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We are masters of rationalization We have an innate ability to justify ourselves. We have a natural tendency to excuse selfishness and stubbornness and sinfulness. We do wrong and make it sound like we did right. The Bible says, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil." This is exactly what Saul does in the passage we are investigating in this episode of Wisdom from Above. Don't miss tis episode.
Today’s Topics: 1, 2, 3, 4) Father Charles Murr joins Terry Gospel – Matthew 23:27-32 – Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets' blood.' Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out!” Saints in Heaven, pray for us! Bishop Sheen quote of the day
Pastoral Reflections Finding God In Ourselves by Msgr. Don Fischer
Original Post Date: August 28, 2024 === Gospel Matthew 23:27-32 Jesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing. “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the memorials of the righteous, and you say, ‘If we had lived in the days of our ancestors, we would not have joined them in shedding the prophets' blood.' Thus you bear witness against yourselves that you are the children of those who murdered the prophets; now fill up what your ancestors measured out!” Reflection Underlying everything that Jesus has been saying about the Pharisees, is a kind of hidden way of understanding a power that anyone in the role of ministry truly has, and how important it is that they teach the truth and guide people, and invite them into the truth. In a way you could read in these stories about the Pharisees what it is that God longs for and what he wills. Ministers that minister truth. Closing Prayer Father, give us an open mind and open heart so that when we listen to those who guide us, that you give us the wisdom to discern what is true and what is not. So that we can always be guided by nothing other than the thing that's most important to you, and that is that we embrace your truth. And we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Read OnlineJesus' Final Public SermonJesus said, “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You are like whitewashed tombs, which appear beautiful on the outside, but inside are full of dead men's bones and every kind of filth. Even so, on the outside you appear righteous, but inside you are filled with hypocrisy and evildoing.” Matthew 23:27–28For the third day in a row, we read from Jesus' fierce denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees. His words are exactly what these religious leaders needed to hear—strong medicine meant to awaken them from their self-righteousness, so that they might repent and receive the superabundant grace that would soon pour forth from His Cross. Though His rebukes may sound shocking—especially to those who heard them for the first time—we must receive them not with shock, but with humility and openness, applying them to our own spiritual journey.Immediately after this lengthy denunciation, Jesus turns inward and offers a heart-wrenching lament over Jerusalem, especially over the hardened hearts of the very leaders He had just addressed. Though not included in today's Gospel, the very next verse reveals His sorrow: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how many times I yearned to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her young under her wings, but you were unwilling!” (Matthew 23:37). This tender image opens a window into Jesus' Sacred Heart—the same heart that had just delivered such relentless rebukes. Consider that image: a hen gathering her young under her wings. By natural instinct, a mother hen shields her chicks, even risking her life to protect them. In placing that instinct within creation, God reveals something of His own divine love. He, too, longs to gather, shield, and save us from eternal harm. Nothing—not even the hardness of our hearts—can stop Him from extending His merciful embrace. Yet just as a chick that strays from its mother forfeits her protection, so do we when we resist Christ's call. His lament is not rooted in anger, but in grief over those who are unwilling to be gathered and saved. Even His fiercest rebukes flow from a heart burning with love. Though these words were originally addressed to the scribes and Pharisees, they apply to each of us. God will stop at nothing to bring us safely into His care. If gentle compassion moves our hearts, that is what He offers. If firm rebuke is what we need, He offers that too. Whether He draws us with tenderness or corrects us with firmness, His purpose is always the same: to keep us safe from sin and eternal separation, and to draw us into the Kingdom of grace. Interestingly, this rebuke was Jesus' final public sermon in Matthew's Gospel. If we were writing the script for His final week, we might envision a message of consolation or encouragement to close His public ministry. But instead, He ends with a sobering warning. Why? Because it was a final act of mercy. His last words to the crowds were meant to awaken hearts before it was too late. It was love speaking its final appeal, a shepherd crying out for His wandering sheep. Reflect today on Jesus delivering this final sermon to you. Heed His warning and receive it in the way it was delivered: with love. Feel His urgency and His desire to do whatever it takes to draw you closer to Himself. Respond to this sermon, and do not remain among the unwilling. Let these final words of Jesus pierce your heart, so that you may be gathered under the shelter of His wings and never stray again.Most merciful Lord, You will go to any length to draw us back to Yourself when we stray. You long to gather us under the wings of Your loving protection, keeping us safe from all sin that leads to death. Open my heart, dear Lord, and grant me the grace I need to respond to Your cry for my soul. May I never stray but always remain firmly under the shelter of Your wings of grace. Jesus, I trust in You.Image: Woe unto You, Scribes and Pharisees, by James Tissot Source: Free RSS feed from catholic-daily-reflections.com — Copyright © 2026 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. This content is provided solely for personal, non-commercial use. Redistribution, republication, or commercial use — including use within apps with advertising — is strictly prohibited without written permission.
Today’s Topics: 1, 2, 3, 4) Gospel – Matthew 23:23-26 – Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.” Memorial of Saint Louis of France Memorial of Saint Joseph Calasanz, Priest Saints Louis and Joseph, pray for us! Bishop Sheen quote of the day
Pastoral Reflections Finding God In Ourselves by Msgr. Don Fischer
August 27, 2024 === Gospel Matthew 23:23-26 Jesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel! “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You cleanse the outside of cup and dish, but inside they are full of plunder and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup, so that the outside also may be clean.” Reflection All religion have practices, things that we should do in order to show that we have a willing spirit to do what God calls us to do. But the shadow of all the things that we do is the fact that the action doesn't always demand the intention that's in the heart of the person. And what Jesus saying to you no matter what you do,how many practices you have, if your heart isn't in the right place, if you're not wanting and willing to heal and to help someone, you are dangerous and you need to reflect upon what you're missing. The inside. The intention. Closing Prayer Father, you and only you can change us. You and only your grace and your spirit dwelling within us can give us the courage and the strength to act on what is most essential. Give us this wisdom. Give us this insight. And we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Read OnlineA Confrontation of LoveJesus said: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites. You pay tithes of mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity. But these you should have done, without neglecting the others. Blind guides, who strain out the gnat and swallow the camel!” Matthew 23:23–24Over the course of yesterday, today, and tomorrow, the Church presents nearly all of Chapter 23 of Matthew's Gospel, which contains Jesus' powerful denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees. This confrontation took place in the Temple area during Passover week—the days leading up to His Passion and Death. After His triumphal entry into Jerusalem on what we now commemorate as Palm Sunday, Jesus spent the following days preaching, healing, and facing mounting opposition from religious leaders. He began by cleansing the Temple, overturning the tables of the moneychangers and declaring, “My house shall be a house of prayer, but you are making it a den of thieves” (Matthew 21:13). In the days that followed, He was challenged by the chief priests, scribes, Herodians, elders, and Pharisees, and He responded to each with unwavering clarity—firmly, yet lovingly rebuking them in an attempt to win them over.In this particular encounter, Jesus condemns the scribes and Pharisees for neglecting “the weightier things of the law: judgment and mercy and fidelity,” while appearing outwardly righteous. He accuses them of being “full of plunder and self-indulgence,” revealing the dissonance between their external piety and their inner corruption. Though meticulous in tithing even the smallest herbs—mint, dill, and cummin—they ignored the heart of the law: love of God and neighbor. Their spiritual blindness led them to fixate on minor religious details while disregarding justice and mercy. By calling them “blind guides,” Jesus exposes their failure as leaders who burden others without embracing the deeper demands of righteousness themselves.This rebuke is not born of anger but of love. Jesus calls them to interior conversion—to cleanse the heart so that external actions may be authentically holy. His image of straining out a gnat while swallowing a camel vividly illustrates their misplaced priorities. Jesus challenges them, and us, to examine whether our religious practices are rooted in grace or driven by appearances and habit. True fidelity to God requires both faithful observance and the necessary virtues that give those actions meaning. In confronting these leaders, Jesus offers not condemnation but a merciful warning meant to awaken their hearts before His Passion begins.What stands out in this confrontation is the fierce and unrelenting nature of Jesus' rebukes. He calls them hypocrites and blind guides, comparing them to cups that are clean outside but filthy within. These are not vague criticisms, but pointed and prophetic warnings. Like the prophets of old, Jesus demands more than superficial religiosity—He calls for integrity of heart. Each rebuke is a summons to repentance from the One who sees both actions and intentions. Sadly, many of His listeners refused to be moved.Reflect today on the gravity of Jesus' words. Though most of the scribes and Pharisees appear to have rejected His rebukes, they are recorded in Scripture so that every generation may apply them to their own lives. Hear them as if spoken to you—not to discourage, but to inspire conversion. While we may not mirror the scribes and Pharisees in every detail, we all benefit from confronting our own spiritual complacency. This can be a challenging exercise, but when undertaken with humility and trust—recognizing that Jesus' words are meant to heal and draw us closer to Him—it becomes a path to deeper grace. Let His rebukes take root within you, pulling up even the smallest weeds of pride or neglect, so that true virtue may flourish.Most merciful Lord, Your love for the scribes and Pharisees was so deep and consuming that You relentlessly pursued them, challenging the hardness of their hearts so they might turn from self-righteousness to the righteousness that comes through Your grace. Grant me the humility to receive Your loving rebukes and apply them to my own life, that I may be moved to true repentance and become fertile ground for Your transforming grace. Jesus, I trust in You. Image: Jesus and the Scribes and PhariseesSource: Free RSS feed from catholic-daily-reflections.com — Copyright © 2026 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. This content is provided solely for personal, non-commercial use. Redistribution, republication, or commercial use — including use within apps with advertising — is strictly prohibited without written permission.
This month we are featuring a feed drop of one of many brilliant podcasts on the RQ Network: WOE.BEGONE. WOE.BEGONE is a weekly sci-fi horror audiodrama series about the nature of power and the implications of linear time and is created by the amazing Dylan Griggs, who also makes The Diary of Aliza Shultz Podcast. This first episode of WOE.BEGONE, “Participant Observation,” follows Mike Walters, a man who discovers a mysterious and violent online game that begins to affect his real life. The series continues with over 150 episodes, following Mike as his exploration of an alternate reality game with real-life consequences morphs into a search for the technology that makes the game possible. WOE.BEGONE is written and performed by Dylan Griggs, introduction and outro by Anusia Battersby. Listen to WOE.BEGONE on The Rusty Quill website, on Acast, or listen wherever you get your podcasts, or to learn more about the world of WOE.BEGONE check out its official website. Content warnings:Conspiracy Grief and loss Altered RealityFor ad-free episodes, bonus content and more, join members.rustyquill.com or our Patreon.Pre-order FROM THE LIBRARY OF JURGEN LEITNER, a Magnus novel releasing October 27th: rustyquill.com/novelJoin our CHARITY LIVESTREAM on Friday 21st August at from 16:00 BST at twitch.tv/rusty_quill Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
https://square.link/u/UHRU92rp - Donate HereToday's reading takes us to Isaiah 6, where the earthly throne is shaken by Uzziah's death, but the heavenly throne is still occupied. Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up, the train of His robe filling the temple, and the seraphim crying, “Holy, holy, holy.” Before Isaiah is ever sent, he is first undone by the holiness of God.Isaiah 6 reminds us that revelation leads to confession, confession leads to cleansing, and cleansing leads to commissioning. Isaiah moves from “Woe is me” to “Here I am, send me” because God removes his guilt and calls him into His service. So today, read Isaiah 6 and let the throne reset your perspective: see His holiness, confess your need, receive His cleansing, and surrender your life to His call.
It's Wednesday, August 19th, A.D. 2026. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Jonathan Clark, Timothy Reed, and Adam McManus 40 European hate crimes against Christians Christians in Europe faced dozens of hate crimes in July. The Observatory on Intolerance and Discrimination Against Christians in Europe recorded 40 cases last month. Vandalism was the most common incident. In one case, authorities arrested an Islamic-State sympathizer who was planning an arson attack on a church in Hamm, Germany. The highest number of recorded incidents occurred in Germany, followed by France, Italy, and the United Kingdom. Ebola virus has killed 2,300 people in Congo This year's Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo is now the deadliest in the country's history. Over 2,300 people have died as of Sunday. And cases have reached about 5,000. Christian aid groups like Samaritan's Purse are on the ground in Congo. Franklin Graham, president of the Christian relief group, said, “Samaritan's Purse has been on the frontlines of fighting Ebola for more than a decade, and we aren't going to stop now. We are going to do everything we can to help save lives. We want people to know that God loves them, and they are not alone.” You can donate to Samaritan's Purse relief effort in Congo through a link in our transcript today at TheWorldview.com. Trump gives $2 billion to Christian non-profits for disaster relief Here in the United States, the Trump administration announced nearly $2 billion in health and humanitarian assistance to faith-based organizations this month. This includes over $500 million in disaster response funding for Samaritan's Purse and a consortium jointly led by World Vision and Compassion International. The U.S. Department of State noted, “This historic announcement is the largest allocation of global health foreign assistance to faith-based organizations in over 20 years.” Conservative kicked out of school board meeting over filthy books Texas conservative Bonnie Wallace is suing the Houston Independent School District for removing her from a school board meeting. Wallace, who is a member of Protecting Texas Children, had sought to shine light on the immoral and inappropriate materials children are subjected to in schools. When she stepped up to the podium at first, she said this which was captured on video. WALLACE: “Before you purchase new books, you need to get rid of the 500 filthy books that you have. If there's children in the audience, they need to leave.” BOARD MEMBER: “Ma'am, Point of Order. This is a public hearing.” WALLACE: “I understand that.” BOARD MEMBER: “You will not be allowed to read things that are not appropriate.” WALLACE: “Oh, not appropriate? Then, why are they in your schools?” After she cited the first vulgar reference from a children's book in the school library, the board member said this. BOARD MEMBER: ”Absolutely not! Ma'am, you are now out of order. This is your first warning. One more word, and you will be removed.” After Bonnie Wallace read a second vulgar passage from the book in the children's library, the school board member asked for a police officer to remove her from the meeting. BOARD MEMBER: “Officer, please remove this woman from the podium.” WALLACE: “If you don't like it, remove it so the children don't have access to it!” BOARD MEMBER: “Thank you very much.” Grant Stinchfield, a conservative talk show host on Real America's Voice, was understandably outraged. STINCHFIELD: “That woman you see there, being walked out, simply read one of the books in the school library. Now, if it's not appropriate for a school board meeting, how is it appropriate for our children?” In her lawsuit, Wallace alleged, “This was textbook viewpoint discrimination: Such conduct is ‘an egregious form' of content regulation that the First Amendment almost never tolerates.” Isaiah 5:20-21 says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; who put darkness for light, and light for darkness. … Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and prudent in their own sight!” Planned Parenthood closes Albuquerque, New Mexico abortion mill Planned Parenthood shut down its Northeast Heights abortion facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico last month. It's the latest closure as the abortion giant consolidates locations in the state. Bud Shaver, executive director of Abortion Free New Mexico, told LifeNews, “Despite New Mexico leaders pouring taxpayer money into abortion and using government policy to prop up the industry, abortion facilities are still consolidating and closing.” Vaccination rate for kindergartners dropped slightly Vaccination rates for kindergartners dropped slightly during the 2025-2026 school year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports the rate dropped by one percent overall. Exemptions from one or more vaccines rose to 4.2 percent, up from 3.6 percent the previous year. Christian men, mainline Protestants, and Catholics dissatisfied with church And finally, the American Bible Society released the latest chapter of its State of the Bible: USA 2026 report. The survey found some population groups struggled with church attendance compared to others. These include Christian men, young adult Christians, mainline Protestants, and Roman Catholics. Gen Z men reported the lowest satisfaction with the churches they attend. Overall, weekly and monthly church attendance remain unchanged from two years ago. The survey did note an uptick in people attending church about twice a year. That amounts to about eight million more Americans attending a church service in 2025 compared to two years earlier. Psalm 84:2 and 10 says, “My soul longs, yes, even faints for the courts of the LORD. My heart and my flesh cry out for the living God. … For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness.” Close And that's The Worldview on this Wednesday, August 19th, in the year of our Lord 2026. Subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
Woe to the bloody city, all full of lies and plunder! Nahum's last chapter moves like the assault itself, the crack of the whip, the rattle of the wheel, the galloping horse and bounding chariot, and then a question: are you better than Thebes? That Egyptian city sat secure behind her waters, and Assyria herself dragged the people of Thebes (No' ‘Amon) into exile. For Nineveh there is no easing of the hurt and no healing of the wound, and the book's last line explains why the nations clap when the news arrives: “upon whom has not come your unceasing evil?” God's judgment has come upon them as Law, but as comfort to those the Assyrians terrorized. The Rev. Dr. Keith Haney, Assistant to the President for Missions, Human Care, and Stewardship in the LCMS Iowa District West, joins the Rev. Dr. Phil Booe to study Nahum 3:1-19. Edom stands at the crossroads and watches his brother Judah dragged off in chains, and Obadiah announces that the day of the LORD is coming for the bystander, too. Joel sees a locust swarm strip a nation bare in a single season, calls the people to rend their hearts and not their garments, and promises a Spirit poured out on all flesh. Nahum returns to Nineveh a century after Jonah's revival, and this time the superpower does not repent. Zephaniah spends two chapters on the day of wrath and then ends with the Lord singing over the people He has rescued. This series on Thy Strong Word works through these selected books of the so-called "minor" prophets verse by verse, showing how the Lord judges the nations while also keeping his promises to gather His people home. Thy Strong Word, hosted by Rev. Dr. Phil Booe, pastor of St. John Lutheran Church of Luverne, MN, reveals the light of our salvation in Christ through study of God's Word, breaking our darkness with His redeeming light. Each weekday, two pastors fix our eyes on Jesus by considering Holy Scripture, verse by verse, in order to be strengthened in the Word and be equipped to faithfully serve in our daily vocations. Submit comments or questions to: thystrongword@kfuo.org.
Jesus calls us to be people of His Word who know it and handle it correctly.
Jesus calls us to be people of His Word who know it and handle it correctly.
IntroductionThere can be a disconnect in the Christian life. We can become so focused on doctrine that we forget that we are called to live out the gospel. Or we can become so focused on living the Christian life that we lose sight of the doctrine that gives us the strength and assurance to live it.The Heidelberg Catechism Lord's Day 23 understands this tension. As we come to justification by faith, it essentially asks us, Is this doctrine really helpful? Is this something that actually benefits us? Does knowing that we are justified by faith make any difference in the Christian life?I think those are important questions. So, let's begin. Is This Helpful?The first thing we have to understand is the seriousness of our problem.Our problem is that we minimize sin. We sometimes like to think that if we can just clean up enough of the outward problems, we will be okay. Maybe we haven't done everything right, but we have done better than the person next to us. Maybe we have kept 99.99% of the commandments.But the problem is that sin is not merely a collection of bad behaviors. Sin is at the core of who we are. Our behavior or actions are merely the fruit of the deeper root problem. In the fall, humanity essentially told God, We don't want your order. We don't want your holiness. We don't want you ruling over us. We were exiled from Eden, and God gave us what we wanted. And that leaves us in a desperate position.We see this even in some of the great saints of Scripture. Jacob spent much of his life trying to accomplish the promises of God in his own strength. He wrestled with God and came away limping, learning that the promises of God come through weakness and submission to the Lord.Job wanted his day in court with God. He wanted to present his case and demonstrate that God had gotten things wrong. But when Job finally comes face-to-face with the living God, he puts his hand over his mouth. He learns that God's wisdom is far greater than his own. Paul was a man who considered himself blameless according to the law, yet Christ had to stop him on the road to Damascus. Even Paul had to learn that God's strength is manifested in weakness.And then there is Isaiah. Isaiah appears to be one of those Old Testament saints who was pretty dialed in. Yet when he comes into the presence of God, he doesn't say, "I dwell in the midst of unclean people who make me unclean." No, he says, “Woe is me. I am a man of unclean lips” That is the point. Apart from Christ, we have nothing.Paul makes this very clear in Romans 3. He gives a staccato of Old Testament references and demonstrates that there is a universal problem that impacts Jew and Gentile. It doesn't matter how religious you are or how well you have cleaned up your life.All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.That is why justification by faith is so helpful. It tells us the truth about our condition. We cannot save ourselves. We need a rematch and not a participation trophy.The championship game has already been played. Adam failed, and in Adam we have all failed. The verdict has been issued. We need someone to reengage the competition and overturn the previous verdict. And that is exactly what Christ does in his work. However, this can still be all doctrine. Is there a place where this really impacts our Christian life? Is This Assuring? This is where the beauty of justification really comes into view. The Heidelberg Catechism says that I share in all of Christ's benefits. He has made perfect satisfaction for my sin. He has given me his perfect holiness. And I am regarded before God as if I had never sinned and as if I had perfectly obeyed all that God commanded. Think about the beauty of that.It is not my righteousness. It is Christ's righteousness.It is not my perfect obedience. It is Christ's perfect obedience. It is not something I have earned. It is a gift. God has freely given it to his unworthy children.Paul says in Romans 3 that we are justified by God's grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. Justification is a legal declaration. Before the heavenly court, we deserve condemnation in Adam. But in Christ, we are declared righteous.And this is what makes grace so amazing.Sometimes we define grace as “unmerited favor.” But I think Scripture gives us an even deeper picture. Unmerited favor could mean that God just gave us something. We did not earn it. However, we could be neutral. For instance, you love your kid, so you just buy your kid ice cream. The kid did not specifically deserve it, but you want to spend some quality time together.We actively rebelled against him. We told God that we didn't want his holiness, his rule, or his order. If we continue with the illustration of buying a child ice cream, we can ask: Would you buy your child ice cream after your child washed your car with a Brillo pad? I am guessing that the child is not getting ice cream. However, we did far worse to God in the fall. He also gives us more than a participation trophy or ice cream. God gives us heaven through the work of his son. Christ doesn't simply overlook our sin. This is why Paul uses the language of redemption. Redemption is buying someone out of slavery. That is what Christ did. He purchased us out of our bondage of sin to set us free to live in him.Christ had to lay down his life in our place. He has to die because sin is that heinous. It is not that God is so villainous, but sin is that heinous. We cannot find a simple solution to this complex problem. So if someone wants to mock justification by faith as a “participation trophy,” I say, "I'll gladly take it." I'll put it on the shelf and proudly say, I am in Christ Jesus, and apart from Christ I have no hope. However, we need to remember that Christ reengaged the championship game. He won the game and gives us the credit.Conclusion So is justification by faith helpful?Absolutely.Because we have a 100% problem, and we need a 100% Savior.Is justification assuring?Absolutely.Because Christ has done what we could never do. He has satisfied God's justice, paid our debt, redeemed us from slavery, and given us his righteousness.And is my faith good enough?No, but Christ is.That is the good news. The gospel isn't that God looked at us and decided that we were basically good enough to receive a participation trophy. The gospel is that we were condemned in Adam, and Christ came into the heavenly courtroom and stood in our place. He took the judgment we deserved and gave us the righteousness we could never earn. He overturned the previous loss and won us our victory. And so we don't use grace as an excuse to push the boundaries of sin. If we really understand what sin is, why would we want to return to it? Sin is destructive. It tears us away from the true peace and shalom that God created us to enjoy.So let us continue to take hold of Christ by faith. Let us forget what lies behind and press forward toward what lies ahead. Christ Jesus has made us his own. And as the Holy Spirit continues to conform us to Christ, let us walk in him, trusting not in the strength of our faith, but in the strength of our Savior.
Recompense on the Beast and Harlot (1) (audio) David Eells, 8/12/26 Destruction Comes for Apostate Leadership B. A. - 06/23/2015 (David's notes in red) I dreamed that I found myself in Jerusalem, back in Jesus' day, and I was looking up at the temple (a temple made by man's hands which God does not inhabit). Act.17:24 The God that made the world and all things therein, he, being Lord of heaven and earth, dwelleth not in temples made with hands; (Church buildings are not holy, the people must be.) 25 neither is he served by men's hands, as though he needed anything, seeing he himself giveth to all life, and breath, and all things; 26 and he made of one every nation of men to dwell on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed seasons, and the bounds of their habitation; 27 that they should seek God, if haply they might feel after him and find him, though he is not far from each one of us: 28 for in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain even of your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring. 29 Being then the offspring of God, we ought not to think that the Godhead is like unto gold, or silver, or stone, graven by art and device of man. 30 The times of ignorance therefore God overlooked; but now he commanded men that they should all everywhere repent: 31 inasmuch as he hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness by the man whom he hath ordained; whereof he hath given assurance unto all men, in that he hath raised him from the dead. There were stone steps leading down from the temple, and on the steps stood Pharisees and Sadducees (Representing those of our day.). I was standing with a crowd of people in an open area a little ways from the temple and the stone steps, and just as I was looking around me in this crowd of people, I saw a man come forward out of the crowd who began to sternly address the men who were standing up (or exalting themselves) on the stone steps of the temple. I knew that the man speaking was Jesus. (Representing those in whom He lives by Word and Spirit in our day.) Mat.23:12 And whosoever shall exalt himself shall be humbled; and whosoever shall humble himself shall be exalted. As Jesus began to speak, I began to recognize the “Word” He was speaking to these men, since I had heard these same words before. Here is what I heard: Mat.23:15 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye compass sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he is become so, ye make him twofold more a son of hell than yourselves. When Jesus spoke the first “Woe”, I heard a loud pop-like sound and what sounded like a crackling sound. I looked down upon the stone steps of the temple where these Pharisees and Sadducees were standing, and I noticed a large, deep crack had run right up through the middle of those stone steps, and they were beginning to crack and crumble. I noticed that the deep crack was between the feet of a rather large and extremely overweight man. (This represents the apostate leadership of our day overcome by their own flesh.) 16 Woe unto you, ye blind guides, that say, Whosoever shall swear by the temple, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gold of the temple, he is a debtor. Then, when Jesus spoke the second “Woe”, I heard another much louder pop-like sound and more of the crackling sound. I looked around to see where this sound was coming from, and I saw that a large, deep crack had gone all around the temple foundation, and it was cracking up and crumbling as well. (Everything that can be shaken will be.) 17 Ye fools and blind: for which is greater, the gold, or the temple that hath sanctified the gold? 18 And, Whosoever shall swear by the altar, it is nothing; but whosoever shall swear by the gift that is upon it, he is a debtor. 19 Ye blind: for which is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift? 20 He therefore that sweareth by the altar, (The crucified life.) sweareth by it, and by all things thereon. 21 And he that sweareth by the temple, sweareth by it, and by him that dwelleth therein. 22 And he that sweareth by the heaven, sweareth by the throne of God, and by him that sitteth thereon. 23 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye tithe mint and anise and cummin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law (So tithing is of the law. This is the leaven of the Pharisees Jesus warned about.), justice, and mercy, and faith: but these ye ought to have done, and not to have left the other undone. 24 Ye blind guides, that strain out the gnat, and swallow the camel! (Making unimportant things important.) 25 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye cleanse the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full from extortion and excess. 26 Thou blind Pharisee, cleanse first the inside of the cup and of the platter, that the outside thereof may become clean also. 27 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which outwardly appear beautiful, but inwardly are full of dead men's bones, and of all uncleanness. 28 Even so ye also outwardly appear righteous unto men, but inwardly ye are full of hypocrisy and iniquity. 29 Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye build the sepulchres of the prophets, and garnish the tombs of the righteous, 30 and say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we should not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. 31 Wherefore ye witness to yourselves, that ye are sons of them that slew the prophets. 32 Fill ye up then the measure of your fathers. 33 Ye serpents, ye offspring of vipers, how shall ye escape the judgment of hell? 34 Therefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: some of them shall ye kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute from city to city: 35 that upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation. 37 O Jerusalem, Jerusalem (John said Jerusalem is the Bride but there is a false bride.), that killeth the prophets, and stoneth them that are sent unto her! how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, and ye would not! 38 Behold, your house is left unto you desolate. (Devoid of God) 39 For I say unto you, Ye shall not see me henceforth, till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord. Just as Jesus had finished His Words to these men, the stone steps gave way, and all of those men standing on the crumbling stone steps fell down into a deep pit that had opened up under them. And just after that happened, the entire temple came crashing down on top of them and covered them up. I noticed that from Matthew 23:15 through verse 39, there are “six” woes -- “six” being the number of man. Also, I found it interesting that there is a “Woe” in Mathew 23:23, and the date of this revelation is the 23rd, and 23 means “death”. (This is clearly a reprobation of today's apostate leadership and their fake temples, as Jesus pronounced in His day, and is now a repeat of history.) The Recompense on the Wicked Anna Stewart - 7/24/25 I dreamed that a few others and I were at a safari ranch. There was a ten-foot-high impenetrable wall of dead-looking grass going around the perimeter of where we were. (“All flesh is as grass,” said Peter, representing the flesh of the beast people, the Dragon devouring in Rev 12. Judgments are spreading over the world from these people.) We were told to get back into our vehicle because the grass was full of lionesses (representing the curse and judgment) just waiting to jump out and grab someone. I wasn't afraid, but I did get back into the vehicle. My father (representing THE Father) was driving the vehicle. I was in the front passenger seat (the bride), but someone behind me had left their door open. Three times, with authority, I commanded them to “SHUT THE DOOR.” I knew they were primarily endangering themselves, but also putting the rest of us at risk, as well. (The vehicle represents sanctification, and we must all keep our own doors shut, for ourselves, but also for the sake of the body.) We began to slowly drive down a narrow, one-way dirt road lined by that tall grass. A woman I know, who represents the harlot, was walking alongside us on the left of our vehicle. It wasn't safe to be outside, and she began to nervously knock on the door of the vehicle and say, “Let me in, let me in.” The woman was not afraid, just slightly nervous, not realizing how very real the danger was. Rom.3:18 There is no fear of God before their eyes. To my surprise, my father continued driving slowly along, completely ignoring her. I said, “We need to let her in,” but still he didn't stop. Luk.13:25 When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door, and ye begin to stand without, and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us; and he shall answer and say to you, I know you not whence ye are; Then I saw a huge, fierce-looking male lion (Satan) behind the vehicle on the right side. I said, “In the name of Jesus—” to pray for the woman's safety, but the Lord didn't even allow me to pray. In an instant, without warning, the lion pounced onto the woman, and there was a graphic spray of blood and body parts. It was horrific. I wailed, “Jesus!” Not just for the gore I had just seen, but because I knew that no repentance had happened. Mercy had run out, and there was not so much as a second for her to repent. And now it was too late. Pro.6:15 Therefore shall his calamity come suddenly; On a sudden shall he be broken, and that without remedy. End of dream. I knew the Lord was speaking of this woman as a group of people. What I saw was His recompense that is before Him. Their time had run out. This is a warning, but the apostates this woman represents must confess their sins and run to the Lord now, or they won't escape. Let's continue to pray and believe for them. Apostates Neglect Their Spiritual Man Sam Paguaga - 12/10/2012 (David's notes in red) In a dream, I was in a large house with a lot of people around. There seemed to be a lot of rooms and a lot of stuff going on. People were talking and hanging around and doing their own business. I saw my mother (representing the apostate Church we were born from). (In reality, her name is Iris. (Which means “rainbow” in Greek. This could represent grace God wants to give to the Church of all nations.) She had a small child with her who seemed like a kid from a third-world country. He was very dark-skinned (representing her spiritual man in darkness), like from India, wearing worn-out clothes (not putting on the works of Christ). He seemed to be sick, and she didn't seem to be tending to him. (Representing the fruit of the apostate church's spiritual man, which they are not feeding and clothing.) If I had to say, he looked around three years old. (The fruit of their spiritual man is very immature.) My mother then gave him to me. (Those who minister to the mother Church will care for and feed their spiritual man.) I took him to a room, like a toddler room, where I was going to clean him up and put new clothes on him. (Cleanse him from sin and dress him up in the works of Jesus.) When I changed his shirt, I noticed what looked like a tumor on the side of his face by his right ear. (His hearing is under the curse. He hasn't heard truth.) Without a thought, I placed my hand over it and began to pray, “Dear Heavenly Father, in the name of Jesus, heal him, heal his sickness, in the name of Jesus. Be healed. Be well. Thank You, Lord. God, thank You”. As I began to say, “thank You”, I felt under my hand something like bones cracking. (the bones of the inner ear, representing spiritual hearing) They were going back in place and the tumor was diminishing. (“Faith cometh of hearing and hearing by the Word”.) I continued to thank God. I knew he was being healed, so I left my hand over his face until I was sure he was all healed. (Their face needs healing: 2Co.3:18 But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit.) I noticed one of my sons was there looking. (My firstborn, whose name is Eliasaph (“God has increased or added”). We call him Eli.) I told him, “Look. God healed him”. Then, full of gladness for the boy, I grabbed the little boy's hand and walked him over to where my mother was. She was sitting in some type of large living room, on some couches. She was talking to somebody else and some other people. I was trying to get her attention and said, “Look. He's healed! Look, Mom. He's healed”. (They must believe the Gospel that their spiritual man is healed in Jesus' name.) But she just kept talking to the other person, like I wasn't even there. I tried one more time. “Look, Mom. Look. He's healed”. I'm not sure what happened to the little boy by that point. But my gladness turned to rage because she (as the apostate Church) was ignoring the work God had done. (In the natural, my mom is not at all like that. She is very caring and loving. And I have a good relationship with my mother and father. The mother in the dream is like the apostate church, not looking for God's will and rejecting God's spiritual work, in pursuit of earthly things and the entertainment of followers for money. Why did I want my mother to see? The latter rain will be rejected by the apostate church because it will lack the earthly treasures they value, but true treasure is in Heaven.) I picked up a wooden chair that was close by and threw it on the floor and it smashed. (The harlot church cannot rest from their own works, just as was seen in the example of the Jews in the Gospels and Acts. Heb.4:3 For we who have believed do enter into that rest; even as he hath said, As I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest: although the works were finished from the foundation of the world.). Everyone looked. I felt like I was furious. I started walking down the hall. I picked up another chair and threw it toward them. I wasn't trying to hit them, but it landed right in front of them. (So they could see that they had no rest from the curse and sin through unbelief. Jesus crashed the money changers party for the zeal of God's house.) Then I started going up the stairs to the second floor, as I smashed another chair. (They are not graduating from kindergarten to higher levels.) Then I woke up. I wondered to myself why I had gotten so upset. I'm really not the kind to lose control in anger and in a fit of rage. (This was an expression of God's rage that the apostates care only for the world and not for their own souls or those of others. Heb.2:3 how shall we escape, if we neglect so great a salvation? which having at the first been spoken through the Lord, was confirmed unto us by them that heard. Rev.3:16 So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.) Devastation of Charismatic Christianity P. O. - 08/03/2009 (David's notes in red) In a dream, a man is walking the earth as if he is checking things. He comes upon a scene of violent disarray. (The best way to describe this scene is that it puts one in mind of how a car accident would look, but there's no car.) It's his bride, his wife. She's dead, but beautiful and at peace. Her luggage, apparel, and various items are in disarray around her. Many of these items are marked “The Enrique Hotel”. Also, she is dressed in a way that is reminiscent of the time the historians called “The Roaring Twenties” (which occurred right before the Great Depression). Then I heard a voice that said, “She's been lied to every day, every step of her life”. (Even though they will enter the Kingdom and be at peace, being lied to by false leaders will cost many Spirit-filled Christians their lives and possessions, at the hands of the violent beast. Hos.4:6 My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge...) When I woke up, I researched the name “Enrique”. It is derived from Spanish or Portuguese, meaning “Charismatic Ruler”. Another site mentioned that it is similar to the English “Henry”, which means “Home Ruler”. (The hotel represents the Church, which, according to Eph.2:19-22, is many houses built together into one Temple for God. Each individual house represents a person. The Spirit-filled people have the position of bride, even though many will not manifest this. The Charismatic leadership, typed by Judah, has gone far astray and is more guilty than the northern 10 apostate tribes because they have had the presence of God's Spirit in their midst to lead them, but have refused to follow His Word.) I also asked the Lord for something in His Word that would coordinate or connect what He was giving me. He laid on my heart a page number in my very first study Bible. When I turned to it, I discovered that He had taken me to 1 Thessalonians 2. The verse that seemed emphasized was: “For ye, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus: for ye also suffered the same things of your own countrymen even as they did of the Jews...” End of Dream. (I interpreted the top part of this dream before I saw Judea and the rest of this verse. Truly, the Charismatics have imitated the churches, rather than the Scriptures, and they will suffer the same violent attack of the Beast as the Jews did from their countrymen.) One of the reasons why I knew the dream meant something was that I would never, in the natural, dream about something named “Enrique”. I live in Indiana, and there's very little Spanish influence here. I thought this dream was meant for me personally, for the Lord to show me that I was part of the Bride, that I had died to the flesh and was now at rest in Him. I have suffered some persecution from family over the past year. As a personal dream, I was not going to pass this on to anyone. But this morning, I noticed that there is news now on the Internet, originating three days after my dream, regarding the latest Hurricane or Tropical Storm of the year. It, too, is named Enrique. Living in the Midwest, I do not follow hurricanes or keep track of what storm names are coming, so this was a total surprise. I'm not a mathematician, but for a Hoosier, English-only speaker, to dream a name that three days later hits the national news as the newest coming storm seemed to me to be 'up there' in the range of improbability, so that's why I've sat down and now typed it for you, thinking this may be for the larger body of believers. A violent storm is now coming straight for the Charismatic Church, most of which believe they will fly away and so are not preparing to escape the Beast. What is it that we should know and do to escape this Beast? The president of scripture over traditions of men. The Harlot's Fire Is Coming Apostate Church Cut Up and Cooked Like a Goose Cal Spinner - 08/07/2007 (David's notes in red) I dreamed I was in the person of the Son of Man. I was in a giant library or bookstore with many books (I.e., religious teachings) and many, many rooms. I met a beautiful woman who seemed Western. She was dressed quite modernly and was wearing makeup, gold and diamond jewelry. We began to converse, and I invited her to come with me. As we began to go, we met another woman who was dressed more Eastern in a plain white dress, with a head covering over her head. She had no jewelry or makeup, just a thin gold belt that was like a rope. She was wearing plain sandals, whereas the other woman wore stockings and high heels. It seemed we all knew each other, and I invited her to come with me as well. (This seems to contrast women of the world and their fake persona, with humble women of the Word to show who is the qualified Bride. 1Ti.2:9 In like manner, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefastness and sobriety; not with braided hair, and gold or pearls or costly raiment; 10 but (which becometh women professing godliness) through good works.) We then walked out of the library and into what seemed like a honeymoon suite of some hotel. The room had a good view of the ocean and elaborate wicker furniture. It was very beautiful and was all decorated in very pure white. There were two king-size beds side by side. I said to the women, “See, there is plenty of room; you both can stay”. They agreed, and both presented me their feet (representing their walk), which became like reeds. It seemed like reeds for making baskets, although I had an impression of water as well, like certain reeds that grow in the water. I took shears and clipped their feet off. Then the beautiful Western woman became jealous of the other woman when I gave her attention. (As the Lord will) I said to the Western woman, “You can't get away because you cannot stand on your own”. I then laid the woman with the head covering in the bed. (The sign of submission to the Lord as husband.) Then the scene suddenly shifted to a kitchen, and I was placing the other woman in the oven. She had the left arm and leg missing, and the right arm and leg were bound with a string. She was on a tray and had an apple in her mouth. She was weeping as I placed her in the oven and shut the door and turned it on to cook her like a goose, but the apple in her mouth reminded me she was a pig. (full of flesh) Then I woke up very disturbed and asked the Lord for interpretation. I am still, at the time of this writing, quite shaken by the vividness of this dream and the quickness with which the interpretation came to me. This is a terrible warning! This is the interpretation the Spirit revealed to me, although there may be more. The great hall with many rooms and the many books represents all the many doctrines of man and his religions. There were many people there partaking of the various books. The Son of Man is in the store or library with all the other doctrines of the world, but only invites some to go with Him. The two women represent the church -- those invited to wed the Lord. The woman dressed more plainly with the head covering represents the true Bride. The head covering symbolized willingness to submit to authority and headship of the bridegroom. The modern woman who was selfish and jealous and dressed in jewelry and fakeup represents the apostate church. (Who believe they are the bride.) The clipping of the feet is when we come to the Lord. We agree not to stand on our own but to be carried by the Lord. (Although both groups acknowledge they cannot stand on their own but by grace, the true Bride will be made to stand by grace because of true faith.) The cutting up represents the denominations of the apostate church that are one-sided, missing one arm and one leg. (The left side [goats] being missing will mean that through their own works they will have no power to escape and be saved. The right side [sheep] represents that they are unable to do the works or walk of the Lord, but are only bound by a string, symbolizing that they could be free if they really wanted to.) The Lord will judge them for being worldly and self-absorbed and put them in the oven Himself. They will cry out, but He won't hear them and will send them to be baked. He won't hear them because they are like pigs concerned with only themselves, rejecting His authority and headship. They will not allow Him to carry them to His bedchamber (where His seed is sown in them to bear His fruit), but instead, they will try to do things their own way, being more concerned about what the world thinks of them than the Lord. It will be grievous to them, but those who are truly the Lord's will be saved through the fiery trial that will cause them to give up their self-works of wood, hay, and stubble. 2Ti.2:19 Howbeit the firm foundation of God standeth, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his: and, Let every one that nameth the name of the Lord depart from unrighteousness. 20 Now in a great house there are not only vessels of gold and of silver, but also of wood and of earth; and some unto honor, and some unto dishonor. 21 If a man therefore purge himself from these, he shall be a vessel unto honor, sanctified, meet for the master's use, prepared unto every good work. 22 after righteousness, faith, love, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart. Those who truly are the Lord's will lose the wood, hay and stubble of their self-works and any reward they thought they would have from this, but it is here that they will be saved from themselves. 1Co.3:12 But if any man buildeth on the foundation gold, silver, costly stones, wood, hay, stubble; 13 each man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it is revealed in fire; and the fire itself shall prove each man's work of what sort it is. 14 If any man's work shall abide which he built thereon, he shall receive a reward. 15 If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as through fire.) We should all take heed with great fear and trembling and submit ourselves to the Lord's authority with all haste. The time is at hand to come out of Babylon or be destroyed by the east. The Righteous Offend the Beast and Harlot Vincent Xavier 1. I am coming to do great injury and wrong to that which is not of My Father. My nature contends with the nature of the beast. This nature of the beast is in the heart of men who have not been sanctified by My Spirit. That which has not been fully sanctified remains an offense to me and I will be an offense to it! Yes, I will offend the Beast in this hour! I will release a shockwave of glorious power that will cause the Beast to reel to and fro like a drunken man! The nature of the Beast has cleverly entrapped MY people and has caused them to err in their hearts concerning what is acceptable to My Father. A learned practice of what is acceptable to men has been the standard by which men have been judged, yet that standard shall be fully violated in this DAY. Religious leaders have led My people into complacency and have lulled them to sleep with their fairytales and ideas that originate in their own minds. Their words are not My words for their words carry no sanctifying power. Their words carry no influence in the realms of darkness to the liberating of the captives. The nature of the Beast is empowered by sin and the message of the religious leaders has not emancipated the conscience of those who believe in me. It is the SIN CONSCIENCE that must be dealt with. It is the SIN ISSUE that must be fully realized as the open door to Satanic power in the souls of those who believe. My nature will make war with the Beast within the soul of men and will execute judgment upon the Beast. Be prepared, for many shall be offended in the last days and it will be I Who is causing the offense! Those who are righteous indeed will be an offense to those who are religious indeed. 2. I am going to exceed all bounds of decency and reasonableness. Follow My life! Look at me! Was I approved and acceptable to the approved social order of My day? Was I subject to those who were in control of the day? Was the Roman government My head? Were the religious leaders of Judaism My head? NO! My only supreme was My Father and I always did what My Father told me to do, even at the risk of upsetting the standard order of the times. Yes, it was I who entered into the temple and turned over the tables of the moneychangers. This was an acceptable practice for those Jews at that time, but their practices were not ordained of My Father. It was I who caused outrage in the hearts of those who would take me to the cliff to throw me down the mountain! It was I who stirred the crowds into chaos and confusion, causing divisions among men! It was I who upset the religious mindset of the day when healing on the Sabbath and doing good to those who were in need. It was I who caused offense in the hearts of the hypocrites! Yes, it was I, and I say unto you that I am going to upset the world again, and I am going to turn it upside down. I am going to shake the world of all its social graces and practices that are an offense and abomination to My Father. Two thousand years ago, I sent a people into the world and they, according to My will, TURNED THE WORLD UPSIDE DOWN! So it is on this, the THIRD DAY, that I am going to release My people once again from the caves of obscurity who have hid from the religious leaders of this Day and bring them out into the open, and oh what an offense they shall be to all the social orders men have labored so hard to erect and put in place. Consider My servant David and the men who went out to meet him in the caves of Adullam. These were not the kind of men who were subjected to the religious order of Saul, and neither will these be those I release in this hour. Surely I say to you that they will enter into your places of worship and contend with all that is not of My Father. They will be an offense to many and will reveal the hate and control in the hearts of the leaders who have refused to LET MY PEOPLE GO! Consider My servant Joseph. He was thrown into prison by his OLDER brothers. Surely he shall arise in the earth having great authority and will rule over those older brothers in the days to come. Yes, those who were an insult to them because of their pride and jealousy will bow their knees to them and will acknowledge their authority and will know of a truth that I have loved them with an everlasting love from before the eons of time, or else they shall perish without a word. Let it be known that I AM an offense to the world, for the world is surely an offense to me! I have watched the world and have watched My people in the world and those who claim to be Mine. I ask, what have you learned since you believed? Have you not yet departed from that which is an offense to me? Have you not read that friendship with the world makes you an enemy of Mine? You have not yet COME OUT OF HER MY PEOPLE! Therefore, you shall incur judgment against yourselves for I have determined to destroy Babylon! I am not speaking of the Babylon in the Middle East, but the Babylon in the middle of your heart! I am speaking to your Babylonian ways and mindsets! When I walked upon the earth, I did not call attention to the Roman authorities but to the condition of men's hearts! Yes, I am coming to topple that which appears before men as most religious. That which is so acceptable today is an abomination to me! That which has become the social order of the day, the acceptable form of worship, is coming to an end! For I have determined to FINISH the house that has been in building for two thousand years. Yes, out of the ashes will arise a new building, complete and perfect, a people who are in the exact image of My Father! I am not concerned with social graces and what is acceptable to men; I am only concerned with that which belongs to my Father! How will I come? I will come to you in the form of men and women! I will come to you with great power and anointing when once I release My reserved ones. I come! I come in them to stand before the multitudes in order that I may bring truth to My temple! I come! Surely I come! 3. My presence will be very shocking and offensive in this DAY. A heavy blow will come to the earth! For heaven has witnessed the actions of men in the earth and their actions have been weighed in the balance. I will cause to stagger all nations by the news they shall hear. What men have deemed as “good taste” shall surely become bitter by what I am about to do. Indeed, that which was once approved of men and acceptable in the eyes of the admirers shall become a revolting offense, even disgusting. My people, who are seated with Me in heavenly places, are prepared to appear in the earth before the eyes of men. These shall be the reason for the “shock syndrome” that will come. For that which was once accepted in My house by men shall be seen as a detestable thing in comparison to the holiness that My sanctified ones shall walk in. Their presence shall reveal the disgusting abomination that has been hidden in the hearts of men while doing many outward works of righteousness. I say that those works of outward righteousness shall be seen for what they truly are, mere religious robes covering the filth of an unsanctified life. My pure presence within My beloved ones shall cause the heart to fail in those who are unrepentant. 4. My appearing shall be violent in action and disposition. When I come, I will come with a violent disposition that will cause men to pale and pine away. For I will take the nations by violence, and I will destroy that which is false with a strong overthrow. How will I come? I will appear through My servants, the prophets! Their words shall be as a hammer violently breaking in pieces that which is an abomination to My Father. A destroying fire shall come out of their mouths to the burning up of all chaff in the hearts of men! There will be no arrogance when they come. Those who would oppose their words will come under swift judgment. For these are My battle axes, My weapons of war, who have been reserved for a time such as this, yet it is I who am working in them beyond their own understanding! They have yielded to My will and have surrendered their lives so that I may live in and through them. It will be I who am contended with by those who would oppose them. I have said that violent men take the Kingdom by force, and it will be at this time that the Kingdom shall be taken by those full of divine energy and power. Satan shall be cast out of the heavenlies and thrust down into the pit. I am speaking to the hearts of men. For it is within the heart that all evil comes. Not outwardly in the skies above but within the very soul of man that Satan has taken his seat along with the Beast and the false prophet. These evil spirits have held the dominion, but shall now come under a violent blow that shall shake them from their high places in order to release My Kingdom in the hearts of those who believe. 5. Because I am going to exceed all bounds of right, morality, and decency known to man, I will be INTOLERABLE to the modern religious and social leaders of this day. My people, hear me! What has been erected as decent, moral, and acceptable to men is truly an abomination to me. You live in a time where men call evil good, good evil, bitter sweet and sweet bitter. It is a DAY wherein light is called darkness and darkness is called light. Because of these conditions, I will come as an INTOLERABLE force of emptying magnitude. I will so completely overturn that which is hypocritical that nothing will remain. Understand that what I have tolerated for so long will no longer be tolerated. In My intolerance, I will lead a militia of chosen warriors through whom I will shake the earth! Many will find My ways intolerable from behind the pulpit in these moments of time, for many in the congregation shall be offended because of the righteousness that flows from the minister's lips. Yes, I have ministers, Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Teachers and Pastors who have not bowed the knee to the image of Baal, who will demonstrate My glorious power in these days. To them shall many flock. For the true shall know My voice in and through them and will know them by their fruits. Man has played with power greater than himself and by so doing has opened the gate to a great flood of evil. But no man has ever witnessed the magnitude of My intolerance as what shall be witnessed in these days. My presence will become unbearable to the wicked. My words will be too severe for the hypocrites! I will appear as a cruel one to those who have been cruel! Many will not be able to bear with me. Yet to My beloved shall I appear with an intolerable love and grace! Yes, many will not be able to bear My love, mercy and grace that I will bestow upon them, and these shall be swept away in rapturous moments in My glory. These shall be overwhelmed with My love and blessings! Many great and wonderful blessings shall abound to their account, and their inheritance shall be released unto them. These are those who have come to maturity and have grown up beyond the mere religious practices of many. These are My sons and daughters who will set the creation free, even as I did when I walked upon the earth. He came as a Lamb but comes as a Lion!
The land may have ben scourged by a locust swarm but punishment will not last, the prophet Joel says.God will drive the hordes or insects into the Dead Sea and wine will flow from Israel's mountains.The shepherd Amos then takes the prophet's baton and immediately launches into a withering diatribe against Israel's neighbours.Woe abounds.Written and produced by Chas BayfieldMusic by Michael Auld and Jon Hawkins MusicOriginal cover art by Lisa GoffE: contact@whollybuyable.comX: Wholly Buyable Podcast
Today's Bible Verse: "For when I preach the gospel, I cannot boast, since I am compelled to preach. Woe to me if I do not preach the gospel!" — 1 Corinthians 9:16 1 Corinthians 9:16 reveals Paul's deep sense of calling and responsibility to share the gospel. For Paul, preaching was not simply a career, personal achievement, or opportunity for recognition. He understood that God had entrusted him with the message of Jesus, and he felt compelled to faithfully share it. This verse challenges us to think about what God has entrusted to each of us. We may not all be called to preach from a platform, but every believer has opportunities to reflect Christ and share the hope of the gospel through our words, actions, relationships, and everyday conversations. Want to listen without ads? Become a BibleStudyTools.com PLUS Member today: https://www.biblestudytools.com/subscribe/ Looking for a peaceful way to end your day? Listen to "Your Nightly Scripture" to end your day with God's word MEET YOUR HOST: Dr. Kyle Norman at https://www.lifeaudio.com/your-daily-bible-verse/ The Reverend Dr. Kyle Norman is the Rector of St. Paul’s Cathedral, located in Kamloops BC, Canada. He holds a doctorate in Spiritual formation and is a sought-after writer, speaker, and retreat leader. His writing can be found at Christianity.com, crosswalk.com, ibelieve.com, Renovare Canada, and many others. Rev. Norman has 20 years of pastoral experience, and his ministry focuses on helping people overcome times of spiritual discouragement.Find more from Rev. Norman at revkylenorman.ca Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.
Please join us as Pastor Matt Irving returns to James and warns us "Woe to the Rich" James 5:1-6
Preaching Point: Don't automatically assume you would respond to Jesus any differently than the Scribes and Pharisees; instead, examine how you are responding to him today, before it's too late.Text: Matthew 23: 29-36 (ESV) 29 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and decorate the monuments of the righteous, 30 saying, ‘If we had lived in the days of our fathers, we would not have taken part with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.' 31 Thus you witness against yourselves that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. 32 Fill up, then, the measure of your fathers. 33 You serpents, you brood of vipers, how are you to escape being sentenced to hell? 34 Therefore I send you prophets and wise men and scribes, some of whom you will kill and crucify, and some you will flog in your synagogues and persecute from town to town, 35 so that on you may come all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. 36 Truly, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generation.
https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/tmb-ehv/03-0807db.mp3 Listen to Bible reading Through My Bible Yr 03 – August 07 Hosea 5:15 – 8:14 Hosea 5 15 I will go. I will return to my place until they admit their guilt and seek my face. In their distress they will earnestly seek me. Israel's Need to Return to the Lord 15 Come, let us return to the Lord. For he has torn us to pieces, but he will heal us. He has struck us, but he will bandage our wounds. 2 After two days he will revive us. On the third day he will raise us up, so that we may live in his presence. 3 Let us acknowledge the Lord. Let us pursue knowledge of the Lord. As surely as the sun rises, the Lord will appear. He will come to us like a heavy rain, like the spring rain that waters the earth. God's Grief Over Israel's Impenitence 4 What am I going to do with you, Ephraim? What am I going to do with you, Judah? For your faithfulness [1] is like a morning mist, like early dew that disappears. 5 That is why I cut them to pieces by means of the prophets. I killed them with the words of my mouth. The judgments against you go forth like the light. 6 For I desire mercy, [2] and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God, rather than burnt offerings. 7 Like Adam, [3] they have broken the covenant. They acted treacherously against me there. 8 Gilead is a city of evildoers, stained with bloody footprints. 9 As gangs of robbers wait to ambush a man, so do bands of priests. They commit murder on the road to Shechem. They have committed shameful crimes. 10 In the house of Israel I have seen a horrible thing. Ephraim practices sexual immorality there. Israel defiles itself. 11 Judah, also for you, a harvest has been appointed, when I restore the fortunes of my people. [4] Israel's Corruption 7 Whenever I want to heal Israel, the guilt of Ephraim is uncovered, and the evil deeds of Samaria are exposed, because they deal dishonestly. Thieves come inside, and bandits raid outside. 2 In their hearts Ephraim does not realize that I remember all their wickedness. Now their deeds are all around them. They are in front of my face. 3 The people of Ephraim make the king glad with their wickedness. They make their officials happy with their lies. 4 They are all adulterers, burning like an oven. The baker does not need to stoke the fire from the time the dough is kneaded until it is leavened. 5 On the day [5] of our [6] king, the officials became sick from the intoxicating wine. He reaches out his hand to the blasphemers. 6 Indeed, their hearts are like an oven. They approach him, while plotting against him. Their anger sleeps all night, but in the morning it burns like a blazing fire. 7 They are all hot as an oven. They devour their rulers. All their kings have fallen. Not one of them calls on me. 8 Ephraim mixes itself with the nations. Ephraim is a flatbread not turned over. 9 Strangers have devoured his strength, but he does not realize it. There are gray hairs on his head, but he does not realize it. 10 The arrogance of Israel testifies against him, yet they have not returned to the Lord their God, and they have not sought him, despite all this. Israel's Instability 11 Ephraim is like a gullible dove, without sense. They call to Egypt. Then they appeal to Assyria. 12 When they go out, I will spread my net over them. I will bring them down like birds from the sky. I will discipline them, on the basis of the report about their assembly. [7] 13 Woe to them, because they have strayed from me! Destruction comes upon them, because they have rebelled against me! I want to redeem them, but they speak lies against me. 14 They do not cry out to me with their hearts, but they howl on their beds. They gather together [8] for grain and new wine. They turn away from me. 15 Though I trained and strengthened their arms, they plot evil against me. 16 They return, but not upward. [9] They are like an unreliable bow. Their officials will fall by the sword because of their angry tongues. Because of this, they will be ridiculed in the land of Egypt. The Lord's Anger Burns Against Israel 8 Raise a ram's horn to your lips! A vulture is circling over [10] the Lord's house, because they have broken my covenant and rebelled against my law. 2 Israel cries out to me, “My God, we acknowledge [11] you!” 3 But, in fact, Israel has rejected what is good. An enemy will pursue him. 4 They set up kings, but not with my approval. They installed officials, but I did not choose [12] them. From their silver and their gold they made idols for themselves, so they will be cut off. 5 I reject [13] your calf idol, Samaria! My anger burns against these people! How long will they be incapable of innocence? 6 That thing sitting there is from Israel! A craftsman made it, so it is not God. Certainly that calf of Samaria will be smashed to pieces! 7 Because they sow the wind, they will reap the whirlwind. The standing grain forms no heads, so it will yield no flour. Even if it would yield flour, foreigners would swallow it up. 8 Israel is swallowed up. Now among the nations they are like a pot no one wants. 9 For they have gone up to Assyria, like a wild donkey all by itself. Ephraim has hired lovers. 10 Even though they hire lovers among the nations, I will now gather them together. They will begin to suffer in a little while, because of oppression by a king with many officials. 11 Ephraim has multiplied his altars for sin offerings, but for him they became altars for sinning. 12 Though I wrote many teachings from my law for them, they regarded them as strange. 13 They offer sacrifices to me just to get the meat. [14] They sacrifice flesh and eat it, but the Lord is not pleased with them. Now he will remember their guilt and punish their sins. They will return to Egypt. 14 Israel has forgotten its Maker and built palaces. [15] Judah has multiplied its fortified cities, but I will send fire on its cities, which will devour its citadels. Footnotes Hosea 6:4 Or mercy Hosea 6:6 Or faithfulness Hosea 6:7 Or at Adam. We are aware of no act of covenant breaking at the city of Adam. Hosea 6:11 Or though I would rather restore my people from captivity. Some translations join this line with verse 7:1. Hosea 7:5 The birthday or the coronation day Hosea 7:5 The Targum reads their. Hosea 7:12 Or I will discipline them when I hear them flocking together. The meaning of the line is uncertain. Hosea 7:14 Or they cut themselves, a reference to heathen religious practices Hosea 7:16 Or not for the better. The translation above is literal. Many translations suggest the emendations return to the Most High or turn to Baal. Hosea 8:1 Or an eagle is about to swoop down on Hosea 8:2 Or know Hosea 8:4 Literally know Hosea 8:5 The Hebrew text reads he rejects. Ancient versions read reject! Sudden shifts of person are not unusual in Hosea. Hosea 8:13 The meaning of this line is uncertain. Hosea 8:14 Or temples The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved.
The word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: ‘This is what the Sovereign Lord says: Woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally.
Nahum 1:15; 2:2; 3:1-3, 6-7 (Woe to the city of blood) Sirach 2:7-11(You who fear the Lord, trust, hope, love)
It costs one hundred thousand United States Dollars.MinnMax Trivia TowerStephen's Splatoon Raiders streamDiscussed: MinnMax Trivia Tower, the price we pay for losing trivia, Beast of Reincarnation, Game Freak's games that aren't Pokémon, Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok, the post game of Splatoon Raiders, Woe of the Year, Slay the Spire 2, squishy amiibos, August games we're excited aboutFind us everywhere: https://intothecast.onlineBuy some merch, if you'd like: https://shop.intothecast.onlineJoin the Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/intothecast---Follow Stephen Hilger: https://bsky.app/profile/stephenhilger.bsky.socialFollow Brendon Bigley: https://bsky.app/profile/bb.wavelengths.onlineProduced by AJ Fillari: https://bsky.app/profile/ajfillari.bsky.social---Season 8 cover art by Scout Wilkinson: https://scoutwilkinson.myportfolio.com/Theme song by Will LaPorte: https://ghostdown.online/---Timecodes:(00:00) - Intro (00:49) - Check out our ep of Trivia Tower! (05:04) - Beast of Reincarnation | A new video game from Game Freak! (29:16) - Break (29:17) - Tiding to Kat from Kat's family! (30:03) - Granblue Fantasy: Relink - Endless Ragnarok | Brendon's new personality (47:28) - SPOILERS FOR SPLATOON RAIDERS INCOMING (47:55) - Break (47:56) - Splatoon Raiders | We've earned our stripes (01:05:50) - Final Drill (Vs. The Salmonarch) - Deep Cut Version by Toshiyuki Sudo, Asuka Hayazaik, Chisaki Hosaka, Reika Nakai, Tsukasa Usui | Splatoon Raiders OST (01:06:04) - SPOILERS FOR SPLATOON RAIDERS (01:24:05) - Wrapping up ---Thanks to all of our amazing patrons, including our Eternal Gratitude members:Michael CBrian MSuperThisWayNick GStarfallrondoSusan H0nlygh0stsVincent JPatrick KEd ASamantha DNorth HeroSam HSnzznGregory Mark SCmndr BiscuiticemanChristian HRydan BCaleb HArden FEye of the DuckKaleNathan EJ. H. AjoelchronoMellowMatthew BRobin LPSeekingSeakingJimmerszoey!Vinny MMattKerry KBrian MNoah DZach DChristopher TDHugo WToddChris BLukerfuffleStephen YDaniel GEric FTaran WBrendan OChris ZClayton MZach RDylan NFederico VTigerz RevengeLogan HAlan RJohn AMike LmattjanzzDavid MHeavyPixelsKaleb HTyler JCorey ZSusan HBarry TRobert RChris JBrett Allen HDan SJack SGarrett CjimiiboJohn HDirch FJim EJim WTristan LEvan BAwfulHanzomin2Aaron GJean HTodd Nred_wagonNeilPeter BJohn VvErik MRedmage77Joshua JTony LDanny KGibson GKate Duncan BRichard MDaniel NSeth MJamesAndy HDemoEmmaLyn ECorey TCaleb WJake LJesse WMike TCodesMatt BWesleymebezacAlex LSergio LninjadeathdogRory BA42PoundMooseRobert MMichael WAndrewthis_JUSTINRyan O14.3 billion yearsBrendan KMegan BSecretAgentKoalaNoah OArcturusAndrew WhepaheChase ALoveDiesNick QChris MRBKaren HAdam FScott HAlexander SMatt HMurrayDavid PJason KMicah OKamrin HAndrew DKyle SPhilip N ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★
Prepare for Tribulation Harvest (2) (audio) David Eells - 8/5/26 Raging Battle in the Second Heaven Shelly Lynch - 04/20/2013 (David's notes in red) This was given to me in answer to Paul's prayer that we would be given night visions: I woke up at 5:00 AM and prayed for the brethren and much in the Spirit. Then I was caught up in the Spirit to the second heaven. I saw and heard a 'man' to the left, whom I knew was Satan, as he railed and reviled and verbally slandered continuously. I did not listen to the words, but I knew they were vile and every form of violent anger, hatred, and slanderous accusations. As I was caught up to the second heaven, there was a strong flash of lightning and the ground shook violently, and the heavens thundered, and I could hear hail falling and pounding the ground violently. I thought it was an earthquake happening. I felt fear and dark oppression so much that it was almost suffocating. I tried to speak, but I could not. I thought the words, 'the blood of Jesus', but I could not speak them. Finally, I sobbed out the words, “the blood of Jesus!” and I was back in my bed in my room, where it was calm and still. (Claiming the deliverance of the sacrifice of Jesus is power to save.) I was shocked. I looked at the clock, and it was 6:00 AM. I was surprised there wasn't an earthquake, as it seemed so real. I prayed, asking the Lord about this because I had asked the Father for a strong anointing of the latter rain to fall on the Man-child and then to the Bride. I was not prepared for what happened. He said, “I wanted you to have a glimpse of the battle raging in the heavenly realms”. I am surprised it is a battle of words, and I realize even more how powerful the blood of Jesus is and the Word of God is to save us! I also realize how important it is that we intercede more in prayer, as our words are powerful against the battle that is raging in the heavenly realms. I know that we have an enemy who is intent on our destruction and rails against us continuously! Yet, “greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world”. I was kept safe in my Savior's arms! Praise the Lord! (Rev.12:7) And there was war in heaven: Michael and his angels [going forth] to war with the dragon; and the dragon warred and his angels; (8) And they prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in heaven. (9) And the great dragon was cast down, the old serpent, he that is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world; he was cast down to the earth, and his angels were cast down with him. (10) And I heard a great voice in heaven, saying, Now is come the salvation, and the power, and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, who accuseth them before our God day and night. (11) And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death. (12) Therefore rejoice, O heavens, and ye that dwell in them. Woe for the earth and for the sea: because the devil is gone down unto you, having great wrath, knowing that he hath but a short time. (13) And when the dragon saw that he was cast down to the earth, he persecuted the woman that brought forth the man [child]. (14) And there were given to the woman the two wings of the great eagle, that she might fly into the wilderness unto her place, where she is nourished for a time, and times, and half a time, from the face of the serpent. (Notice the dragon could not make war on the Man-child but turned on the woman or little ones just before she was saved from the serpent in the wilderness tribulation.) After the house-cleansing from the apostates, we will begin to see the fruit of revival. We will be prepared as a Bride joined to her Man-child. The flow of the Spirit will come. We will be safe to begin to receive the little ones. You Can Witness: Jesus Lives in You G.W.- 12/06/2008 (David's notes in red) Does the flesh attack your mind when you try to witness to others? I had a dream where I realized that I was right in the middle of a war with people being held captive at gunpoint all over the place. I could only focus on one guy who looked like an African soldier from the Congo. (This is your flesh, the old, sinful man of darkness.) I began to try to speak to help the people and persuade the soldier, but he would get angry and would shoot me in the face with his gun. (This attack against your face is to deface you to yourself. This is what the flesh does when you want to witness to someone.) I could even sense the bullets hitting my flesh, and I wondered why it didn't hurt or even kill me. In my mind, however, I began to think that it was about to do enough damage to kill me. (Don't listen to the old man, and the Lord will give you strength and wisdom.) After about two or three times of this, I found myself with the captives. (The demons want you captive to himself.) It was like we were in a Bible study, and I could tell that they wanted to hear some teaching of the Bible. Before I started talking, the thought came: “I need to have grace but need to season it with salt” (Col.4:6) Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer each one). I then thought and reasoned, “These people had been through too much; they needed only grace.” I began to preach to the people (2Co.9:8) And God is able to make all grace abound unto you; that ye, having always all sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work, but it wouldn't flow out. (This is probably because of the attacks of demons through the flesh [bullets]). These verses and advice are first of all meant for you and only then for others.) I felt like people were trying to talk about their doctrines, which I knew were wrong and the Bible study began to be disruptive. (I work in a halfway house with recovering alcoholics, drug addicts, etc.) (Yes, these people need grace to overcome bondage, not arguing over doctrines, which is a trick of the devil sometimes to destroy the word they need.) As I kept teaching, the people began to fall asleep. I then tried to pick up the huge mess they had made to gain favor with the people who had held them captive. (Pleasing the flesh makes a mess of our lives.) I then looked in a mirror and all I could see were all these bullet holes where the African man had shot me. (Looking at the damage the old man has done to the image of how we perceive ourselves is hindering many people's ministry. Look away from past failures and accept your perfection in Christ. (Php.3:13) Brethren, I could not myself yet to have laid hold: but one thing [I do], forgetting the things which are behind, and stretching forward to the things which are before, (14) I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. (15) Let us therefore, as many as are perfect, be thus minded: and if in anything ye are otherwise minded, this also shall God reveal unto you. (2Cor.5:17) Wherefore if any man is in Christ, [he is] a new creature: the old things are passed away; behold, they are become new. See Jesus in you, and all that implies, and the grace and power will come from Him. (2 Cor.3:18) But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. (Php.4:13) I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me.) Tribulation Surprise Mark Fritts - 11/28/2005 (David's notes in red) I had a dream last night, which I thought may be showing me the surprise of the tribulation appearing suddenly to unaware Christians. I was on a small boat on a river, being shown the sights along the river by a tour guide, I believe. (Representing other Christians and me, casually just enjoying life.) Suddenly, I noticed that the back of the boat where I sat began to fill up with water. In a matter of seconds, the boat had sunk, and we were all swimming for shore (it was like sudden tribulation). I found myself living in an unfamiliar place and felt like I was being watched by others for being a believer in Christ. The next thing I saw was that I was in jail and had a device put around my neck like a collar, and also something was put into my ears, like headphones, but I could not take any of it off. (Christians in bondage to the enemy by influencing their hearing. Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice.”) Next, I found myself in a room in a government building with others. We were being shown new surveillance equipment that they were going to put on us if we said we were Christians. (Increasingly, our electronics pick up keywords to spy on us.) I told them that I was a believer in Christ. The next thing I can remember is that the government or those in charge said that they were taking us Christians (the ones wearing surveillance equipment) on a cruise. Many of us were excited, but I knew we were going on a death cruise. A few miles out, I noticed we were being carried on a troop mover boat like the ones that drop soldiers off on a beach. I also noticed that our driver was using surveillance equipment. I believed he was working for the government and was evil. We suddenly came up to this island, which had huge cargo containers containing many bags full of something. One of the bags opened up, and the contents fell out. What fell out scared many, including me, even though I knew what was in them. The bags that fell into the water had heads inside. (Many will be beheaded for the testimony they have in Christ.) (A painless way to enter fully into the Kingdom, which was not accomplished before this time.) (In light of the fact that our government is taking its prisoners offshore in order to torture confessions out of them, this is a very real possibility.) Last Outpouring & Gathering Amos Scaggs - 02/01/2011 (David's notes in red) I kept sensing, 'Don't go to sleep; something great is about to happen'. Then this: In a dream, I was working for a very wealthy individual (God) who owned a place on top of a mountain (the mountain of God). We were building platforms over corrals, from which you could see forever, stocking up on a large quantity of medical supplies (for unbelievers), and rounding up cattle in the surrounding fields and hills. (Cattle could represent the beastly Christians who have partaken of grass or fleshly teachings. Peter said, “All flesh is as grass.”) (Mal.4:2) But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall. (Representing bringing in the harvest or revival and treating the spiritually sick. Bringing them into the presence of God on spiritual Mount Zion.) There were two moderate rain showers during the roundup, but the latter rain turned out to be such an outpouring that we had to run for shelter. The three of us seemed to be on horseback (resting on the subdued flesh) when the rain turned into a downpour. However, when we ran up the mountain for shelter, we were on foot. The mountain was extremely steep and difficult to climb; the strongest one ran straight up the steep part, but the other two circled around a slower, easier elevation and all met at the top. (We need to visit the Lord for strength and guidance.) (The mountain of the Kingdom of God will be easily taken by those filled with the latter rain. On top of the mountain is His temple and presence.) As the day cleared, we were talking to the owner, who instructed us to go again to gather in the roundup. We were working on a very small marble table with a small hole that you couldn't see, but you knew it was there. We said, “You fix the hole in it, and we will go”, and he said, “I will take care of that”. (God will fix the hole in the table of your heart so the Word will never leak out again. Man can preach the Gospel, but God can cure.) So our guide and the two of us went to round up the cattle of the largest roundup ever with a renewed strength. (God's provision is being stolen by the curse and the devourer, which is normal to most, but by the grace of God through the latter rain, we will see things last, and the blessing will not be wasted. The largest ingathering harvest of the saints by far is coming.) I saw the globe of Earth sectioned off in four pieces, like cutting a pie --north to south and west to east. (After the last great roundup will come the greatest division of the earth and the greatest wars that have ever been, at the time of “the great and terrible Day of the Lord”. This is when God judges the Beast and Harlot for their treatment of the saints.) A Great and Fast-Growing Harvest M.L. - 03/03/2013 (David's notes in red) This is a dream where I am planting seeds in a flat and dry area. I wore a long, light-colored dress and a head covering of the same material. The sleeves were long but rolled up, so even though the day was quite warm, I was comfortable. I had a sling-type pouch that was put on over the head, resting on the shoulder, across the front. It very much reminded me of the front sling that some women use for their newborn. The pouch was full of seed as I began the planting. (Full of the Word of God.) Now the soil was sandy and different from what I would normally think it would be for planting. I saw the soil blow in the wind in the distance but gently, not like a sandstorm but peaceful. There were acres of flat land to be planted. (The land represents the dry hearts of the people of this world. The much land to be planted speaks of the beginning of the planting season or tribulation to come.) I bent over at the waist, and my bare feet were on each side of a long row that had already been prepared for the seed I was planting. Then I would gently cover the seed with the tips of my fingers. I didn't need to water, as it was somehow watered after I had covered it. (The seed of the Word is also the washing of the water of the Word.) There was a knowing that I should not look back, but just keep focused on the row. (Sow your seed and walk by faith and not sight.) Then there was a side view of the row where I could see a progression of growth from the one I had just planted, which was about to break through the sand, and the first one I planted, which was about five feet tall. (There will be much fruit and many will grow very fast by grace.) As I looked at this view, a sense of accomplishment and joy came over me. (1Co.3:6) I planted, Apollos watered; but God gave the increase. (7) So then neither is he that planteth anything, neither he that watereth; but God that giveth the increase. (8) Now he that planteth and he that watereth are one: but each shall receive his own reward according to his own labor. In this dream, there were no other trees, except those that were in the distance, far from me. Also, I was alone. I saw no other person, yet I knew that I was never really alone. Somehow, my seed never ran out, and the seeds were then watered as they needed to be. And I don't remember ever being thirsty; I was also being watered. (These seeds are sown in the hearts of men, like the parable of the sower in Matthew 13.) Eat with the Mature and Bear Fruit K.H. - 05/17/2007 (David's notes in red) In a dream, I was visiting my grandparents one afternoon because they were going to take me to dinner. Before I got to their house, I started feeling a little strange but just brushed it off. When I got to their house, I began to notice that I felt like I was pregnant. There was absolutely no way for me to be pregnant, and this reality perplexed my conscious thoughts as this dream progressed. I decided to go to dinner even though I was still feeling a little off. All throughout dinner and during the ride back to their house, I kept thinking, How can they not see that I'm pregnant? The night went on, and I kept feeling more and more pregnant. Although I kept feeling more and more pregnant, one could not physically see that I was pregnant, so I believe it was spiritual. (pregnant with the seeed of Jesus, the Word) My mom came to pick me up shortly after my grandparents, and I got back to their house. When she looked at me, I could discern that somehow, she knew that I was pregnant. As we left my grandparents' house, my dream ended. The grandparents represent God and the more mature church of many years past. They were taking K.H. to feed on their food/Word that truly brings forth Christ. From them, she brought that fruit to her mother, who represents the church of today, which needs to see the manifestation of the fruit of Christ in her. It is a virgin birth, having nothing to do with man. In this way, the grandparents are the parents of her parent, too. Her grandfather, God, is the Father of her spiritual Father, Jesus, Who sowed the seed of the Word in her heart. Her grandmother is the mother of her more immature modern-day mother. By studying the pure Word, you can eat with your grandparents. The food they serve is much more mature for growing up. Breakfast with the Lord Shelly Lynch - 04/30/2013 (David's notes in red) I went back to bed to rest this morning, as I had awakened earlier at 5:00 AM with the first dream given to me. As soon as I lay down and prayed, I was caught up in the Spirit to have breakfast with Jesus. (We can always feed at the Lord's table -- breakfast, lunch, supper, and snacks in between.) I saw Him in the kitchen, preparing scrambled eggs and bacon. I could smell the aroma of good food, and it made me hungry! I sat down at the table and we had a conversation. I asked Him to make my love for Him as strong and as passionate as His love for me. He agreed that this is the way we shall be one in the Spirit. I could hear Jesus sharing about how people keep coming to Him, wanting to follow Him. He barely spoke a word, and they came and followed Him. He was so happy to see them come! I didn't want to forget the lessons He was teaching me, but He reminded me that the Holy Spirit will bring them to my remembrance. It was glorious to eat breakfast with the Lord. He fed me with His Words. I was satisfied and felt so loved in His presence. I asked Him if we could have breakfast every morning and He replied, “Dinner too? What about lunch?” I said, “Yes, Lord!” He laughed and said, “Absolutely!” Then He added, “You can come and have a snack, too!” I laughed and felt so blessed by His Words. When I woke up, I felt pregnant and told the Lord, “I feel very pregnant”. He replied, “You are. For my seed has been sown in you!” I am waiting on the Lord to bring it to birth in me, making me into the image of my Lord. (Joh.21:12) Jesus saith unto them, Come and break your fast. And none of the disciples durst inquire of him, Who art thou? knowing that it was the Lord. … (19) Now this he spake, signifying by what manner of death he should glorify God. And when he had spoken this, he saith unto him, Follow me. Later in the day, as I was working in the garden, mulching strawberry plants with rabbit fertilizer and straw, I meditated on the breakfast conversation. I thought about how the woman is given two wings of the great eagle to go into the wilderness. I thought about how eaglets ride on the backs of the eagle that carries them while they are resting. I thought that was how it was this morning to have breakfast with Jesus. I rested while He cooked breakfast and fed me His Words. I thought about how the multitudes are drawn to Him and follow Him because they are hungry for His Words. He only, has the Words of Life that feed our hungry souls! He reminded me that is how it will be for those He gives unto me to feed them the Word, that they will be drawn by the Father to come because they see Jesus living in me! Hallelujah! Later, as I finished in the garden, He asked, “Are you ready to set the table?” I said, “Yes, Lord. How many places shall I set?” He said, “Many. For multitudes are coming!” Hallelujah! (A revival of the pure Word is coming.) I believe it is almost time for the Marriage Feast to begin! Harvest of Baby Christians G.M. - 8/18/19 (David's notes in red) As I was in the garden gathering produce this evening, the Lord reminded me of a dream I had this morning about a baby boy. (Gathering produce from God's garden is what this parable of the baby boy fruit is about. (Son.6:2) My beloved is gone down to his garden, To the beds of spices, To feed in the gardens, and to gather lilies. … (11) I went down into the garden of nuts, To see the green plants of the valley, To see whether the vine budded, And the pomegranates were in flower.) I was in a home; I don't know whose home it was, or if it was even my own. (It is the Bride's Spiritual Home to raise up children. As a type of today's corporate Man-child, Jesus, the Man-child, raised up the Bride to take care of His garden. John the Baptist, seeing the first disciples of Jesus, the Man-child, with Him said, “He that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom.”) I was walking rather quickly through the living room. As I was about to walk past a recliner, I saw a small baby boy, 2-3 months old. (The spiritual age of an incoming harvest of God's garden who have the maturity of the Baby Jesus, not the mature Jesus. We all have a measure of Jesus living in our lives. The outer man is the spiritual mother of the Baby Jesus within. (Mat.12:50) For whosoever shall do the will of my Father who is in heaven, he is my brother, and sister, and mother. (Col.1:27) to whom God was pleased to make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: When this baby Jesus is born, it begins to be manifested to the world outside. Mary, as a type of us bearing the fruit of Jesus, the Word, was told (Luk.1:45) And blessed is she that believed; for there shall be a fulfillment of the things which have been spoken to her from the Lord. What was spoken to Mary and us? That we would bear the fruit of Jesus.) I saw the Baby nearly fall off the footrest of the recliner. (Representing the fruit of the Man-child Jesus in a new harvest of immature Christians coming to the “living room” of the Bride to be raised up. The immature are in danger of falling from the rest in the troubles to come now so we must care for them. The D.S. is invading with an army of antichrist people to persecute the Church and especially the apostate leadership, their houses, and houses of worship. The Lord showed us that this is to prepare the Church to come out of Babylonish religion and follow the Man-child reformers into the wilderness tribulation, as in Rev.12.) I caught the baby before he hit the floor. (Our prayers and teachings of the Word will uphold them.) This little baby had the prettiest blue eyes. (This speaks of the Heavenly discernment of Christ growing in them). He had a bright smile as I cuddled him. (This speaks of their great joy to be finally getting their eyes opened to the truth.) My thought was to find a diaper for him as he was totally naked. (Needing the Word to be dressed up with the works of Jesus.) I just had the thought about finding a diaper, and he peed on me. I decided he was just excited and happy for me to cuddle him. No problem. (They will need love and nurturing from the Bride, led by the Man-child. Without this, many will fall away.) That was all that I saw in the dream. The baby and I were the only ones in the dream. There was no one in the recliner, so I don't know how the baby got on the footrest of the chair. (It's a foot - rest. They are learning to rest by faith from their old walk.) I asked for a verse for this dream by faith at random. (This text speaks of the people of God coming out of Babylonian religious and beast captivity because their Babylonish land had been destroyed and Cyrus had freed them to go to Zion, the Bride. There they are, the blocks of the building of the restored Kingdom of God.) I was given Isaiah 43:7; my finger was on the word, formed. Since this sentence begins in V-5 I am giving it in context 5-7. (Isa 43:5) Fear not; for I am with thee: I will bring thy seed from the east, and gather thee from the west; (6) I will say to the north, Give up; and to the south, Keep not back; bring my sons from far, and my daughters from the end of the earth; (7) every one that is called by my name, and whom I have created for my glory, whom I have formed, yea, whom I have made. (This is speaking of Israel, a type of the Church, coming out of Conquered Babylon to go to their Man-child/Bride reformer leadership in Zion. (Isa 49:12-26) Lo, these shall come from far; and, lo, these from the north and from the west; and these from the land of Sinim. (13) Sing, O heavens; and be joyful, O earth; and break forth into singing, O mountains: for Jehovah hath comforted his people, and will have compassion upon his afflicted (in Babylon). (14) But Zion said, Jehovah hath forsaken me, and the Lord hath forgotten me. (15) Can a woman forget her sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of her womb? yea, these may forget, yet will not I forget thee. (16) Behold, I have graven thee upon the palms of my hands; thy walls are continually before me. (17) Thy (Zion's) children make haste; thy destroyers and they that made thee waste (Babylon's factions) shall go forth from thee. (18) Lift up thine eyes (Zion, the Bride) round about, and behold: all these gather themselves together, and come to thee. As I live, saith Jehovah, thou shalt surely clothe thee with them all as with an ornament, and gird thyself with them, like a bride. (19) For, as for thy waste and thy desolate places, and thy land (Babylon) that hath been destroyed, surely now shalt thou be too strait for the inhabitants, and they (Babylon factions of state and Church) that swallowed thee up shall be far away. (20) The children of thy (Zion's) bereavement shall yet say in thine ears, The place is too strait for me (i.e. we gotta spiritually get out of Babylon); give place to me (In the Promised Land) that I may dwell. (21) Then shalt thou (Zion) say in thy heart, Who hath begotten me these, seeing I have been bereaved of my children, (Notice the children who come from Babylonish captivity will be different in nature from those who departed from the Bride to go there.) and am solitary, an exile, and wandering to and fro? and who hath brought up these? Behold, I was left alone; these, where were they? (In Babylon's training to show them what apostasy is.) (22) Thus saith the Lord Jehovah, Behold, I will lift up my hand to the nations, and set up my ensign to the peoples; and they shall bring thy (Zion's) sons in their bosom, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. (23) And kings (Like Cyrus / Trump and those like him) shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their faces to the earth, and lick the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am Jehovah; and they that wait for me shall not be put to shame. (24) Shall the prey (The Church) be taken from the mighty (Babylon), or the lawful captives (They were in bondage for sin) be delivered? (Delivered from Babylonish leadership) (25) But thus saith Jehovah, Even the captives of the mighty shall be taken away, and the prey of the terrible shall be delivered; for I will contend with him that contendeth with thee (Father will bring judgment against Babylon, but then He will bring them to their Red Sea.), and I will save thy children. (26) And I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh; and they shall be drunken with their own blood, (The factious Edomites in Church and State will be devastated) as with sweet wine: and all flesh shall know that I, Jehovah, am thy Saviour, and thy Redeemer, the Mighty One of Jacob. Back to the text in Isaiah 43, we find out what happens to those factious Edomites in Church and State who persecuted and killed Father's people. (Isa 43:14-21) Thus saith Jehovah, your Redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: For your sake I have sent to Babylon, (As a chastening for sins so they may repent) and I will bring down all of them as fugitives, even the Chaldeans, in the ships of their rejoicing. (15) I am Jehovah, your Holy One, the Creator of Israel, your King. (16) Thus saith Jehovah, who maketh a way in the sea, and a path in the mighty waters; (The Church is coming out of Babylon, like Israel came out of Babylon and Egypt. There is still a Red Sea for the captors.) (17) who bringeth forth the chariot and horse, the army and the mighty man (they lie down together, they shall not rise; they are extinct, they are quenched as a wick): (18) Remember ye not the former things, neither consider the things of old. (Forget the persecution complex, for the Blessing now comes) (19) Behold, I will do a new thing; now shall it spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert. (This is Father's provision out of heaven in the wilderness Tribulation) (20) The beasts of the field shall honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; because I give waters in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert, to give drink to my people, my chosen, (21) the people which I formed for myself, that they might set forth my praise. After receiving this dream, I felt it concerned household salvation for my family and the families of others. (Many of these and others will be coming out from under Babylonish Christianity and into the true Bible Kingdom because of our prayers of faith for them.) This is an awesome chapter of deliverance and redemption. He alone is our Savior, Who has already met all our needs. PTL for His faithfulness! I asked for a verse concerning the recliner and the footrest. I was given Romans 8:28; with my finger on “all things work together for good”; (in context 26-30) (Rom 8:26) And in like manner the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: (It is the Spirit of God speaking through us that brings us into the rest from our own works. (Isa.28:11) Nay, but by men of strange lips and with another tongue will he speak to this people; (12) to whom he said, This is the rest, give ye rest to him that is weary; and this is the refreshing: yet they would not hear.) So, the Spirit also helpeth our infirmity: for we know not how we should pray as we ought; but the Spirit himself maketh intercession for us with groanings that cannot be uttered; (At the beginning of the wilderness tribulation, the Spirit will be poured out like it was for Israel in the cloud.) (The Baby is in the Spirit of the Lord's hands. We must rest in Him and His ability to change hearts.) Back to (Rom 8:27) and he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. (28) And we know to them that love God all things work together for good, even to them that are called according to his purpose. (29) (a reference to the Baby?) For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son (The Baby), that he might be the firstborn among many brethren: (30) and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified. It is faith in the promises that keeps us in the rest because, as we see in our texts, Father has prophetically already delivered us and provided for us, so why worry? REST in faith. Redemption from the curse on Father's people for their sin is truly finished! In fact, God's “works were finished from the foundation of the world” (Heb.4:3) when He spoke the plan into existence. The only thing left is for the true sons of God to enter into those works by faith, believing they have received. Since the works are finished, we should believe and rest from our own works to save, heal, and deliver ourselves. (3) For we who have believed do enter into that rest. Notice it is not the one who ceases on Saturday or Sunday but the one who believes who enters the New Covenant Sabbath rest. (9) There remaineth therefore a Sabbath rest (Greek: sabbatismos, meaning “keeping of rest”) for the people of God. This constant “keeping of rest” every day, not one day a week, through the past tense promises is our spiritual Sabbath. (10) For he that is entered into his rest hath himself also rested from his works, as God did from his. This rest is to believe these past tense promises and rest from our own works to save ourselves. Our faith in each of these promises brings us into more of the rest. We should be diligent not to leave out even one of these promises for our own good. (Heb.4:1) Let us fear therefore, lest haply, a promise being left of entering into his rest, any one of you should seem to have come short of it. (2) For indeed we have had good tidings preached unto us, even as also they: but the word of hearing did not profit them, because it was not united by faith with them that heard. This is true faith and always brings the answer. Through believing the promises, we enter into rest from our own works. For a child of God to say that they believe they have received and yet continue seeking to receive, usually through worldly methods, is to be double-minded. (Jas.1:6) But let him ask in faith, nothing doubting: for he that doubteth is like the surge of the sea driven by the wind and tossed. (7) For let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord; (8) a doubleminded man, unstable in all his ways. Those who continue to work for what God has freely given believe in salvation by works. (Heb.4:10) For he that is entered into his rest, hath himself also rested from his works. (Heb.3:19) And we see that they were not able to enter in because of unbelief. Since the promises of deliverance from the curse are past tense, when we believe them, we must stop working. It is an evil heart of unbelief to not rest. God was angry with Israel because they would not believe His Word in their trial in the wilderness (Heb.3:8-10). (Heb.3:11) As I sware in my wrath, They shall not enter into my rest. (12) Take heed, brethren, lest haply there shall be in any one of you an evil heart of unbelief, in falling away from the living God. ... (14) We are become partakers of Christ (His health, holiness, and blessing) if we hold fast the beginning of our confidence firm unto the end. When we “believe we have received,” as Jesus commanded, we are put in a position of weakness because we cannot do anything to bring the desired result to pass. This weakness is rest in our wilderness experiences because there is no help from Egypt or the world. Only God's power saves in the wilderness. God says, “My power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor.12:9). If we refuse to be weak, God refuses to be strong in our behalf. Our weapon against our enemies who try to talk us out of our covenant rights is the two-edged sword of these past tense promises (Heb.4:11,12).
But woe unto you that are rich! for ye have received your consolation.Woe unto you that are full! for ye shall hunger.Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.Woe unto you, when all men shall speak well of you! for so did their fathers to the false prophets.
Preaching Point: God wants us to reject a cultural Christianity that leads to judgement and appeal to him for a genuine righteousness that cleanses us from the inside out.Text: Matthew 23: 25-28 (ESV) 25 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you clean the outside of the cup and the plate, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. 26 You blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and the plate, that the outside also may be clean. 27 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which outwardly appear beautiful, but within are full of dead people's bones and all uncleanness. 28 So you also outwardly appear righteous to others, but within you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.
Reformed Brotherhood | Sound Doctrine, Systematic Theology, and Brotherly Love
In this episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony Arsenal delivers a rich expository sermon on James 5:1–6, one of the most striking prophetic passages in the New Testament epistles. Drawing on the Jewish literary and cultural context of James's original audience — Jewish Christians scattered from Jerusalem by persecution — Tony unpacks why this text is not a blanket condemnation of wealth, but a devastating judgment oracle against those who hoard riches and oppress the vulnerable. Along the way, he explores the eschatological weight of accumulated wealth, the theology of God's omniscient justice, and the stunning comfort available to the suffering believer. The episode closes by returning to James's thesis: that trials of every kind, including economic oppression, can be counted as joy because of who God is and what He has done in Christ. Key Takeaways James is a deeply Jewish book written to a specific audience — Jewish Christians dispersed from Jerusalem by Saul's persecution, not a general audience of wealthy or Gentile believers. The prophetic "Come now" signals a judgment oracle, not a direct address — James is not rebuking wealthy members of his congregation, but pronouncing eschatological judgment on oppressive landowners using a technique common in Amos, Malachi, and Micah. Hoarding wealth is not morally neutral — it is self-condemning — The corroded gold and moth-eaten garments are not just symbols of decay; they serve as legal evidence against those who refused to use their wealth for God's glory and the good of others. Withholding wages from laborers constitutes a form of murder — In the ancient world, depriving workers of their wages could literally cost them their lives. James draws on Old Testament law to frame predatory economic exploitation as a capital sin. God sees and hears the cries of the oppressed — The wages of defrauded workers "cry out" to the Lord of Hosts, echoing the blood of Abel in Genesis 4. God's justice is not passive or delayed out of ignorance — it is certain and coming. Matthew 25 reframes Christian mercy as care for the body of Christ — The sheep-and-goats judgment is not a general humanitarian mandate, but a specific call to care for persecuted brothers and sisters — and to recognize that mistreating them is mistreating Christ Himself. Trials are counted as joy through the doctrine of imputation — Suffering is not stripped of its pain, but it can be moved from the loss ledger to the profit column because God uses adversity as the instrument of sanctification and glorification. Key Concepts The Prophetic Address: Who Is James Actually Talking To? One of the most common misreadings of James 5:1–6 is assuming James is directly rebuking wealthy Christians in his own congregation. Tony Arsenal corrects this by grounding the passage in its literary and historical context. James employs a well-established prophetic technique — seen in Amos, Malachi, and Micah — of addressing an absent party in order to pronounce judgment on them, while simultaneously comforting those who overhear the oracle. His audience is the dispersed, impoverished Jewish Christians who fled Jerusalem under Saul's persecution. There were almost certainly no wealthy landowners in the room. The "Come now, you rich" is a judgment declaration directed outward, designed to assure the suffering poor that God has seen their oppressor and will act. Far from being a proof-text for radical poverty, the passage is a pastoral comfort wrapped in prophetic fire. Corroded Gold as Legal Evidence Against the Soul James's claim that gold and silver have "corroded" is deliberately shocking — and theologically precise. Gold, uniquely among metals in the ancient world, does not corrode. By saying it has already corroded, James is not making a metallurgical claim but a moral and eschatological one. The accumulated, hoarded wealth of the oppressor has lost its purpose. It sits idle while workers starve, and in doing so it becomes evidence — a legal witness — against its owner in the court of divine justice. Tony draws a direct line between this image and Jesus's teaching in the Sermon on the Mount about treasures stored on earth being subject to moth and rust. Both brothers — Jesus and James — appear to be drawing on the same shared wisdom, likely rooted in the same household and the same mother's instruction. Unused wealth does not just fail to help others; it actively indicts its holder. Counting It All Joy: The Accounting Logic of Sanctification Tony closes the sermon by returning to James 1:2 — the thesis statement of the entire letter — and unpacking the word "count" as an accounting term, directly related to the doctrine of imputation. Just as righteousness is reckoned to the believer in justification, so suffering can be reckoned as joy in sanctification. This is not a call to pretend pain isn't real, or to perform contentment. It is a theological reframing: what belongs in the loss column of the ledger can, by faith, be moved to the profit side — not because the trial was pleasant, but because God is sovereign, good, and working all things toward the believer's conformity to the image of Christ. The oppressor means their wickedness for evil. God means it for glory. The supreme example is the cross itself — the only truly innocent man, suffering the worst evil ever committed, for the redemption of His people. Memorable Quotes The corrosion of that gold serves as evidence for the condemnation of those who are harming you — and the corrosion of this wealth is an indication of the corrosion of their very souls. He sees your pain. He sees your suffering. He sees your victories even when no one else is celebrating them. He sees you — and that should be a great source of comfort. Imputation is an accounting term. And when we count it all joy, we're taking what should be a red line in the loss ledger — what should be an expense — and we're able to move it to the profit. Not because it didn't hurt, and not because we wanted it to happen, but because our God is good enough to not rob us of the chance to be sanctified. Full Transcript Tony Arsenal: Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure in the last days. Behold, the wages of the laborers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter. You have condemned and murdered the righteous person. He does not resist you." It's always a little, uh, strange to sort of jump into the middle of a series, and, um, you know, Wes is one of the most competent preachers that I know personally, so I trust that he has given you a good and satisfying overview. Uh, but I don't feel like I would be doing my responsibility if I didn't at least touch on a few things, uh, related to the, the intro to James that I think is relevant for this particular passage in a way that maybe is not relevant for the rest of the book. So some of this I hope is review, I, I anticipate is review, but I think it's worth, uh, touching on. James, as you know, is the, the half brother of Jesus. He was the leader of the Jerusalem church, and specifically he was sort of the figurehead of the Jewish church as a whole. Um, the Jewish church was the only church for the very early part of the church's growth. There were always, uh, Gentile believers. Even in the Old Testament, there were Gentiles who trusted in the Lord of Israel and the God of Israel. They were often called God-fearers. They rarely converted all the way to Judaism, but they were sort of seen as an attachment to the Jewish people. They didn't participate in all of the blessings of the Jewish people, but they did participate in most. They often had the same kind of protection. They were in a form of covenant with God. Um, they were able to worship and offer sacrifices. The temple itself had a whole portion of the temple dedicated called the Court of Gentiles, specifically for these Jewish worshipers. And as the church spread, primarily through persecution, which we'll touch base on here in a minute, as the church spread out from Jerusalem into Judea and Samaria, and ultimately to the ends of the earth, it took on a, an increasingly Gentile Greek flavor. As more and more primarily initially Greek converts came into the church, and then of course, as it spread to other sort of non-Hellenistic lands, other, other types of people, other nations, other people groups joined the church, the scriptures which-- the New Testament we receive primarily from Paul, at least in terms of the epistles, um, also began to take on a more Gentile flavor. Not because Paul was a Gentile, but because Paul was ministering primarily to Gentiles What we'll see here is that James is a very Jewish book. I'm sure that along the way there's been several kinds of things pointed out to you to show that, but I wanna show a couple things that not only establish James as the author, James the brother of, of Jesus, but also root the, not only the author, but the audience in a distinctly Jewish Christian, uh, context. So you don't have to turn there, I'll read this, but in Acts, uh, 15, which is the, the great Jerusalem Council, uh, we read this. It says, "With the following letter..." So the, the council meets, they make a decision about what k- what parts of the Jewish law were going to be commended to and recommended, uh, and required for the Christian believers, the Gentile Christian believers, and when they're done, they send this letter to all of, all of the churches. And it says, "With the following letter, the brothers, both apostles and the elders, to the brothers who are at, of the Gentiles in Antioch and Syria and Cilicia, greetings." Now, I don't know about you, but I always sign my emails the same way, right? I've got, like, my work signature that I have to use, that the, the hospital makes me use with all the proper formatting and colors and fonts, but I always have the same signature. Mine is very simple. I just say, "Thanks," right? I just sign it as, "Thanks," above my signature, and I'm sure you all have that sort of characteristic way you sign a s- sign an email, or maybe it's the way you say goodbye at the end of a phone call. My father-in-law always says, "So long," which is a phrase you don't hear very often, so it's very distinct to him. We all have these little tells in our communication that sort of tip off who they're from. If you turn quickly back over to James 1, so just flip the page, uh, to the left here, he starts his letter by saying, "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ, to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, greetings." It's the only two letters in the New Testament that we have where the author identifies himself, sends to a sort of generalized audience, and then signs it, "Greetings." Now, James, the brother of Jesus, was the leader of the Jerusalem Church. He was the leader of the Jewish ch- the Jewish Church in general, and he signed the letter coming from the Acts Council as sort of the presiding minister. If, if we were, y- you might call them, like, the moderator of your business meeting, or we would call them the moderator of our presbytery or our session in the Presbyterian context I come from. He was the one who sort of, like, presided over there, and so the letter that went out to the churches was signed in his name and written, drafted by him. So we see this characteristic way that the letter is addressed with this final word, "Greetings," which is not used frequently in the New Testament We also see when we look at the language carefully that the audience of this, uh, of this letter, it's debated and there are good arguments, but i- in my opinion, it's very clear that the audience of this letter is not Jewish Christians in general or, uh, Jews who have not yet converted. There are some people who would say that 'cause they're called the 12 tribes. But instead it is the Jewish Christians who originally dwelled in Jerusalem and were sent out into the countryside after the persecution that was started primarily by Saul. If you look at Acts, Acts 1 which is, uh, the passage where Saul begins to persecute the church or where Saul kinda comes on the scene as the persecutor of the church, there's a couple distinct, um, distinct linguistic markers we should touch base on. Starting in verse one it says, "And p- Saul approved of his execution. And there arose a day-- that day a great persecution against the church in Jerusalem. They were all scattered throughout the region of Judea and Samaria, except the apostles. Devout men buried Stephen and made a great lamentation over him. But Saul was ravaging the church and entered the house after house. He dragged off men and women and committed them to prison." When we look at this and we compare it to that, uh, again, that first verse of James where he says to the ones who are scattered, we see that there's a pretty strong linguistic parallel that tells us that the people he has in mind for this letter, the people he's addressing, are the same people who were dispersed or scattered out of Jerusalem in the persecution. When he says to the 12 tribes in the dispersion, that word dispersion is not really a translation. It's what we call a transliteration. So it's not like we've taken a word and sort of given it an English word. We've just changed the word, the letters over to English letters. In Greek, the word is diaspora, dispersion, and in, uh, Acts 1, the verb used to, to sort of describe this scattering of them is diaspero. And it is a picture of scattering seed. This is what a farmer would do. So it's not even the normal word we would use when someone is fleeing persecution. It's this idea that God has scattered Christians out into the world, in this case by persecution. He scattered them out into the world to be planted. A lot of this is where we get phrases from Tertullian about the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the church. Now, why does this matter? As I mentioned, we often think in Gentile categories when we're reading the New Testament, and for good reason. One, we're all, all Gentiles, I'm presuming. I, I don't, I don't think-- I think I mentioned this last time, and no one came up and corrected me. I don't think anyone here is ethnically Jewish with ancestry that they're directly aware of, you know, where they trace their lineage directly back. Europe is a, a big amalgamation of just about everything, so most of us probably have a smattering of different ethnicities. But none of us are ethnically Jewish to the idea that we would, uh, identify as such in the same way. And even if we were, we've been raised and grown up in a Gentile context. We live in the West. We have-- We think in different categories. And what's more is most of the New Testament is written primarily to Gentiles by someone who is ministering to Gentiles. So Paul uses a fair amount of, of Hebraisms or things that are related to the Old Testament. Of course, he's explaining the Old Testament, and he makes ample reference to the Old Testament because that is the word of God, and it is profitable for our teaching, our correction, our reproof, and ultimately for our, our sanctification. But he uses metaphors and language in a way that is not common to the Israel context that Jesus and James and Peter and the other apostles were raised in. We don't have time to go there, but there's even some metaphors that Paul uses that are actually used the opposite way in, uh, in the more Hebraic Jewish, uh, epistles we have. One example that comes to mind is, um, Paul looks at the concept of milk, and that's not necessarily a good thing, right? It's not a bad thing, but it's what immature believers use, right? They can't handle the meat of the Bible. They have to be given the milk of the gospel before they can progress to the meat. In the Book of Hebrews, which I don't think was written by Paul, and in other places, Peter uses milk as a way to talk about nourishment, right? We think of the land flowing with milk and honey. Milk was not seen as some sort of substandard food that was only for babies. It was seen as, like, the richest, best thing that you could eat. We all have a linguistic environment that we grow up in. We all have a shared vernacular. You know, if I say something like, "You can't get there from here," everyone knows what that means. Obviously, you can get there from here, but you have to take this circuitous route. We know what that means. I think if we went around the room, we probably would find that there is this shared language. And then if we took individual families, we'd find that even within those families, there's further narrowing down of sort of like inside jokes and words that are used in ways that are not necessarily the same as others So when we read James, or when we read the letters of Peter or the letters of John, we should default to thinking more along the lines of comparing them to the words of Christ in the Gospel, first and foremost, and then to the Old Testament before we start to think about them necessarily comparing them to Ja-- or to Paul or to other kind of first century Hellenistic literature. That's not, of course, to say that Paul and James contradict. I'm sure that we went through a long explanation with much detail when you got to James chapter two, which is, of course, the most famous example. Paul uses the word justification or justify in a legal sense to make or to declare someone to be righteous. It's the verdict that the judge delivers, and it communicates the status. It actually performs what it says. When the judge says, "I find you not guilty," it changes your status from being potentially guilty to being cleared of all charges. Paul uses it slightly differently. He's not using it in the sense of to make someone righteous or to declare them righteous. He's using it to say they've been shown to be righteous. They've been validated. They've been vindicated. And if we get that mixed up, that's the source of all sorts of confusion. So when we come to this passage, and we'll get there, I promise, when we come to this passage, we have to understand some of the metaphors and the language that's being used draws from an existing body of shared cultural language that is foreign to us and is in some ways foreign to the rest of the New Testament, apart from what we see in the Gospels And it's important to remember, and this is why it's so key to land, that the audience of this letter is the persecuted, poor Jewish Christians who probably had a fairly comfortable life, relatively speaking, living in Jerusalem. These are city folks. These are people that live in Jerusalem or farm into the fields immediately around Jerusalem. They were established. They owned land. They probably had family that they had to leave, and now they're scattered out into the country with nothing. They're sent out into the world with no jobs, no family connections, no social welfare. Because they've left the Jewish faith, at least from the perspective of the Jews, they can't even go to their Jewish brothers and sisters and rely on the hospitality that's required in the law of Moses This is so important when we think about how James opens the letter and delivers what I think is his thesis statement. "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you face trials of every kind." Trials like not knowing where the next meal is gonna come from, not knowing where the next roof over your head is, not being sure you can feed your children. We all face real trials and tribulations in our life. Some of them are related to our faith, and some is just the fallen human condition in the fallen world we live in. But we're talking here about a totally different category of, uh, trial and persecution than most of us hopefully will ever experience That brings us to our actual passage now. James opens up this section with a linguistic marker that signifies this is a change in topic. He says, "Come now," or another way to translate it might be, "Now listen. Listen up." When my son is doing something that, uh, I need him to stop or I need to give him instructions, I hold him by his shoulders and I say, "Look at my eyes. I want your eyes right here. Look at my eyes." That's what Paul is doing. He's stopping and he's interrupting the flow of language. This shows us this is a new topic and a new audience. James is not speaking to rich Christians in his audience. First, 'cause there likely weren't any rich Christians directly in his audience. Remember, these are the, the poor Christians scattered out into the Judean countryside, into Samaria He's using a technique that's really common in the prophets. It's common in Jesus, where he's addressing the people who are not really listening as a way to establish that they will be judged, to hold them accountable, but also to comfort those who are hearing the message. This is a form of prophetic address. We see this in Amos, where he's chastising the Jewish leaders. Uh, in Malachi and Micah, this happens. Malachi is primarily, at least initially, is primarily, uh, a book that is railing against the rich leaders in Jerusalem who had oppressed their own brothers and sisters. The chances that those Jewish cr- uh, Jewish leaders were reading his prophecy or hearing his prophecy is pretty slim. So he was addressing a different group to establish the judgment that he was proclaiming on another party. Jesus does this when he says like, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees." There were probably scribes and Pharisees in the audience there, but he wasn't just talking to the people in front of them. He was pronouncing a judgment oracle, a judgment prophecy on all people who fit that category, and James is doing the same thing here James is not opposing wealth generally. Sometimes James is used as kind of a New Testament example to justify the idea that we should all be poor and wear shabby clothing and walk around barefoot and dirty all the time. Right? This is a key passage that's used, uh, in parts of the church that really emphasize sort of a poverty-based lifestyle. Think of like the wandering monks of the Middle Ages or the, the, um, sort of more radical exclusionists that exist even in our day. I remember when I was in college, I was really enamored with this figure named Shane Claiborne. Some of you have probably heard of him, and I remember I was so impressed because he, he didn't buy new shoes. He just cut new shoes out of duct tape and put them back together. Now, there's some, you know, there's some rugged, uh, rugged get-it-done-ness that, uh, I think us, uh, New Englanders can appreciate, but God does not call us to wear duct tape shoes, at least not universally. I'm not gonna comment on whether he calls Shane Claiborne to do that. I also don't think Shane Claiborne does that anymore. Um, some of us he may call to a lifestyle of poverty in association with a mission field or in association with a specific calling. He does not call us generally to be poor or to not gain wealth What he is opposing here is the refusal to use wealth appropriately for God's glory and the accumulation of wealth just for wealth's sake We'll see that as we unpack the language here a little bit. He establishes that he's not just talking about the earthly hoarding of wealth, as though somehow the very act of accumulating wealth was itself the problem. What he's doing is he's pronouncing an eschatological judgment on those who hoard wealth and use it to oppress others. We see here he says, "Come now, you rich, and weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you." Th- that word weep and howl, those are li-- those are words that are most commonly used in prophetic literature to describe the final cry of anguish. Think about the weeping and gnashing of teeth that Jesus talks about. This is the language he's using. He's talking about the final estate of those who refuse to submit their wealth to God He says, "Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have corroded, and their corrosion will be the evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasures in the last days." Now, remember what we said. We, we should read this not in light of some general wisdom, although it is general wisdom that if we accumulate wealth, it tends to not actually go well for us if we're not utilizing it in God-honoring ways. But we should read this in light of the most obvious connection, his big brother, Jesus, who taught his people, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will also be." To maybe land this linguistic, uh, this linguistic connection a little more, I don't know, vibrantly, I'm gonna speculate a little bit. So if you don't like it, then you can disregard it. This is not God's Word. This is a speculation. I can just imagine little Jesus, little nine-year-old Jesus, and probably little six or seven-year-old James and the rest of their siblings, and there's quite a few of them. And we have Joseph, uh, who maybe at this time was still living, although probably not. We know he was living until Jesus was later, you know, 12, he was still around, but we don't know exactly when he left the picture. But he was a carpenter, and he was not, probably not overly wealthy. Uh, they had had to pick up and move, you know, cross-country anyways. They-- We don't know exactly where they were from initially, but they went to Bethlehem, and then they returned to Nazareth. They probably didn't have a lot. There were a lot of mouths to feed and only one business. They didn't have a farm. They didn't own livestock that we know of. I can just imagine a time when little J- little James or one of his sisters was frustrated about the fact that they didn't have anything. And I could picture Mary getting down and going, "Do not store up treasures in, in, uh, in heaven or on Earth. It's all gonna waste away." The same way we might tell our children kind of a, a moral kind of story. Sometimes we have this picture, last time I was here I, I spoke on Philippians 2, we have this idea that Jesus was somehow like Superman, that he, he was just pretending to be a normal human most of the time. As it touches his humanity, as, as we think about Jesus as a human, he had a, his own human set of thinking faculties, his own human knowledge. He grew in wisdom and stature is what Luke teaches us. Well, where did he get some of this wisdom? There's a good reasonable argument to be made that some of the pr- more proverbial type sayings that we see in Christ, that they actually come from the wisdom of his mother and father. And a really good reason to believe that is James relies on the same exact, uh, sort of proverbial wisdom to l- land his point. He doesn't create his own metaphor, he goes back to, at the very least we can say he goes back to the words of Christ. That's a very safe position to take. But this is the shared linguistic context that they both grew up in And he says, "You've done this in the last days." Now, the, the phrase last days in the Bible, uh, in the New Testament generally refers to the time period from Christ's resurrection to his return. We, for a lot of reasons, think about it as kind of like that climactic end period in time. Depending on your, your persuasion, maybe this is when the Antichrist comes, or maybe this is before or after, or maybe during the time when the church is raptured. But in either case, we think of that sort of last period in time before Christ finally comes back. But the New Testament writers are really talking about the entire duration, from Christ's resurrection to his return is what they're referring to. But it does have in view this idea that we are in the last times. The, the final judgment is not necessarily strictly something that's out there in the future. We are living in the last days now, and so what we do and what we say and, and how we worship and if we worship is eschatology. It is the theology of the last times He also positions this as though this is a universal thing going on with those who hoard wealth. This is a very shocking image. Um, we have very good ways to preserve things in our modern world, right? We have ways to m- to make, uh, stainless steel that won't rust, or at least won't rust quickly. But most things in the ancient world, even most precious metals, corroded. Um, I remember when I was growing up, there was this project in my hometown. I lived in a, a little town called White Bear Lake in, in, um, Minnesota, although little is relative. It's pretty big compared to most of what we have out here. And I remember when I was maybe 12 or 13 years old, they had this big building project to build this brand-new, beautiful lakeside pavilion in the center of town, and it w- just gleamed in the sun. It was so gorgeous, and it was made of copper, and everybody loved it, and two years later, it was bright green. I think it's still bright green. I think they figured out it wasn't worth repairing, so they, they just, they just make sure it doesn't keep getting worse, and at some point, I'm sure they either have or will tear it down. But the one metal in the ancient world that didn't do this was gold. It's part of why gold is such a durable measurement of wealth is because it doesn't wear out. It doesn't corrode. It's very soft. It's very easy to damage it, which is why we don't build statues out of it, or we don't build, uh, buildings out of it usually, but it didn't corrode. So when James says here, "Not only your silver, which tarnishes and corrodes, but your silver and gold have corroded." Not are corroding, but have corroded. The rich hearer of this is probably, you know, sitting around like Scrooge McDuck with a pile of gold coins thinking, "Ah, it looks pretty good to me." And what James is saying is, "No, no, no. No, it's corroded. It's eating away at your heart. It's lost its value because you refuse to use it, and so it sits in a pile doing nothing for no one, except serving to further your own condemnation." This is such a crazy, shocking situation that the insanity of not using your wealth, period, the insanity of sitting on your wealth in the ancient world is going to serve as a form of evidence justifying the condemnation of these wicked fools And further, the corrosion of this wealth is an indication of the corrosion of their very souls. There's something about money. I was-- When I was here a couple times before, I preached one of the wealth passages out of Ecclesiastes, and there's something about money that has a unique way of really, really wrecking us. Either we don't have it and we want it, or we have it and we don't wanna lose it, or we have it and we don't spend it wisely. It seems like there's an infinite number of ways to screw it up. And we landed last time that the gospel is good news because with the nearly infinite ways of screwing it up, we're going to screw it up. But the one way that he talks about screwing it up here is hoarding it and sitting on it and not using it Moving on into verses four and five, James moves us now to a more sort of temporal register. He starts out by talking about what wealth is and what it's doing and how it will ultimately affect the entire life and eternity of those in his targeted audience, those he's proclaiming this prophetic, uh, judgment against. But in verse four, he moves back to the behaviors that are being, uh, being engaged in to show the state of these people's souls. He says, "Behold, the wages of the laborers you, who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, are crying out against you, and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of Hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in self-indulgence. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter." James here points at the, at the behaviors that show this hoarding behavior, and he does it for a number of reasons. One, he needs to call out sin. That's part of the role of a Christian, and especially a leader or a minister in the church, is, um, to not only call out sin in the body of, of Christ, but in a, I think a very particular way, and there's all sorts of, uh, all sorts of theological controversies flying on around about Christian nationalism and other associated things. Some of it is just the spirit of the age. Um, post-COVID, there's a, a real strong sense that our government has failed us and we need to replace it with something else. But there is a, a true way, and I, I think some of those things are a little misguided, but there's a true way that the church, particularly her leaders, should be speaking to the culture around us, and yes, even to the government, to proclaim the truth of God into a wicked and godless culture. This might take the form o- of a m- minister who goes to a town hall meeting to speak out against a gambling association that's going to be forming, or a, an elder in the church or a deacon in the church who goes to speak to, uh, to the city hall or to the state legislature about the wickedness of abortion and about what we see it does to women's lives when they are fooled into thinking that this is the right thing for them. Again, the church is not the state, and the state is not the church, and we should be very careful not to cross those lines for all sorts of reasons. But we as a culture, as a Christian culture, in the United States particularly, have lost sight of our responsibility to speak truth in all circumstances to those in power So James is doing that, of course. But even more so, this is a way that he establishes for his direct audience, for the Jewish poor Christians who have been scattered in this diaspora, in this dispersion. He looks at them in a sense and says, "I see you. I see what's happening to you." And as God's representative, as his chosen voice for this message, as his inspired author, God sees you too This goes back again, the first two chapters of James serve as kind of a thesis statement and table of contents for the whole book. We get an idea of what may have been happening, the actual, uh, acts that were being engaged in, in, in chapter two verse six, he says, "You have insulted the poor. Is it not the rich who are exploiting you? Are they not the ones who are dragging you into court? Are they not the ones who are slandering the noble name of him to whom you belong?" James has in mind here a form of predatory land purchasing, where the rich were sort of sweeping up property. They were sweeping it up, and then they were charging probably exorbitant prices to those who would lease the land to try to eke out a living. Does that sound at all like any of our current context, right? When's the last time any of us have tried to buy a house and found anything reasonable? Well, a large part of that is that there are big companies that are scooping up all the land and buying all the, the developments. Now, I'm not commenting on those particular situations. I don't know those people. I don't know their hearts, and some of those things actually are doing good things for the community. But we're familiar with this idea of someone who will purchase a resource, who will then jack the price up in order to turn a profit on it. I'm not opposed to turning a profit. Y- y- yeah, it takes money to run a business, and you have to, you have to recuperate those funds if your business is going to survive. But there's a, there's a way that that can be done that is a predatory act These rich landowners were getting fat on those that they were victimizing In our, in our modern world, we tend to think of someone who is overweight as unhealthy, for good reason, right? Too much weight, and I say that with someone with a little too much padding around the middle, so no, no judgment on this, but too much weight is not healthy, right? We hear that from our doctors, that there's a healthy weight range and there's an unhealthy weight range. In the ancient world, obesity was not the concern, right? Malnutrition was the concern. And so when you see, uh, a king in the Old Testament who's, who's noted to be fat, that's not always negative. Sometimes it is, but he's noted to be fat or he's noted to be large. Even the word for glory, I'm sure you've heard this before, the word for glory in the Old Testament has to do with being heavy. So this idea of weightiness or, um, being able to eat enough to actually gain weight instead of being thin was seen as a good thing, but not when you use it as a way to victimize other people. A person who gathers wealth honestly and enjoys it, that's, that's Proverbs right there. That's the Book of Ecclesiastes in its sort of positive sense, is that we, when we accumulate wealth and we use it for God's glory, it's perfectly okay for us to also use it for our enjoyment. God wants us to enjoy the fruit of our labor. But when we accumulate wealth and use it as a way to gain power over someone and to abuse them, that is what James is railing against here And ultimately, with the audience that James is writing to, this is a form of murder. This is why he says, "You have fattened your hearts in the day of slaughter." Because a person who can't feed their family in the Old Testament or in the New Testament era was likely to see them die. There are not a ton of people in modern America that are starving to death on the streets. It's not to say it doesn't happen. It's not to say that there's not things like food insecurity or malnutrition, but there are, there are plenty of places people can go to get their basic food needs met. It was not like that-- It's not like that in most of the world now, and it certainly was not like that in the ancient world. And so a, a landowner who again refuses, we're talking about the Jewish landowners, refuses to obey the Jewish law to leave some leftovers for the poor, and instead gleans all the way to the corner so that they can turn a little bit of extra pro-profit, is not only sinning against the Old Testament law, but is committing murder in the strictest sense by refusing to preserve the life of these poor, uh, Christians who are destitute And again, James is encouraging his readers here that the Lord has not ignored their plight. We can think back to the Book of Habakkuk, where Habakkuk basically lodges a lawsuit against God, saying, "You are not paying attention. You're not doing your thing. You're not being faithful to your covenant." And God says, "Let me show you how faithful to my covenant I am. The Chaldeans are on the way." And Habakkuk is like, "Whoa, wait a second here. That's not what I had in mind." God sees the oppression of the poor. He knows when His people are targeted. He knows when children are abused or when widows are ignored. He knows when the government does something to shut down a church, or when the medical institution refuses to acknowledge your personal rights. He sees those things, and He's not ignorant, and He's not static. He's not sleeping on those things. The purpose here is to comfort the oppressed by showing that God is not ignorant of what has happened to them. Just two quick Old Testament examples that use similar language. In Genesis 4, we read of Cain and his murder of Abel, and in verse eight it says, "Cain spoke to Abel his brother, and when they were in the field, Cain rose up against his brother Abel and killed him. Then the Lord said to Cain, 'Where is Abel your brother?' He said, 'I don't know. Am I my brother's keeper?' And the Lord said, 'What have you done? The voice of your brother's blood is crying out to me from the ground.'" Numbers, uh, 35 verses 30 says, "If anyone kills a person, the murderer shall be put to death on the evidence of witnesses, but no person shall be put to death on the testimony of one witness. Moreover, you shall accept no ransom for the life of a murderer who is guilty of death, but he shall be put to death. And you shall accept no ransom from him who has fled to the city of refuge, that he may return to dwell in the land before the death of the high priest. You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land except for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it." There's a rich history in the Old Testament of language of inanimate things, land, blood, wealth, other kinds of things that give testimony to God in some way, and specifically of these inanimate, uh, impersonal things testifying to the sin of the people that dwell around them. Even Christ says, "If these people do not worship me, the rocks will cry out." Now, the rocks are not literally crying out, although it certainly would be within God's power to make the rocks sing. But Christ is not saying in that passage that the rocks are going to form mouths and begin singing Hosanna or whatever song they might have been doing. What he's saying is that the very rocks themselves give testimony to the glory and goodness of God. So even if the people around here fail to do so, the entire rest of creation is doing so, and that is what James is saying here. My dear brothers and sisters scattered in the dispersion who have nothing, and in society's eyes are nothing, some of you are facing persecution. Some of you will be killed for your faith, but God sees because the wealth that is being accumulated on the breaking of your own backs is crying out. The corrosion of that gold serves as evidence for the condemnation of those who are harming you We often want justice in the moment. I think we always want justice in the moment, don't we? I think it's a really hard discipline to say, "That person wronged me, but I'm okay letting God sort it out." That is a hard pill to swallow, but it is often the pill that we have to take. It's the medicine that God uses to further our justification, our j- our, uh, excuse me, our sanctification Paul says, you know, "Do not take vengeance. Let the Lord do that." We can trust, and this is where the comfort of this passage comes for us, brothers and sisters, we can trust that when we are wronged, that when someone has done something to us that is a violation of God's law, that that sin will be punished. Now, when we're dealing with other Christians, that sin has already been punished, and so it is not, it is not appropriate for us to hold onto that and to take vengeance. That's what the parable of the unmerciful servant is all about If I as a Christian refuse to forgive my brother and sister when they've wronged me, it's me saying that I'm a better judge of their sin and I'm a better executioner than the Lord is when he punished that sin on the cross. But that sin was not atoned for when we're talking about unbelievers. When we're talking about those who will ultimately end their earthly life and find themselves waking up in flames, that sin has not been atoned for, and so God will have his justice, and we will have our justice. We won't turn there, but in Revelation, we're familiar with the passage, I think it's chapter six, where the martyred saints are under the throne and they say, "How long, O Lord?" Well, God doesn't answer their question, but he gives them new clothes. When Job cries out and he's, he's saying, "I don't understand why this is happening. Why are you targeting me, God? Why, why are you a hunter with your arrows in my liver?" God doesn't tell him why, but he says, essentially, "I'm God and you're just going to have to trust me that this is right." We see a very similar, uh, kind of situation here when we think about when, uh, when Abraham, uh, when God tells Abraham what he's about to do to Sodom and Gomorrah, and then Abraham negotiates, apparently negotiates with God, uh, trying to secure the salvation of the city for the sake of the righteous. And we read starting in verse 20 of chapter 18, he says, "The Lord said to, to Abraham," he says, " 'Because the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah is great and their sin is very grave, I will go down to see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me. If not, I will know.' " God is always seeing and investigating the sin of people We're, we're teaching my son, August, the children's catechism, which is a, a great resource. Um, and one of the questions is, "Can you see God?" And the answer is, "No, but he always sees me." Now that may feel at first to some people like a little bit of a heavy-handed answer, but knowing that God sees us is not just there to correct our sin. It should do that, right? Even the secret sins we commit in the dark when, when we're not being watched by anyone else, even, even those God sees. But do you know what else He sees? He sees your pain. He sees your suffering. He sees your victories even when no one else is celebrating them. He sees your progress. He sees you, and that should be a great source of comfort Now this passage, especially verse six, can be a little bit hard to apply because although we're the targeted audience, we're not the target of the judgment oracle. So I think what we have to do, we have to, we have to think about this in light of the way that God talks about the judgment of unbelievers in other places in the scripture, and how that helps us to understand kind of what our, what our status is. If you'll take your Bibles and open to Matthew chapter 25, I think the, um, the account here of the goat and sheep judgment, uh, is instructive for us Starting in verse 31, it says, "When the Son of Man comes in his glory and the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. Before him will be gathered all nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Come you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.' Then the righteous will answer him saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you a drink? When did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?' And the King answered them, 'Truly I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.' Then he will say to those on the left, 'Depart from me for you for, uh, depart from me, you cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me no drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, I was naked and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not visit me.' Then they also, uh, they also will say, answer saying, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and not minister to you?' Then he will answer them saying, 'Truly I say to you, as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.' And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life." Now, this passage is sometimes understood as a general command to feed the poor or the sick, or to visit those in prisons, or any of the f- the sort of mercy ministry things that, that, um, are mentioned here. And those are all things that Christians should do, right? We should be engaged in, um, in mercy ministry to the poor, to those who are destitute. We should be mindful and thoughtful of those who have needs around us. What this passage is teaching, though, is not a general command to feed all people, but a specific command to care for your brothers and sisters in Christ when they have a need He doesn't say to the righteous, "You did these to everyone." He says, "Whatever you did to the least of these, my brothers, you did it to me." All of the things that are listed here, the, the six mercy ministries that are listed by Christ here, are things that persecuted Christians were suffering at the time, persecuted Jew- Jewish Christians, and that would be common experiences for, for Jewish Christians and for all persecuted Christians. Right? They're hungry. They don't have food. Our diaspora Jewish Christians don't have land to farm, and even if they're able to scrape together enough funding to lease out a farm, they're being, uh, they're being totally overwhelmed by the cost of that. The sort of homeowners association dues of these pyramid schemes that were going on in the first century, they were so exorbitant that it wasn't even subs- subsistence farming. Christians were being thrown in, uh, in prison. They didn't have enough money to replace their clothes when it wore out. They couldn't have access to clean water. We take clean water as such a, such a basic thing, and it's so easy. You just turn on the tap, or you just go to the store and you buy a bottle of $7 water. It wasn't like this in the first century. If you didn't have a well, you didn't have water, unless you had someone who cared enough to share this precious resource with you. And so what Christ is saying to, to his people, both in the immediate audience on the Sermon on the Mount, uh, and in this, the Olivet Discourse here, what he's saying to his people is when someone in the body of Christ does not have what they need, the body of Christ should step up and make sure that that is the case, that they take care of that person. And likewise, he's saying to those who are not a part of the body of Christ, "Depart from me, I never knew you." Now, the intro to this, why it sometimes is called a parable, is the sheep and the goats. We sometimes go way too far into the arena of comparing the behavior of sheeps with the behavior of the people here, right? Sheep are nice, they're affable, they listen to you. In reality, from what I understand, sheep are pretty dumb and can be very stubborn, right? And then we, we read and we go, "Goats are stubborn, they're rebellious, they're not really good for anything." Well, there's a reason people have goats on farms. They, they can be stubborn, right? They can be destructive, but they also serve a purpose. So the point here is not that sheep are good and goats are bad. The point is that sheep are not goats and goats are not sheep. And, uh, another point that comes with this is sheep don't become goats by behaving like goats, and goats don't become sheep by acting like sheep. I have some friends that will tell you they have very affectionate, friendly, lovable goats, right? I'd, I would... If I could get my kids one of those little pygmy goats that everybody loves, I would do that, 'cause they can be very kind, very sweet, and they're very smart. But they're not sheep. And if you read this passage carefully, this fact that those who are taken to the right are, are in fact taken to the right is not because they fed the poor. It's not because they ministered to Christ by feeding the least of these. They did those things because they were part of the kingdom The King says to those on His right, "Come, you who are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world." The sheep on the right were always going to be the sheep on the right. They were predestined according to the counsel of God's will before all time to live and walk in good works. That's just Ephesians 2 there. That's also just James 2 there. You have faith, I will show you my faith by my works. This is evidence language, loved ones Likewise, the ones who are told to depart into eternal darkness were also predestined not to inherit this kingdom. No kingdom was prepared for them before the foundation of the world. They have no inheritance. They have nothing. They will end up in the state that they are trying to impose on these poor Jewish Christians. They will end up in the state that they may be trying to impose on some of us in this room And for the final verse here in, in chapter five, in verse six here, there's a lot of discussion and debate in the commentaries about who the identity of this righteous one is. It says, "You've condemned and murdered the righteous person, he does not resist you." Now, some commentators will take the fact that this is the singular righteous person, that he has been murdered and h- was condemned, and will take this as a reference to Christ. And that would, would make good sense, right? The Jewish, the wealthy Jewish landowners, the wealthy Jews in Jerusalem who per- who persecuted and cast out, um, the Christians, they were in the same group of people who condemned and murdered Jesus And at least at the time of writing this, and in many ways in our own day, God is not necessarily resisting them. He's allowing them to store up judgment for the coming day of wrath There are others who will take this as sort of the hypothetical singular, right? The righteous one or the righteous person is this, uh, representative hypothetical person that represents all of the persecuted Christians. And so it's more like saying, um, to the, the wealthy landowners who are persecuting Christians, "You have condemned and murdered the Christians, the righteous people, and we do not resist you." Now, at the end of the day, it's, it's always good to have good, sober, well-intentioned, text-based debates about what the Bible means. We can and we should try to convince others, uh, when we think they're wrong about what the scripture means. So that's not what I'm saying here. But in many ways, which of those two perspectives it actually is doesn't change the interpretation of this passage. Like we read in Matthew 25, like we read in Acts 9 when Christ comes and confronts Saul, what you do to God's people, you are doing to Christ himself. What you do to the body, you have done to the head. It's a little bit weird to say that when I stub my toe, I injure my head, but that's true, right? I don't injure my toe as though it's some separate piece. It's not like I'm a Lego man where I can just swap out a hand that gets cracked and put it back on. When I injure my toe, I injure myself. My whole body is injured even though it's specific to a part of my body. When you-- when someone persecutes you, when they, uh, try to extort your wealth, your funds, when they try to harm your body, when they try to take away your children, all things that are happening not just out there in the world, but in our country, even in our own region. When they try to tell you that because you don't wanna play a basketball game, that you can't play sports at all. When a city taxes a portion of a church's property because they don't think it's being used for religious purposes, they are doing that to Jesus Christ himself, and God will not be mocked This should call us both to faithfulness and to encouragement How people treat Christ or how people treat Christ's people, including how we trust, tr- uh, treat Christ's people, shows us what we think about Christ. The people who take care of the church do so because they love God, and they do it out of a regenerated heart that already loves God. And the people who hate the church do it because they hate Christ, and they do it out of their wickedness and out of their wicked heart This brings us back again to the thesis statement of James. "Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing." And then he says later in that, uh, first chapter in verse nine, "Let the lowly brother boast in his exaltation, and the rich in his humiliation, because like the flower of the grass, he will pass away. For the sun rises with its scorching heat and withers the grass; its flower fails, and its beauty perishes. So also will the rich man fade away in the midst of his pursuits. Blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial, for when he has stood the test he will receive the crown of life, which God has promised to those who love him." Now, you're all coming up to the end of James here. Um, we probably have two, two more sermons, I would guess, and the rest of this chapter is reinforcing this. It's unpacking for the immediate audience and therefore for us, it's unpacking that although the rich have their punishment coming to them, that likewise our consolation, our comfort from Christ is also coming to us. He closes the whole letter out, he returns to his thesis statement to say, "I'm not going to pretend that the trials you're going through are joyful, but you can count it all joy." You can reckon it, you can impute it as joy, my brothers and sisters. You can put it in the joy column instead of the t- the pain column, right? We had discussion about the beautiful word imputation in the announcements and scripture reading in the beginning here Imputation is a, is an accounting term. And when we count it all joy, we're taking what should be a red line in the, in the loss ledger, right? We're taking what should be an expense, and we're able to move it to the profit. We're able to move it to the positive side, not because it didn't hurt and not because we wanted it to happen, but because our God is good enough to not rob us of the chance to be sanctified When we are oppressed and opposed, those who are oppressing and oppose us mean it for evil, just like Joseph's brothers, uh, and Pharaoh, and all sorts of wicked men in, in the Old Testament and in our own world. Pilate, Herod, you mean, you name it in the Bible, this applies. They meant their wicked acts for wicked things, but God, rich in mercy, works all things for the good of those who love Him and are called according to His purpose. And what is that purpose? That we might be transformed into the image of Christ so that Christ may be glorified and He may be the firstborn among many brothers. When we face trials and suffering of every kind, it leads us to our sanctification and to our ultimate glorification. We do not earn those things. We don't sanctify ourselves any more than we justify ourselves, or that any more than we will glorify ourselves or will raise ourselves from the dead. That is all God's work from start to finish. But God does use these things that He brings us through as a way to bring about that work It's like he bends us over the hammer, over the anvil of trials, and he hammers us until we become a sharp sword in the hand of, in his hand. Or he polishes us with a rough cloth until we become a smooth, beautiful gem, right? Think of any number of refining things that need to be done. It always involves, if the thing was, uh, was a person, it always involves something that would hurt a little bit. It always involves a little bit of damage to wear away the impurities. Our sanctification and our glorification is no different than that. He uses adversity. He uses the wicked actions and intentions of, of evil men and women. He uses those things to glorify us. So although we should never, uh, we should never seek those things, right? You don't have to go and make yourself the soft target to the wicked people. It's okay to keep your head down. There's nothing wrong with that. The Jewish Christians were probably doing their best to keep their heads down most of the time, and that's fine. There's not any words in scripture about being a coward if you don't, if you don't put a target on your back. But your target is gonna get there eventually, and that's not a bad thing. We can welcome that. We can count it as joy because of who God is and what he's done. The supreme act of suffering, the supreme act of, of evil happened to the only innocent person there ever was, and it happened to him for us. this episode is available below.
#top .av-special-heading.av-gs9o3p-98191d0f547ef706035ac722b608a1f6{ padding-bottom:10px; } body .av-special-heading.av-gs9o3p-98191d0f547ef706035ac722b608a1f6 .av-special-heading-tag .heading-char{ font-size:25px; } .av-special-heading.av-gs9o3p-98191d0f547ef706035ac722b608a1f6 .av-subheading{ font-size:15px; } Through My Bible Yr 03 – July 31Amos 5 LISTEN HERE Through My Bible – July 31 Amos 5 (EHV) https://wels2.blob.core.windows.net/tmb-ehv/03-0731db.mp3 See series: Through My Bible Mourning for Fallen Israel 1 Listen to this word that I am raising against you as a lament, [1] O house of Israel: 2 Virgin Israel has fallen, and she will not rise again. She is abandoned on her own soil. There is no one to lift her up. 3 For this is what the Lord God says: A city that marches out with a thousand will have a hundred left. A city that marches out with a hundred will have ten left for the house of Israel. Seek the Lord and Live! 4 Listen, this is what the Lord says to the house of Israel: Seek me and live! 5 But do not seek Bethel. Do not go to Gilgal. Do not travel to Beersheba, because Gilgal surely will go into exile, and Bethel will become nothing. 6 Seek the Lord and live, or he will rush upon the house of Joseph like fire. The fire will consume, and no one will extinguish it for Bethel. 7 There are some who turn justice into wormwood, [2] who throw righteousness to the ground. 8 There is one who made the Pleiades and Orion, who turns the shadow of death into morning, who darkens day into night, who summons the waters of the seas, who pours them out upon the face of the earth— the Lord is his name. 9 He causes destruction to flash against a stronghold, and destruction comes upon a fortress. 10 There are those who hate an arbitrator [3] in the city gate. [4] They despise anyone who speaks honestly. 11 That is why you trample on the poor, and you collect taxes on their grain. You have built houses of cut stones, but you will not live in them. You have planted choice vineyards, but you will not drink their wine. 12 For I know that your rebellious deeds are many, and your sins are numerous, you who are enemies of a righteous man, you who take bribes. They thrust away needy people in the city gate. 13 That is why a prudent man will be silent in that time, because it is an evil time. 14 Seek good and not evil, so that you may live, and then it will be like this for you: The Lord, the God of Armies, will be with you, as you claim. 15 Hate evil and love good. Establish justice in the city gate. Perhaps the Lord, the God of Armies, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. 16 Therefore, this is what the Lord says, the God of Armies, who is the Lord: In the city squares there will be grief, and in the streets they will say, “Woe, woe!” They will summon the farmer to mourn and the professional mourners to sing laments. 17 In all the vineyards there will be grief, because I will pass through your midst, says the Lord. The Day of the Lord Brings Darkness 18 Woe to those who long for the Day of the Lord! What good will the Day of the Lord be for you? It will be darkness and not light. 19 It will be as if a man flees from a lion, but a bear meets him, or he enters a house and rests his hand on a wall, but a snake bites him. 20 Will not the Day of the Lord be darkness and not light, gloom without a trace of brightness? The Lord Hates Faithless Worship 21 I hate, I reject, your festivals! I do not delight in the aroma of the sacrifices at your sacred convocations. 22 Even if you offer up to me your whole burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them. I will not pay any attention to your fellowship offerings of fattened calves. 23 Get the noise of your songs away from me! I will not listen to the music of your harps. 24 But let justice roll like the waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. 25 Did you bring me sacrifices and grain offerings in the wilderness for forty years, O house of Israel? 26 You lifted up images of Sakkuth, your king, and of Kiyyun, your star god, which you made for yourselves. [5] 27 So I will exile you beyond Damascus, says the Lord, whose name is the God of Armies. Footnotes Amos 5:1 Or sad song Amos 5:7 Wormwood is a toxic, bitter-tasting substance (absinthe). Amos 5:10 Or a mediator Amos 5:10 The city gate served as the courthouse. Amos 5:26 The form and meaning of several of the terms and names referring to gods in verse 26 are uncertain. The terms seem to refer to astral deities, most likely including Saturn. #top .hr.hr-invisible.av-aocsdx-89cb4ca21532423cf697fc393b6fcee0{ height:10px; } The Holy Bible, Evangelical Heritage Version®, EHV®, © 2019 Wartburg Project, Inc. All rights reserved. #top .hr.hr-invisible.av-4vzadh-3f04b370105df1fd314a2a9d83e55b26{ height:50px; } Share this entryShare on FacebookShare on LinkedInShare by MailLink to FlickrLink to InstagramLink to Vimeo
In this episode of LIGHT TALK, The Lumen Brothers and Sister discuss everything from Starting a Career as an Educator to the "Margarita-To-Go Man". Join Ellen, Dennis, and Steve, as they discuss: How can you be assured that the CRI rating in LED's will produce an accurate color; Designing the "Perfect Light"; TM-30 vs. CRI; How to market yourself as a programmer; The skills that separate the great from the good programmers; "The Stagehand Flashlight"; How to start a career as an educator; and A Sophomore's Tale of Woe. Nothing is Taboo, Nothing is Sacred, and Very Little Makes Sense. @lighttalkpodcast
Promises for Provision (audio) David Eells – 7/29/26 We have many revelations on our site of how God has planned to provide for His saints in the coming wilderness tribulation. I'm going to share just a few of these with you today. God's Warehouse in the Wilderness K. H. - 08/29/2008 In a dream, my mom, sister, nieces, and I were moving into this warehouse that seemed to be off on its own in a way, and if you weren't looking for it, you would miss it. (Many do miss God's warehouse because they don't take His promises seriously and in faith. It is off on its own because it is in the wilderness place of our weakness that His power is made perfect.) As we entered the warehouse, I was amazed at all the things that I saw in it. There were beds, couches, lamps, refrigerators, toys, food, water, etc. (Also, there are eyes that see, organs, limbs, and all heathy things.) It looked like there was anything and everything that we would ever need in there. The enormity reminded me of a store that I went to a few months ago called IKEA (“eye-key-yah”) but it was larger than that and had so much more. In the warehouse, I also saw several more families; some of the kids were playing. There was such joy and peace that filled this large room. We all were just so thankful that we would have all that we would ever need in that warehouse. Praise the Lord! As my mom and I were talking about the dream, she immediately mentioned that God let me see His warehouse or storehouse for His saints. Praise God! Paul says in Philippians 4:19, And my God shall supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus. I have experienced God supplying our every need but what a blessing to actually be able to see God's warehouse for those who live in His shelter. This promise is something that the children of God will need to stand on in the coming tribulation. The sum of His Word is truth and no matter what it may look like, the Lord will provide and bring us through. Praise Jesus; thank you, Father! Obedience In Provision Anonymous 3/30/23 (David's notes in red) I had a vision of an average man. He was suddenly blessed with a very large abundance of money and a driven calling from God. (There are many prophecies of the Man-child being abundantly blessed to build the Kingdom of God.) The man was then led to buy all these businesses and houses that were for sale, and he obtained almost a whole city. (Many people represented by the houses will be coming into the Kingdom in Spirit and Truth. Also, this has been fulfilled by the Lord since this 2023 revelation.) In so doing and led by God, to change a country and giving hope and faith by his example in servitude. Every one of the businesses and houses were for those in need. Housing the poor and the faithful in Christ; businesses were used for His Glory according to the Word and Christ and gave spiritual truth and provision for all their needs to be met. (Again, this has been fulfilled by the Lord since this 2023 revelation. In return, all those he helped then participated with their gifting or their profession, and many helped in genuine love as one community for God, and it grew. The changes even convinced many non-believers not to change it back to what it had been. (This is coming.) (I felt this is our deepest desire to have His Kingdom be established here and now in the physical, not for our own selves but to fulfil the needs of others.) An Abundance of Provision for the Bride L. W.- 2/3/23 (David's notes in red) I had a dream where I was in what looked like a big warehouse, with bank tellers. (The Father's gift of wealth coming to bank accounts through NESARA that will especially favor the Bride. It is money the D.S. stole from everyone for many years but D.T. found.) I went to get a statement for my account, and when the lady handed it to me, I noticed I had about $37,000,000,000. That's $37 billion. (She was expecting this but had a critical, unforgiving spirit, and I tried to gently warn her, but sadly she lost it all and went to her place.) In the dream, I remember thinking, “Yesterday, I was thinking about how I wanted a billion dollars,” but I hadn't asked God for this. (In real life, I have no desire to be a billionaire. The number 37, in Bible Numerics, means “Word of God”.) (Those who have the Word manifested in them will have all needs met.) In the dream, my goal was to keep the knowledge about how much money I had a secret and use it anonymously for good. I was planning on using it to build a personal house, a church building for UBM, to get my husband a new truck (Which he badly needed at the time), and to help others in need. I remember thinking in the dream that “I would just keep my current car.” End. …In dream #2) It was a sunny day. My husband and I were looking into getting another house. We were looking at one that was multi-story and had two kitchens. UBM was there looking at it with us. I thought that it would be a great place for pot blessings. (All the good she previously had a desire to do.) I remember specifically seeing Gabe and Michael and didn't think much about it. But later in real life, I think the Lord reminded me that two of His archangels are Michael and Gabriel. (His angels watch over the affairs of UBM.) (To render to all according to their works.) …I asked the Lord for a verse by faith at random about these dreams and got Rom. 1:17 For therein is revealed a righteousness of God from faith unto faith: as it is written, But the righteous shall live by faith. (The faithful righteous will be blessed soon!) Provision to Preserve & Build the Kingdom Eve Brast - 11/05/18 (David's notes in Red) I had a couple of dreams involving a Monopoly game board. It's no coincidence that as I sat down to write this, an announcement on the radio said that on this day in history, November 5, 1935, Parker Brothers introduced the game of Monopoly to the public. (Which had to do with dealing with money.) Dream 1: I was sitting in the dining room of our old house on Vanderbilt Rd. in TX. (Vanderbilt is representative of the wealthy elite... The Vanderbilts were once the wealthiest family in America. Cornelius Vanderbilt was the richest American until his death in 1877. After that, his son William acquired his father's fortune and was the richest American until his death in 1885. The Vanderbilts' prominence lasted until the mid-20th century, when the family's 10 great Fifth Avenue mansions were torn down, and most other Vanderbilt houses were sold or turned into museums in what has been referred to as the “Fall of the House of Vanderbilt”. Wikipedia. (They lost it all as many will do.) But, instead of a dining table, there was a green card table. (The Deep State house of cards is falling.) It was dark in the kitchen area, but there was a light shining down on the card table. (Father is shining the light on the fact that many are gambling with their life.) There was an empty Monopoly board game on the table, where three men with slicked-back, black hair were sitting around the Monopoly board with me. (Black hair represents submission to darkness. The elite behind the Deep State are playing the game of spiritual monopoly, and they are losing due to God.) R. S. was to my right with her hands folded over her forearms, observing the scene. The only thing each of us had been given was the usual amount of Monopoly money that each player receives. There were no houses, hotels, or game tokens to move around the board. (The value is not in the material possessions but in the funny money itself. By her composure, we know that R. S. was resting in the flesh, for she fell away. Eve was just sitting there resting in the Lord. All things are provided freely in our rest from self-works. The monopoly money, thought to be worthless, represents the national currency of nations that have fallen to a very low value. NESARA will change this for the righteous.) Suddenly, a pair of dice appeared above the board as if an invisible pair of hands was shaking them. Then the dice were cast onto the board, and they came up 3 and 4, equaling 7. (God rolls the dice for He holds the future, and He and those who abide in Him, win the game. He has His own people at the table to receive the gift.) The three men all declared, “7!!!” in a defeated and disgusted tone. (God has defeated the elite who planned to use this currency for their own New World Order.) Then they all got up from the table, took all their Monopoly money and stacked it in a large pile on top of my money, and then it all turned into real money as they left the game. (The revaluation of currencies to come up on a par with the dollar, which must lose some of its value to come into alignment. Hence, those with worthless currencies will find they have become real money. This is necessary to have a GCR or global currency reset, where all come to the same value. In the short term, this will be used to build the Kingdom, as in the temple of God, which is His people. The elite had planned to take the Christians down, and then they would take all. But Trump, who, as Cyrus did, will contribute Babylon's vast hidden wealth towards the temple of God's people.) I then realized I'd won even though I didn't know I'd been playing. (None of us has been playing, but like this, it will be given to us by God's roll.) R. S. then said, “Wow, Eve! You really made out!” (Eve could represent herself and the corporate Bride). I was so amazed by this. Then I woke up and I looked at my phone, and the time was 3:33 am. (I thought of Jeremiah 33:3 because I had asked Father to show me more about His plans and what He is doing currently. Jer. 33:3 Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and will show thee great things, and difficult, which thou knowest not. (I said months ago I wondered if the elite would be taken down so that they could not be involved in this revaluation and that their currencies' value would then be left to be divided to the people of God. Now I know it was a word of knowledge.) I asked Father for a word concerning the Monopoly game and the black-haired men (Who I believe represent the [elite through the] Deep State) and my finger was on, “Shalt thou reign?” in Jeremiah 22:15. Jer 22:12-17 but in the place whither they have led him captive, there shall he die, and he shall see this land no more. 13 Woe unto him that buildeth his house by unrighteousness, and his chambers by injustice; that useth his neighbor's service without wages, and giveth him not his hire; 14 that saith, I will build me a wide house and spacious chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is ceiled with cedar, and painted with vermilion. 15 Shalt thou reign, (Those who were sure they would reign by collecting enormous profits from this revaluation have lost it. The people's monopoly money is now worth much more, for the till has the elites' and the wicked's money in it and it will be divided as God sees fit.) because thou strivest to excel in cedar? Did not thy father eat and drink, and do justice and righteousness? then it was well with him. 16 He judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. Was not this to know me? saith Jehovah. 17 But thine eyes and thy heart are not but for thy covetousness, and for shedding innocent blood, and for oppression, and for violence, to do it. I then asked for a word for the men giving me all their money, and my finger was on Matthew 6:29. In context Mat 6:28-34 And why are ye anxious concerning raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: 29 yet I say unto you, that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. 30 But if God doth so clothe the grass of the field, which to-day is, and to-morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? (When I pasted this text in this article, somehow, I accidentally turned the background red, but this underlined part was white. I know of no way this could naturally happen, and my accident was not an accident. So believe God to supply for you in the coming wilderness as He did for Israel.) 31 Be not therefore anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? 32 For after all these things do the Gentiles seek; for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. 33 But seek ye first his kingdom, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. 34 Be not therefore anxious for the morrow: for the morrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof. Also, this verse came to mind. Pro 13:22 A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children's children; And the wealth of the sinner is laid up for the righteous. Dream 2: I went back to sleep, and again I was sitting in front of the Monopoly board, alone this time. I was looking at a small stack of money between the game board and me. In the dream, I knew that it was $42. And I was thinking, “It will not be enough; I'm going to fall short.” (Everyone wanted the revaluation to happen too early. If it had, it would have been swallowed up by the criminals.) Then Donald Trump merged with David and came in through the door near the dining room that led out to the garage. (When I say they were merged, it was like their two images flickered back and forth between Donald Trump in a dark suit, white shirt, and red tie, and David in a white Polo shirt and light blue jeans.) (This merger has been seen for a while, especially in Eve's dreams. This represents the David Man-child reformers working to bring about the Kingdom on a Christian level, while Trump-Cyrus works to bring about the Kingdom on a National level. And the Davids will help the Trump.) I heard their voices in unison say, “42....43,44,45” as they added three more dollars to the 42 that I had. (Bill Clinton was the 42nd president, Bush Jr. the 43rd, Obama the 44th, and Trump the 45th. (And currently the 47th. Notice the criminals did not further the process of GCR during their terms because then Christians would benefit having been told by the Lord to invest in this. As a ministry, we have not, but others have for us. Obama/Hillary/Biden's job was to finish off the Christians with their invasion and cheating on the vote. Then came God's 45th and 47th president to prepare us with the tribulation provision. There is a lot of revelation concerning 45, which represents preservation. The Isaiah 45 Trump-Cyrus/Man-child parallel to rebuild the Kingdom, etc.) Isa 44:28-45:3,13 That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure, even saying of Jerusalem, She shall be built; and of the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid. 45:1 Thus saith Jehovah to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him, and I will loose the loins of kings; to open the doors before him, and the gates shall not be shut: 2 I will go before thee, and make the rough places smooth; I will break in pieces the doors of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron; 3 and I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that it is I, Jehovah, who call thee by thy name, even the God of Israel. … 13 I have raised him up in righteousness, and I will make straight all his ways: he shall build my city, and he shall let my exiles go free, not for price nor reward, saith Jehovah of hosts. I was relieved because this was exactly the amount I needed. The 3 dollars they laid down were much larger than normal, like the size of business envelopes. (I believe that Trump has “bought us” more years, represented by the 3 large dollar bills, before the tribulation begins). Then I woke up. I asked Father for a word concerning the three more dollars and my finger was on “heir of righteousness” in the concordance under Heb 11:7 By faith Noah, being warned of God concerning things not seen as yet, moved with godly fear, prepared an ark to the saving of his house; through which he condemned the world, and became heir of the righteousness which is according to faith. (Arks are expensive and laborious, as we learned when many went to see this huge replica – The Ark Encounter in Kentucky.) Mat 24:37-39 And as were the days of Noah, so shall be the coming of the Son of man. 38 For as in those days which were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, 39 and they knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall be the coming of the Son of man. What 42 dollars could also represent... Meaning of Number 42 in the Bible Forty-two is a number with a direct connection to the coming Antichrist kingdom. His evil efforts will last 42 months in the end time, and thus forty-two is firmly associated with him. (This 42nd Presidency brought an end to 3 generations of antichrist leadership, but we are being preserved by the 45th and 47th. In God's view, Trump skipped a year because He is needed now.) On Oct 14, 2018, Melissa Pollock wrote: David, I thought I would look online and see if there is anything about Pres. Trump having dreams and needing interpretation. I looked for a little, but not really hard. The Lord got my attention when I was online, that Trump is the 45th President. I was thinking about how the Lord is using him as a type of Cyrus. Then all of a sudden the Lord brought to mind that Isaiah 45 is the first chapter, which talks about Cyrus. So I went and looked. Actually, verse 28, the last verse of chapter 44, is the first place Isaiah starts talking about Cyrus. Chapter 45 is the only chapter in Isaiah that starts at the beginning, talking about Cyrus. Then I thought about the fact that 45 means preservation. The Lord also got my attention with how I wrote all this info down. PRES. is short for President, and PREServation both begin with the same letters! The Lord is using PRES Trump as a type of Cyrus to PREServe the U.S. and the world by taking down the Deep State. That's so we have a relative time of peace for the sake of bringing His people out of apostasy so they will follow the Man-child into the wilderness, like David has been teaching us. There are only three verses that use the number 45 in the Bible. Gen.18:28 peradventure there shall lack five of the fifty righteous: wilt thou destroy all the city for lack of five? And he said, I will not destroy it, if I find there forty and five. (45 preserved) Joshua 14:10 And now, behold, Jehovah hath kept me alive, as he spake, these forty and five years, from the time that Jehovah spake this word unto Moses, while Israel walked in the wilderness: and now, lo, I am this day fourscore and five years old. (45 preserved) 1 Kings 7:3, In context 1-3, 1 And Solomon was building his own house thirteen years, and he finished all his house. 2 For he built the house of the forest of Lebanon; the length thereof was a hundred cubits, and the breadth thereof fifty cubits, and the height thereof thirty cubits, upon four rows of cedar pillars, with cedar beams upon the pillars. 3 And it was covered with cedar above over the forty and five beams, that were upon the pillars; fifteen in a row. Cedar wood is bug-resistant and used to store things in order to preserve them from being eaten up by bugs. (His house was preserved and supported by 45 beams) Huge Box of Gold Coins Given to David David Eells - 11/04/2016 I had a vision in the night. I saw myself in a huge warehouse. I had been sent by my Boss to move a large box that I saw in the Spirit to our part of the warehouse. When I got there, I still saw the box in the Spirit, and I saw the industrial-sized forklift that I was to use to pick it up. I would judge the box to be about 8' square and very strong. It was full of dollar-sized gold coins. I looked at the forklift and wondered if it was big enough to pick the box up. I found the manager of the warehouse and told him what I was told to do. He said, “I was told by my boss not even to speak nominally (in name only) of that box”. Then I told him, “Do you want me to go back to my Boss or do you want to speak to yours?” I knew my Boss, Father, was over his boss, Satan. End of vision. (I believe the Lord is saying we are soon to receive access to the money to serve His saints in the refuge.) UBM, Refuge from the Storm David Eells - 09/21/2007 In a vivid dream, an elderly white-haired man sat at His desk looking at some papers. He was also watching me with an expression of pleasant approval as I lay on a couch next to Him. I also was looking at some papers. It was revealed to me that He was leaving me with a billion dollars, which to me just represented a lot of money. Later I was told it would literally be infinitely more than that, and it would be to take care of His people, house, property, and the Man-child families. There were household servants who looked on. (The elderly white-haired man represents our heavenly Father, Who will provide Unleavened Bread Ministries with everything necessary to care for that portion of His house and property that He has left us to care for. The house represents His holy people, and His property represents those who are under the blood and in the process of becoming holy. I represent UBM, which is a body of saints committed to preparing the elect to walk in the steps of Jesus. The papers we were looking at represent the Biblical, legal contract between the Father and us that guarantees all these things. The servants are the angels who serve His people to bring this to pass. I was lying down in a restful position, signifying that it would not be by the works of UBM, but as we rest from our own works, the grace of God will bring it to pass.) Afterward, I saw myself walking through the house and looking out a front window. I saw that a storm was raging and that the properties outside the boundaries of our property were being devastated. In other words, we were a refuge. Trees were being blown away, and the landscape was becoming desolate. (Looking out the front window is to look into the future, or what is before the house. The raging storm is tribulation to come. The world outside the property will be devastated to prepare a wilderness that will motivate God's people to flee to the Kingdom of God through repentance and faith. This is abiding in Christ, the “Secret Place” of the Most High God. In the Bible, people are likened to trees, so the trees blown away represent people's lives being destroyed who do not abide in the shelter of Christ.) Next, I saw that inside the boundary of the property were all kinds of animals. I knew that the billion dollars was given to shelter and take care of these. (After the dream, I thought how much this seemed like the beasts who fled to Noah's ark for safety from the storm to come. Solomon taught that men are as beasts. Ecc.3:18 I said in my heart, [It is] because of the sons of men, that God may prove them, and that they may see that they themselves are [but as] beasts. 19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; and man hath no preeminence above the beasts for all is vanity. I have shared in our teachings that the different peculiarities of these animals represent the different strengths and weaknesses of men. The different species can also be seen as different unclean sects, divisions or denominations.) Peter was being prepared by a trance vision to accept into the Kingdom those men he considered to be unclean beasts. Act.10:11 and he beholdeth the heaven opened, and a certain vessel descending, as it were a great sheet, let down by four corners upon the earth: 12 wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts and creeping things of the earth and birds of the heaven. 13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill and eat. 14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common and unclean. 15 And a voice [came] unto him again the second time, What God hath cleansed, make not thou common. 16 And this was done thrice: and straightway the vessel was received up into heaven. Immediately after this vision, Peter was invited to the house of Cornelius, and he perceived that God had revealed to him that He had cleansed the lost, unclean Gentiles through the sacrifice of Jesus. Act.10:28 and he said unto them, Ye yourselves know how it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to join himself or come unto one of another nation; and [yet] unto me hath God showed that I should not call any man common or unclean... 34 And Peter opened his mouth and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons: 35 but in every nation he that feareth him, and worketh righteousness, is acceptable to him. At this point, Peter preached the Gospel to all who were in Cornelius' house, and they were saved and filled with the Holy Spirit. Many unclean beast people will be fleeing the judgments on the world and apostate Christianity and coming into the shelter of the Kingdom through our ministry. These were sanctified of their beastly character by the sacrifice of Jesus, and we will have to deal with those peculiarities by faith and the Word. Some of them will ultimately not be saved, for they will not continue in the faith and endure to the end to be delivered of their beastly appetites. Next, I saw, as I looked out of the front window, a rhinoceros charging towards the window. At the last minute, it veered off and went down the left side of the house. I turned and ran to the back of the house and looked out the back window to see lions and a rhino calf peacefully in the backyard together with other animals. I supposed that the rhinoceros was thinking of protecting its own, but there was no threat; they were all at peace. (Notice that the animals are at peace, like they must have been in Peter's sheet and Noah's ark. This symbolizes the one flock with one shepherd that Jesus said would come. Mat.5:9 Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God. In Isaiah 11:1-5, the Branch is Jesus in the Man-child ministry as in Jer.23:1-6. Then it also speaks of the animals being at peace and protected and led by the man-child. Isa.11:6 And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them (man-child). 7 And the cow and the bear shall feed; their young ones shall lie down together; and the lion shall eat straw like the ox. 8 And the sucking child shall play on the hole of the asp, and the weaned child shall put his hand on the adder's den. 9 They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain (Kingdom of God); for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of Jehovah, as the waters cover the sea. The rest of the chapter speaks of gathering God's people to their spiritual Land of Promise and bringing peace between them while conquering the old man in the land. Chapter 12 speaks of them drinking freely of God's salvation. And chapter 13 is the Day of the Lord and the fall of America as we know it. Here, the shepherds and their flocks are gone, but the wild beasts- especially “goats” (the wicked and apostates) and “wolves” (apostate false leaders) are left to “cry in their castles” (churches). 13:19 And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans' (Babylon in religion and politics) pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. 20... neither shall shepherds make their flocks to lie down there. 21 But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there (religion); and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and ostriches shall dwell there, and wild goats shall dance there. 22 And wolves shall cry in their castles (churches), and jackals in the pleasant palaces: and her time is near to come, and her days shall not be prolonged.) Looking out the front window in this dream represents seeing into the future, and the left side, where the rhinoceros went, represents where the goats walk. Just as it is now, some self-righteous, competitive, ambitious, sectarian, factious, domineering types will seek to separate those of their own kind and their own thinking from the body when in reality they are in the safest place to be. This also may be speaking of a larger future scenario that involves the new world order religion seeking to separate those who may be proven to belong to them from those at peace with God and each other. They will not be ashamed to use the weapon at their disposal to gore those who have been given authority. The rhinoceros first aimed at me and then at those who agreed with me. Some, like Judas, will go to the place ordained for them because of their selfish ambition and because they abuse their freedom in Christ. Gal.5:10 I have confidence to you-ward in the Lord, that ye will be none otherwise minded: but he that troubleth you shall bear his judgment, whosoever he be... 13 For ye, brethren, were called for freedom; only [use] not your freedom for an occasion to the flesh, but through love be servants one to another. 14 For the whole law is fulfilled in one word, [even] in this: Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. 15 But if ye bite and devour one another (as the wild beasts normally do), take heed that ye be not consumed one of another (as the wild beasts do). 16 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.... 19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are [these]: fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, 20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousies, wraths, factions, divisions, parties, 21 envyings, drunkenness, revellings, and such like; of which I forewarn you, even as I did forewarn you, that they who practice such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God. Refuge Presence of God B. R. - 05/01/2009 (David's notes in red) I was reading in Second Samuel, and this scripture impressed me: 2Sa.6:14 And David danced before Jehovah with all his might; and David was girded with a linen ephod. 15 So David and all the house of Israel brought up the ark of Jehovah with shouting, and with the sound of the trumpet. (When the David Man-child ministries are anointed as the new leadership of God's people, the presence of God will be in their midst for the first time since the Saul ministries began. 1 Chr.12:38 All these being men of war, that could order the battle array, came with a perfect heart to Hebron, to make David king over all Israel: and all the rest also of Israel were of one heart to make David king... 13:2 And David said unto all the assembly of Israel, If it seem good unto you, and if it be of Jehovah our God, let us send abroad everywhere unto our brethren that are left in all the land of Israel, with whom the priests and Levites are in their cities that have suburbs, that they may gather themselves unto us; 3 and let us bring again the ark of our God to us: for we sought not unto it in the days of Saul.) Then, last night, I had a refuge dream, and only the following came to mind: We were in a covered pavilion with picnic tables. David (representing the David/Man-child ministries to come) and I had arrived, and there was a group of people expecting us. A middle-aged woman came up to us and told us that the pretzels in the stacked, white boxes of different sizes on the picnic tables were for us to eat. (This represents partaking of the joyous rewards of the unleavened bread of the Word, the crucified life of the heart, and prayer. All this in a clean, white garment representing faith and the works of the Spirit. Which I will share below.) David was walking behind me, singing in tongues. He was in a very joyous mood. (Bringing the anointed presence of God.) What Do Pretzels Represent? The origins of the pretzel go back to a frugal monastery in the mountains between Southern France and Northern Italy. In 610 AD, the monks created the first soft pretzels. They didn't want to waste the dough leftover from making unleavened communion bread. (Partaking of the pure Word.) Christians, in those days, prayed with their arms crossed over their chest (the crucified life of the heart) with each hand on the opposite shoulder. The monks realized that the dough could be twisted into a similar shape. The treats were given to village children as a reward to children for memorizing their prayers. The monks called their treats “pretiola”, a Latin word that means “little rewards”. (Partaking of the joyous rewards of the unleavened bread of the Word and prayer.) Provision for the Bride Terri McGinley - 4/19/22 (Deb's notes in green | David's notes in red) I had a dream where I was observing these young men. (Representing the Man-child Body of first fruits reformers.) They were between the ages of 18-23 or so. (Eighteen is the numerical value of the Hebrew word “chai,” which means “life.”... It is a Jewish custom to give monetary gifts in increments of 18, thus symbolically blessing the recipient of the gift with a good, long life. The number 23 in the Bible symbolizes death. The Man-child body of reformers is the first to come to their spiritual death of self so that they can bring salvation, provision, and life through the Gospel of Christ to all of God's elect during their first 3 1/2 years of ministry in the tribulation.) They were camping, and someone there told them of a lady who was in need and asked if they could help out. (Camping represents that the Man-child reformers are in their own personal wilderness.) (The lady in need is the modern-day Church, which has been impoverished by apostasy and division over these last 2,000+ years and is in desperate need of the real Jesus.) One young man said, “Wait, just a minute.” (The young man represents Jesus Who has already given us everything.) He had a stack of birthday cards. (Birthday cards represent invitations to be born into the Kingdom.) He looked through them and found a blank check and a hundred-dollar bill. He took them out of the cards and gave them to the lady in need. (The Man-child will show the woman how to receive the $100 bill representing 100-fold fruit and the blank check representing carte blanche; i.e., whatever is needed; no stipulations or no limits.) (Est 2:13 then in this wise came the maiden unto the king: Whatsoever she desired was given her to go with her out of the house of the women unto the king's house.) He left the check blank. I was really surprised, thinking he'd give maybe five or ten dollars, especially since he didn't seem to have much and was so young. That was the whole dream. (Jesus didn't have much during His earthly life according to the world's standards, but He gave all of His life so that we could have Life. A “blank check” reminds me of Mar.11:24 Therefore I say unto you, All things whatsoever ye pray and ask for, believe that ye received them, and ye shall have them.) AMEN.
Message Take Aways:1. The reigns of King Zechariah & King Shallum demonstrate that those who live in opposition to the truth of God's word will suffer violence—“There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.” Proverbs 14:122. The reigns of King Menahem, King Pekahiah, & King Pekah remind that a nation seeking to establish itself apart from the Lord will experience volatility and instability that will eventually lead to its demise—"Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help, And rely on horses, Who trust in chariots because they are many, And in horsemen because they are very strong, But who do not look to the Holy One of Israel, Nor seek the LORD!” Isaiah 31:13. King Jotham reminds that a man who prepares his ways before the LORD will experience great victory in his life—“Commit your way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass.” Psalm 37:5
“1 In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above it stood seraphim…3 And one cried to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” Isaiah 6:1-3. See The Death of Fear“1 In the year King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above it stood seraphim…3 And one cried to another and said: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” Isaiah 6:1-3.“11 the priests could not continue ministering because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord.” 1 Kings 8:11Night 1: we want to “See the King”Night 2: we want to “Receive the King”Night 3: we want to “Live in the King/into the life of wonder”See the death of fear, when we see our glorious King“1 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord…” Isaiah 6:11) Who is King Uzziah and why does it matter he is dead?“15 His fame spread far and wide, for he was marvelously helped (by God) til he became strong.” 2 Chronicles 26:15.“16 But when he was strong, his heart was lifted up to his destruction.” 2 Chronicles 26:16The backdrop of one of the most insightful accounts of the glory and majesty of God is the death of this failed King.2) Who is Isaiah?A prophet is a set aside person God uses to warn, encourage, reveal God's will to others3) Who is the Lord?“1 I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lifted up, and the train of his robe filled the temple…3 Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts; The whole earth is full of His glory!” Isaiah 6:1-3A King's robe symbolizes:- Authority (the person wearing, has the right to rule)- Identity (the person themselves, is the ruler)- Status (the longer the robe the greater the honor)-Office (when the King wears a robe, he represents the Kingdom itself)Fear is our natural response to a perceived threatFear can include anxiety, dread, or terror and is experienced in our thoughts, emotions, and actionsFear #1: The year Uzziah diedFear #2: The glorious King“4 The posts of the door were shaken by the voice of one who cried out, and the house was filled with smoke. 5 So I (Isaiah) said, ‘Woe is me, for I am undone! Because I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; For my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.” Isaiah 6:4-5Yir'ah: profound respectWhere fear of the world is a threat to us, the fear of the Lord is the attitude of someone who recognizes God's holiness, power, and authority.Fear is the response of the heart to what it believes has the greatest power and worth“This vision of the throne of God did not immediately make Isaiah feel good. The more clearly he saw the LORD, the more clearly he saw how bad his state was.”- David Guzik“6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me having in his hand a live coal…7 He touched my mouth with it and said, ‘your iniquity is taken away, and your sin purged.'” Isaiah 6:6-7.The answer to fear is vision.We can see death to fear when we see the King!“17 When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. But he laid his right hand on me, ‘Fear not, I am the first and the last, and the living one.” Revelation 1:17-18
55. "Woe to You!" (Luke 11:37-54) 7.19.26 by Church in the Square (Sermon Audio)
Welcome to another hard-hitting broadcast of Hardcore Christianity on KXXT Christian Radio, hosted by professional counselor Brother Mike from the Arizona Deliverance Center in downtown Phoenix. In this "Filthy Fridays" edition, Brother Mike addresses the modern rise of self-proclaimed apostles and prophets. Grounding his arguments in scripture, he outlines the biblical standards for testing prophecy and examines how the modern prophetic movement often misleads believers with generic promises rather than absolute truth. Dive in to discover how to identify false spiritual fruit, test spiritual claims, and remain anchored in the authentic Word of God. Key Takeaways: The Rise of Marketing-Driven Titles: Why many modern claims of apostleship and prophetic status act as marketing tools rather than genuine callings from God. The Biblical Standard for Prophetic Truth: Exploring the warning from Jeremiah and Matthew's criteria for testing prophets by their spiritual fruits (Matthew 7:15-16). If a prediction fails to come to pass, the prophet is scripturally recognized as false. Supernatural Deception at the End of the Age: Understanding why Jesus warns that end-times false prophets will show real signs and wonders—using actual demonic and satanic power to seduce even the elect (Mark 13:22). The Case of Kenya’s David Owuor: A direct look at how David Owuor's December 2025 prophecy over Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro failed within weeks after a January 2026 U.S. military operation resulted in Maduro's arrest. The Demonic Trap of "Good Words": A strong warning against seeking prophets who only speak flattering, comfortable words rather than delivering difficult biblical truths. Featured Bible Passages: Jeremiah 14:14 – "The prophets prophesy lies in my name..." Matthew 7:15-16 – Beware of false prophets in sheep's clothing. Matthew 24:11-12 – False prophets rising in the end times as iniquity abounds. Mark 13:22 – False Christs and false prophets showing signs and wonders. Luke 6:26 – Woe unto you when all men speak well of you. 2 Peter 2:1 – False teachers privately bringing in damnable heresies. 1 John 4:1 – Believers are commanded to test the spirits to see if they are of God. Connect & Support: Visit the Deliverance Center: Join us at our downtown location—the red brick building on 15th Avenue, just south of Osborne Road in Phoenix, Arizona. Live Services: Thursday and Friday nights at 7:00 PM. Ladies' Night: Tuesdays at 6:30 PM. Worship Service: Saturdays at 4:30 PM, featuring our service of singing in tongues. Monthly Healing Service: Held on the last Friday of every month. Arrive early to secure a seat! Weekly Zoom Deliverance: Participate in our online healing and deliverance Zoom services on Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. Counseling & Outreach: If you need professional, faith-based counseling or would like to request materials, call Brother Mike at 602-636-5800. Support the show: https://hardcorechristianity.com/donations/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Every dad has been there. Your child says something disrespectful. Your spouse reacts in a way you didn't expect. Stress builds at work, and before you know it, you're responding out of emotion instead of wisdom. But what if there was a simple framework that could help you slow down, take ownership of your thoughts, and respond in a way that honors God? In this episode, we're joined by James Lenhoff to unpack the powerful CTFAR method—a practical tool that's helped countless people navigate conflict, parenting, marriage, work, and even financial decisions with greater clarity and self-control. If you've ever wished you could respond more intentionally instead of reacting in the moment, this conversation will give you a framework you'll use for years to come. Links In This Episode Emotion Wheel: https://abrahamswallet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Emotion-Wheel-1.jpg CTFAR Model Questions: https://abrahamswallet.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/Unknown.pdf WealthQuest: https://www.wqcorp.com/ GoodSense: https://goodsensemovement.org/ FreedUp App: https://getfreedup.com/ Please partner with us in inspiring and equipping multi-gen families at https://abrahamswallet.com/support AW website Apple Podcasts Spotify YouTube Facebook LinkedIn Instagram Chapters (00:00:00) - How to Get Through a Conflict With Yourself(00:00:46) - Take Control of Your Wallet(00:01:44) - A Christian Financial Planner on Abraham's Wallet(00:03:36) - Cognitive Behavioral Therapy(00:11:16) - How to Get Through a Conflict With My Wife(00:17:14) - The Real Cost of Blaming Your Partner(00:24:46) - Boundaries for Relationships(00:30:45) - How to Talk About Abusive Relationships(00:33:47) - The Woe and the Money(00:41:12) - The Problem of Spending Too Much(00:45:07) - How to Get Through Anger Issues in Guys(00:48:27) - Share the Emotion Wheel With Others(00:51:56) - C2 is a hard verb(00:52:14) - Good Sense: What's Going On There?
Welcome to Day 2909 of Wisdom-Trek. Thank you for joining me. This is Guthrie Chamberlain, Your Guide to Wisdom. Day 2909– “The Ultimate Close Encounter” based on Luke 10:1-16 Putnam Church Message – 06/21/2026 The Good News According to Luke: “Practical Talk to Those in Ministry.” Last week's message was “A Face Like Flint,” in which we studied the One who set His face toward Jerusalem now sets His grace upon His people. Today, we continue with our twenty-ninth message from Luke's narrative of the Good News of Jesus Christ. Today's message is: “Practical Talk to Those in Ministry.” Our core passage today is Luke 10:1-16, on page 1611 of your pew Bibles. Jesus Sends Out the Seventy-Two 10 After this, the Lord appointed seventy-two[a] others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. 2 He told them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. 3 Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves. 4 Do not take a purse or bag or sandals; and do not greet anyone on the road. 5 “When you enter a house, first say, ‘Peace to this house.' 6 If someone who promotes peace is there, your peace will rest on them; if not, it will return to you. 7 Stay there, eating and drinking whatever they give you, for the worker deserves his wages. Do not move around from house to house. 8 “When you enter a town and are welcomed, eat what is offered to you. 9 Heal the sick>who are there and tell them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.' 10 But when you enter a town and are not welcomed, go into its streets and say, 11 ‘Even the dust of your town we wipe from our feet as a warning to you. Yet be sure of this: The kingdom of God has come near.' 12 I tell you, it will be more bearable on that day for Sodom than for that town. 13 “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. 14 But it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you. 15 And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted to the heavens? No, you will go down to Hades.[b] 16 “Whoever listens to you listens to me; whoever rejects you rejects me; but whoever rejects me rejects him who sent me.” Opening Prayer Father, we come before You today grateful that You invite ordinary people into Your extraordinary work. We confess that we often feel inadequate, distracted, discouraged, or afraid. Sometimes we carry burdens You never asked us to carry, and sometimes we measure ministry by results rather than faithfulness. Lord Jesus, teach us today from Your Word. Show us what it means to be sent by You, to labor for Your harvest, to depend on Your provision, to speak peace, to serve faithfully, and to leave the results in Your hands. Help us see that ministry is not reserved for a few, but belongs to all who follow You. May our lives become faithful witnesses to the nearness of Your Kingdom. Amen. Introduction: Why Would God Use Us? I have often wondered why God involves people in His work when He can do everything Himself. Have you ever thought about that? God does not need our talent. God does not need our strength. God does not need our planning ability. God does not need our committees, schedules, buildings, sermons, songs, or programs. He can do the job better than we can. He can speak a word, and worlds come into existence. He can open blind eyes, raise the dead, calm storms, silence demons, and move kings according to His will. So why does He entrust something as important as building His Kingdom to people like us? People who get tired. People who misunderstand. People who get proud. People who become discouraged. People who argue about greatness. People who sometimes want to call down fire on their enemies. That is the mystery of grace. God does not involve us because He lacks power. He involves us because He loves us, forms us, and gives us a genuine part in His redemptive work. In the previous message, “A Face Like Flint,” we saw Jesus set His face toward Jerusalem. Luke 9:51 is a hinge in Luke's Gospel. From that moment forward, Jesus is moving toward the cross, the resurrection, and the ascension. Nothing will distract Him from the Father's mission. Now, in Luke 10:1–16, Jesus does something remarkable. He multiplies the mission. Earlier, He sent the Twelve. Now He appoints seventy-two others, or seventy depending on the manuscript tradition, and sends them ahead of Him into the towns and places He plans to visit. This means the ministry is expanding beyond the inner circle. The Kingdom is not a private project for the Twelve. It is not merely the work of clergy. It is not limited to those with public titles. Jesus is building a people who are sent. And in this passage, He gives practical talk to those in ministry. That includes pastors, teachers, elders, deacons, missionaries, children's workers, worship leaders, caregivers, parents, grandparents, encouragers, prayer warriors, business owners, neighbors, friends, and every believer who bears witness to Christ. If you belong to Jesus, you are involved in ministry. So let us listen carefully to His practical instruction found in four truths in your bulletin insert on the side that says Practical Talk to Those in Ministry. Main Point 1: The Harvest Belongs to God, but the Labor Belongs to Us Jesus says the harvest is great, but the workers are few. So, He tells His disciples to pray to the Lord of the harvest, asking Him to send out workers into His harvest. That is where ministry begins: not with panic, but with prayer. Jesus looks at the world as a harvest field. That image would have been vivid to His listeners. In an agricultural world, the harvest was urgent. When the crop was ready, delay could mean loss. Workers had to go into the field while the time was right. But notice what Jesus calls it. It is not our harvest. It is not the church's harvest. It is not the pastor's harvest. It is the Lord's harvest. That matters. When we forget this, we carry burdens God never intended us to carry. We begin to think the future of the Kingdom depends on us. We stay awake at night worrying about results we cannot control. We measure faithfulness by numbers, approval, visible response, or immediate fruit. But Jesus calls Himself the Lord of the harvest. He owns the field. He knows the soil. He sees the hearts. He sends the workers. He brings the growth. Our responsibility is not to control the harvest. Our responsibility is to labor faithfully. Object Lesson: A Seed Packet and a Basket Hold up a packet of seeds and an empty basket. The seed packet represents the work entrusted to us. / We can plant. / We can water. / We can tend. / We can prepare. But we cannot force life into the seed. The basket represents the harvest. / We long to see it full, and that longing is good. / But only God can bring the harvest. Paul says something similar in 1 Corinthians 3:7 It's not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What's important is that God makes the seed grow. That is freeing. We are not excused from labor. Jesus calls us workers. But we are freed from pretending to be God. Ancient Context When Jesus sent these seventy-two, He sent them ahead of Him. They were not going out to build personal followings. They were preparing towns for the arrival of the King. In the ancient world, messengers often went ahead of a ruler to announce his coming. They did not invent the message. They did not negotiate the king's authority. They...
What if the thoughts running through your head on repeat could be the difference between staying stuck and moving forward? In this episode, I'm sharing five powerful soundtracks that help me choose bravery when fear gets loud. You'll discover why "It's just a puddle" changed how I parent and handle everyday stress, how to shift from "Woe is me" to "Wow is me" (one letter that changes everything), and why being the CEO of yourself isn't enough if you're still a terrible boss to yourself. I'll also show you how to focus on the fix instead of the fear, and why feeling uncomfortable is actually a sign your old comfort zone is having a hard time keeping up with you. These aren't just catchy phrases. They're the thoughts that turn into actions, and actions that turn into results. This is episode 5 of our Bravest Summer Ever series, but you don't need to have heard the others to get massive value from these five soundtracks.In This Episode:Order Procrastination Proof!You can grab a copy of my new book Procrastination Proof from your favorite bookstore or at my website!Make sure to follow me on Instagram and share with your friends!Sign up for my newsletter, Try This!Book me to speak at your event or to your team!Sign up for the Remarkable You Community today!Keep up with my book list on GoodReads!Have me speak at your next event! Have me speak at your next event!
Woe to those who work out evil on their couches
Fr. Mike reveals yet another prophetic message that points towards the coming of Christ, explaining why the Book of Isaiah is often called the Book of Woe and the Book of Consolation. He also touches on the powerful prayer we hear as we end our journey with Tobit. Today's readings are Isaiah 11-13, Tobit 13-14, and Proverbs 10:13-16. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/bibleinayear. Please note: The Bible contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.
Armored Against Demon Invasion (audio) David Eells – 7/15/26 Bundle of Serpents Attacks John David Feagin - 10/31/2011 (David's notes in red) In the brief dream I had, there was a bundle, like the old-fashioned bundle of wheat that was being passed down from two others in line to me, only this bundle was a bundle of serpents. I could tell that they were very venomous serpents, like sea snakes, cobras, mambas, or coral snakes. They tried to bite my arm and, naturally, I did not like this. I did remember that we are immune to the bites of serpents if we are covered in the Blood of Jesus, so this is where I put my trust. I was no longer so concerned and set them aside. At the time I awoke, this was puzzling to me, but now, after some thought, I believe I understand it more fully. The snakes involved have neurotoxins, which attack the brain, that is, our thoughts. We are strictly warned to take captive our every thought (that is, against the knowledge of God's Word) and this now means much more to me than it ever has before. I am certainly no expert with such things or spiritual warfare, but I do know that demons associated with pornography, bitterness, criticism, faction, etc., are very powerful and deadly. I also know that demons can be transferred by men, and inadvertently opening doors, even with the best of intentions, can invite personal attack. I personally believe this was a warning to be very careful, but it may also be a general warning to others as well, and may be applied to all sorts of demonic or thought influence. If the enemy can truly read our thoughts and insert them, as has been shown in a previous UBM study, then this is particularly devious. It is difficult to reject such thoughts if you think they are your own. Then, this morning, as a sort of confirmation, I saw the UBM update about the bug detector and casting such thoughts to hell immediately in the name of Jesus. I also noticed that when I was praying, in the Word, and seeking wisdom in such matters, my thoughts were clear, but when my guard was down, my own thoughts and emotions in the matter, no matter how well-intended, were somewhat intoxicating. So, forewarned is forearmed. God bless always in His service. Be careful of slander and criticism for the purpose of making disciples. It comes only from demons, and those they can use, and it comes for only one reason -- to impart demons and poison minds against someone the devil hates. Demons impersonating aliens to turn the world to the mark of the beast to destroy Christianity. The Word for “heresies” or “parties” in Galatians 5:20 means “a self-willed opinion leading to division”. The word for factions among these works of the flesh means separating followers through selfish ambition. Demons impersonate righteous indignation but are actually criticism or new revelation. {Jas.3:14} But if ye have bitter jealousy and faction in your heart, glory not and lie not against the truth. {15} This wisdom is not [a wisdom] that cometh down from above, but is earthly, sensual, devilish. {16} For where jealousy and faction are, there is confusion and every vile deed. Bluffing Demons & Spiritual Authority Sandy Shaw 11/09/2011 (David's notes in red) The way this dream starts is that I'm walking into this room, and I'm watching a group of men (some I know, some I don't know) who are turning around and leaving the room. I ask the ladies there, “Where are the men going?” (These men are the chosen.) The women who are there tell me not to worry because they need to go -- they have to go. The Lord wants them to go. When this happens, I feel like all the women are in unity that the men needed to go. (The spiritual catching up to the throne anointing of those who will return as the Man-child reformer ministry.) I then grab Tina's hand and ask, “Don't you feel the winds of change?” She answers, “What?” Then I say, “The change. The winds of change. Don't you feel the winds of change?” (From this point on, everything will change both positively for those who love God and are called according to His purpose and negatively for the wicked; a separation of the wheat from the tares. Tina ended up going factious, the opposite of Sandy.) Then I go from there to an ancient-looking town square or plaza. People are walking all around. There are archways all around the square leading into different hallways, buildings, or rooms. It looks and feels like it's an ancient city. (Archways were made famous by the ancient Romans, who were the first to apply the technique to a wide range of structures. We are seeing a revival of the iron and clay of Daniel's end-time vision of the 10 toes of the world beast kingdom. There is no dispute that the iron is the seed of the Roman Empire.) As I'm walking slowly through this square, I'm praying. I'm praying continuously because I can feel the presence of evil so strongly there. (Great darkness is about to descend as the principality of the old Roman Empire prepares to take charge and make the covenant with many, as spoken of in Daniel 9:26,27.) As I'm looking at some of the people, they look human, but for a brief moment, I can see certain demons that are controlling them. (As we watch this progressive revelation, the people who belong to the body of the beast become less and less human and more and more demon, just as those who belong to the body of Christ become less and less human and more and more sons of God. Those from among the people of God who do not forsake their evil will go with the wicked. {Rev.22:11} He that is unrighteous, let him do unrighteousness still: and he that is filthy, let him be made filthy still: and he that is righteous, let him do righteousness still: and he that is holy, let him be made holy still. In the days before the coming of the Lord, at the end of the tribulation, Jesus will come in and then with His saints. {2Th.1:7} and to you that are afflicted rest with us, at the revelation of the Lord Jesus from heaven with the angels of his power in flaming fire, {8} rendering vengeance to them that know not God, and to them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus: {9} who shall suffer punishment, [even] eternal destruction from the face of the Lord and from the glory of his might, {10} when he shall come to be glorified in his saints, and to be marvelled at in all them that believed (because our testimony unto you was believed) in that day.) As I'm praying, some man grabs my arm and pulls me into one of the hallways. As he is pulling me into the hallway, I hear someone in the square saying, “We gotta find her. We gotta find her. We have to stop her. Her prayers are reaching the throne of Heaven!” (These voices are the demons speaking through men). (Our prayers do reach the throne when sent by faith, and the demons' plans are thwarted. {Psa.10:17} Jehovah, thou hast heard the desire of the meek: Thou wilt prepare their heart, thou wilt cause thine ear to hear. {Rom.10:13} for, Whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. {Jer.33:3} Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and will show thee great things, and difficult, which thou knowest not.) So the man pulls me into this room, and there are mostly men and a few women there. This room is full of uniforms of all different kinds. The people are trying to figure out which uniform to put on. Some of the uniforms are military. As they are excited about finding the right uniform to wear, they are trying them on. I know in the dream that these people are Christians. (The “Christians” will be worried about how to appear to the world in this dangerous time and what lifestyle to put on besides Christ's. A military uniform indicates a militant lifestyle in dealing with this beast system, which will be disastrous since “they who take the sword will die by the sword”. We must put on the uniform of the new man, who is in the image of Jesus and His actions, according to the knowledge of the Word. {Col.3:9} lie not one to another; seeing that ye have put off the old man with his doings, {10} and have put on the new man, that is being renewed unto knowledge after the image of him that created him.) I tell them that they have it wrong and that the full armor that they need to put on is the full armor of God, not one of these physical uniforms made by man. The people just look at me, not receiving anything I'm saying (as apostate patriotic Christians). A man asks me to sit down and take a look at this uniform. Then this man puts on some kind of uniform with a jacket. The jacket and uniform cover his legs, feet, and everything. There is a hood to the jacket that covers his whole head with a face-covering mask. The material of the jacket is a material I've never felt before. They then pour chemicals over it, resulting in no damage. Then they turn a blowtorch on it, and the torch doesn't burn or damage it. (As a volunteer fireman for Exxon, they gave us shirts that had metal woven into them to reflect heat. Our government is allying with alien impersonating demons like the galactic federation or alliance in hopes of profiting from their “higher technology.” But these hate Christians and will help to bring about the mark of the beast to be rid of them.) They are really excited about the uniform/jacket and are picking it to be the one they will use. (There is no safety outside of God's will. He sent the curse, and no man can defend from it. {Jer.17:5} Thus saith Jehovah: Cursed is the man that trusteth in man, and maketh flesh his arm, and whose heart departeth from Jehovah. ... {7} Blessed is the man that trusteth in Jehovah, and whose trust Jehovah is. {8} For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, that spreadeth out its roots by the river, and shall not fear when heat cometh, but its leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit.) I tell them again, “No, you have it wrong; it's the full armor of God that you need to put on. There is nothing manmade that will help you. You only need the full armor of God”. I then get up and walk out of there into the long hallway. As I walk down the hallway, it is full of men lining up to put on the uniform they think is going to help them in the battle ahead. {Psa.33:16} There is no king saved by the multitude of a host: A mighty man is not delivered by great strength. {17} A horse is a vain thing for safety; Neither doth he deliver any by his great power. {18} Behold, the eye of Jehovah is upon them that fear him, Upon them that hope in his lovingkindness; {19} To deliver their soul from death, And to keep them alive in famine. {20} Our soul hath waited for Jehovah: He is our help and our shield. ... {Psa.34:7} The angel of Jehovah encampeth round about them that fear him, And delivereth them. {8} Oh taste and see that Jehovah is good: Blessed is the man that taketh refuge in him.) After leaving the “Christians” in their false confidence, I kept walking and went back to the square. The ground in the square has changed: it's all dirt now, and I could see through the dirt. I see under the dirt different piles of bones all over the place. No one knows that those bones are there, and no one sees them either. I'm not quite sure why I'm seeing them. (The hidden bones represent those who are martyred behind the scenes because they are not prepared for the battle by putting on the Lord Jesus Christ, as in Romans 13:12-14. Notice that putting on Jesus IS putting on God's armor or protection. Notice that it is always called the “armor of God” because it is God Himself. {Eph.6:11} Put on the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. {12} For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual [hosts] of wickedness in the heavenly [places]. {13} Wherefore take up the whole armor of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and, having done all, to stand. {14} Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, {15} and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace; {16} withal taking up the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil [one]. {17} And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God: {18} with all prayer and supplication praying at all seasons in the Spirit, and watching thereunto in all perseverance and supplication for all the saints. Notice that putting on all of these attributes: truth, righteousness, the Gospel, and salvation are manifestations of the Word, Who is Jesus. Putting on Jesus is putting on God. It is the armor of GOD Himself.) I'm walking through the square again, and I'm praying because I need to get to the other side of the square. (Contrary to popular opinion, we will all have to pass through this time of the revived Roman beast with America at the head.) As I'm walking and praying, the people that I saw with demons controlling them, I now see as full-blown demons, but to the natural eye, they still looked human. (The worldly people will be totally possessed, though they appear to each other as normal, and we are seeing more of this happening now. The D.S. can only be picked out by their leftist demon doctrines.) There was one demon that would walk really fast. So fast that it seemed as if he was flying. This demon went right in front of my face, standing right in front of me but he could not see me. He was really angry and talking with authority, telling the other demons, “We have to find these people who are praying! NOW! NOW, I say! Find them! (Prayer by those who believe in its power will be both destructive to Satan's kingdom and defensive to those who walk in the Lord's Kingdom. {Jas.5:16} Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working. {17} Elijah was a man of like passions with us, and he prayed fervently that it might not rain; and it rained not on the earth for three years and six months. {18} And he prayed again; and the heaven gave rain, and the earth brought forth her fruit.) I was standing right in front of him, praying, and the demon had no clue that I was there. (In other words, I was hidden in Christ.) So, I keep walking and when I get to the right-hand corner of the square, I look. I stop, turn around, and I'm looking! I'm watching these people. And the room is not really a room. The way that it feels is completely off, like when you walk into a room, and you can see the light, yet you can see shadows behind things. This was now completely reversed. There was light where shadows would normally be. There were bits and pieces of light. It was completely off, completely out of order. It just didn't feel or look right. (When the light is dark, and the dark is light, it is when good is called evil and evil is called good. This is where demon-possessed society is and has been going. {Isa.5:20} Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! We see this with demon-possessed people now.) After I walked through there, I saw what looked like some kind of old train depot-type thing. I know it's some kind of old transportation system. I'm in this room where there are two big fences with gates -- a cement-type fence. There is a gate, and people are going in and out of the gate. And then there is like a middle part where a lot of people are walking -- a lot of traffic. (To get where they want to go, Christians can't walk where the masses do in their bondage, spiritually speaking. {Mat.7:13} Enter ye in by the narrow gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many are they that enter in thereby. {14} For narrow is the gate, and straitened the way, that leadeth unto life, and few are they that find it. We must be conformed by the Word within.) On the other end is the same kind of gate that people are entering this place from somewhere else. When I go there, I'm waiting for Tina, Sam, and my mom. I feel like Tina and Sam went to get my mom wherever she was to bring her here. I knew that it hadn't been very long since I had seen Tina and Sam, but that I hadn't seen my mom in a while. Tina and Sam were getting ready to go through the gate that's on the other side to go to the middle. My mom stopped them and said, “No, we can't go that way. We have to go the other way”. (Sandy said that she felt that if they had gone into the middle, they would have died. This warning was not taken seriously by them and they spiritually died. They did not listen. This is where the people of God need to go from the worldly to the spiritual; there cannot be ‘a halfway', ‘a lukewarm'. This would mean spiritual death to them in this time and a spewing out of the body of Christ. {Rev.3:15} I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. {16} So because thou art lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spew thee out of my mouth.) If you walked all the way around to the end, there was another part that was covered by the fence. They did not walk in the middle part. They had to walk all the way around to where I was. (The path of least resistance, or the shortcut, is the wrong way. The worldly church offers many of these. Just listen to them, and they will show you the quick and easy way to get saved and fly away, but the end is death.) They were almost down to that part, and there was another little gate to walk to the middle. My mom stopped and turned around and told Tina, “Grab Sam. He cannot walk in the middle. There is no middle; he can't walk in the middle”. (None of those who are lukewarm, middle-of-the-road walkers will spiritually survive.) As Sam goes toward the middle, Tina grabs him and they walk all the way around to where I was. I greet them and hug them. (This awakening was temporary.) Then I tell them, “Things are not what they seem to be”. My mom then says, “It's okay, it's okay, because everything that is happening is according to God's will. We just need to stay in constant prayer. {Pro.14:12} There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; But the end thereof are the ways of death. We just need to stay in constant prayer”. (In the days of strong delusion and deception, there's much advanced technology now using AI, CGI, and programming through drugs, mind control and manipulation, etc., we cannot walk according to our carnal mind or senses, or we will stumble. Prayer without ceasing is our command.) So, I'm walking ahead of them. Tina is walking on one side, my mom on the other side, both holding Sam's hand. Sam was not as old as he is now. He looked to be eight or nine years old. (We will have to help guide those Christians who are not yet mature in discernment. God will hear their prayers, too. Samuel is Hebrew for “God heard” or “God's name”. Shem is a variant of Sam, meaning “name”. Shem was the father of the people of the name, as Christians are now. Shem was the father of the Israelites.) Sam was trying not to act afraid when there was the presence of evil all around us. Even amongst all the evil, we knew we were under the protection of the Lord. There was no safe place other than the arms of God. I bent down to talk to Sam in his ear, saying, “It's okay to be afraid; you just fear the Lord. Don't fear anyone else or anything else. Nothing can harm you because they have to go through the Father first. Don't be afraid”. (Fear permits faith to be robbed and the enemies to take advantage of us. It is faith in reverse. {Psa.23:4} Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me; Thy rod [of correction] and thy staff [of direction], they comfort me. {5} Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: Thou hast anointed my head with oil; My cup runneth over. (With this anointing of the Holy Spirit, we should give the good confession.) {6} Surely goodness and lovingkindness shall follow me all the days of my life; And I shall dwell in the house of Jehovah for ever.) Then we started walking back to the square. The dirt has changed again. The dirt now seems like it's a mud-like consistency. But to the natural eye, it looks just like dirt. I still see the piles of bones now with the mud going between the fingers, toes, etc. But now I also see something like a circle; it's a tunnel and I can see it at weird angles and kind of far. The things that I'm seeing in these tunnels are body parts with the flesh. I'm seeing arms cut off, legs, face, head, all different kinds of body parts. They look to be freshly cut off from the body because I can still see the blood. The blood is still wet. I can see the nerves on some of these parts still shaking and moving. (The ‘powers that be' have made many underground tunnels connecting cities, where the military and special forces have found remains of countless people who were murdered by satanists. According to other dreams and prophecies I have seen, it is in these tunnels that the saints will be expected to renounce Jesus or die. It behooves us to walk carefully so we fill out both our days and our ministry.) I'm getting ready to step, and I stop. I put my hand out to stop my mom, Tina, and Sam as I watch the details of the body parts freshly cut off. It was gross. I then asked them if they saw those parts. Tina and my mom saw it; Sam closed his eyes. He didn't want to see it. I then asked, “But it's not there?” My mom said, “Oh, but it is there under the dirt”. We stopped then and there, and we started praying. We were praying in tongues. While we were praying, I told Tina to take my mom and Sam to the outer part of the square, find a place, and begin praying and interceding. And that's what they did. (As with the Nazi persecutions in the death camps of World War 2, many will deny for the sake of soothing their own conscience that these persecutions are happening, but they will be out of sight and out of mind, “under the dirt”.) I was taking very small steps as the Lord was guiding me and telling me to. (Every step in these days will need to be according to the Father's will because of the dangers. {Eph.5:15} Look therefore carefully how ye walk, not as unwise, but as wise; {16} redeeming the time, because the days are evil.) And I was just praying and praying and praying. As I was starting to pray, I saw the people in the square now completely as demons. I no longer saw them as humans. (The righteous will be able to see in the spirit realm those who have been displaced by demons.) As I was walking, I felt as if they were trying to find me, and they were bumping into me, but didn't know they were hitting me. I kept praying more and more. I prayed out loud, and they could hear me but couldn't see me. (Invisibility in the spirit realm makes for peace from the flesh realm.) That big demon I saw earlier that walked really fast was now there, and there were more demons of his stature and size. They were frantic, upset and mad. One of them said, “Now there are more praying. Do you hear them praying? We have to find them NOW! I'm telling you, their prayers are reaching the throne room of Heaven. Things are going to change. Find them NOW!” There was such an urgency to find us. I walked all the way to the end of the square and I turned around and asked, “Okay, Lord. What is it that You want me to do?” (Truly, “things are going to change.” Walking to the end of the square represents that the saints will go through this beast tribulation and bring the Gospel to the whole world. Watch volume one of Hidden Manna for the End Times.) I don't know where the Lord took the men whom I saw at the beginning of the dream or what had happened, but I just knew that they were coming back. The demons were still looking really hard for the people who were praying. Not just us, but they were looking to stop everyone everywhere from praying. The Lord told me to step a foot back in the square, and I did. When I stepped back in the square, I was speaking the Word out loud. Everything that the Lord was saying to me, I was speaking out loud. The demons could now see me and were in my face, trying to intimidate or scare me. I knew that they could not touch me. They were telling me to shut up, be quiet, that my prayers were dead, and I was doing no good. “Don't you know we can kill you? We can take you out! You are nothing!” Many of them kept saying those things to me over and over. (Demons are full of threats to discourage the prayers and works of God, but most Christians don't recognize them as coming from demons, but feel they are their own thoughts and are defeated. The knowledge of God's Word will enable them to defeat the deceivers. {2Co.10:3} For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh {4} (for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds), {5} casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.) I said to them, “I am nothing, but through Christ Jesus He is everything. He is my all and all. Everything that I need, God is. God is the source. God is the strength. God is the great I AM! One of the demons was so close to my face that I could smell his stench. So close that he was almost touching me. I told him, “You are nothing! You can't do anything other than what my God allows. You are nothing! (God is sovereign over all, but He will allow many things that we allow because He has delegated authority over all the power of the enemies. {Mat.18:18} Verily I say unto you, what things soever ye shall bind on earth shall be bound in heaven; and what things soever ye shall loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven. {19} Again I say unto you, that if two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father who is in heaven. ... {Luk.10:19} Behold, I have given you authority to tread upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy: and nothing shall in any wise hurt you. {20} Nevertheless in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subject unto you; but rejoice that your names are written in heaven. I heard a noise behind me, and I turned around and saw all the men who had gone out, and there were more with them coming, and with what looked like Christ in the middle. Everyone was dressed in white. When Christ and all those men came on the scene, some of those demons became smaller and smaller. The ones that were already small were trying to run, but they couldn't go anywhere, as you have seen in cartoons, only this was not a cartoon; they were liquefying before me into a puddle on the floor, and then they were gone. I was backing up as the men were going forward. I went with Tina, Sam, and my mom to this place where I saw a lot more people who were praying and interceding. Then I woke up. (Who are these men whom the demons fear? The Lord is in the Man-child ministry to raise up many in the image of the Lord. These are coming to wreak havoc on the spiritual hosts of wickedness. Hallelujah!) After I woke up from the dream, I heard the Lord say, “Write this down: “You have all power and authority in the name of Jesus Christ. Understand and know the power of His blood. For you are adopted, therefore you are entitled to everything. Hear Me! Understand Me! Know Me! For then the enemy cannot deceive you for what's ahead.” The Men Whom the Demons Fear Seven spiritual shepherds who are sent by the Man-child to minister to the seven Churches, which is mentioned in Hidden Manna for the End Times. First, Jesus is coming to be manifested in the Man-child ministry. (Mic.5:2) But thou, Beth-lehem Ephrathah, which art little to be among the thousands of Judah, out of thee shall one come forth unto me that is to be ruler in Israel; whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting. Obviously, this is Jesus. (3) Therefore will he give them up, until the time that she who travaileth hath brought forth (the man-child body): then the residue of his brethren shall return unto the children of Israel. Jesus left because of rebellion and will return in the Man-child who is born of the travailing woman in Revelation 12. As Jesus fed the former rain woman in a body of flesh, so He will feed the latter rain woman in a corporate body of flesh. (Mic.5:4) And He shall stand, and shall feed [His flock] in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord His God: and they shall abide; for now shall He be great unto the ends of the earth. The Jesus of the former rain was revered by the disciples and feared by His enemies, but because of apostasy, this has not been true for many centuries since because they have had “another Jesus.” The Man-child body and those disciples who follow in His/their steps will restore this, and He shall be “great unto the ends of the earth”. The Man-child's teaching will bring peace to the seven churches that are at war with the beast and harlot. (5) And this [man] shall be [our] peace, When the Assyrian shall come into our land, and shall tread in our palaces, then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal (Hebrew: “princes among”) men. The corporate body of the Man-child is “this man” who brings peace to the corporate woman with his teachings, which enable her to resist the beast invasion. He brings peace because the “Prince of peace” is in his heart. Spiritually speaking, we are the “land” with the “palaces” that the corporate beast is trying to invade. (1Co.3:9) For we are God's fellow-workers: ye are God's husbandry (Greek: “tilled land”), God's building (“palaces”). As we shall see, the beast is a corporate spirit from the abyss (Rev.17:8) that inhabits the body of the wicked (3) and seeks to inhabit the righteous and mark them. Notice that the “Assyrians” are called “him” which shows that they are seen as the corporate body of the beast. Since the Assyrian beast kingdom passed away over 600 years before Christ, they could not have been connected with Jesus or the Man-child. Therefore, God, as usual, was using the beast of that day to represent a particular aspect of the end time beast. As the Assyrian beast did not conquer Jerusalem, so the end time beast will not conquer those spiritually abiding in the New Jerusalem. (Mic.5:5) ...Then shall we raise against him seven shepherds and eight principal (Hebrew: “princes among”) men. The Man-child Jesus raised up twelve apostolic shepherds primarily to restore those of the “twelve-tribes of Israel” who would listen (Mat.10:5; Act.26:7; Jas.1:1; 1Pet.1:1). In exact parallel, the corporate Man-child will raise up “seven” corporate apostolic “shepherds” primarily to restore the “seven churches”. The Man-child's primary job is to feed the unleavened bread of the Word to disciples in order to manifest Christ in them. These will be the new leadership for the seven churches in the last 3 1/2 years. These “seven shepherds” are not sectarian religious leaders but one man in Christ and are inhabited by one “prince of peace”, Jesus, hence “eight princes among men”. In the next chapter of Micah, we will see that even after the Man-child Jesus' 3 ½-year ministry, He promised to be with the shepherds in spirit “unto the consummation of the age,” (Greek: Mat.28:20) hence “eight princes among men”. These princes are sons of the King and have authority over His realm of the seven churches. The seven churches of Revelation are a type of seven different types of Christians in the Church. (Isa.4:1) And seven women (the Church) shall take hold of one man in that day. The “one man” here is Jesus manifested in the Man-child. Then He will be manifested in the seven shepherds and then in the true Church. One of God's solutions to the apostasy in the Church is new leadership. (Isa.1:26) And I will restore thy judges as at the first, and thy counselors as at the beginning. The same type of counselors in the former rain will be given in the latter rain. Here is another confirmation of the Man-child giving His revelation to seven shepherds, who passed it on to the seven churches. When the Man-child Jesus sent His shepherds out, He called them “apostles”, meaning “one sent forth”. In other words, the shepherds were the Man-child's messengers to the churches. As a type of the Man-child, John on the Isle of Patmos was “a partaker with you in the tribulation” (Rev.1:9) when he was caught up to the throne of God and given a revelation of the coming tribulation to give to the seven churches. (4:1) After these things I saw, and behold, a door opened in heaven, and the first voice that I heard, [a voice] as of a trumpet speaking with me, one saying, Come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must come to pass hereafter. (2) Straightway I was in the Spirit: and behold, there was a throne set in heaven, and one sitting upon the throne. Like Jesus, he was given a revelation of the apostasy in the Church and told to send it to the seven churches by the hand of seven angels. (1:11) ...What thou seest, write in a book and send [it] to the seven churches.... (Rev.2:1,8,12,18; 3:1,7,14) To the angel of the church in Ephesus (and so with Smyrna, Pergamum, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, Laodicea) write.... “Angel” in these cases is the Greek word angelos meaning “messengers” and is also used of ministers in the New Testament (Example: Luk.4:24,27; 9:52). The equivalent Hebrew word in the Old Testament is translated “messenger” when speaking of priests (Mal.2:7), John the Baptist, and Jesus (Luk.3:1). Since it doesn't make sense that John sent the revelation by angels, he must have sent it by seven minister messengers to the seven churches. This is exactly what Jesus did as Man-child. He shared His revelation with minister messengers, who shared it with the seven churches.
Today’s Topics: 1, 2, 3, 4) Gospel – Matthew 11:20-24 – Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of His mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum: Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the nether world. For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.” Memorial of Saint Kateri Tekakwitha Saint Kateri, pray for us!Bishop Sheen quote of the day Steve Ray joins Terry to discuss the Biblical worldview of grandparents and other relatives
Pastoral Reflections Finding God In Ourselves by Msgr. Don Fischer
Original Post Date: July 16, 2024 === Gospel Matthew 11:20-24 Jesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you. And as for you, Capernaum: Will you be exalted to heaven? You will go down to the nether world. For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have remained until this day. But I tell you, it will be more tolerable for the land of Sodom on the day of judgment than for you.” Reflection We know that Jesus is divine. We forget sometimes that he is also human, and as a human being, he can feel and be frustrated as any of us would be. When something that we're working on, something we believe in, so much is not working, it's not convincing people that they need to pay attention to Jesus as the representative of God. And because he can do these marvelous, wonderful deeds, they still won't accept him. And so his condemnation of them is more of a frustration with them wanting them to realize how important it is that they do receive his message. Closing Prayer Father, when we live in an illusion and someone points out that illusion, it's not unusual for us to be absolutely angry and resistant. And that just shows that there is a part of all humanity that has a difficult time shifting its emphasis in its focus. Give us patience with each other. Help us to know that God will continue to work with us, but he'll warn us over and over again that if we don't change, we won't find the life that he's made for us. And we ask this in Jesus' name, Amen. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, July 5, 2026, sixth Sunday after Pentecost. “We Know Who We Are”series. Texts: Jeremiah 22:13–16; Luke 14:12–24 This weekend our nation marks 250 years since the Declaration of Independence. This is an occasion for celebration. It's also an invitation to reflection. Moments like this invite us to look backward with gratitude, to look honestly at who we have become, and to consider what kind of future is still possible. This year those reflections seem incredibly important. Ours is a nation of extraordinary gifts and extraordinary contradictions. We inherit remarkable democratic ideals alongside a history that has too often failed to live up to them. We are living through another season when many of us are deeply concerned about our common life. Because our nation is broken. We see division deepen, neighbors dehumanized, militarism, cruelty and violence normalized, power abused for personal gain, and disregard for the rule of law. Perhaps you'd describe our situation differently, but I can't imagine anyone would argue that everything's OK. And while it doesn't make it any better, I think it's helpful to remember that what's happening in our nation and world right now has happened many times before. If the prophet Jeremiah were to wander into our capital city he would feel right at home—surely to his dismay. Let me explain by telling you a story. Jeremiah is preaching in the final decades before Jerusalem falls to Babylon. Assyria has collapsed. Egypt and Babylon are competing for power. Judah is caught in the middle. The world order is shifting dramatically and it is a time of profound national anxiety—about security, identity, economic stability, and the future. In our text, Jeremiah is speaking not to the people, but specifically to the king, Jehoiakim. And he's none too pleased with what is happening. But to understand why you need some backstory. Jehoiakim's father, Josiah, had been one of Judah's finest kings. He wasn't perfect, but he loved God, took the covenant and the laws established during Moses' time seriously, and sought to govern with justice. As Jeremiah remembers him, he “judged the cause of the poor and needy.” Then Josiah died unexpectedly on the battlefield. It was a devastating national loss. The future suddenly felt uncertain. Egypt quickly asserted control over Judah, deposing one of Josiah's sons and installing another—Eliakim, whose name Pharaoh changed to Jehoiakim (a classic power play). Jehoiakim wasn't in an enviable position. He was set up to do the bidding of Pharoah, required to pay tribute, and anxious about survival for himself and his people. Maybe it was the pressure or maybe it was pure opportunism, but Jehoiakim made a choice. Rather than “judging the cause of the poor an needy,” he consolidated power, exploited labor, and built a magnificent cedar palace as a symbol of royal prestige. Jeremiah looked at that palace and didn't celebrate its magnificence but instead says, “Woe to him who builds his house by unrighteousness...” He asked a different question than everyone else. Not, “Isn't it impressive?” but, “How did it get built? Who paid the price? Who was harmed in the process?” And then this: “Did not your father eat and drink and do justice and righteousness?” This may seem a random question, but it reveals that Jeremiah's critique isn't about having wealth or a comfortable life. In other words, Josiah wasn't a monk. He enjoyed the ordinary gifts of life. The difference isn't that one king denied himself while the other indulged himself. The difference is that one understood leadership as doing justice and practicing right relationship, while the other understood leadership as entitlement. One king governed as someone who knew God, while the other governed as though power itself could save him. Jeremiah continues, clarifying his critique: “Your father judged the cause of the poor and needy; then it was well. ‘Is not this to know me?' says the Lord. But your eyes and heart are only on your dishonest gain, for shedding innocent blood, and for practicing oppression and violence.” Again, the question Jeremiah asks it key: “Is not this to know me?” If someone asked you to finish the sentence, “To know God is...” what would you say? To worship regularly? To believe the right things? To pray? I imagine all of those can be valid answers. But Jeremiah offers this: to know God is to set your eyes and your heart on what God cares about; to attend to the needs of the most vulnerable, to use power wisely, generously, and compassionately, to treat workers with fairness, to do justice. Is not this to know me? In every age there is a dominant story about what will make things in your life “well.” There are temptations and pressures to sacrifice the good of the “we” for the benefit of only “me.” And in every age, God's faithful are called to offer a counter-testimony. And just to finish storytelling time, Jehoiakim made his choice. He went to a lot of trouble to try to make himself and Judah look strong. He builds his palace, projects confidence, accumulates wealth, uses forced labor. But within about twenty years, Jerusalem is destroyed. His dishonest gain and self-serving choices did not make things well. The palace doesn't save anybody—not the nation and certainly not the people. Jeremiah saw that writing on the wall. And his message to the king is one we need to hear again and again: A society cannot create security—a nation will never be great—while abandoning God's call to compassion and justice. There is no separating our love of God from care of our common life. John Wesley would agree wholeheartedly. He insisted there is no holiness but social holiness. He didn't mean that we're saved by activism. He meant what we discussed last week: that grace blesses me AND creates “we,” forgives me and sends “us.” Ours is not a private practice. Grace always creates community, reshapes relationships, and spills over into the way we use money, exercise power, welcome neighbors, and seek the common good. Personal holiness overflows into public holiness. That's one of the gifts of being United Methodist. Our tradition has never imagined that following Jesus ends at the sanctuary door. For more than fifty years we've had something called the Social Principles—not as a substitute for Scripture or as a party platform, but as a guide for Christian moral discernment. They are our denomination's attempt to ask, together, “What does faithful discipleship look like in the complexities of modern life?” And in 2024, our worldwide church thoroughly revised them. That revision wasn't simply updating language. It reflects the wisdom of the faithful from our whole denomination—disciples from Africa, Europe, the Philippines, the United States, and beyond—asking together how the Gospel speaks into economics, creation care, technology, war and peace, migration, human dignity, and public life. The principles guide our action and advocacy, but we don't pretend every faithful Christian will reach identical conclusions about every public question. We also refuse to pretend that the Gospel has nothing to say about public life. Our United Methodist Social Principles remind us we don't have to figure all this out alone. We inherit Scripture. We inherit tradition. We inherit the wisdom of Christians around the world. All helping us answer Jeremiah's question: What does it mean to know God? Jeremiah says that to know God is to care about what and who God cares about. Again and again Jesus shows us how to live that. He sits down at tables with all kinds of people. And in today' Gospel, while dining with a prominent Pharisee, he quietly begins rearranging everyone's assumptions about belonging. “Don't invite only the people who can return the favor,” he says. “Invite those who cannot repay you.” Then he tells a story about a banquet where the invitation keeps widening until there is room for everyone God longs to gather. ...the invitation keeps widening until there is room for everyone God longs to gather. The table is big enough. Grace is abundant enough. And everyone—from the richest to the poorest, from stranger to friend—is invited to be filled. And then things are well. As we celebrate our nation's birthday, the question before us is not simply what kind of nation we want to be, but what kind of people God is calling us to become. Christians have always loved their country best not by confusing it with God's reign, but by measuring every nation—including our own—against God's justice, God's compassion, and God's welcome. So we keep listening for Jeremiah's question, “Is not this to know me?” And we keep allowing Jesus to reshape our imagination around his table where there is always another place and the invitation keeps reaching farther than anyone expected. Friends, we're about to come to that table. Every time we gather here, we embody a different story from the one our world tells. The world teaches us to ask: Who deserves a place? Who has earned it? Who belongs? Jesus asks different questions: Who still needs an invitation? How can we make more room? And then he places bread in our hands and sends us back into the world to live the answer. Amen. + + + Sending: This week, take one faithful public step. Maybe it is serving. Maybe it is giving. Maybe it is speaking up for someone whose voice is overlooked. Maybe it's inviting someone who wouldn't expect an invitation. Maybe it is reading a section of the Social Principles and asking where they challenge or deepen your own thinking. Not because the church is trying to tell you what to think, but because discipleship asks us to think faithfully about the world God loves. Just take one step. Because that's where holiness always begins. God in peace and power…
Read OnlineLoving as Is NeededJesus began to reproach the towns where most of his mighty deeds had been done, since they had not repented. “Woe to you, Chorazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! For if the mighty deeds done in your midst had been done in Tyre and Sidon, they would long ago have repented in sackcloth and ashes.” Matthew 11:20–21Have you ever felt the urge to publicly rebuke someone, crying out in condemnation, “Woe to you!”? Most of us, at one time or another, have experienced that impulse. When we are hurt, dismissed, or sinned against, pride wells up within us, and our wounded hearts may long to strike back with words of righteous anger.But this human reaction is not what moved Jesus when He reproached the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida, and Capernaum in today's Gospel. He did not condemn them because He was personally offended or emotionally wounded by their failure to repent. His pride was not injured, nor was He overcome by anger. Christ was fully in control, always responding with divine wisdom, offering exactly what each person needed in that moment.At times, He was gentle, consoling, and compassionate. At other times, He chastised and rebuked. Sometimes He refrained from performing signs and wonders; at other times, He lavished miracles upon the people. At times, He taught in the veiled language of parables, and at other times, He spoke plainly and directly.Jesus always knew how to love in every situation because every situation called for love expressed in different ways. True love is not defined by the one who gives it; it is defined by the one who receives it. What does that mean? It means that Jesus didn't offer a “one-size-fits-all” kind of love. He didn't say, “This is me, and this is how I love. Take it or leave it—I'm not changing for you.” No, Jesus' love was so pure, so other-focused, that it always sought the good of the one He loved and adjusted its expression in order to achieve that good.This is clearly seen in Jesus' rebuke of the people of these three towns, located on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee, which were central to much of His public ministry. Capernaum was His home base; Chorazin and Bethsaida were places He frequented. Near this region He delivered the Sermon on the Mount and performed many miracles. Yet despite His tireless preaching and countless signs, few repented. And repentance was the very purpose of His mission. By chastising them—“Woe to you!”—Jesus lovingly sought to jolt them out of their complacency so that they might repent and receive the abundant mercy He and His Father so deeply desired to bestow. In this case, the rebuke was the precise expression of love that these towns needed at that time.Understanding the various expressions of Jesus' love teaches us much about the nature of divine charity—how God loves us, and how we, in turn, are called to love one another. Though the essence of God's love is always the same—perfect, complete, selfless, and sacrificial—the expression of that love varies, depending upon what each person most needs and what will most effectively lead them to eternal life.What expression of love do you need to give and receive in your life right now? Do you need God's consoling hand, His gentle encouragement, or His firm challenge to awaken you from spiritual complacency? Because God's perfect and unchanging love is expressed in various ways, according to our needs, it is essential to remain open to however He chooses to love us in this moment. In the same way, we should love others generously, purely, and selflessly, mirroring Christ, but the outward expression of that love must be shaped by the real needs of those before us.Reflect today on how God is loving you right now, and ask for the grace to receive that love with trust and humility. Then consider how you are called to extend that same discerning and sacrificial love to others—not merely as you prefer to give it—but as they most need to receive it. Let your love, like Christ's, always be guided by wisdom and formed by charity, loving others in the way that will best draw them closer to God's abundant mercy.Most loving God, Your love is perfect, unwavering, and never changing. Please open my heart to receive the expression of Your love that I need most, so that I may always repent of my sins and turn to Your mercy. Grant me the wisdom to imitate Your perfect love for others, offering not merely what I desire to give, but what they truly need in the moment. Jesus, I trust in You. Image: Day of Judgement by Lawrence OP, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0.Source: Free RSS feed from catholic-daily-reflections.com — Copyright © 2026 My Catholic Life! Inc. All rights reserved. This content is provided solely for personal, non-commercial use. Redistribution, republication, or commercial use — including use within apps with advertising — is strictly prohibited without written permission.
Click here to WATCH LIVE STREAM Worship Service on our Youtube Channel. That You May Believe, Part 25 John 12:37-50 John 20:30-31 Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; 31 but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 12:37-50 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” 39 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, 40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” 41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. 42 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. 44 And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. 46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. 47 If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. 49 For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.” · The characteristics of unbelief. John 12:37-38 Though he had done so many signs before them, they still did not believe in him, 38 so that the word spoken by the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled: “Lord, who has believed what he heard from us, and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?” Isaiah 53:1-3 Who has believed what he has heard from us? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? 2 For he grew up before him like a young plant, and like a root out of dry ground; he had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. 3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not. Exodus 8:32 But Pharaoh hardened his heart this time also, and did not let the people go. Romans 1:18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who by their unrighteousness suppress the truth. John 12:39-40 Therefore they could not believe. For again Isaiah said, 40 “He has blinded their eyes and hardened their heart, lest they see with their eyes, and understand with their heart, and turn, and I would heal them.” Isaiah 6:8-10 And I heard the voice of the LORD saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” 9 And he said, “Go, and say to this people: “‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; keep on seeing, but do not perceive.' 10 Make the heart of this people dull, and their ears heavy, and blind their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their hearts, and turn and be healed.” Exodus 10:11 Moses and Aaron did all these wonders before Pharaoh, and the LORD hardened Pharaoh’s heart, and he did not let the people of Israel go out of his land. Romans 1:24-25 Therefore God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, to the dishonoring of their bodies among themselves, 25 because they exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen. John 12:41 Isaiah said these things because he saw his glory and spoke of him. Isaiah 6:5 And I said: “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the LORD of hosts!” John 12:42-43 Nevertheless, many even of the authorities believed in him, but for fear of the Pharisees they did not confess it, so that they would not be put out of the synagogue; 43 for they loved the glory that comes from man more than the glory that comes from God. Romans 10:9-11 because, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. 11 For the Scripture says, “Everyone who believes in him will not be put to shame.” · The need for Jesus' teaching. John 12:44-45 And Jesus cried out and said, “Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. 45 And whoever sees me sees him who sent me. Hebrews 1:3 He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high John 12:46 I have come into the world as light, so that whoever believes in me may not remain in darkness. Colossians 1:13-14 He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. John 12:47-48 If anyone hears my words and does not keep them, I do not judge him; for I did not come to judge the world but to save the world. 48 The one who rejects me and does not receive my words has a judge; the word that I have spoken will judge him on the last day. John 3:17-18 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God. John 12:49-50 For I have not spoken on my own authority, but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment—what to say and what to speak. 50 And I know that his commandment is eternal life. What I say, therefore, I say as the Father has told me.” Isaiah 55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near; Respond | Connect | Next Steps The post John: That You May Believe appeared first on Charleston Baptist Church.
It's Thursday, July 2nd, A.D. 2026. This is The Worldview in 5 Minutes heard on 140 radio stations and at www.TheWorldview.com. I'm Adam McManus. (Adam@TheWorldview.com) By Jonathan Clark and Adam McManus British might criminalize speaking Biblical truth on sexuality The United Kingdom may criminalize pastors and parents for sharing Biblical truth on sexuality. The country's Labour government published the Conversion Practices Draft Bill last week. The measure would ban practices aimed at changing a person's so-called sexual orientation or gender identity. Andrea Williams with Christian Concern said, “This bill opens the door to the persecution of parents and pastors through false accusations of abusive conversion practices.” British Parliament is “the gayest” with 75 sexually perverted In other United Kingdom news, outgoing Prime Minister Kier Starmer, an atheist, signaled his support for sexually perverted lifestyles. Listen to his recent comments. STARMER: “I'm really proud that we've got the gayest parliament. I don't think, anywhere in the world. I don't think there's any parliament that is gayer than this parliament. That is fantastic. “The HIV Action Plan is really good to end transmissions by 2030. We've legislated to equalize all existing strands of hate crime and make them aggravated offenses, and again, the announcement through Liv last week, a full trans-inclusive ban on abusive conversion practice. We put an end to those practices.” Indeed, out of the 650 members of British Parliament, 75 of them have sinfully embraced sexual perversion. Isaiah 5:20-23 says, “Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil . . . Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes. … Who justify the wicked for a bribe, and take away justice from the righteous man!” Starmer announced his resignation last month. His Labour Party had just experienced major election losses in May. Canadian Anglicans offer “liturgy” to bless the euthanized Speaking of calling evil good, the Anglican Church of Canada announced a Christian liturgy to bless people being euthanized. The denomination said it would not comment on the morality of assisted suicide. Instead, it authorized clergy to bless people who have chosen it. Canada is considered the euthanasia capital of the world. Tragically, over 100,000 people have died under the country's assisted suicide program. The death push began 10 years ago on June 17, 2016. Planned Parenthood shuts down Iowa City abortion mill Here in the United States, Planned Parenthood will shut down its location in Iowa City, Iowa this month. The abortion giant closed four other facilities in Iowa last year. This leaves only one location in the state. Iowa banned most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy in 2024. And yesterday, a law went into effect that bans mail-order abortions in the Hawkeye State. 78% of Americans favor public school student-led prayer groups A new Pew Research survey found that Americans support religious expression in public schools. Seventy-eight percent of U.S. adults favor allowing students to voluntarily pray in student-led groups. Fifty-seven percent favor allowing coaches to lead their teams in prayer. Fifty percent favor displaying the Ten Commandments in classrooms. And 46 percent favor allowing teachers to lead their classes in prayer. Presbyterian Church in America voted against female deacons The second-largest Presbyterian denomination in the U.S. recently voted against female deacons. Last month, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America met in Louisville, Kentucky. The church body voted resoundingly against a proposal to allow women to serve as ordained deacons. This reaffirmed the denomination's constitutional documents. Those documents state, “The ordinary and perpetual classes of office in the Church are elders and deacons. ... The office of deacon is not one of rule, but rather of service both to the physical and spiritual needs of the people. In accord with Scripture, these offices are open to men only.” Chick-fil-A 92-year-old employee encourages customers A Chick-fil-A employee in his 90s is making headlines for his work ethic and his Christian faith. Gilbert Martin, affectionately known as “Mr. Gil,” has been working at a Chick-fil-A in Wilmington, North Carolina for the last six years. Mr. Gil just turned 92. But that doesn't stop him from working throughout the week. He not only keeps the restaurant clean, he takes personal care of the people who walk in. Mr. Gil told WECT-6 that God has allowed him to be an encourager to people. Listen. MARTIN: “I get a lot of people that are coming in, just going to the doctor, or just been to the doctor, and got bad news, and so forth, and I'm able to be encourager. The Lord gave me that. I don't plan to go anywhere else..” Romans 15:2 says, “Let each of us please his neighbor for his good, to build him up.” Looking for feedback from Worldview listeners I was surprised not to receive a single email yesterday about what listeners, like you, enjoy about this newscast. What makes this newscast different to you from other newscasts which you've heard? Do you listen to it while you exercise, drive in the car, or at home with the family as part of your morning routine? What is your favorite part of it? Email me your thoughts in 2-4 sentences including your name, city and state, and country if outside America. Send that to Adam@TheWorldview.com. That's Adam@TheWorldview.com 10 Worldview listeners gave $1,762 yesterday And finally, toward our goal of raising $12,450 by this Friday, July 3rd, 10 Worldview listeners stepped up to the plate. Our thanks to Karen in Goshen, Indiana who gave $12 as well as Emily in De Forest, Wisconsin, Myron in Trinity, Alabama, Jon in Granger, Indiana, and Anna in West Jefferson, North Carolina – each of whom gave $50. We're grateful for the kindness of Mandy in Walpole, New Hampshire and Michael in Ritzville, Washington – both of whom gave $200 as well as LuShun in Newport News, Virginia who gave $250. And we were touched by the generosity of Heather in Mt Juliet, Tennessee who pledged $25/month for 12 months for a gift of $300 and Michelle in Stagecoach, Nevada who pledged $50/month for 12 months for a gift of $600. Ready for our grand total? Drum roll please. (Drum roll sound effect) $1,762 (sound effect of people cheering) That means we have to raise $10,688 over the next two days to hit our first goal toward the $123,500 finish line come July 31st. Go to TheWorldview.com, click on Give, select the dollar amount, and make sure to click on the “recurring” button if that's your wish. I'm looking for 9 Worldview listeners to pledge $50/month for 12 months or give a one-time gift of $600 and another 18 to pledge $25 per month for 12 months or give a one-time gift of $300. What has the Lord placed on your heart to give to keep this newscast on the air? Close And that's The Worldview on this Thursday, July 2nd, in the year of our Lord 2026. Subscribe for free by Spotify, Amazon Music, or by iTunes or email to our unique Christian newscast at www.TheWorldview.com. Plus, you can get the Generations app through Google Play or The App Store. I'm Adam McManus (Adam@TheWorldview.com). Seize the day for Jesus Christ.
To become a follower of Jesus, visit: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/MeetJesus (NOT a Morning Mindset resource) ⇒ Join the MMM Prayer Team: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/PrayerTeam ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ TODAY'S SCRIPTURE: Matthew 23:16–22 - “Woe to you, blind guides, who say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gold of the temple, he is bound by his oath.’ [17] You blind fools! For which is greater, the gold or the temple that has made the gold sacred? [18] And you say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it is nothing, but if anyone swears by the gift that is on the altar, he is bound by his oath.’ [19] You blind men! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that makes the gift sacred? [20] So whoever swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it. [21] And whoever swears by the temple swears by it and by him who dwells in it. [22] And whoever swears by heaven swears by the throne of God and by him who sits upon it. (ESV) ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FINANCIALLY SUPPORT THE MORNING MINDSET: (not tax-deductible) -- Become a monthly partner: https://mm-gfk-partners.supercast.com/ -- Underwrite one daily episode: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/daily-sponsor/ -- Give one-time: https://give.cornerstone.cc/careygreen -- Venmo: @CareyNGreen ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FOREIGN LANGUAGE VERSIONS OF THIS PODCAST: Subscribe to the SPANISH version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Spanish Subscribe to the CHINESE version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Chinese ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ CONTACT: Carey@careygreen.com
To become a follower of Jesus, visit: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/MeetJesus (NOT a Morning Mindset resource) ⇒ BECOME A MONTHLY PARTNER: (not tax-deductible) You can find out how to become a monthly partner including how to receive your "thank you" gift - our bonus podcast called "Digging Deeper." Go to: https://mm-partners.supercast.com/ ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ TODAY'S SCRIPTURE: Matthew 23:11–15 - The greatest among you shall be your servant. [12] Whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted. [13] “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in. [15] Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you travel across sea and land to make a single proselyte, and when he becomes a proselyte, you make him twice as much a child of hell as yourselves. (ESV) ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FINANCIALLY SUPPORT THE MORNING MINDSET: (not tax-deductible) -- Become a monthly partner: https://mm-gfk-partners.supercast.com/ -- Underwrite one daily episode: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/daily-sponsor/ -- Give one-time: https://give.cornerstone.cc/careygreen -- Venmo: @CareyNGreen ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ FOREIGN LANGUAGE VERSIONS OF THIS PODCAST: Subscribe to the SPANISH version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Spanish Subscribe to the CHINESE version: https://MorningMindsetMedia.com/Chinese ➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖➖ CONTACT: Carey@careygreen.com
Isaiah 6:1–8 Most people prefer a God who is a little holier than they are—manageable, predictable, and unlikely to make demands. But that is not the God of the Bible. When Isaiah saw the real God—high and lifted up, attended by seraphim—his only response was, “Woe is me!” Pastor Chuck Swindoll opens Isaiah 6:1–8 to reveal a God whose holiness is utterly beyond our comfort zones. Far from paralyzing Isaiah, this vision broke him, cleansed him, and sent him on mission. Discover what a true vision of God's holiness can do in your life.
Isaiah 6:1–8 Most people prefer a God who is a little holier than they are—manageable, predictable, and unlikely to make demands. But that is not the God of the Bible. When Isaiah saw the real God—high and lifted up, attended by seraphim—his only response was, “Woe is me!” Pastor Chuck Swindoll opens Isaiah 6:1–8 to reveal a God whose holiness is utterly beyond our comfort zones. Far from paralyzing Isaiah, this vision broke him, cleansed him, and sent him on mission. Discover what a true vision of God's holiness can do in your life.
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