Upon Your Bed

{To the chief Musician on Neginoth, A Psalm of David.} Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness: thou hast enlarged me when I was in distress; have mercy upon me, and hear my prayer. O ye sons of men, how long will ye turn my glory into shame? how long will ye love vanity, and seek after leasing? Selah. But know that the LORD hath set apart him that is godly for himself: the LORD will hear when I call unto him. Stand in awe, and sin not: commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still. Selah. Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the LORD. There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? LORD, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased. I will both lay me down in peace, and sleep: for thou, LORD, only makest me dwell in safety.

(Psalms 4:1-8) KJV

Christmas is over. Once again the anticipation and excitement, planning and preparation, that builds in intensity from Thanksgiving and which bursts upon us in a flurry of excitement is over. The year is winding down

Continue reading “Upon Your Bed”

Steampunk Sniper

I think I only dressed up for Halloween one time in the last 35+ years but for some reason I decided that this year was my year.

I got the kernel of the idea with a few items I picked up at Spirit of Halloween, but the idea kept on growing until I had decided to make a Steampunk brass sniper rifle.

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It started with a $10 kids gun from Dollar General Store.

2018-10-27 10.22.33I went through the kitchen drawers and unpacked moving boxes to find things to modify it with.

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I used odds and ends that I have had for 25 years.

Then it was time to take it apart and paint it.

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I was taking this very seriously…

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I was really pleased with the final result.

Chimaphila maculata

I ran into an old friend while I was out today, but I couldn’t remember her name. I knew it started with chim… but I couldn’t remember what was next. I was pretty sure that she was in the Heath family, the Ericaceae.

I actually pulled out my phone so I could Google chim… and see if it would jog my memory. No way. Do you know how many things start with chim? I had to look in an actual book to be able to find the rest of the name. Fancy that!

I found the image, which is somewhat similar to the plants I found, here.

All Prayer

Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints;

( Ephesians 6:18 ) KJV

Yesterday we considered Ephesians 6:13-17, in which the Bible describes us as being like well equipped soldiers ready to face the spiritual battles ahead. The passage goes on into the verse above. I have heard different people talk about this in different ways and I have always wondered:


Is all prayer a thing? As in, a noun?


I knew a brother in Christ many years ago who spoke of all prayer as if it was a thing that somehow stands alone from regular prayer. I’m not so sure. I tend to think that it means that we should be doing regular prayer all the time. The thing is, whether it is one or the other isn’t as important as the realization that the time we just spent thinking about it our mind was engaged in something of a positive spiritual nature which is along the lines of what Paul is telling us in this passage:

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things. (Philippians 4:8)

So we may not understand all of the Bible all of the time, but if we are thinking about it then our mind is being kept from being distracted by other worldly things. I have to admit that I have a problem with covetousness. I desire things that I don’t need, things that are only ever going to be problematic rather than problem solving. Jaguar cars are the thing that comes to mind. I want a Jaguar. There are times when the desire is so powerful that I have taken myself off to a dealership to go drive one, and gotten into the discussion of buying it. Buying and maintaining a car like that would squander the resources I have that I’m using to get this ministry started, and possibly saddle me with debt again when I just got out of it. And for what? An unreliable and inefficient car. If I could have diverted my mind into something of a more spiritual nature I wouldn’t have wasted my time.

What else do I find my mind spending excessive amounts of time on? I’d rather not say. You may find that your mind spends a good part of the day caught up in thoughts which are not particularly helpful, useful, clean, spiritual or godly. If we allow our minds to wander unfettered it will not be long before our bodies follow right after them and we end up making bad decisions. What are we to do about this? Follow the advice above.

Are you allocating time for daily Bible reading yet? That is where a healthy mind starts folks.

Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, to doctrine. Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery. Meditate upon these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy profiting may appear to all. Take heed unto thyself, and unto the doctrine; continue in them: for in doing this thou shalt both save thyself, and them that hear thee. (1 Timothy 4:13-16)

Read the Bible and meditate on it. You may not understand it. Meditating on it is how the Holy Spirit is able to form and shape it in you mind so that it will make sense.

Withstand in the Evil Day

Wherefore take unto you the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having your loins girt about with truth, and having on the breastplate of righteousness; And your feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace; Above all, taking the shield of faith, wherewith ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

( Ephesians 6:13-17 ) KJV

We live in an evil day. Technically, since the fall, all days have been evil. Our time though has an edgy feel to it, where it seems as if depravity is ready to break out in every direction. The various social media platforms have given us an insight into what happens when people can hide behind the cloak of anonymity and have no accountability for their actions. If the personas we project on social media are an accurate reflection of who we really are – who we really want to be – then heaven help us.

This is against the backdrop of science loudly proclaiming that God is dead and anyone who disagrees is ignorant.

How on earth are we to withstand in this evil day? And why wouldn’t we go to a doctor to be prescribed medication that is going to take the edge off life by filling our brains with molten lead? The advice that the Bible gives us is the same as it has always been. That’s the beautiful part. The Bible hasn’t changed. People have changed the Bible, to be sure, but if you are really interested in getting to know who God really is then it doesn’t take long to weed out the weak versions based on corrupted texts. Here’s another beautiful thing about the Bible: it might seem that I am coming up with a bunch of new stuff that no one has ever talked about before, like life began on the first day in zero-G, and God created gravity on the second day, but this is deduced from the same Bible in which Paul wrote to us to put on the whole armor of God.

Am I coming up with something new by talking about the firmament? A wall of rigid crystalline construction on the edge of space. A source of gravitational interaction so obviously necessary to the stability of the cosmos that science invented black holes to account for it. When this was found to be insufficient it went on to derive the need for dark matter, that elusive universal glue which has never been detected. Is it new? Is not the word firmament in the same Bible in which God tells us that the cure for depression, the spirit of heaviness, is to put on the garment of praise?

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified. (Isaiah 61:3)

I get a lot of opposition. It started, as expected, on Twitter. Now that I am running paid promotions on Facebook and Instagram the opposition has become non-stop. The expansion of hell as the cause of global warming is a controversial subject. The most common reaction is something along the lines of: you can’t possibly be serious. They get successively ruder from that point. And yet is not this passage in the same Bible in which Jesus told us the love one another?

For a fire is kindled in mine anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains. (Deuteronomy 32:22)

Does this not clearly say, needing no interpretation, that the expansion of hell is melting the earth from the inside out? If this is the case, would we not expect that ocean water would be warming at the bottom? Would we not expect that the warming ocean water would melt polar ice? Is this not what we find? If the atmosphere was melting the ice, the water would be getting colder. People frequently say, how can hell expand? Is the earth getting bigger? No. Did not Jesus himself give us the internal structure of the earth in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus?

And beside all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed: so that they which would pass from hence to you cannot; neither can they pass to us, that would come from thence. (Luke 16:26)

Is not this the great gulf what we see so very clearly in seismological data as the P-wave shadow? I am not making this up, and this is the same Bible in which we find the most famous quote of all:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. (John 3:16-17)

And is it not loving to warn people of the danger they face, if they go into eternity unprepared?

Keep yourselves in the love of God, looking for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life. And of some have compassion, making a difference: And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh. (Jude 1:21-23)

Pulling them out of the fire. Christians: we have an entire generation to pull out of the fire.

I’m sorry for how many words there are today. I didn’t have time to write a short post, so I wrote a long one.

Discouragement

A bruised reed shall he not break, and the smoking flax shall he not quench: he shall bring forth judgment unto truth. He shall not fail nor be discouraged, till he have set judgment in the earth: and the isles shall wait for his law.

(Isaiah 42:3-4) KJV

We asked the question: is depression in the Bible? The word depression doesn’t occur, but the medical condition must surely be mentioned since pastors and preachers for generations have told us that the Bible covers all life situations.

Continue reading “Discouragement”

A Spirit of Heaviness

To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the LORD, that he might be glorified.

(Isaiah 61:3) KJV

Is depression in the Bible? If you go to church, particularly a conservative one where the Bible is preached and taught, you’ve probably heard a preacher say something like: “every life situation you can imagine is in the Bible.” It may be stated as this way:

“Whatever you’re facing in life, whatever you’re dealing with, whatever your personal struggles are, they’re all in the Bible. The Bible is where you can go to find help and comfort for whatever you’re dealing with.”

– Widely promoted Christian belief

What about depression? Is depression in the Bible?

Continue reading “A Spirit of Heaviness”

Putting God to the Test

Acts 5:38-39

And now I say unto you, Refrain from these men, and let them alone: for if this counsel or this work be of men, it will come to nought: But if it be of God, ye cannot overthrow it; lest haply ye be found even to fight against God.

Continuing my celebration of new life, I will be blogging about the accomplishments that have been made since it began in the days to come. Yesterday I noted that, at the time my new life began, I was neck-and-neck with Wake Forest University in Twitter followers.

Where do we stand today?

I have repeatedly said that the existence of the one true God, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, is a predictive testable hypothesis based on Malachi 3:10. There is another predictive testable hypothesis for the existence of God in Acts 5:33-39 – Gamaliel’s Counsel.

He warns his fellows in the religious leadership that if the new Christianity, that they were trying to eradicate, is of God then it is going to succeed. Fighting against it is to fight against God.

In the time since I departed, Wake Forest University has added 2,600 followers. That’s about the size of the incoming freshman class and their parents. In the same time span I have added 11,600 followers, and lately I have gotten really lazy with implementing my social media growth strategy. Life has been so rich and fulfilling that Twitter just doesn’t seem very important any more.

The question is: Does Wake actually have a social media growth strategy? It looks like they are asleep at the wheel.

New Life

Ephesians 5:11

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them.

I got fired from Wake Forest University on December 11, 2017. I ought to remember the date because it’s my Dad’s birthday. The management did a technically perfect logistical shuffle to get me out, but I sincerely hope that their motivation to do it was my growing presence on social media.

On that Day, December 11, 2017 I was almost equal to Wake Forest University in Twitter Followers. The screenshots here side-by-side were taken on December 19, 2017 eights days after I was fired.

This was the beginning of my new life.