The entertainment-driven church

Michael Youssef, pastor of Atlanta’s Church of The Apostles, made some excellent and scathing remarks about “the entertainment-driven church” in an article in the Christian Post.

Today’s church is “making people feel good all the way to Hell,” he said. It’s the “gospel of positivity,” he said, calling the pastors of those churches “wolves in sheep’s clothing.”

“Youssef also cautioned against the idea that tragedies like the coronavirus pandemic currently sweeping the world will spark a “revival,” emphasizing that revival will not happen unless ‘the people of God remove idols from their lives,’ ” the article goes on to say.

Furthermore, Pastor Youssef is quoted as saying that “Already they’re asking for anybody who goes to church to be arrested. If they’re doing this in the middle of our somber situation, wait until it’s over. They will come in after us with cleats,” he warned.

“I want to prepare the body of Christ of believers to be alert and to be aware of the fact that we are in for a very difficult time ahead,” Pastor Youssef said.

I’ve seen more than one article in Atlanta’s newspaper that traced local outbreaks to Christians. In one article, the paper reported that a funeral was responsible for a particular outbreak in rural Georgia, that spread to several other communities. In another, a gathering of musicians was blamed for another outbreak outside a large city, that spread to other small towns. The articles didn’t blame Christians, per se. But it’s not hard for those who are already against Christians to use these reports as examples of the harm Christians do.

Pastors of large churches don’t want to shutter their churches during this pandemic. At least one has sued to be allowed gatherings over 10 persons. I think this is showing its contempt for Emergency Orders by the states governor. These emergency orders are not persecution of Christians, as they pertain to all gatherings, whether conferneces or sports or large weddings.

What’s a Christian response to this pandemic?

Pastor “Youssef urged “faithful believers” to see the COVID-19 pandemic as a “warning” and “loving alarm bell from God, saying, ‘Turn to me before it’s too late.’”

“When a believer begins to get serious about their prayer life and their walk with Christ, we will see change happen,” he said. “I want believers to really get serious about this. I am pleading with believers to please, go back to the Lord now. I think God is looking for an excuse to relent. Before we see judgment, we need to get back to basics.”

Everything Will Be Okay

EveryThingWillBeOkay-Sign Apparently it began in Georgia. Signs placed on lawns and in windows declaring that “Everything Will Be Okay.” And apparently the original “artist” that designed a sign has argued with an arts group that is selling signs. Someone wants credit for spreading hope, perhaps.

In such times as these, we do need hope.

The Atlanta newspaper has lots of articles on nice things that people are doing. “More Stories of Hope,” they declare.

Some singers get together and sing songs about hope, and this gives us hope, I guess.

Can’t you hear the refrain, “All we need is love, sweet love. . .”

And when the peril seems under control? When things start to get better?

“Our behavior has stopped the spread of the virus,” he said. ”God did not stop the spread of the virus. And what we do, how we act, will dictate how that virus spreads.” He being Governor Cuomo of New York, according to the Christian Post article “NY Gov. Cuomo on plateauing of COVID-19 cases: ‘God did not do that’”

Who are we that we are responsible for overcoming this current plague all by ourselves? Once upon a time America was one nation under God? As American’s we at least said “In God We Trust.” Many meant it. There is a remnant of American’s that still do. As a whole, however, America doesn’t need God anymore, it seems.

President Obama summed it up when he announced that we are no longer only a Christian nation. We are a mixed up nation that follows no one god. We are a nation that doesn’t follow G-D, the Creator, the Father of our L-RD Yeshua Jesus. Not nationally, anyway. Not as a people.

What happens to a nation that turns its back upon its God?

Abraham implored G-D to relent from destroying a city if 10 righteous could be found. If a search is conducted in America today, will a sufficient number of righteous in Messiah be found to thwart the nations destruction?

What do you think?

1I lift up my eyes to the hills.
From where does my help come?
2My help comes from the L-RD,
who made heaven and earth. [Psalm 121]

As we move on with this SARS-CoV virus, this “corona virus” that causes the COVID-19 disease, will we look to the medical sciences for help and protection? Perhaps our political leadership will be our help, print more money to pass around? How about looking to the World Health Organiztion (WHO)? Will a strong global leader come out of the shadows, the darkness, to offer us more than help with the plague, but world peace, too? Will voices of men be heard, to whom we should run? Will we give our admiration, our acclaim, to humankind?

Time will tell.

May our L-RD enable us to stand, and to stand firm in the days to come.

This is more important than recognizing ‘the Mark of the Beast’

An article in the Christian Post, by Michael Brown, CP Op-Ed Contributor, has a lot to say about Pastors defying recommended and mandated “public gathering” orders as well as what we can focus our attention on these days.

Check out the article “This is more important than recognizing ‘the Mark of the Beast'”

Balance

View From Cassandra's Mast — From Cassandra’s Mast

Cassandra is a twenty-five foot Capy Dory sailboat. She has a full keel and is pretty heavy for her small size. When sailing, I’ve often had some trouble trimming the sails just right so that the boat maintains its course. Some days it seems as though I am constantly making adjustments to the jib or the main or the tiller. It’s a juggling act with the variable speed and direction of the lake’s wind.

A year or so ago I attained a perfect balance. I crawled forward to the mast and leaned around to take this photograph. In twelve or so years sailing Cassandra, it’s only happened a few times. Most of the time the winds are squirrley. Then there’s my sails— over forty years old. The running rigging is about twenty years old, and not in the best shape.

But there’s more to it than that; I’m not all that good of a sailor. It really doesn’t matter how good I am, though, I enjoy being out on the water. Sure, I find sailing easier when conditions are right for me. I like it when the wind is between ten and fifteen miles per hour. I’ve sailed higher winds. It makes me nervious, actually. It’s all about the feeling of control, I think, or lack thereof. It takes wind to sail. No wind means drifting. Going somewhere, but not where one might want to go. Too much wind means reducing the size of the sails to depower the boat. Cassandra has no way to reduce the size of the main sail, unfortunately. One of these days I hope to take care of that problem.

Control. Lack of Control. Drifting along with no wind. Heeling over, being blown off course, in a high wind. It’s all about balance.

Seems to me there are some lesssons that can be learned from sailing. What do you think?

On the Way Home

There is an old Roman road leading out of Jerusalem, downward toward some small towns. Some of the stones that originally paved the road still my be seen. It was along that road, two thousand years ago, that two disappointed, perhaps disillusioned, men walked. As they walked home they discussed the events of the day. They reasoned together. They wanted to know the truth. They discussed Yeshua, who’d died before the Passover supper. Was He really the Messiah? Others had asked that question a few years before. What should be done? Was there another that would save Isreal from Roman domination, establish Israel as a nation again. They sought the truth.

They were confused. Yeshua had died. Yet earlier in the day they’d found out that the tomb in which He lay was now empty. Furthermore, angels had declared Him to be alive. Yet they hadn’t seen Him.

I think about these two followers of Yeshua. They’d been with Yeshua for some time. They’d known Him. Yet they were doubting. But even in their confusion, they sought the truth. It gives us great hope, does it not? That even when we have trouble focusing, trouble in holding on to our small faith, that if we truly seek the truth. . .

“Yeshua himself drew near and went with them.”

Surely you’ve read the story found in Luke 24:13-34, The Road to Emmaus. There’s a lot in these few sentences. There are a number of things that have always seemed to stick out to me. One is that Yeshua walked along next to them and they didn’t recognize Him. And he questioned them on what they knew, what they thought, about the day’s events, about the Messiah. Then Yeshua explained things to them.

“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.” (v27)

Another point that sticks with me is how they invited this stranger into their home. They made supper. And it wasn’t until Yeshua did something that would be very familiar to them that they realised Who sat there, Who’d walked with them. Who’d talked with them.

“[Yeshua] took the bread and blessed and broke it and gave it to them.” (v30)

I’m encouraged by this short story th.}at Luke tells. I hope it is so to y’all.

(I’ve relied upon commentary by Albert Barnes, Barnes’s Notes, for the mindset of the followers as they talked together.)

He Is Not Here!

Garden Tomb,Jerusalem.. (c) Wil Robinson 1986

As with most of the “Holy” sites in Israel, there are two tombs in Jerusalem. Both are alleged to be the “real” tomb of Yeshua. One is within a cathedral-size church, dark, stuffy, formal, seemingly walled off from the public. The other is in a garden outside a northern gate, near a bus depot. At this particular tomb, standing near the city wall and looking toward it, there is a huge skull-shaped stone. This rock is said to be Golgotha, where two thousand years ago three crosses would have been seen.

Inside the garden there are benches in which one may meditate upon the events in Jerusalem so long ago. Sitting in the garden one can’t even hear, for some reason, the noise from the nearby bus station and the main highway going to Jerico. It is pleasant within that garden. There is even a door on the tomb that tells us “He is not here.” It comes from the Gospel of Luke. 24:6-8 tells us:

” ‘Why do you seek the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men and be crucified and on the third day rise.” And they remembered his words. . .’ “

They collapse and fall

Yesterday I posted Psalm 20 with the title “Some trust in chariots,” v.7. Trust grows, often slowly, as we experience the new life, the regenerate life, in Messiah Yeshua. The psalm is a prayer for combatants. The Pandemic of 2020 has been likened to an invisible war. If it is a war then there are no civilians. There is universal draft. We are all in it.

Like any combatant, we take up the arms we are trained to use. Yet we are more than worldly combatants. As such we have available to us greater arms, greater strength, than others. Trust is one.

“They collapse and fall, but we rise and stand upright,” v.8. Experience. We see others’ collapse from fear, we feel within us an inner peace, and our soul rises just a little. Each time we allow Spirit to raise us a little more we gain confidence, we gain trust. Little by little we grow in faith until we stand upright.

Our enemy isn’t an invisible plague, though too often our enemy is invisible. Our enemy is, as Apostle Paul explains:

“For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places,”
Eph. 6:12.

Trust grows like leaves and flowers in Spring. Sometimes slowly. Sometimes quite rapidly. Experience is the food that feeds the growth.

Let us Stand Upright Together. Let us experience great trust in our Heavenly Father who gave His Son Yeshua for us our eternal lives.

We have no peace in this world, necessarily. We have Peace in our souls in our G-D.

Some trust in chariots. . .

Psalm 20

1 May the LORD answer you in the day of trouble!

May the name of the God of Jacob protect you!

May he send you help from the sanctuary
and give you support from Zion!

3 May he remember all your offerings
and regard with favor your burnt sacrifices! Selah

4 May he grant you your heart’s desire
and fulfill all your plans!
5 May we shout for joy over your salvation,
and in the name of our God set up our banners!

May the LORD fulfill all your petitions!

6 Now I know that the LORD saves his anointed;
he will answer him from his holy heaven
with the saving might of his right hand.

7 Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the LORD our God.

8 They collapse and fall,
but we rise and stand upright.

9 O LORD, save the king!
May he answer us when we call.

L-RD Bless, Keep, Shine. . .

Peace, Prosperity, and the Gospel

Today I listened to a sermon by Pastor Martyn Lloyd-Jones—The Destruction of the World.

The summary from the MLJ website states:

A Sermon on Matthew 24:3-14
Signs of the End of the Age As he sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming and of the end of the age?” And Jesus answered them, “See that no one leads you astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and they will lead many astray. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom, and there will be famines and earthquakes in various places. All these are but the beginning of the birth pains. “Then they will deliver you up to tribulation and put you to death, and you will be hated by all nations for my name’s sake. And then many will fall away and betray one another and hate one another. And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And because lawlessness will be increased, the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved. And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come. (ESV)

The Christian Gospel : is it relevant today? why the Gospel will never ‘change’ the world; saved from the coming destruction.

In the sermon, Pastor MLJ says that humankind believes philosophers, scientists, and evolutionists and thinks it can build a perfect world. But the humankind is in rebellion to G-D, and has been since the perfect Garden was tainted by wanting to be like G-D.

Pastor MLJ goes on to say that a misunderstanding of the Gospel has even led preachers to think Yeshua meant for us to build a perfect Earth. But the Gospel has been preached for two thousand years and we are at war, we suffer calamities, famine, and plague. Yeshua foretold those things. The Gospel offered eternal salvation to those called by G-D.

Will there ever be peace and prosperity? Yes. Yeshua will return. And will bring judgement and peace; judgement will be for those in rebellion, peace for those who’ve overcome the world, been born again into a new person in Yeshua Messiah.

With this plague that has come, let us look only to our Master, our King, our Savior—Yeshua. Philosophy won’t save us. Science won’t save us. Evolution won’t save us. Yeshua is The Way, The Truth, The Life.

Crosses on Lawns. . . Looks like KKK is active reports Newsweek

According to this article in the Christian Post, Faith Over Fear, Newsweek reported comments by twitter users referring to a picture a person posted of a lite cross in his yard as being a KKK-style burning cross.

Today’s media is filled with poorly educated “reporters,” in my opinion. So That Figures.

But worse, the first comment on the CP article made by one Frances Bookheim said,

“It looks like the KKK is alive and well.”

Really! Do people simply not read before responding?

Anyway, if you don’t read the article on the CP, it’s about folks planting crosses in their yards as part of a campaign of Faith Over Fear. . . which is the headline of the CP article.