedia Christianization of the Slavs | Wikipedia Christianization of Serbs
Greg Bishop is the former publisher of The Excluded Middle magazine. He is author of Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth; It Defies Language; and (with Adam Gorightly) A is For Adamski: The Golden Age of the UFO Contactees. His website is http://radiomisterioso.com/greg-bishop/ Here … Continue reading "What is a UFO? with Greg Bishop"
Greg Bishop is the former publisher of The Excluded Middle magazine. He is author of Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth; It Defies Language; and (with Adam Gorightly) A is For Adamski: The Golden Age of the UFO Contactees. His website is http://radiomisterioso.com/greg-bishop/ Here … Continue reading "UFO Contactees with Greg Bishop"
Greg Bishop is the former publisher of The Excluded Middle magazine. He is author of Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth; It Defies Language; and (with Adam Gorightly) A is For Adamski: The Golden Age of the UFO Contactees. His website is http://radiomisterioso.com/greg-bishop/ This … Continue reading "UFOs and the United States Government with Greg Bishop"
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The excluded middle of exchange can become a sanctuary, where the phoenix regenerates through a civilisational alchemy. We discuss
There are approximately 400,000 full-time foreign missionaries (Catholic, Protestants), spanning the globe. 97% are working among people that have a significant Christian witness. The flaw of the Excluded Middle in Christian work is that less than 3% (13,000 missionaries) are serving in a world where 3.6 billion people have never met a Christian. You can request a transcript of this podcast by going to Lewis-Training.com
Interested in “facts that don't fit” from an early age, in 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. It ceased publication in 1999. "Wake Up Down There!," which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited.Greg's second book was "Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth" (2005 Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books) which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. "Weird California," a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was released by Sterling Publishers and Barnes & Noble in 2006. Greg contributed about 75% of the material and photos.From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book "It Defies Language" is composed for the most part of entries from that blog along with older material and brand-new articles written just for the collection.For two years Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. His current show, Radio Misterioso, can be heard at radiomisterioso.com. Interviews with fringe-topic researchers and weird music are the usual fare.For Your Listening Pleasure all the radio shows available on The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network with our compliments, visit - https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv.Our radio shows archives and programming include: A Different Perspective with Kevin Randle; Alien Cosmic Expo Lecture Series; Alien Worlds Radio Show; America's Soul Doctor with Ken Unger; Back in Control Radio Show with Dr. David Hanscom, MD; Connecting with Coincidence with Dr. Bernard Beitman, MD; Dick Tracy; Dimension X; Exploring Tomorrow Radio Show; Flash Gordon; Imagine More Success Radio Show with Syndee Hendricks and Thomas Hydes; Jet Jungle Radio Show; Journey Into Space; Know the Name with Sharon Lynn Wyeth; Lux Radio Theatre - Classic Old Time Radio; Mission Evolution with Gwilda Wiyaka; Paranormal StakeOut with Larry Lawson; Ray Bradbury - Tales Of The Bizarre; Sci Fi Radio Show; Seek Reality with Roberta Grimes; Space Patrol; Stairway to Heaven with Gwilda Wiyaka; The 'X' Zone Radio Show with Rob McConnell; Two Good To Be True with Justina Marsh and Peter Marsh; and many other!That's The ‘X' Zone Broadcast Network Shows and Archives - https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv*** AND NOW ***The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.comThe ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com
Interested in “facts that don't fit” from an early age, in 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. It ceased publication in 1999. "Wake Up Down There!," which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited. Greg's second book was "Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth" (2005 Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books) which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. "Weird California," a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was released by Sterling Publishers and Barnes & Noble in 2006. Greg contributed about 75% of the material and photos. From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book "It Defies Language" is composed for the most part of entries from that blog along with older material and brand-new articles written just for the collection. For two years Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. His current show, Radio Misterioso, can be heard at radiomisterioso.com. Interviews with fringe-topic researchers and weird music are the usual fare. For Your Listening Pleasure all the radio shows available on The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network with our compliments, visit - https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv. Our radio shows archives and programming include: A Different Perspective with Kevin Randle; Alien Cosmic Expo Lecture Series; Alien Worlds Radio Show; America's Soul Doctor with Ken Unger; Back in Control Radio Show with Dr. David Hanscom, MD; Connecting with Coincidence with Dr. Bernard Beitman, MD; Dick Tracy; Dimension X; Exploring Tomorrow Radio Show; Flash Gordon; Imagine More Success Radio Show with Syndee Hendricks and Thomas Hydes; Jet Jungle Radio Show; Journey Into Space; Know the Name with Sharon Lynn Wyeth; Lux Radio Theatre - Classic Old Time Radio; Mission Evolution with Gwilda Wiyaka; Paranormal StakeOut with Larry Lawson; Ray Bradbury - Tales Of The Bizarre; Sci Fi Radio Show; Seek Reality with Roberta Grimes; Space Patrol; Stairway to Heaven with Gwilda Wiyaka; The 'X' Zone Radio Show with Rob McConnell; Two Good To Be True with Justina Marsh and Peter Marsh; and many other! That's The ‘X' Zone Broadcast Network Shows and Archives - https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv *** AND NOW *** The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.com The ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com
Interested in “facts that don't fit” from an early age, in 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. It ceased publication in 1999. "Wake Up Down There!," which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited. Greg's second book was "Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth" (2005 Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books) which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. "Weird California," a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was released by Sterling Publishers and Barnes & Noble in 2006. Greg contributed about 75% of the material and photos. From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book "It Defies Language" is composed for the most part of entries from that blog along with older material and brand-new articles written just for the collection. For two years Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. His current show, Radio Misterioso, can be heard at radiomisterioso.com. Interviews with fringe-topic researchers and weird music are the usual fare. For Your Listening Pleasure all the radio shows available on The 'X' Zone Broadcast Network with our compliments, visit - https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv. Our radio shows archives and programming include: A Different Perspective with Kevin Randle; Alien Cosmic Expo Lecture Series; Alien Worlds Radio Show; America's Soul Doctor with Ken Unger; Back in Control Radio Show with Dr. David Hanscom, MD; Connecting with Coincidence with Dr. Bernard Beitman, MD; Dick Tracy; Dimension X; Exploring Tomorrow Radio Show; Flash Gordon; Imagine More Success Radio Show with Syndee Hendricks and Thomas Hydes; Jet Jungle Radio Show; Journey Into Space; Know the Name with Sharon Lynn Wyeth; Lux Radio Theatre - Classic Old Time Radio; Mission Evolution with Gwilda Wiyaka; Paranormal StakeOut with Larry Lawson; Ray Bradbury - Tales Of The Bizarre; Sci Fi Radio Show; Seek Reality with Roberta Grimes; Space Patrol; Stairway to Heaven with Gwilda Wiyaka; The 'X' Zone Radio Show with Rob McConnell; Two Good To Be True with Justina Marsh and Peter Marsh; and many other! That's The ‘X' Zone Broadcast Network Shows and Archives - https://www.spreaker.com/user/xzoneradiotv *** AND NOW *** The ‘X' Zone TV Channel on SimulTV - www.simultv.com The ‘X' Chronicles Newspaper - www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com
This podcast takes the listener on fun and slightly trippy journey from set theory, Shakespear, greek astronomy, space rock where we finally settle on proving that lockdowns work is false thus creating a glitch in the pandemic Matrix. This is all possible by understanding the power of the law of the excluded middle and its associated tool, reductio ad absurdum. Going to be a ride! --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/riskpearlswisdom/message
(Knowing Your Enemy: Part Three) Satan loves to interfere in the lives of Christians so that he can cause them to do his will instead of God’s will... Additional Resources: The Flaw of The Excluded Middle - Paul G. Heibert: http://hiebertglobalcenter.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/29.-1999.-The-Flaw-of-the-Excluded-Middle.pdf Most American Christians Do Not Believe that Satan or the Holy Spirit Exist - Barna: https://www.barna.com/research/most-american-christians-do-not-believe-that-satan-or-the-holy-spirit-exist/ Thanks for listening! Be sure to like and subscribe for more from Sheep Among Wolves. Connect with us: www.sheepamongwolves.org MUSIC ATTRIBUTIONS: SAW INTRO - Bittersweet Season by Tristan Lohengrin | https://www.tristanlohengrin.fr Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/… SAW OUTRO - Pseudo by Alexander Nakarada | https://www.serpentsoundstudios.com Music promoted by https://www.free-stock-music.com Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ #sheepamongwolves #discipleship #apologetics #christianity #knowingyourenemy
Are you interested in learning more about the Anglican faith? have you been through the St. Aidan's Intro class, but want a refresher? Then join us as we walk back through our Confirmation materials together with those preparing to be received into the Church. Our course continues as we begin unpacking the history of the Church in England, from the death of St. Aristobulus (c. 150 AD) to the death of King Edward VI (1553 AD). You can follow along with the discussion over the next few weeks by downloading "An Introduction to Anglicanism", the study guide for our course at THIS LINK. Notes on additional topics mentioned in this lesson: Lavau Celtic Prince excavation Carmina Gaedelica by Alexander Carmichael (online edition, with links to purchase hardcopy) The Flaw of the Excluded Middle by Paul Hiebert
Randy Tarr and Pat Hurst join the podcast today to continue our discussions on the AGWM training competencies. Today we unpack the Excluded Middle. 1. HIebert, Paul - Anthropological insights for missionaries. 2. Love, Rick - Muslims, Magid and the Kingdom of God 3. Understanding Folk Religion - Hiebert, Shaw and Tiénou
2020 will be remembered for many things but the most globally impacted is undoubtedly COVID-19 and even worse... this virus could have been created in a lab and released either by accident or on purpose. Nevertheless, some fuckery is definitely afoot here and we are going to dive fully into the conspiracy along with our own opinions on how to take personal responsibility during this time. Time Stamps: (2:00) The Excluded Middle (5:20) Fauci’s Double Standard Statement (5:50) FDR’s Response and Now (9:35) Democrat’s and a Massive Opportunity and the Media (12:13) Suicide Rates (13:45) Corona Knows… (18:50) DLD Nation Client Example (22:13) The Invention of the ATM (23:44) Conspiracy? (33:39) J Walking Analogy (37:20) Our Opinions (39:50) Voting (44:25) Next Episode Teaser ------------ Follow Jordan on Instagram Follow Sean on Instagram
Zack and Randy talk about angels, demons, and everything in between. Salty Saints is a production of New Hope Church. For more information on New Hope, visit www.becomehope.com --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/saltysaintspodcast/support
Greg Bishop BIO: In 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia, and new science.Wake Up Down There!, a collection of articles from the magazine, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited Press.Greg’s second book was Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. Weird California, a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was released in 2006.UFO Mystic with Greg Bishop and Nick RedfernFrom December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book It Defies Language, is composed for the most part of entries from that blog along with older material and brand new articles written just for the collection.From 1998 to 2000, Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. Radio Misterioso has been broadcasting almost continuously since then, for many years on the internet station Killradio before moving to an independent format in mid-2016.He is licensed by the FAA to fly aerial photography drones for commercial clients and is also a certified paraglider and ultralight pilot as well as holding a private pilot’s license.
In the latest installment of Know Your Fallacies, we'll talk about the fallacy of Excluded Middle, Slippery Slope and Appeal to Authority. Also, what's been happening in the US right now? #TheJayArugaShow --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thejayarugashow/message
01:10 - Damien’s Superpower: The ability to hold conflicting beliefs at the same time. * Blind Men and an Elephant (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blind_men_and_an_elephant) * Law of Excluded Middle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle#:~:text=In%20logic%2C%20the%20law%20of,and%20the%20law%20of%20identity.) 04:09 - Life is Hard. How do we make things easy? * Simon’s Ant (https://everything2.com/title/Simon%2527s+ant) * Emergent Behavior (https://www.thwink.org/sustain/glossary/EmergentBehavior.htm#:~:text=Emergent%20behavior%20is%20behavior%20of,of%20a%20system's%20individual%20parts.) * Conway’s Game of Life (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life) * Embodied Cognition (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embodied_cognition#:~:text=Embodied%20cognition%20is%20a%20topic,the%20mind%20influences%20bodily%20actions.) * Cognitive Systems Engineering (https://www.ppi-int.com/resources/systems-engineering-faq/relationship-cognitive-systems-engineering-systems-engineering/#:~:text=Cognitive%20Systems%20Engineering%3A%20Cognitive%20Systems,is%20both%20efficient%20and%20robust.) * Joint Cognitive Systems (https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=joint+cognitive+systems&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart) 12:03 - Treating Expertise as Transferable to Different Fields * Technical Privilege * Cognitive Bias (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_cognitive_biases) – List of Cognitive Biases * Heuristic Shortcuts * Specifications not Test (https://damienburke.com/specifications-not-tests) – Damien’s “Don’t Call it Test-Driven Development Essay * Fundamental Attribution Error (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fundamental_attribution_error) 17:54 - Loving Yourself Unconditionally and Seeing Flaws “You are whole, perfect, and complete.” (https://twitter.com/ExMember/status/839518385499066368) – Damien Burke Virginia Satir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir): The basis of human interaction is acknowledging the inherent value in ourselves and another person. Giving Feedback – The key is authenticity. Treating People The Way They Want to be Treated vs How YOU Want to be Treated The Platinum Rule (https://blog.peoplefirstps.com/connect2lead/the-platinum-rule-2) Mister Rogers: What do you do with the mad that you feel? (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=viqPDiH7M9A) “The problem is never the problem; how we cope is the problem.” – Virginia Satir (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virginia_Satir) 27:03 - Shakespeare was Garbage * Playing Shakespeare (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2VnxiW3oqk) * Highbrow Language * Looking For Richard (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Looking_for_Richard) 30:08 - Sponsorship Message 31:20 - EarlyWords (https://www.earlywords.io) / Morning Pages * The Artist's Way by Julia Cameron (https://www.amazon.com/Artists-Way-25th-Anniversary/dp/0143129252) 36:08 - Damien’s Background in Theater and Applying it to Tech “I play the piano, but my instrument is the orchestra.” – Attribution Unknown “The conductor is the only person in the orchestra that doesn’t make a sound.” – Benjamin Zander (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Zander) Being a Leader/Conductor/Manager is an Act of Service 41:42 - Ontological Coaching * Epistemic – What even is knowledge? * The Scientific Method (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method#:~:text=The%20process%20of%20the%20scientific,observations%20based%20on%20those%20predictions.&text=Scientists%20then%20test%20hypotheses%20by%20conducting%20experiments%20or%20studies.) Reflections: John: Why Tacit Knowledge is More Important Than Deliberate Practice (https://commoncog.com/blog/tacit-knowledge-is-a-real-thing/) Rein: It is hard to translate theory into practice. Damien: Life is hard. Make everything you can easy! This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Special Guest: Damien Burke.
Greg Bishop is the co-founder of The Excluded Middle, a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. Wake Up Down There!, which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited. Greg’s second book was Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. He’s also the author of Weird California, a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State. From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book It Defies Language is composed for the most part of entries from that blog along with older material and brand new articles written just for the collection. For two years Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. His current show, Radio Misterioso can be heard at radiomisterioso.com, and podcasts are available for download. The site features interviews with researchers as well as scientists and academics who are involved in fringe topics. He is licensed to fly aerial drones for commercial clients, and is also certified paraglider and ultralight pilot as well as holding a private pilot license. Become A Monthly Patron Option 1 : $1.00 USD - monthly Option 2 : $5.00 USD - monthly Option 3 : $10.00 USD - monthly Option 4 : $20.00 USD - monthly Option 5 : $50.00 USD - monthly Option 6 : $55.00 USD - monthly Greetings human listeners. I’m Cameron Brauer and this is My Alien Life Patron page. https://patron.podbean.com/myalienlife My Alien Life is a podcast for those who have a story to tell, and I really wish I could get to all of your stories. I promise to do my best.. What is this? Think of it as an online tip jar. My Alien Life Patron Page is a website that gives everyone in the world an opportunity to become a patron and support the artists they believe in. The great thing about supporting My Alien Life is, you get to decide how much you feel comfortable contributing to each podcast. My goal is to keep doing at least two podcasts each week… And it’s okay if you want to put a cap on how much you’d like to support every month so you don’t go over your budget.. As you know, some weeks I get a burst of energy and I want to produce lots of new content… I’ll keep producing episode after episode and you’ll get ALL the content.. I won’t hold back and make you pay for extra content. And if you just want to listen without becoming a patron, that’s awesome, you still get to hear all My Alien Life Podcasts for free. It’s expensive to make a podcast. There’s electronic gear, web domain fees, web hosting fees, tee-shirts, postage stamps, tin foil hats, alien assault spray and more..... No matter what you decide, please always listen to the podcast. That’s what I really want. We are a team, and your support is what keeps people like us going… Thank you for being amazing, and keep listening to My Alien Life the Podcast!! Respectfully, Cam You can find my website at www.myalienlifepodcast.com and our latest downloads are always at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher at Podbean.com and everywhere else fine podcasts are found…...and please follow me and like me on Facebook and Twitter... My alien life is written and produced for broadcast at Studio 254 in the Northern Rocky Mountains.. The music you've heard tonight is produced and created by ELEON. ELEON is changing the face of New Age with what can only be describes as "Epic Chill" on Heart Dance Record's first Electronic release. You can find all ELEON’s work online at HEART DANCE records, Facebook...
In this episode of Radio Wasteland, we welcome UFO researcher Greg Bishop as our guest. We discuss whether or not there are square craters on the moon, how Greg Bishop got started in UFOlogy, and how he was contacted by a possible Naval Intelligence officer as well as ask the question, “Are UFO high strangeness encounters the ones most likely to be true?”. Find out more at: https://radiowasteland.us/episode/ufology-with-researcher-greg-bishop/ Guest: Greg Bishop - Researcher Greg Bishop has been researching and writing about strange phenomena for over 25 years, and currently hosts the Sunday night program, Radio Misterioso. Interested in “facts that don’t fit” from an early age, in 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. It ceased publication in 1999. “Wake Up Down There!,” which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited. Greg’s second book was “Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth” (2005 Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books) which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. “Weird California,” a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was released by Sterling Publishers and Barnes & Noble in 2006. Greg contributed about 75% of the material and photos. From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book “It Defies Language” is composed for the most part of entries from that blog along with older material and brand new articles written just for the collection. For two years Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. His current show, Radio Misterioso, can be heard at radiomisterioso.com. Interviews with fringe-topic researchers and weird music are the usual fare. About Radio Wasteland: Radio Wasteland is a radio show and podcast that covers all topics mysterious to conspiratory, ranging from corrupt governments and cover-ups to UFO phenomenon and cryptozoology… and everything in between… and more importantly, everything beyond. Learn about the cast and crew at: https://radiowasteland.us/about/ Follow Us at: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RadioWasteland.us/ Twitter: https://twitter.com/radiowasteland6 Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/Radio_wasteland/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/radiowasteland/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCacz6KvUCCTuMKg0rBkXdAA
Our friend Rebekah courageously tells the story about her best friend Erika and their differences in perspectives on gay marriage. Erika and Rebekah have not only maintained their friendship, but despite those differences Erika will be a bridesmaid in Rebekah's wedding. We wondered how that could be.
Greg Bishop Interested in “facts that don’t fit” from an early age, in 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. Wake Up Down There!, which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000. Greg’s second book was Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth, which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. Weird California, a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was published in 2006. From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book It Defies Language is a collection of essays detailing his long involvement with the UFO subject, government insiders, and theories and opinions about what is behind the phenomenon. For two years Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, an interview and music show airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. Now his interviews, guests, and music may be heard on Radio Misteroso. You can find Greg here: Web http://radiomisterioso.com Facebook https://www.facebook.com/spacebrother Check out our website: http://NoxMente.com Join our Discord server: https://discord.gg/zg9HRfA
Interested in “facts that don’t fit” from an early age, in 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. It ceased publication in 1999. "Wake Up Down There!," which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited.Greg’s second book was "Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth" (2005 Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books) which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. "Weird California," a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was released by Sterling Publishers and Barnes & Noble in 2006. Greg contributed about 75% of the material and photos.From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book "It Defies Language" is composed for the most part of entries from that blog along with older material and brand-new articles written just for the collection.For two years Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. His current show, Radio Misterioso, can be heard at radiomisterioso.com. Interviews with fringe-topic researchers and weird music are the usual fare.
Interested in “facts that don’t fit” from an early age, in 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, conspiracy research, psychedelia and new science. It ceased publication in 1999. "Wake Up Down There!," which anthologized many of the articles and features, was published in 2000 by Adventures Unlimited.Greg’s second book was "Project Beta: The Story of Paul Bennewitz, National Security, and the Creation of a Modern UFO Myth" (2005 Simon & Schuster/ Pocket Books) which documented a government campaign of disinformation perpetrated against an unsuspecting U.S. citizen. "Weird California," a portrait of strange and eerie history and places in the Golden State, was released by Sterling Publishers and Barnes & Noble in 2006. Greg contributed about 75% of the material and photos.From December 2007 to November 2011, Greg blogged for the UFO and paranormal site Ufomystic. His current book "It Defies Language" is composed for the most part of entries from that blog along with older material and brand-new articles written just for the collection.For two years Greg hosted The Hungry Ghost, a radio show of interviews and music airing on pirate FM station KBLT in Los Angeles. His current show, Radio Misterioso, can be heard at radiomisterioso.com. Interviews with fringe-topic researchers and weird music are the usual fare.
Rationality belongs to the cool observer, but because of the stupidity of the average man, he follows not reason, but faith, and the naive faith requires necessary illusion and emotionally potent oversimplifications which are provided by the myth-maker to keep the ordinary person on course.-Reinhold Niebuhr. Straight and Crooked Thinking-R.H. Thouless C.R. Thouless, Predigested Thinking, The Excluded Middle, Slogans, Sloganeering, Ron Paul Ice Cream, Ross Perot, Google, Free markets, Charlotte W. Virginia Car Ramming, The Alt. Right, Rand Paul, Abby Martin, Libertarians, Fake Eyebrows, NASA, Literally Hitler, Video Games, Pew Die Pie, Nazis, Steve Bannon, Sienfeld,The Weight of Chains-2010 � War/Historical Documentary, OxyContin , Getting Nuked, Russia, The Cold War, Flat Earth Psyop, Apollo Hoax, International Fake Station.Flat Earth - The Mainstream Media Is Helping It (Paulstal Service)https://youtu.be/bXEs5vJC8WI Dr. Fuster Cluck, Lynn, Richdstoi on the Call. Encap: Brian Willams -scare people to death, Shatner-Science/Science Fiction, In Like Flynn-President Actor, Jella Bum Bum, John Adams-Canned Meat, Jimmy Dean Sausage Guy, Ken Wheeler-Crack Smoking Hippy Twaddle. Ads On Demand: Ron Paul Ice Cream: Sponsored by Peter Carey
This week Greg Bishop from Radio Misterioso is with us in a marathon session. We talk about his book “It Defies Language”. We also look back over the years of Greg investigating the weird, How he started the Excluded Middle magazine, how Disinformation is used, some of the people he has met over the years and a wide variety of other strange topics. Click The Banner Below: Buy Gregs Books: ( click on the books to purchase.)
Introduction I believe every Christian on the face of the earth greatly underestimates spiritual warfare, perhaps even infinitely underestimate spiritual warfare. I think all of us do. I think the vast majority of, at least American Christians, are day by day unaware that they're even in a spiritual war. And so I feel like my job today is to, as one Puritan pastor put it centuries ago, to disturb the comfortable and comfort the disturbed. And so, I think about my home state Massachusetts, one of the heroes there is Paul Revere, and you think about that story, The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere. April 18, 1775, he was roused from his bed, was told that the redcoats are on the move that very night, found out that it was going to be by sea, he went, escaped from some British pickets and then rode out to Lexington and conquered to warn the slumbering countryside, a Middlesex County there that the redcoats were coming, the British were coming. And you picture in your mind the militia being roused from their beds and getting their weapons and going out to the green there in Lexington and then to the bridge it conquered, and getting ready to fight. And so, I feel like this text is going to do that. I pray that this text will do that, kind of run roughshod through our complacency and rouse us from our beds of ease and comfort, as the book of Amos says, "Woe to you who are complacent in Zion," that we would not be complacent, that we will be roused to vigorous, attentive fighting in the spiritual realm. One of my favorite stories in the Old Testament, I've quoted it many times from the pulpit is the story of Elisha with his servant, and the Aramean troops surrounding the city. I've quoted even quite recently, and how Elisha prayed, "Oh Lord, open his eyes. There are more for us than there are for them." And so, the servant was enabled to see in the spiritual realm the chariots of fire, the angelic army that was surrounding to defend and protect Elisha. Well, I have maybe a bit of an opposite mission. I want you to have your eyes open to see the spiritual forces of evil that are arrayed against you without neglecting the fact that there's an angelic army or the sovereign power of God, but that you be aware of “the rulers and the authorities and the powers of this present darkness,” and that you would see into the spiritual realm. And you're only going to do that by faith, you're only going to be aware of your danger by faith in the word of God. So we're coming to Ephesians 6:10-18, the whole section on spiritual warfare, and my desire is that you would be aroused and aware that the eyes of your heart would be enlightened so that you could see spiritual danger, and then take the precautions the Lord wants you to take. I feel like many of us Western Christians, American Christians, we fall prey to what one missiologist called, “the Flaw of the Excluded Middle.” And the idea here is that we Christians believe in the most high God, creator of the ends of the earth, and also in His own son, Jesus Christ, who sits at the right hand of God, and our prayers go up to the throne of God, and we have that sense of the loftiness, and the grandeur, and the greatness of God. Amen. And then we see the physical world around us that operates by physical scientific laws, and we're familiar with that, and we operate in that realm, and we've increased in the last 200 years of our scientific awareness of the principles by which this physical world is governed, we're more and more aware of that. But we've excluded the middle realm of angels and demons. We're like practical atheists when it comes to those things. We're like materialists, or deists, who act like it doesn't even matter, and we're not aware of the kind of danger that we're in all the time from the devil, and from demons, from demonic influence. And it seems like this text for us is a major wake-up call that we would be aware of what kind of enemies are opposing you every step of the way. We're not aware of his moment by moment activity. You never think that if you're sick, it might be a satanic attack. You're not aware that if something breaks down or something happens, you just think materially what would it take to get fixed and you wouldn't be aware of the fact that it might be a satanic attack on your life. Or that when you're in a conflict, like you married folks occasionally get into marital discussions from time to time with one another, and in the course of that discussion something pops in your head that if you said it you'd spend months living it down. And perhaps some of you husbands have actually said it. Only the husbands now. Say that thing, and then how do you un-explain, and then, what's so amazing, it's like I don't even think that's true. I would never want to say that to my beloved wife. Where did that come from? I know where it came from. 2 Timothy 2 says that the devil can take us captive to do his will, and so that we actually even as Christians, we can sometimes do the work of the devil, we just need to be more aware of the invisible spiritual realm. A few nights ago I was watching with my kids, the movie, The Hobbit, probably some of you have seen it, the Tolkien thing. I don't know how in the world they got three movies out of a 250 page book, but you have to do what you have to do. But at any rate, that first movie, in that movie, this Hobbit named Bilbo Baggins finds this magic ring, this powerful ring that enables him to turn invisible. And he finds its previous owner, Gollum, is a wicked, vile creature who just lives for lust of this ring, loves it, lost it, is looking for it, and Bilbo has it. He doesn't know it's power but somehow he comes to put it on and goes invisible, and this nasty creature is blocking his way out of the cave system. And there's this very poignant thing in the movie where Bilbo, invisible, has his sword laying right at the neck of Gollum, ready to kill him. And I was like, "Wow." But Bilbo has a good heart, he's got a merciful heart, and he doesn't want to kill him, and so he doesn't kill him, pulls the sword back and jumps over him and escapes. Turn it around. Imagine the most vile, wicked creature you can imagine. Worse than any human tyrant that's ever lived, worse than Hitler, worse than Stalin, worse than all of them. With his sort of spiritual lies laying at your spiritual neck, and zero mercy in his heart. That's the picture that I have of spiritual warfare. And the word of God has come to be a light shining in a dark place to show us the truth, so that we're aware of the kind of enemy that we have, and that we will fight. And so, look at the text again verses 10-13. It says, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil schemes for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, or we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore, put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you've done everything to stand, stand firm then." And he goes on from there. Our Spiritual Warfare is Real “Our Struggle” So I want to begin by saying our spiritual warfare is real. There's a real war going on, a spiritual war. We have a struggle, we wrestle. Look at verse 12, "Our struggle..." NIV says, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood." A more literalistic translation, “we wrestle.” We have a wrestling. It mentions later in the text. There's this day of evil that's on us, and so we have this struggle, this fight. So if you're a Christian, you are at war. War is upon you, and you need to know it, you need to be aware. You have a violent, a vigorous enemy that's against you. And so, we wrestle. KJV, "We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, [or this present darkness,] and against spiritual wickedness in high places [or in spiritual places.]" So you picture a vicious hand-to-hand combat and two soldiers with knives, and they're rolling on the ground, and they're grabbing at each other's clothes, and sweat coming down their face. It's war, and they intend to kill each other. There can be no truce, no peace between the two. One or both of them will end that struggle dead. And that's the picture that we have in the scripture. The word of God alone has the power to teach us the reality of this spiritual warfare. You can't find it in a laboratory, you're not going to be able to come up with an experiment that will prove that it exists. It's the word of God that tells us what's happening to us, what's going on. We're told in 1 Timothy 6:12, "Fight the good fight of faith." So there's a war that we have to fight. The “Spiritual” Nature of this Warfare Now, this warfare is spiritual. It's a spiritual war. It's not physical. It's fought in the spiritual realm. He talks about how our struggle is, “not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and spiritual force of evil in the heavenly realms, that spiritual language.” We have spiritual enemies. Now, Paul makes an amazing negation or an amazing assertion in the negative. Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, that is to say not against human beings, but Paul is not denying the reality of human opposition to the Kingdom of God. He's not saying, "You will never have a human enemy." I would imagine none of you will have as many human enemies as the apostle Paul did. I mean, committed, dedicated, murderous enemies who hated Paul. Paul struggled mightily against the Jewish leaders of his nation who didn't believe that Jesus was the Messiah, and they felt motivated to do everything they could to shut down the sect of the Nazarenes of Jesus of Nazareth, that shut it down. Paul had been one of them. And when he turned and became a servant of Jesus, they became his mortal enemies. And then even in Greece, they're going from town to town to persecute him and arrest him and stir up riots against him. And speaking of riots, in Ephesus, he had Gentile enemies too like Demetrius who made shrines to Artemis, the Goddess of the Hunt. Losing money, comes after Paul vigorously.Sso much so that a riot starts for two hours as they're shouting, "Great is Artemis of the Ephesians." They would have killed Paul on the spot if they could. And the Romans, to some degree, were Paul's enemies. In the end, Caesar executed him, cut off his head. They were holding him, and they incarcerated. So Paul knew very well that he had vigorous human, flesh and blood enemies. But he also knew that there is no human enemy so depraved, so wicked, so violent that they're beyond the sovereign grace of God to save. Even the bitterest enemy breathing out murderous threats against the Lord's disciples can be converted in an instant like Paul was. He knew that. Satan is Behind the Enemies of the Cross So what is he saying when he says our struggle is not against flesh and blood? We want to stick in some extra words maybe. I'm not saying there's anything wrong with the Scripture, but my understanding just through exegesis, “Our struggle is not only against flesh and blood.” Or even better, “our struggle is not ultimately against flesh and blood.” Behind every seething hate-filled enemy of the cross, there is a demonic, even a Satanic presence. That's what he's saying. So as we look at at our world, and we see who they are, who are the human enemies. And you may talk about ideological enemies, gay rights activists, abortion rights activists. Talk about Islamic terrorists, ISIS, people that behead Christians. Talk about atheistic, materialistic, scientific professor types that are hostile to your faith in the classroom, or other students who are like that. Behind every racist, behind every materialist, every atheist, behind all of that is a demonic, satanic world system of lies, and a spiritual presence. That's what he's saying. Now, what is the spiritual warfare that we're talking about? Later in the chapter, Paul's going to talk about the shield of faith with which we can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. So I hope you knew we weren't going through the entire spiritual armor today. Piece by piece. Maybe four sermons, maybe five, probably not 40. Okay? But a good number on spiritual warfare. So we're just getting going. So say, "Oh, God, give me strength and patience." But yeah, there are these flaming arrows that the shield of faith can extinguish. Faith operates in the invisible spiritual world, the shield of faith. And so these flaming arrows, shot at us by the devil, are invisible. Defending Against Satan’s Weapons What are they? They have to do with truths or really lies on his part, contradiction of biblical truth. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5, you can turn there if you'd like and look there or put your finger in Ephesians and look at it. But this is a very important passage. 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. And there the Apostle Paul says this, "Though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of this world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought and make it obedient to Christ." If you just walk through that you get a sense of the nature of spiritual warfare. What are we talking about? I think one of the keywords there is the word "arguments." Paul says, "We demolish arguments." What are arguments? Arguments are not like having an argument, not like that. Arguments are like the closing argument in a law case. They are rational. They are organized. They are thoughts and concepts and the idea of, supposedly of truth. Satan makes lying arguments against every doctrine in the Bible. And we have the power to demolish those arguments, to blow them up. We don't blow people up like the terrorists do. We blow up arguments and concepts. We blow up ideas. We refute the sword of the lies of the devil. As he swings his sword of lies, we meet it with the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. And it blocks it. We have the power to refute, to demolish satanic arguments, the cults, the false doctrines, the false religions, the false philosophies of this world, and the temptations that come. We're going to take captive in this warfare every thought and drag that thought obedient to Christ like it's in chains. We fight a mental, spiritual, conceptual battle. That's what we're fighting. So the devil is a liar. And he tries to use lies to manipulate our feelings and our senses. He stimulates lusts. He stimulates doubts and fears and depression. I honestly believe every spiritual depression is demonic, all of them, not some of them, all of them. I'm not denying that there's physiological side, but Satan has some access physiologically too. They're all of them should have to be fought in this way. And so, Satan comes at us. In all of this, Satan and his demons have the power to insinuate thoughts into your mind. Think about that. I mean it's. I think it's creepy, but it's true. Satan can put thoughts in your mind. Now he can't trigger your volition. He can't make you will, but he can tempt you and allure you with concepts. We'll talk more about it next week, but he's just constantly pushing. And you can't see it, but you can feel it. Assaulted from All Angles It's to me like air pressure, 14.7 pounds per square inch of air pressure pushing on every square inch of your body all the time. You're just used to it. It's all you've ever known. The only time you really notice it is like when you're on an airplane taking off in your ears start to pop because the cabin pressure is stabilizing. So you're chewing gum or whatever. You have an ear infection, it's awful. But you didn't even notice it. You didn't even feel it. It's just the world you live in. It's like, does a fish know it's wet? Does a lost person know they're in darkness? Do we know that we're surrounded by a dark world? Are we aware? I think if the Lord wills to take away all demonic influence from you for 24 hours in which the devil could have literally no approach to you at all, not physically, not mentally, not in your feelings, not in your thoughts, none. I wonder if that day might be like the closest to Heaven on Earth you've ever felt in your life because that pressure would be removed. And you would be almost giddy with joy and peace as a Christian I mean. I mean, just so confident, so happy, so elated. Friends look forward to an eternity of days like that in Heaven, Amen. I'm just looking forward to that. But all I'm saying is that that's not happened. And we have this pressure, constant pressure. He's called the “power of the air, the kingdom of the air. And so he's pressing on us all the time.” Our Spiritual Enemy is Relentless Your Enemy, the Devil And our spiritual enemy is relentless. He never stops. We have a spiritual enemy. Look at verse 11: "Put on the full armor of God." Sorry, I'm back in Ephesians 6. "Put on the full armor of God. So you can take your stand against the devil's schemes.” So we have an enemy who makes schemes. That's what the verse says in verse 11. He has schemes. And it's really terrifying, but here's the truth. Just as you have a personal Savior, you also have a personal enemy. You have, if you're a Christian, you have a savior, His name is Jesus Christ. But 1st Peter 5:8 says, "Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith." So, you have an enemy, the devil, and that's terrifying. What it means is, I think, that the demonic realm has demons assigned to each one of us as believers, who study us and know our weakness and come after us all the time in our weak areas. All the time, and it's relentless. Jesus Crushed Satan Jesus Christ fought the devil every day of his life, all of his life. I believe Revelation 12 makes it plain that that ancient serpent, the dragon, Satan, was ready to devour the male child, the moment He was born. And what happened, you remember what happened? King Herod sent soldiers to Bethlehem and its vicinity to kill all the boy babies that were two years old and under. That was a direct demonic, a satanic attack, seeking for Jesus. But the Lord had sent an angel to warn Joseph in a dream. That proves angels can speak into our brains. And the angel spoke and warned him, "Get up and flee, go to Egypt," because Herod is going to search for the child to try to kill him. And so Joseph took the warning from the angel, that was insinuated in his mind, and he ran, and he got Jesus out of there. But that, I think, it was a demonic attack on Jesus. And then, when Jesus began his public ministry, right at the start of his ministry, he was led by the Holy Spirit into the desert, to be tempted by the devil, for 40 days. We're going to talk more about that in future weeks, God willing. But the Holy Spirit led him, and the devil tempted him. And, when the devil was done, he left him till an opportune time. I'll talk more about that in a minute. Satan fought Jesus every step of his way, and Jesus opposed and advanced his kingdom by means of driving out demons, the kingdom of God advancing. It was a battle of light and darkness. Satan mysteriously tempted Jesus through Peter, when Peter took Jesus aside. When he said, "I'm going to be crucified," he said, "Never, Lord, this will never happen to you," He said, "Get behind me, Satan. You're a stumbling block to me." But, strangely, at the end of his life, at the Last Supper, Satan entered into Judas to go and betray Jesus to his death. So, honestly, Satan didn't know what to do with Jesus, we can talk about that another time. He's like, tempting him, "yes" to the cross, "no" to the cross, which is it? But, ultimately, Satan was there fighting Jesus every step of the way. And at the cross we're told in Hebrews, chapter 2, and this is so vital for us. Jesus, by his death, Hebrews 2:14-15, “destroyed him who holds the power of death, that is the devil. And freed those who, all their lives, were held in slavery by their fear of death. Jesus set the prisoners free, He crushed Satan at the cross.” So, Satan is a defeated foe, but he's still alive, he's still roaming the earth, and he's still dangerous. The Devil’s Defeat: Past, Present Future So, who is the devil? What are we talking about? The devil is a created being, an evil angel, I guess we could think of it that way, created by God. It's debatable, but I think so, the most powerful, the most glorious, the most capable of all of his created beings. Seems that way, anyway. He, Satan, according to Ezekiel and Isaiah, became enamored with his own beauty and his own power, and sought ascendancy in heaven, sought to take God's throne from him, not realizing the infinite gap between creator and creature. Infinite gap. He tried to topple God from his throne. Michael, the good angel, and his good angels, fought against the devil and his angels. He apparently, it seems, was able to co-opt, to persuade one-third of all the angels to follow him in his rebellion. Michael defeated him, Revelation 12, he was thrown to the earth, and now he's doing all his damage here on earth. Then, in the next moment in redemptive history, the next main thing in redemptive history, he co-opted a serpent, and came and approached Adam and Eve through a talking snake, the deceiver that he is. And he led Adam, and through Adam, the whole human race, into joining Satan's rebellion against God. And in us joining Satan's rebellion against God, we also took on his wrath and condemnation, as it says in Matthew 25, in the sheep and the goats, the Lord will say, on that final day, to all those that have not been redeemed through faith in Christ, "Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." He's not in Hell, now. Hell is his punishment, talking about Satan. But at the garden, God also judged the serpent, gave a prophecy to the serpent, this is God being more clever than Satan. "Okay, you're going to come in in disguise, I'll talk to you through your disguise. I'll talk to the serpent. I'll put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed." “He will crush your head, and you will strike His heel.” So, the clear prediction there of the coming destruction of Satan's kingdom. Now, the word "Satan" itself means "accuser." He is the enemy of the people of God, and has fought God's people for 20 centuries, every generation Satan fights God's people. The Satanic World System He's pictured as a dragon, you think of a flying, fire-breathing dragon, but it's just a metaphor for his deadly power. Actually, he usually masquerades as an angel of light. Sweet, alluring, beautiful, enticing, clever, appealing. And in this way, he comes through cults and false teachers and others who masquerade as servants of righteousness, but they're really not. And this is how he does his damage. He crafted, if you can believe this, every world system that is anti-Christian, every world system that's against Christianity, he crafted it. All of its various snares and traps and lures, the world and its system, every false religion, every atheistic philosophy, he created it. He's exceptionally devious, intelligent. His power is vastly greater than ours, that's Satan. But he's not alone. As I said, one third of the angels fell with him, we call them demons. And they're mentioned in the text, looking in at verse 12, "Our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against... " Now, these words are plural, "against the rulers," plural, "against the authorities," plural, "against the spiritual forces... " plural, "of evil in the heavenly realms." So there's this array of demonic opposition to the Church of Christ. It's a vast, dark, organized kingdom. The Scriptures speaks of the devil's authority and the rulers' authorities and all that. They have powerful positions. So much so, that in Jude and 2 Peter, we're told as believers we are not to deal with the devil. We're not like hunting the devil down and going after the devil. No, the devil will come after you. Be fruitful. Lead people to Christ. Speak the truth. The devil will find you. He's already after you anyway. We're not going to hunt the devil. Actually, even the Archangel Michael only said, "The Lord rebuke you." He's not getting in a debate with the devil. You'll lose. Just, "The Lord rebuke you. I'm here to do a job. I'm here to bury Moses." That was what Michael was doing at that point. We're here to preach the Gospel. We're trying to advance the Kingdom of God, but that's the devil in it. And it speaks of the demons as powers of this present darkness. Satan is called the “god of this age,” 2 Corinthians 4:4. “The ruler of the kingdom of the air,” Ephesians 2:2. Demons are everywhere. I don't personally think that I've ever gotten up on Satan's radar screen. I think I'm too small for that. I'm a small fry. I don't make Satan omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent. He's a created being. He moves fast, but he's dealing with big stuff. But he's delegated parts of his kingdom to me and to you. And so, to some degree, you're dealing with demons. You're dealing with Satan and his kingdom. The Devil’s Powers Now, he has powers. Look what it says in verse 11: "Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." Now, when you think of a scheme, what do you think of? I think of like the Ponzi scheme. You think about some of these money-making things that bilk people, investors out. I think of an intelligent malevolent, twisted plot, don't you? When I think of a scheme, a stratagem. Alright. So the devil is intelligent. I think of a combination of poker and chess and boxing. I mean, it's kind of weird, isn't it? Can you imagine combining those? I actually think there was a biathlon of chess and boxing a number of years ago. I don't know if they're still doing it. So they would fight. They'd fight around, and play chess, and then fight, and chess, and fight, and chess. Isn't that weird? I guess they took off their gloves, but fight and chess. But also poker where there's bluffing going on, and basically lying and deceiving going on. That's the mix. So a combination of a left, couple of rights, a left, and you're down on the mat. So I get that sense of that malevolence, that evil allure. It says in 2 Corinthians 2:11: "In order that Satan might not outwit us, we're not unaware of his schemes." He uses that same idea. Satan crafts, allures by intelligence. Think of the brilliance of Satan's mind to come up with Buddhism, Hinduism, paganism, pagan religions, animism, materialistic atheism, Christ-rejecting Judaism. He's able to take a God-given religion that should have moved on into the New Covenant and shut it down and maintain the old covenant as long as they could, and then reject that whole thing, Paul says of the Judaizers that their religion is not much different than paganism at that point. Satan was able to do that. Think of how clever he is to stimulate some people toward sins like homosexuality and then stimulate others to brutalize and attack them because they're gays like the Nazis did. He's behind both sides. Just like I think he was behind the Nazis and the Soviet army that fought in World War II, both sides, demonic all across, murdering everybody on both sides. That's just how intelligent he is. His dark genius is seen, and he sows division, especially within local churches. There is nothing I think more terrifying to Satan and his kingdom than a healthy local church. It is a terrifying weapon. It's more dangerous to him than any individual talented person, who's got a position for working for a magazine or working for CNN or whatever. Those folks have great ministries and can have an influence. But an organized, healthy, Gospel-preaching, advancing local church is a terror to him. So he will fight in healthy local churches like this one and seek to divide it and cause there to be factions and divisions within it, and cause people within the church to go after godly pastors or elders or go after different things and create and sow factions and divisions, as could happen in our church. Some geographical regions seem especially saturated with satanic influence. Revelation 2:13, Jesus said to the church at Pergamum, "I know where you live, where Satan has his throne." There's a focus of satanic activity. And he's able to attack us. He has the power, according to the Book of Job, to steal our possessions, to bring about natural disasters. Job lost every possession he had, his camels, his donkeys, his livestock, his servants. He even lost his children, seven sons and three daughters in one day. He has the power to hurt us physically, even to kill us. "He was a murderer from the beginning," Jesus said. But especially he kills our souls through lies, and he brings on us temptations. He's able to stimulate us. How Satan Tempts Us Thomas Brooks in the 17th century wrote a book called 'Precious Remedies against Satan's Devices,' powerful book. You ought to get hold of it and look at it. And he just talks about different ways that Satan tempts us. Like one of the things Satan does is he presents the bait and hides the hook, right? So I think about David and Bathsheba, right? And so he's out there on his roof looking and he sees the bait, but he doesn't see what's going to happen, what his life is going to be like afterwards. He hides the hook. He's able to do that. He's very skillful at doing that. He's able to paint sin with virtue's colors, so that sin looks actually virtuous, and morality looks not so virtuous. He's doing that in our culture today. Satan actually minimizes sin. He makes very little of it, making it appear minor and insignificant. He can twist our view of God, making us forget before we've committed the sin that our God is a consuming fire. And then making us forget after we've committed sin that our God is the Father of the prodigal son and welcomes penitent sinners back in the name of Jesus. He twists our perceptions of God, he's able to do that. He's able to persuade us that repentance will be easy later on, that the sin isn't that costly, it's not that big a deal and that you can always repent later, forgetting the hardness of heart that sin produces. Satan makes the soul bold to venture into tempting situations. “I can handle that,” although Jesus said in the Lord's Prayer, "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." By the way, that's the correct translation. Not "deliver us, generally, from evil." Deliver us from the evil one. But we think we can handle it. We get into tempting situations. Satan makes much of happy, apparently happy sinners who haven't yet repented. The prosperity of the wicked, so that we forget the darker side, or the future of what's going to happen. Satan persuades sinners that there are a lot worse sinners than they are. And he works to discourage us from holy duties. He presents to the soul a twisted view of the difficulties, crosses, afflictions and troubles of serving Christ. How hard it's going to be. He makes us bored and weary of godly duties. Like getting up for a quiet time or listening to sermons. He persuades us that holy duties will not make us better, they're going to actually be ineffective in fighting sin. He's able to make us distracted and mentally weak in prayer. Not only does he tempt us, though. He also accuses us of the sin after we've committed it. In this way, he is the greatest spiritual hypocrite there has ever been or will be. He is the most wicked being there is, but then he gets all righteous and accuses us of sin. How can that be? He seeks to manipulate God, to use God's holiness and God's Law against God's people. He is the “accuser of the brethren, who accuses them before our God,” listen to this, “day and night.” Revelation 12:10. And he causes sinning Christians to despair of mercy and grace as though God can never win them back. He does all of this and he orchestrates persecutions. Satan's behind ISIS. Satan's behind communist governments that use their position to shut down the Gospel as best as they can. He's behind any anti-Christian elements in our government. Satan's behind all of it. The Devil’s Limitations But the devil is on a chain, amen? He's limited. He's restrained. As powerful as he is, he is infinitely below God. This is not dualism, the yin and yang. You've got Satan as the yin and God as the yang. It's not like that at all. Satan continues to exist only because God allows him to continue to exist. “In Him we live and move and have our being.” At any point, God could pull the plug on Satan's very existence. Now you may ask, "Why doesn't He do it, then?" Because Satan is actually serving God's purpose in this world. Part of it is to the Church, He wants you to learn how to be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. He wants you to get strong. He wants you to use your faith. He wants you to rise up like Jesus and fight like Him and do great deeds of valor in His name. He wants you to be strong. And so, Satan is the foil against which you will be courageous and strong and bold. God is using Satan. But in Job 1 and 2, Satan has to ask permission to get at Job. Complains about the hedge He's put around Job and all of his possessions. It says in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 10:13, "God is faithful, and will not allow you, [will not permit you,] to be tempted beyond what you can bear." There's Satan's leash. “But with the temptation, He will make a way of escape so you can stand up under it.” Praise God. Our Spiritual Determination is Required God is Always Present And so, the Lord is on us, strengthening us and helping us. I was talking to somebody recently like, "Does God just let us fight on our own?" Does He just say, "Alright, here's your spiritual armor. Put it on. Hope it goes well for you. I'm busy doing other things?" Not at all. That's, again, that deistic view. God is so on top of every moment of your spiritual struggle, more than you can possibly imagine. “With the Lord, one day is like a 1000 years.” He is filtering and chaining Satan and resisting at every moment, but allowing some things through so that you can be strengthened and you can fight with your spiritual armor on. He is filtering at every moment. And so, we're told in James 4:7, "Resist the devil and he will flee from you." Friends, he's not fleeing from you. He's fleeing from the power of God around you and behind you. Now, the devil is a defeated foe. He was defeated in the past by Michael and his angels. He was defeated at the cross and the empty tomb by Jesus. Couldn't stop the cross. Couldn't stop the resurrection. He was crushed. And God has willed a slow death for Satan's kingdom. It's been going on 20 centuries. Slow death. And so, Jesus said, "I will build my church and the gates of Hell will not prevail against it." So He is slowly, gradually, taking dark territory back from Satan. One living stone at a time. We are scaling the walls of Satan's dark kingdom. It's kind of cool. I think of myself like a spiritual ninja. It's so exciting. And we scale the walls and we're going in the dark kingdom. And we are rescuing sinners. We're seeing chains fall off and people rescued. And there's nothing he can do to stop us. It's been going on for 20 centuries. All of the elect, all of them will come to faith in Christ, and Jesus will raise them up on the last day. None of them will be missing, and it's awesome. And so, little by little the God of peace is crushing Satan under our marching feet. It's awesome. So, that's the devil's past, present, and future defeat is coming at the second coming of Christ, when the Lord comes with the armies of Heaven and with the sword of truth coming out of His mouth. And He will consign, finally, the devil and his angels, to Hell, where they will be forever and ever in torment. That's the future. And so, he knows that his time is short. Alright, now, what are the actual commands given here? And like I said, we're just beginning to look at this week, but there are three commands given here. Look at verse 10 and following, "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." So verses 10 and 11 has three basic commands to you in terms of spiritual warfare. Command number one, “be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power.” Command number two, “put on the full armor of God.” And command number three, “take your stand,” or “stand your ground,” which he says four times in these verses. So be strong in the Lord and His mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, and then stand your ground. Be Strong in the Lord So, let's talk about them briefly, and we'll talk more next week. First, what does it mean to be strong in the Lord? What it means is you cannot, you must not, try to fight on your own. When the devil comes you've got to run to Jesus, get close to Christ. See all of your fighting as with Him and close to Jesus and empowered by Him. Not away, like "Look, Jesus. Look what I can do." “Apart from me,” Jesus said, “you can do nothing.” You draw close to Him. Well, who is He? He is the omnipotent God of the universe. He's the God of Isaiah 40, who sits enthroned above the nations. And “all the people are like grasshoppers, are like dust on the scales, they are like a drop from the bucket.” That's the omnipotence of God. Infinitely powerful compared to Satan. “Be strong in His mighty power,” in His omnipotence. Do you realize nothing difficult for Jesus? What would you think would happen if you said to Jesus, "Which is harder, to cure a blind man or a deaf man?" What do you think He'd say? I think He'd say, "No, but trust in me." Something like that. Something that make you scratch your head and say, "Okay, what is that? What did He say?" Nothing's particularly difficult. Do you think it was particularly difficult to save Saul of Tarsus? The language means nothing when you're talking about omnipotence. There's nothing particularly difficult for omnipotence. And so, draw close to Jesus, the omnipotent one. Draw close to Him, the undefeated one. He defeated all of Satan's temptations. Get close to Him. “Be strong in the Lord and His mighty power.” Find out how powerful He can and will be through you. Find out. Again, we're going to look at each of these elements of the spiritual armor, but they relate to your salvation. Think of who you are in Jesus, how righteous you are in Him with imputed righteousness. How secure and strong you are in the Gospel, with your feet fitted with the readiness of the Gospel of peace. How at peace God is with you. How secure you are with the helmet of salvation on. How saved you are and will be. That's the strength of the Lord. There's nothing Satan can do. His mighty power. I love Isaiah 40:28 and following, it says, "Do you not know? Have you not heard the Lord is the creator of the ends of the Earth? He will not get tired or weary. His understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak." Think about that. Don't you get tired when tempted? I do. I mean, you're resisting, resisting and it just doesn't seem to abate. And it gets wearying to fight for holiness. So be strong in the Lord. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. “Even youths grow weary and stumble and young men stumble and fall, but those who wait on the Lord, will renew their strength. They will mount up with wings as eagles. They will run and not grow weary and walk and not faint.” And then put on the full armor of God. We're going to talk about that beginning next week, God willing. And then finally stand firm. Stand firm. Stand firm. Verse 11, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand.” Stand against the devil's schemes. Verse 13, "Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, that evil day, that time of temptation, you may be able to stand against." That's literally what it says, "Just stand against them. Stand your ground. And after you've done everything, to stand." That's three. Verse 14, "Stand firm then." Four times he's told you to stand. So you stand, stand firm. Be Determined Not to Sin Well, how do you do that? You're utterly determined not to sin. You're not going to give in, you're not going to yield. You're going to say, "No" to the sin. Sometimes you're going to do that by running. You're like, "What? Wait, wait, wait, wait. What do you mean?" I mean running in the physical world so you can stand in the spiritual world. Think about Joseph and Potiphar's wife. Remember that story? Of Potiphar's coming after that guy, day after day after day. Remember that one day when Joseph comes in and said, "Huh, where is... Everyone's gone. Where did all the servants go?" And then, here she comes, again. It's like, "Oh, I get it. I see what's happening." There's nothing to talk about, there's only one thing to do. Run for your life! Leave your garment in her hand, whatever, just run. So what's interesting is the combination of standing and running. Listen again to what it says, 1 Corinthians 10:13, "No temptation has seized you, except what is common to man, but God is faithful. He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you can bear." Listen, "But with the temptation will make a way of escape so you can stand up under it." It's like, "Alright, am I escaping or standing?" You're doing both. You're standing by escaping. “Lead us not into temptation.” You've gotten yourself into a tempting situation? Get out! Run! So do that. Application The Gospel Alright, let's finish with some applications. We'll pick it up, God willing, next week. First and foremost, I just want to say, none of the advice I've just given for fighting Satan applies to non-Christians, not yet. There's only one thing you need to do, and that's come to Christ. You have no hope, you're actually already in Satan's kingdom. His chains are around you, spiritually. You can't break free, but here's the thing. You've come to a place today where the Gospel is being preached. What is the Gospel? The Gospel is that God created Heaven and Earth, gave us laws by which we are to be governed. We have violated those laws. We have broken them. We are in Satan's dark kingdom thereby. But God sent His Son who lived a sinless, righteous, upright life, perfectly obeyed all of God's laws, resisted all of Satan's temptations, won our righteousness for us, then suffered on the cross, paying the penalty we deserve for our sins, and now offers His righteousness as a gift, and to take your wrath on Himself as your substitute. That's salvation by grace through faith. Trust in Christ. You don't need to do any works, just trust in Him. And if you do that, all of your sins, past, present, future, will be forgiven. Trust in Christ. And then, once that happens, Satan will be at war with you and you can begin your battle. See the War and Fight To you Christians, embrace the central concept of this sermon. You're at war. You're at war. Wake up. Fight. Stop underestimating the amount of damage this war is causing you, how much trouble it's causing you in your marriage, how much trouble it's causing you in your parenting, how much trouble it's causing you at work or at school. Stop underestimating. Greatly increase your spiritual vision of seeing what's happening in the spiritual realm. See it. Be not unaware of his schemes. Be aware of what he's doing. When you fall into sin, ask the Lord to show you what Satan did to get you so you don't do it again. And then follow the three steps that we'll talk about. Be strong in the Lord and His mighty power, draw close to Christ, do that in your morning quiet time. Do it throughout the day. Be very Christ-centered in your life. Evaluate Your Present Life And evaluate your present life. How do you see Satan attacking you? What's going on? What temptations have been a recurring theme in your life? How are the demons coming at you day after day? What lusts are conquering you? What habits do you have to change so you stop yielding to those lusts? Might have to do with the internet, might have to do with your smartphone, your iPad, or something. What covetousness has mastered your heart, what material thing are you living for? What hidden anger or unforgiveness is Satan stirring up in you so that you're hostile towards someone you should love? What excesses are glutting your lifestyle right now? How is Satan duping you and drawing you. Evaluate the duties you're neglecting. How are you doing in your morning quiet time? How are you doing memorizing scripture? How are you doing putting on the full armor of God? How are you doing in ministry? Are you interceding and praying for brothers and sisters who are going through these kinds of struggles? How are you doing with witnessing? So next week we'll talk about putting on the full armor of God. Let's close in prayer. Prayer Father, we thank you for the time that we've had to study today. Study your word. Father, I pray, strengthen us for this battle. Help us to be more aware than we've been of what the devil does and how he attacks us. Help us, O Lord, to fight. And not just to fight but to win. To be victorious in Christ. To stand firm in the day of testing. To stand firm in the evil day when temptation comes. Father help us to do all this for your glory and for the spread of your Gospel here in Durham and even to the ends of the earth. We pray in Jesus' name, amen.
On episode 26 the Fellows are joined by Pastor Craig Donofrio to talk about missions. Lutherans, especially in the LCMS are often accused of ignoring the mission field, pastor Donofrio talks about why that has changed, and why it is more important than ever to not only back missionaries abroad, but also to evangelize her in the United States. Sit back, relax, grab a drink, and enjoy the show. 200 Proof Gospel God Whisperers The Mission Of God Craig and Paula in Eurasia The Flaw of the Excluded Middle
In 1991, Greg Bishop co-founded a magazine called The Excluded Middle, which was a journal of UFOs, the paranormal, conspiracy, psychedelia and new science. His first book, Wake Up Down There! anthologized many of the articles and features. Greg's second book was Project Beta, which documented a government campaign of disinfo perpetrated against an unsuspecting researcher. His third book, Weird California, was released in 2006. He also wrote for the famed UFO/paranormal site Ufomystic for five years. It Defies Language! released in 2016,is a collection of essays on UFOs, the government, and fringe issues and personalities. His show Radio Misterioso, (radiomisterioso.com) now in its 17th year, features interviews with fringe-topic researchers and occasionally, weird music. He also flies paragliders and is a licensed private pilot, as well as an aerial drone photographer. In this interview, we talk about Greg's latest book and his insight into a fascinating disinformation scandal connected to Roswell, Majestic-12 and other UFO mythologies. You can find Greg's book at: Lulu.com Or get the Kindle version here: Amazon.com
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Have you ever been misrepresented in your life, especially by someone who claims intimacy with you? Gossip is juicy but when it comes from someone in the know or the circle of the person circle we want to listen extra strong so we have "proper prayer". Have you ever been misrepresented by someone who claims to know you, and others hear it and say "Why did they lie"? It hurts doesn't it? Well, it hurts the heart of heaven. Sermon notes
Have you ever been misrepresented in your life, especially by someone who claims intimacy with you? Gossip is juicy but when it comes from someone in the know or the circle of the person circle we want to listen extra strong so we have "proper prayer". Have you ever been misrepresented by someone who claims to know you, and others hear it and say "Why did they lie"? It hurts doesn't it? Well, it hurts the heart of heaven. Sermon notes
Today I want to talk about your God picture, something you've come here with. You've come to this message with a full orbed picture of God. Our goal is to keep the continuity of the topic the excluded middle. The past few weeks we have talked about the Psalms; the psalter, the worship book of Israel and the early church. We found out the 150 psalms fall into 3 categories: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of reorientation. We have set that category up so we can begin to develop a spiritual language that can embrace every season of life. Sermon notes
Today I want to talk about your God picture, something you've come here with. You've come to this message with a full orbed picture of God. Our goal is to keep the continuity of the topic the excluded middle. The past few weeks we have talked about the Psalms; the psalter, the worship book of Israel and the early church. We found out the 150 psalms fall into 3 categories: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of reorientation. We have set that category up so we can begin to develop a spiritual language that can embrace every season of life. Sermon notes
Today I want to talk about your God picture, something you've come here with. You've come to this message with a full orbed picture of God. Our goal is to keep the continuity of the topic the excluded middle. The past few weeks we have talked about the Psalms; the psalter, the worship book of Israel and the early church. We found out the 150 psalms fall into 3 categories: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of reorientation. We have set that category up so we can begin to develop a spiritual language that can embrace every season of life. Sermon notes
Today I want to talk about your God picture, something you've come here with. You've come to this message with a full orbed picture of God. Our goal is to keep the continuity of the topic the excluded middle. The past few weeks we have talked about the Psalms; the psalter, the worship book of Israel and the early church. We found out the 150 psalms fall into 3 categories: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of reorientation. We have set that category up so we can begin to develop a spiritual language that can embrace every season of life. Sermon notes
We are in a series of developing a spiritual language capable of embracing all the seasons of life and all reality. And we've learned together there are seasons of orientation where everything, we call them psalms of orientation–where everything seems fine, everything is flowing, right is right and wrong is wrong, the wicked get punished, the right get rewarded…. But we also found there are seasons of disorientation equally real and they have to be embraced. And you must have a spiritual language capable of dealing with disorientation…and then there are psalms of reorientation where everything you've gleaned from the past. You can't go back but you move go forward in a new way and God opens a new door. All of reality is embraced in our quest for Christian maturity. Sermon notes
We are in a series of developing a spiritual language capable of embracing all the seasons of life and all reality. And we've learned together there are seasons of orientation where everything, we call them psalms of orientation–where everything seems fine, everything is flowing, right is right and wrong is wrong, the wicked get punished, the right get rewarded…. But we also found there are seasons of disorientation equally real and they have to be embraced. And you must have a spiritual language capable of dealing with disorientation…and then there are psalms of reorientation where everything you've gleaned from the past. You can't go back but you move go forward in a new way and God opens a new door. All of reality is embraced in our quest for Christian maturity. Sermon notes
Today we continue to look at life in the excluded middle, focusing on doubt in the excluded middle. The past few weeks we have talked about the Psalms; the psalter, the worship book of Israel and the early church. We found out the 150 psalms fall into 3 categories: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of reorientation. We have set that category up so we can begin to develop a spiritual language that can embrace every season of life. Sermon notes
Today we continue to look at life in the excluded middle, focusing on doubt in the excluded middle. The past few weeks we have talked about the Psalms; the psalter, the worship book of Israel and the early church. We found out the 150 psalms fall into 3 categories: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of reorientation. We have set that category up so we can begin to develop a spiritual language that can embrace every season of life. Sermon notes
Today we are going to talk about Life in the Excluded Middle and introduce you to Job's friends. Last week we found out within the psalter, the prayer book of Israel and the prayer book of the church, the 150 psalms fall into 3 categories: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of reorientation. Sermon notes
Today we are going to talk about Life in the Excluded Middle and introduce you to Job's friends. Last week we found out within the psalter, the prayer book of Israel and the prayer book of the church, the 150 psalms fall into 3 categories: psalms of orientation, psalms of disorientation and psalms of reorientation. Sermon notes
Truth About Muslims / Muslims Christians and the Zombie Apocalypse
The show has a new name: Muslims Christians and the Zombie Apocalypse! You can listen at mczapodcast.com The Tuareg are some of the most difficult people to reach with the Gospel. Find out why and how Cash and Ann dedicated most of their lives to these nomadic peoples. Matthew 6:34 ESV “Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble." Hiebert: Flaw of the Excluded Middle http://hiebertglobalcenter.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/29.-1999.-The-Flaw-of-the-Excluded-Middle.pdf A Prayer for the Refugee Crisis: Heavenly Father, you are the source of all goodness, generosity and love. We thank you for opening the hearts of many to those who are fleeing for their lives. Help us now to open our arms in welcome, and reach out our hands in support. That the desperate may find new hope, and lives torn apart be restored. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ Your Son, Our Lord, who fled persecution at His birth and at His last triumphed over death. Amen MUSIC: Sponsor Music by: Drunk Pedestrians – Mean Interlude Music by: Chris Zabriski - The Theatrical Poster for Poltergeist III, Everybody Gots Problems that Aren’t Mine, Land on the Golden Gate, Another Version of You, I am Running with Temporary Success from a Monstrous Vacuum in Pursuit, 04 - Aeoa Minden - 4th and Starlight Road (Instrumental), New Age (Instrumental), Jason Sigal - Recruitment Gong (Instrumental) Rue Royale - Deck the Halls
Paracast favorites Greg Bishop and Walter Bosley are our special guests. Our conversations on the July 12 episode with Marie Jones whetted our appetite for more mind games and conspiracy talk, so who better to dig into the subject than Greg and Walter? Greg Bishop was the publisher of the Excluded Middle magazine and the compilation book, Wake Up Down There; Project Beta, was co-author of Weird California and is the longtime host of Radio Mysterioso. Walter Bosley is a former AFOSI agent and a former FBI counterintelligence specialist. He's author of the intriguing books, Empire of the Wheel: Espionage, The Occult and Murder in Southern California; and his recent books, Latitude 33: Key to the Kingdom and the just-released The Lost Expedition of Sir Richard Francis Burton. Greg and Walter offer a wealth of knowledge concerning conspiracy, mind-control, secret government tech, and much more! There's so much here that this discussion will extend to After The Paracast.
Logic is about understanding reality in a non-contradictory way and how can we see things for what they are. Metaphysical Laws 1.Identity 2.Causality 3.Non-Contradiction Topic: A discussion about my new idea for advancing the message of liberty, articulating a sound methodology, and removing the irrationality and pacifying the emotional mayhem of the average political argument. 'Tis the season... POLITICAL DEBATE CONTRACT For honest, rational, and meaningful discussions about important issues. TOPIC/QUESTION: _________________________________________________ All Parties Agree to Avoid Red Herrings Clause #1: Clarification of Purpose Before proceeding, all parties must communicate the goals they are trying achieve through this argument/conversation. More importantly, all parties must identify the intellectual or emotional needs they are trying to have met through such an interaction. Clause #2: Ethical and Logical Consistency Because almost all political arguments grow from the need of all parties determine right from wrong, or moral from immoral, each party must articulate a clear foundation of principles or axioms upon which all of their political positions are built. EXAMPLE: “I am a Republican/Democrat/Libertarian, and that political belief system is built upon the impenetrable idea that (insert principles here) . Please avoid abstract language and subjective claims like: “America is the greatest country in the world!” OR “Freedom is the answer.” OR “Obama says...” All your subsequent arguments and statements must not contradict the principles you put forward at this step. All elements of your current political belief system must be consistent with these principles. Clause #3: Avoiding the Box While the discussion must stay on the agreed upon topic, all parties must agree to abstain from the tactic of putting their opponent(s) "in a box." This refers to attempts to control the context of the discussion in a way that is advantageous to you. EXAMPLES: 1. Lifeboat Scenarios 2. Straw-Man Fallacy 3. Loaded Questions (Trap-Setting) 4. Special Pleading Fallacy (The Retreat) Clause #4: Foundation of Facts All parties must be able to demonstrate that their opinion/claim/call-to-action is built upon a foundation of facts with which their opponent agrees. This is often the most challenging part of any debate because each party will have different strengths and deficits in his or her knowledge-base. Both parties will agree to fact-checking in real time (internet) if necessary. Clause #5: Ideological Flexibility You agree that if your opponent can clearly demonstrate that your argument contains numerous inconsistencies, contradictions or other general errors in reasoning, you will follow up by doing all of the following: 1. avoid launching into an emotion-driven invective against your opponent, including ad hominem attacks (aka FIGHT) 2. avoid the “taking my ball and going home” tactic, where you say something like, “I've had it with this! There's no talking to you! And everyone is entitled to their own opinion anyway. Goodbye.” (aka FLIGHT) 3. admit that your position needs additional research and consideration 4. agree to consume two (2) pieces of educational media chosen for you by your opponent (articles, book excerpts, videos, podcasts, etc...) SOME EXAMPLES of common reasoning errors to avoid: Appeal to Emotion/Fear, Appeal to Authority, Appeal to Popularity, Circular Reasoning, Ambiguity, Equivocation, the Genetic Fallacy, Fallacy of Composition/Division, Fallacy of the Excluded Middle, and Appeal to Tradition Signatures: PARTY 1 ______________________________ PARTY 2 ______________________________ WITNESS ______________________________ This is an edited version the 8-30-12 live show and the After School (Sucks) Special. School Sucks is live on the Liberty Radio Network and UStream Thursdays at 10pm EST. Co-Hosts: Cory and Osborne. J.J. from Starfall Media joins us during the after-show. Bumper Music: "Listen" Chicago Look Closer: Logical Fallacies Basics http://onegoodmove.org/fallacy/toc.htm Ayn Rand Lexicon http://aynrandlexicon.com/ POLITICAL DEBATE CONTRACT http://edu-lu-tion.com/resources/political_debate_contract The John Taylor Gatto Recovery Project (2012) https://theultimatehistorylesson.com/donate/ http://TragedyandHope.com http://www.tragedyandhope.com/ Stefan Molyneux: A Handout For Statists http://www.strike-the-root.com/72/molyneux/molyneux4.html Trivium http://www.triviumeducation.com/trivium/
In the 45th episode of Out There Radio, Adam Gorightly returns to talk about everyone’s favorite mass murderer, Charles Manson, and everyone’s favorite obscure 60’s occult group, The Process Church of the Final Judgment. Don’t miss it, or we’ll send our followers to your house in the middle of the night for a Creepy Crawl! A certified “crackpot historian” and 23rd degree Discordian, Adam Gorightly has been chronicling fringe culture in an illuminating manner for over two decades. An active contributor to the ‘zine revolution of the late ’80s and early ’90s, Adam’s byline was a familiar sight in many cutting-edge mags. His articles have appeared in numerous publications such as The Excluded Middle, UFO Magazine, Paranoia, SteamShovel Press, and FourTwoFour, the largest soccer magazine in Great Britain.
I. Introduction: Is There a Safe Refuge? It was five years ago this week that I preached a sermon from Psalm 46, which says, "God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in time of trouble. Therefore, we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, and the mountains quake with their surging." I preached that because of the attacks, the terrorist attacks, on the World Trade Center. It was a very destabilizing thing, wasn't it, to see these mighty skyscrapers melting, almost literally melting, and just coming down to the ground as if sucked back to the earth? And you could wonder, what then is stable, what then is secure? This is stable. The Word of God is secure. And we praise God that we are no less secure now than we were then. The headline this morning was, "Are we any safer?" Well, if the question is are we any safer from terrorist attacks, I don't know who could answer that. There are cells all around the world plotting their evil things. And if we're going to look to military or political solutions, I don't think we're any safer. There's been a number of terrorist attacks since then, one in England, one in India, one in Indonesia, one in Spain, one in Saudi Arabia. And who knows where the next one is going to be? Sometimes they're thwarted by government agencies, sometimes they're not. But I praise God that we stand on a rock that'll never move. The Lord Jesus Christ is under our feet, if we have trusted in Him. And I praise God for that, even if the earth give way and fall into the sea. I praise God that Jesus is eternal and secure. And that if you are trusting in Him as your Lord and Savior, you are eternally secure, praise God for that. Find your security there. Find your security in the Word of God that will never change, not in this political solution or a CIA operation that uncovers this or that cell, or this thing that happens over in England, or that thing that happens in Afghanistan or Iraq. That's not where security is going to be found. It's found in the Word of God. And I praise God for that, don't you? I thank God for it. And I just want to say, so often at the end of messages, pastors speak to those that have never trusted in Christ. And I'm determined to move it around in the sermon, because people tend to close up their Bibles at that point and not really listen. I think it's important that you hear me. If you came today, and you've never trusted in Christ as your Lord and Savior, you are not secure. You're actually in great danger. Do you realize that three people die every second? That means that almost a quarter of a million people die every day. Almost 3000 died at the World Trade Center that day, but almost a quarter of a million slip off into eternity every single day. And here's the kicker, none of us knows when it's going to be our time. You don't know when you're going to die, neither do I. But the Gospel stands. The Lord Jesus stands and invites all sinners to come to Him, to repent and trust in Christ, that His blood shed on the cross is sufficient for your sins and mine. And that is secure, isn't it? It's a promise written in the heavens. "I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies. And whoever lives and believes in Me will never die." My question to you is the same as that of Jesus to Martha at that time, "Do you believe this?" Have you trusted in Christ? Don't leave this room today without trusting in Christ. And furthermore, if you know somebody close to you, and the Lord is laying that person on your heart, don't let today elapse without picking up the phone and calling them about their soul. Talk to them about Jesus. You don't know when their day or your day will come. That's where security is found, and in no other place. Why We Study the Apostle Paul Now, the Apostle Paul, who we're going to study today, he knew that and he preached to secure Gospel. Now, today we're going to look at Paul's missionary strategies. We're going to look at Paul's missionary goals, and his success and his humility. And you may wonder, "Well, what does that have to do with my life?" Well, I can tell you this right now, the Apostle Paul doesn't need us to have a tribute dinner for him tonight. He's up in heaven. He already has all the commendation he will ever need when the Lord welcomed him with "Well done, good and faithful servant. You've been faithful in a few things, now I'll put you in charge of many things. Enter into the joy of your Master." He had all the commendation he ever wanted or needed. So, we're not studying Paul this morning so that we can think well of Paul, or so that next time we see him, we can praise him for all of his good work. Rather we're studying Paul this morning so that we can be faithful in our good work, so we can have a strategy to reach the people God's laying on our hearts, that we, as a church, can strategize better. The very thing I talked about last week, to be faithful and active and going to frontier missions, and to be sure that what's happening once the missionaries go is biblical, that there are churches being planted in biblical ways, solid churches that will complete the great commission. That's what's my concern today, not that we praise Paul or, from a distance, study and say, "Oh, what a wonderful or marvelous man he was." Last night. I changed around the family devotions that we've been having. We've been in Jeremiah and it's been a wonderful study, but I felt it was important for us to take a step back and look at the whole Old Testament, get a sense of the flow of redemptive history. And so we went back to Genesis and we looked at Genesis 1, and we're just going to be moving a little bit faster through the whole Old Testament, so my children and my wife and I will understand the big picture a little bit better. That's what we're doing. The Light of the Gospel, Going Around the World And I was thinking about that incredible chapter, Genesis 1, in which God creates the heavens and the Earth, and you know how He said, "'Let there be light,' and there was light." And He said there was evening and there was morning the first day. And then on the fourth day, God created the sun to give light to the Earth, and then the moon and the stars for light at night. And I started thinking about this thing, God set up the physical universe in such a way that half of the world is in darkness all the time. Isn't that a marvelous thing? Did he have to do that? No. He could have set up a solar system in which there would be light given to the whole surface of the earth. And as I read the Book of Revelation, there will come a time there'll be no more night and all will be filled with the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. It's going to be glorious. But God set up a globe in which half of the world's population is in darkness now. That's an amazing thought, isn't it? And you know why I think He did it, at least in part, maybe this? That when Isaiah, the prophet, said, "The people living in darkness have seen a great light," we will know what that's talking about, that we will know that a work has to be done to take people spiritually out of darkness and bring them into light. Two thousand years ago, God ignited a light and the light shines in the darkness and it will never be extinguished. It's the light of Jesus Christ, the light of the Gospel. It's the light of salvation. Now, was God the Father capable of creating that light in such a way that everyone in the whole world instantly saw it, instantly understood it, instantly was brought to faith in Christ? Yes, He could have done that, but instead He ordained that light bearers would go out from Christ, from His immediate circle, His apostles, His disciples, that they would start in Jerusalem, they'd go through Judea and Samaria, they'd go up through Asia Minor, and on in to Greece, and they'd make their way to Rome, and hopefully go on to Spain, and make their way across the Earth, gradually, little by little to the glory of God for 2000 years. And the work has made immense progress to the glory of God. Many tribes and nations and peoples and languages have heard this Gospel, the Gospel of the light of the glory of God in the face of Christ. They've heard it and they've found salvation, but the work isn't finished yet. There's still work to be done. And I want to know how to finish it, I want to know what strategy we should take. What are we going to try to do for them? There's still 6600 unreached people groups, 1.6 billion people at least have never heard the name of Christ, maybe more. That's overwhelming isn't it? Do you ever wonder what it would have been like to stand on the side of that mountain when Jesus taught all those people and the feeding of the 5000, you remember? And it's getting late and the disciples say to Jesus, "Send them away, they got to go home and get something to eat." And Jesus says, "They don't need to go away. You give them something to eat." Wow. And immediately the disciples did what you would have done, start looking in their pockets and passing the hat, and saying, "We came up with 14 dinari, but I don't think that's going to do it." And then here's this boy with his lunch. All I want you to do is just feel the feeling of overwhelm, of just being overwhelmed, of saying, "This is too big for me." And that's what I feel when I think about unreached people groups. "And I want to know, Lord, what are we going to do? What's our strategy going to be?" And I think one of the texts we could look at today is Romans 15:14-22. We've already looked at just one verse, the competent to counsel verse, and we talked about biblical counseling. Last week, we looked at just one aspect of these verses, and that is that Paul had an intense focus on unreached people groups. He had an intense focus on the frontiers of the Gospel. And I pulled that idea out and I said, "So also must you have a focus to your life, you need to have a calling in your life. You need to not just eat every ham sandwich to the glory of God, but you need to have an overarching grand, glorious vision for your life so that when the time comes and you present your life before God, you are faithful to do all of the good works that He had ordained for you to walk in ahead of time, and so that you would live for a grand, glorious principle." I also made the case that every Christian, every local church, every church and every Christian needs to be involved in frontier missions, in either going or sending. And so I challenged, and a number of people came back with emails and with conversation, saying, "I feel God calling me to go." Praise God for that. That's exciting. And we need to stand around those people or we need to go ourselves and be faithful. I hope we've rejected forever that third option, go send or disobey. I don't want to do the disobey thing to you. I don't want to stand in front of Jesus and will say, "Well, I chose disobey." I don't want to stand in front of Him and talk to Him like that. I want to be faithful. And if I'm not going down into the whole of heathenism, as William Carey said, "I want to hold the rope for those that are." And I want our church to do that. That was all last week. II. Paul’s Six-Fold Missionary Strategy Now, this week, what I want to do is I want to look at all of these verses and the details that are in it, and try to learn from Paul how he went about his work. I want to learn what his strategy was, and I want to learn it so that I can apply it in my own life, so that we can apply it here in this church. Whether you're going to be a frontier missionary, whether you're just going to work tomorrow morning, you have a mission field to work, you have something that God is calling you to do. He's calling you to be a witness, and I think it'd be good for you to have a strategy and follow it the way Paul did. 1) Founding All Things on God’s Written Word Now, let's look at it. Let's start with the first aspect, and that is the founding of all things on the Word of God. Now, I find it a couple of places in this text. Most plainly, you look at Paul's ambition, we'll get to it again later, but verse 20-21, it says, "It has always been my ambition to preach the Gospel where Christ was not known so that I would not be building on someone else's foundation. Rather, as it is written…" Now, just stop there. You see what Paul is doing there? He's founding his whole missionary strategy, on the Word of God, as it is written. Dozens of times Paul has done this in the Letter to Romans. Again and again, he's founding his doctrine, he's founding his whole approach on Scripture, on the written Word of God, "Rather, as it is written…" from the Book of Isaiah, "Those who were not told about Him will see, and those who have not heard will understand. And this is why I have often been hindered from coming to you." So Paul founds his strategy on the written Word of God, the Book of Isaiah in this case. At the front end of the passage, in verse 15-16, we see Paul talking about his own writing. And he says, "You're competent to counsel, you're full of wisdom, completing goodness, and competent to counsel one another. Nevertheless, I have written you. I've written you boldly," he says, "on some points, as if to remind you of them again because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles," etcetera. So, he's talking about his own writing there. And that's the New Testament, the writing of an apostle. And Paul knew he was an apostle, and he knew he wrote authoritatively. He didn't say things like, "Well, you might want to consider this way of looking at things," etcetera. That's not the way he wrote. He was an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ, and he wrote doctrine to them. And so we see right up front that Paul founded all things on God's written Word. 2) Proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ Secondly, we see that Paul founded his ministry on a clear proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Again, 15 and 16, "I have written you quite boldly on some points as if to remind you of them again because of the grace God gave me to be a minister of Christ Jesus to the Gentiles, with the priestly duty of proclaiming the Gospel of God." Now, when Paul came to a new community, didn't matter what it was... Maybe it was Pisidia and Antioch, maybe it was Troas, maybe it was Philippi, maybe it was Athens, it didn't matter. The first thing on his mind is, "I need to preach Christ." It was proclamation, like a herald going out from a king. He's going with good news, and he's going to stand in the public square and he's going to proclaim the kingdom of God. He's going to proclaim forgiveness of sins in Jesus' name. He's going to set up the cross of Christ in their minds through his preaching. He's going to preach the Son of God crucified and risen for sin. He's going to preach that, that's what he's going to do. He preached the person of Christ, His deity, His humanity. He preached His works, His words. He preached Christ crucified, that's what he did. Now, this is the Gospel that He described at the beginning of this epistle, Romans 1:16, as being the "power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes." Paul believed that. He believed this was the power of God to get people who are walking in darkness, to see a great light and be saved. He wanted to go to a dark pagan community and preach Christ, they'd never heard of Him before, and see the light shine in the darkness to the glory of God. He wanted to preach that message. It was a preached message. Now, in the modern times, missions can involve a lot of complexities. There can be all kinds of interesting things that missionaries can be called to do and some of them very necessary. Some missionaries go and build church buildings or other kinds of buildings, because the community needs it. Some build hospitals, some work as doctors and nurses in those hospitals, some missionaries go as tent makers and establish a professional presence in a place that otherwise would be a closed country that would not welcome a missionary. I was going on a short-term mission trip once to a closed country, and the country that was giving out the visa questioned me quite closely, actually called me from the embassy, to ask me what my profession was. Very interesting. Teacher apparently wasn't good enough for them. They want to know what kind of a teacher, and I said, "I'm a pastor." And they asked me a lot of questions about my intention in that country, and they sent back a visa and on the visa it said, in one word, no spaces in between, "missionary work, not allowed." "Missionary work, not allowed." But they misspelled "missionary," so I decided I wasn't going to do that, whatever that was. But I was going to be faithful to preach the Gospel because the Lord had called me to do it. So, I didn't do that thing. I still don't know what the definition is, and I don't want to do it, whatever they've commanded, I will not do it. But I'm going to do the missionary work that the Lord has laid on my heart. The point I'm making is that you need, in some of these countries, Muslim countries, some of these other places, you need a reason to be in there. Some people run powerful radio stations and they put out signals, and they go all over in that whole region with the powerful radio signals. And all of those works and others are necessary. But the center of all true missionary work is the verbal proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That's the center of it. And if that isn't going on, then true missionary work is not happening. 3) Speaking and Living God’s Truth Thirdly, speaking and living God's truth. Romans 15:18, it says, "I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done." Do you see that phrase? "By what I have said and done," God has led the Gentiles to obey Him. What does this mean, "by what I have said and done?" Well, I think there's a twofold pattern of Paul's strategy. He's going to speak God's truth, and he's going to live God's truth. He's going to speak right doctrine, and by this now, I mean, more than just the milk of the Gospel... The Gospel is beginning doctrine, that's how we start, but there's more doctrine than that. And Paul would settle into a community, sometimes for two years or perhaps even more, and he would be faithful to speak the Word of God very thoroughly and very completely. Some people have noted, because Paul later in this section, in Romans 15, asks the Roman church for help in his missionary journey to Spain. They said, "Well, I conclude that Romans is a missionary support letter." Well, that's wonderful. It's got to be the greatest missionary support letter in history. It's an awesome missionary support letter. But let's accept that, that's fine. But I say this, it is an unfolding of the doctrine of the Gospel unparalleled than all of Scripture. And we see therefore that Paul considered the fullness of the doctrine to be essential to his mission. It wasn't just the simple ideas of Christ and Him crucified. In Romans, you have far more than that. Romans 1, 2 and 3, you have unfolded very plainly the doctrine of universal depravity and sin. "There is no one righteous, not even one." He's very careful in unfolding this. In Romans 3 and 4, we have the doctrine of justification by faith alone. And there again, he asks that question, founding everything on scripture, he asks about Abraham. What does the scripture say? But he's trying to found his doctrine and Scripture. He's unfolding deep doctrine. Romans 5, he's talking about original sin and Adam, and how the whole human race sinned in Adam. These are deep thoughts. Romans 6, sanctification, putting sin to death. Romans 7, the bitter struggle with sin. Romans 8, we have the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit for this fight that we have against sin and for the fulfillment of the work of God. In Romans 9, 10 and 11, we have the deep doctrines of predestination and God's sovereignty applied to the troubling case of why the Jews are almost universally rejecting the Gospel. Deep doctrines. And Paul doesn't shy back from speaking about the truth of God. He said in Acts 20, to the Ephesian Elders, he said, "Now, you remember my ministry and how from house to house I didn't hesitate to proclaim anything that would be helpful for you, but have taught you publicly and from house to house." He also says later, "I did not shrink back from proclaiming the whole counsel of God's Word." And so, based on what Paul said, he builds the kingdom. But here's the thing, he's there. He's living in the community. They watch his lifestyle. "It's not just by what I've said, it's also by what I've done." Remember how he said in Philippians Chapter 4, "Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you." Wow. How would you like to say that to your disciple? "Whatever you've seen in my life, put it in practice and God will be with you." But Paul set himself up not arrogantly. We're going to see later in this message he's not an arrogant person, but he knew that part of the missionary work was incarnational. You live in there. They see the way you live. And it's not just what you say, it's how you live. It's an integration of truth and life that was key to his strategy. 4) Performing Signs and Wonders Fourthly, we also see the issue of signs and wonders. And here, many of you may be saying, "Well, see, now this is where we're going to be different from the Apostle Paul." And you would be right. Because the Apostle Paul was an apostle. I'm not saying miracles don't happen today. I've been on the mission field and I've heard clear testimony, from brothers and sisters in Christ whose lives I respect, of supernatural acts of God. But they are different in essence, I think, than the apostolic miracles that Paul did. But there it is, look at Verse 18-19, he says, "I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done." And then in Verse 19, "By the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit." Now, I think 21st Century Americans are a little bit squeamish when it comes to signs and wonders. One great missionary article I read was called The Flaw of the Excluded Middle, how American evangelicals tend to exalt God in the heavenly realms, and see God up there in the heavenly realms, and believe in the invisible God by faith, they accept that, and they live in a workaday world, the physical practical world, and they accept that, but they don't see a lot of interaction between the two in the middle realm of signs and wonders, also of demons and angels, and all of that stuff that most of the world accepts readily. And it's in the Bible. It's all part of the biblical world view. And they'll extend the squeamishness even to reading about what the Apostle Paul did and say, "Well, you know... " And they try to minimize the role of signs and wonders in the apostolic ministry. We should never do this. Paul here clearly ascribes the power of his ministry, at least in part, to the effectiveness of signs and wonders done by the Holy Spirit of God through him. And he said these were the things that marked him as an apostle. That's why we're different than Paul, we are not apostles. But these things marked Paul as an apostle. 2 Corinthians 12:12 says, "The things that marked an apostle, signs, wonders and miracles, were done among you with great perseverance." Now, these signs and wonders had evangelistic power. They had evangelistic power. Jesus himself said in John Chapter 14:11, "Believe me when I say I'm in the Father, or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves." There, He linked saving faith to the power and the evidence of the miracles. There's nothing wrong with saying that miracles have evangelistic power when coupled with the message of the Gospel. Miracles also help prove the truthfulness of the apostolic Gospel message. In Acts 14, talking about Pisidia and Antioch, Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there speaking boldly for the Lord, who confirmed the message of His grace by enabling them to do signs and wonders among the people. He confirmed it, He said, "This is a true message. Look, these people have been healed," etcetera. They also were very effective for drawing a crowd. It is where, in Acts Chapter 3, Peter and John went up to pray at the time of prayer, and they heal a famous beggar, and a huge crowd comes running. And Peter says, "good preaching opportunity." And that's exactly what was happening again and again through the Book of Acts, a sign or a wonder would be done, huge crowds would gather, and they would preach the Gospel, by the power of signs and wonders. They also had the power to encourage the church. Remember the story of Paul in Troas, and he's probably never going to go there again. And so he spends hours and hours teaching the people. And seated in the window was a young man named Eutychus, probably a teenager, and so he's just sitting there and listening, this young man, that's probably what he was, listening to the Word of God, interested in what Paul was saying. But it was getting hot, it was getting late, Paul was talking on and on, is what Luke wrote in the Book of Acts. They got the oil lanterns in there, there's not electricity, and it's just... He fell asleep. The only problem was he was on the third story, he fell out of the third-story window and was picked up dead. Paul went down and threw himself on this young man and said, "Don't be alarmed…he's alive." God raised him from the dead. And this is what Acts 20 Verse 12 says, "The people took the young man home alive and were greatly comforted." They're greatly comforted at a clear display of God's power over death. God is the death conqueror. He is sovereign. He's powerful. And even if He doesn't do it every time, even if He doesn't ever do it again, just know that God is powerful. They were greatly encouraged and comforted by these apostolic ministries. 5) Demonstrating the Power of the Holy Spirit Fifth, there was also a display or a demonstration of the Spirit's power. He says, "By the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit." Let me tell you Paul's missionary strategy, it basically went like this. "I'm going to follow where the Holy Spirit leads, I'm going to speak what the Holy Spirit tells me to speak, I'm going to do it in the open and obvious power of the Holy Spirit, I'm going to rely on the Holy Spirit's power to convict and to convert and to plant the church, I'm relying on the Holy Spirit's power to protect that little church after I have planted it." Everything was done as a display and a demonstration of the Spirit's power. Paul's ministry was a constant display of the power of the Holy Spirit in the midst of his own weakness. 1 Corinthians Chapter 2, Paul talks about this. He said, "When I came to you, brothers, I didn't come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God." That wasn't it. You don't have to go to speaking school, eloquent school, to be an effective missionary. That's not it. What was it then? He said, "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified. I came to you in weakness and fear and with much trembling. My message, my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with the demonstration of the Spirit's power, so that your faith might not rest on man's wisdom but on God's power." He basically wants to plant a church in such a way that everyone can see, "It must not have been Paul." Remember how one of the Corinthians said, "His letters are weighty and forceful, but in person he is rather unimpressive…" Not a great speaker, just a simple message of Christ and him crucified. And look what sprang up. Look what happened. A church was planted, lives were transformed, pagans gave up their paganism, rich people gave up their concern about wealth, poor people understood that in Christ they could be rich. Everything was changed and a church was planted. For eternity, lives were changed. That is a demonstration of the Spirit's power. That's something nobody can do. I could preach for 100 years and if the Spirit is not here, I have wasted my time and yours. I prayed this morning on my knees, I begged that the Spirit of God would be here today, or else I would waste my time and yours. And I'm convinced He is. I'm convinced He's at work in your hearts and mine, too, a clear demonstration of the Spirit's power. Not in technique, or you got to have Paul or nothing happens. "I'm leaving," Paul said. He's going. He's going to plant the church and go. You need to know that from here on out, the Holy Spirit's still with you and you're going to still make progress in the Spirit, a demonstration of the Spirit's power. 6) Venturing Where Christ Is Not Yet Known And then sixth, venturing or Christ was not known. We've already covered this, but it's a clear technique. Paul said, "I'm passing on. I'm not going to stay here. You're not going to rely on me forever and ever. I'm going to get the church started, I'm going to establish Godly elders and train them, get them in place. I'm going to give you the best I've got for a couple of years, teach you everything, not shrink back from anything, but the rest is up to God by the power of the Spirit. I'm moving on." He was going to continue to move on to those unreached people groups. And so we see a brief display of Paul's missionary strategy, founding all things on God's written Word, proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ, speaking and living God's truth in an integrated way, performing signs and wonders, a demonstration of the power of the Holy Spirit of God, and a commitment to go to unreached people groups, to continue to move on. III. Paul’s Missionary Goals Now, what were his goals? A Display of the Glory of God Well, the top goal of the Apostle Paul was that God would be glorified as a result. He says in Verse 17, "Therefore, I glory in Christ Jesus, in my service to God." Just as He had said in Verse 9, "so that the Gentiles might glorify God for His mercy," he wanted the Gospel ministry to be for the praise of God's glory, that's why he did everything. The Fulfillment of His Priestly Duty Secondly, his goal was to fulfill his priestly duty. God told him on the road to Damascus, "I'm giving you this work to do. I'm giving you this work to do. I want you to do this work." And his priestly duty was to proclaim the Gospel to the Gentiles. He says in Acts 26, "So then, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient to the vision from heaven. First to those in Damascus, and then to those in Jerusalem, and now Judea, and to the Gentiles also. I preach that they should repent and turn to God, and prove their repentance by their deeds." Paul was given a priestly ministry. He said, "I wasn't disobedient." Can I just stop and ask you a question? We asked last week, do you have a task that the Lord Jesus gave you? Are you running a race that Christ set in front of you? And if you say, "Yes, I know what it is, I know what my calling is," the second question is, Have you been disobedient to that calling?" See, the Apostle Paul said to King Agrippa, "I was not disobedient to the heavenly vision, but I did what God wanted me to do. That was my priestly ministry." You see, we are priests of Christ. We are given a priestly duty. Paul's was proclaiming the Gospel to the Gentiles. The Ultimate Offering of the Gentiles He also says the result of that would be the ultimate offering of the Gentiles. He was like a Levite or ironic priest. He was offering up sacrifices to God. Now, the Levites, the priests, they offered up bulls and goats, blood sacrifice. Paul is not doing that. You know what he's offering up? Gentiles. And this is how it worked. He'd go into a place steeped in paganism, the people are dead in their transgressions and sins, without hope and without God in the world. He simply preaches the Gospel by the power of God, and as a result, lives are transformed. What happens? In those individual lives, the call of God goes, "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, and offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God." And so all of a sudden, you got all these Gentiles who are converted, their minds are changed, and now they are offering their bodies every day as living sacrifices, so that the Gentiles might become an offering to God, acceptable, pleasing to God by the Holy Spirit. That was his goal. The Glad Obedience of the Gentiles And finally, that their obedience would be the offering. See, the Gospel needs to result in obedience. This is the Alpha and the Omega of the Book of Romans. Perhaps you haven't noticed it before, but they are in Romans Chapter 1 Verse 5, Paul says this, "Through Christ, and for His name's sake, we receive grace and apostleship to call people from among all the Gentiles to the obedience that comes from faith." Dear friend, if your faith is not producing in you a lifestyle of glad obedience, it is counterfeit and you're not saved. Obedience. For the obedience of the Gentiles, that was his work. Glad obedience, that's the Alpha. And then at the end, in Romans 16:26, probably just look over on the same page that we're on, Paul preaches the Gospel so that all nations might believe and obey Christ. So, Romans 1:5, Romans 16:26, the Alpha and the Omega, right straight through, it is a Gospel that produces glad obedience. Look at your life. Is it characterized by obedience to the commands of Jesus Christ? IV. Paul’s Astonishing Success Finally, what was Paul's success like? Well, he says, "From Jerusalem, all the way around to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the Gospel of Christ." That's amazing geographical spread. He's gone basically 1400 miles, from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria, up into Asia Minor, across to Philippi, Macedonia, down into Achaia, and over as far as modern day Yugoslavia, right across from the Adriatic, from the Italian boot, he's made 1400 miles of preaching in frontier regions, preaching the Gospel. And he says, "There's nowhere else for me to work. I have so saturated that region that there's no frontier here anymore." It doesn't mean that everybody has heard the Gospel, but what it means is, in every area, in every region, there are significant healthy, growing churches who can finish the work, including in Rome. Now, he says he's going on to Spain. That's amazing success. Now, you might think all of this would go to his head. Right? "Look at all I've done. Look at all the things that I've achieved." But instead, he had a very appropriate humility. Look at Verse 17-18, "Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me, in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done." He says, "I'm not going to boast in myself." One of the big differences between us and lost people, between Christians and lost people, is this... This is in John Chapter 3. It says there, "Everyone who does not live by the truth, hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that his deeds will be exposed." They don't want to come into the light because they don't want to show what they've done, the despicable deeds of darkness, they don't want to show it. But, John 3:21, "Everyone who lives by the truth comes into the light." Why? "So that it may be seen plainly that what he has done has been done through God." We're going to get up there and we're going to carry with us a whole truckload of acts of obedience done by faith in Christ, our ministry, our life work, and we are going to present it to God. And it will be made plain and obvious at that time, that each one of those good things will be refined by fire, 1 Corinthians 3, but there, each one of those jewels in the diadem were accomplished by the power of God in us. That God, by His power, led us to lead this person to Christ, or to plant this church, or to pray this prayer, to give this money. All of it was done by the power of God working in us and to the praise of His glory. And there you'll have your diadem, your crown, and may it have many jewels in it, and there you will lay it down at the feet of the one who deserves it, because all that we have accomplished, Isaiah 26:12, he has done through us and to the glory of God. And so therefore Paul is appropriately humble. V. Application What's the application for you? Well, as you look at the life of Paul, last time the application was you needed a concentrated focus to your life and you needed to be concerned about frontier missions. And so you do. What I get out of these verses that we've studied today is you need to have a strategy. How are you going to go about doing it? Suppose the focus right now in your mind is your family. Maybe it's a parent that doesn't know Christ, maybe it's a brother, a sister. What's your strategy? What's your approach? How are you going to take these principles and bring it to bear in that life? Perhaps it's a workplace. Maybe you're going to go to work tomorrow, don't let it be just another day. You've got a mission field there. What is your strategy? How are you going to bring these principles to bear in that workplace? Perhaps it's a dorm floor, fraternity or sorority, and on a college campus. What's your strategy? How are you going to go about leading those people to Christ? Perhaps you're preparing to be a frontier missionary. Maybe you're at the seminary at Southeastern. What's your strategy going to be when you get to that unreached people group? How are you going to do this over there? What's your approach going to be to the glory of God? Now, I'm going to end where I began. And if you don't know Christ as your Savior, you don't need a strategy. You need to come to Christ today. You need to believe in Him and trust in Him for the salvation of your soul. Just about every week, when I sit out in the pew and I worship, I look at this wooden cross up here and I remind myself of the price that was paid for my salvation. I think about it every week. I think about what Jesus did when He went up that hill carrying the cross. I'm saying to you, if you don't know Christ, you're not ready to die. This afternoon, we're going to do a funeral. I'm saying, you're not ready to die if you don't know Jesus. Trust in Him for the salvation of your soul. Close with me now in prayer.
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