How can we influence the course of the events of our life and be a little more in control of our destiny? … There are no easy answers to these questions, and if someone came to offer you effortless happiness, you would see it as one of those sales pitches that enrich no one but the merchants of illusion. But there is nevertheless a path that leads to happiness. Maybe not that cliché we imagined getting in an anthropocentric world, but deep seated, lasting and shared happiness. Yes, true happiness is indeed shared happiness. And at the risk of surprising you, the first person to be concerned by this sharing is God himself. If my choice had been based on what I perceived in other Christians, I don't think I would have been drawn to Christianity. There is all this ritualistic, hypocritical and superficial aspect, with its bigotry and its scandals, which the devil uses like a scarecrow to keep away people who are looking for some authenticity. And in another camp you have Christians who pride themselves on having been admitted into the secrecy of the gods, who are loud, talkative, and restless. They boast about great things, but they are still the most boring people on earth. If you want to know what Christianity is, you will have to overcome all these preconceptions in order to go in search of your God. Because one does not become a Christian because one has found a community of men with whom one wants to identify, but one becomes one because one has tasted the Spirit of the Living God. And it is an experience of no return. Nothing to do with religious bliss or with New Age personal development. It is more of a reversal of our traditional values. Jesus said in John 9:39, “I have come into this world to judge it. I have come so that people who are blind will see. I have come so that people who can see will become blind.”

“For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future”. God made this beautiful promise of happiness to us through the prophet Jeremiah. Even though Jesus promised that he would stand by our side, he did not hide from us that we are progressing in enemy territory. This enemy must be identified, and Jesus teaches us how we can respond to his attacks and thwart his plans. Perhaps, the first thing we will need to do will be to abandon our path of rebellion and take the path prepared by God and which will lead us to our freedom. Moses, speaking on behalf of God, said, “See, I set before you today life and prosperity, death and destruction. For I command you today to love the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws; then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess.”. Many Christians mistakenly imagine that they are exempted from service, and that others take it upon themselves to acquire salvation in their behalf. This misconception can have serious consequences. How will they be able to resist the attacks and how will they enter into the inheritance that God wants to share exclusively with his sons and daughters?

“I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”. John 10: 9-11. To offer everything to God and even our own life, and to do it with love : this is the invitation that God makes us to thwart the plans of a world that would want to take everything from us and even our identity. Because, to the extent that we give ourselves to him, God also gives himself to us, and that part of ourselves which is hidden in God can no longer be taken from us.

God invites us to be led by him in the knowledge of his person, a knowledge that opens the door to these green pastures which are the promises of happiness and peace that he made to us. Jeremiah continues, “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity.”

And Jesus to add : “Until now you have not asked for anything in my name. Ask and you will receive, and your joy will be complete”. John 16:24.

 

The first coming of Jesus took place literally, according to what was announced in the Bible. So why shouldn't we believe that his second coming will happen the same way? We live in a world at war, and what we see happening now between nations is a repercussion of what is happening in the spiritual realm. This also explains the fact that the Truth has been withheld until now and that a perverted religion has taken hold. The Jews as a nation failed to recognize the first coming of their Messiah. This will give the possibility to a false Messiah, or an "Anti-Christ", to appear at the appointed time and to deceive them in their expectation. And on the other hand, a large part of the church including the Catholic Church and most Protestant churches, are said to be "amillennial", that is to say they do not believe that Christ will return at a historic date to establish his reign on earth. But they rather believe that this reign began with the birth of Jesus Christ, and that it now continues through the church. Those two erroneous positions, greatly influences our vision of world politics.

Thus, even among Christians and Jews, there is a misunderstanding of what is meant by "the reign of Christ". If the world we know today is ruled by Christ, then we would have plenty of reason to be extremely disappointed in God. But what is about to take place is an extremely important subject for us Christians, and in fact for everyone, because this event carries our hopes for the world. Initially, God is going to open the “wedding room”, that is to say the dimension in which Jesus finds himself, to let in those who have placed all their hopes in him. Soon you could find yourself in that other dimension and changed in the blink of an eye in the likeness of the Son of God. You don't need to be special for that. No need to be religious. But there will have to be a real bond between you and the Son of God. “I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me” said Jesus. “He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice”. John 10. “If I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am”. John 14.

But while a small portion of the earth's population will suddenly be gone, on this earth now deprived of its salt, evil will be free to wreak havoc. These will be abominable times, times like the world has never known, Jesus tells us. A good part of humanity will pass away during the trials which will be imposed on it, because of the obstinacy of men to reject God. The earth itself will be partially destroyed by plagues and by cosmic catastrophes. Fortunately, this time will be short: about seven years including three and a half years of plagues, according to what the Bible says. Part of humanity will thus have been able to survive. We will then see the Son of God descending from heaven with his angels and his chosen ones, to take back the government of the earth from the hands of the devil. The wicked will be destroyed, and the devil will be thrown into a pit, with his angels, and they will remain there for a thousand years. During this "millennium" our earth will bloom again and manifest the glory of Christ who originally created it with his Father. It is a revelation that the world has been waiting for since its origins: “the revelation of the sons of God”, according to what the Apostle Paul tells us. These will undoubtedly be wonderful times when men will live in love in a dimension of supernatural regeneration, and when no harm will be done to any creature. But remember, the wicked will have been removed. During this reign, Jesus will be the head of the Jewish nation. Jew or Yehudim means: "those who praise the God who speaks to his people", as opposed to those who worship dumb idols – Satan, the respectable Baal and the Queen of Heaven behind whom the spirits of this world hide. Jerusalem will become the center and the capital of the world. During this reign, the earth will be supernaturally restored and it will experience a divine kingdom of peace and harmony among all men. Not only men, but even animals will change their nature and become friendly with each other. Men will no longer die but they will live for centuries. Each will live on his plot and have “his vine and his fig tree” – wine for joy, figs for sustenance.

This is what Peter saw and had in mind on the day of Pentecost, when he said, ‘In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions, your old men will dream dreams. Even on my servants, both men and women, I will pour out my Spirit in those days, and they will prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and billows of smoke. The sun will be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the coming of the great and glorious day of the Lord. And everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.” Acts 2:17-21

Will the exodus that will precede Christ's return in glory take place this year, or within the next ten or twenty years? No one knows and this is part of God's strategy. Jesus simply asked us to be prepared for this eventuality. But the preliminary circumstances for this departure are now in place, which suggests that this could happen any day.

After demonstrating the Kingdom of God on earth during this millennial reign, Jesus will move on – things no man has yet seen or even imagined. The devil will then be freed from his prison, because he must be able to seduce the hypocrites, those who will not be sincerely won over to God and who will not be worthy of an eternity lived in his Light. Then will come the true end of the world, with the cataclysmic destruction of earth and sky. Our universe will be rolled up like an old newspaper that we have finished reading and delivered to the fire with all that it will still contain. But for the friends of God there will come a new earth, and new heavens, which have been prepared from before the foundation of the world for those who love him.

This wing flapping had not escaped our cat, as I saw out of the corner of my eye, ignoring my calls and moving swiftly towards the source of the noise. I had to run to catch it, and then lock it in another room. He was upset that I made him miss a snack and what would have been the highlight of his day, but he will get over it. Back in the verandah, I opened the door wide and walked out and back in, so the bird could look at me and learn, then I stepped back. But instead of flying towards the door, the bird relentlessly tried to make its way through the window from a place hidden behind the plants. To save it from exhaustion and possible injury, I had to grab it, then I placed it carefully on an outside table where it could fly away once it got its senses. It stood there for a good five minutes, arranging its feathers, looking at the sky, which made me worry about the condition of its head after the shocks, and dread that a bigger bird would eventually notice it and take advantage of the situation. I had also heard of how the mahouts break the will of elephants by tying them up with strong chains and beating them for days in a row without food. When the elephant has learned that no matter how strong and angry he is, he cannot free himself from the tyranny of his masters, they will then tie him with a simple rope and he will remain obediently in their service for the rest of his life. Perhaps the shocked little bird now imagined that a glass prison was all around it. But a blast of wind brought it back to reality, and it finally flew to a nearby tree.

You know that Jesus ordered us to release the captives. What are we to be set free from? Not our boss nor our wife – although they sometimes work effectively to our holiness. Illness, addictions, low self-esteem, resentment, are among the most obvious, but anything we fail to get past becomes a prison and the lures and traps of this world are many. Among them, there are all these false conceptions of God, which are as many insurmountable chasms between our solitude and the reality of feeling loved by our heavenly Father. How do we do what Jesus asked of us? By jumping on distraught people and imprisoning them in our churches or in a religion? People who need God need friendship first. True churches are founded on home groups where people seek a Spirit led lifestyle, which is at the opposite of what tradition has to offer. In times to come, all of our certainties will be shaken and many people will feel lost and helpless. And I'm afraid there are also a lot of marauding cats. No… sorry cats, sorry dogs and wolves in sheep skin, God's children are no snack for you. What we are asked is to behave like sons in order to show them where the door is, but sometimes also, to tell them the whole truth in love. Then, it is up to each individual to make the choice of his direction of life and to take off. Jesus is the door, and whoever comes to God should pass through him as well, only to be released into the green pastures of knowledge of God, he said. Even this Jesus who nevertheless created us with his Father – well, this God denies himself to be the owner of slaves. He of course expects our reciprocity, but God has never forced anyone to love him back for the good he does to us. Remember the Tower of Babel? The world will soon be informed of the rise of a new religion. The leaders of this religion will use all the strings of our sensitivity to make us fall into their humanist, anthropocentric, diabolical intrigue. “We must unite to be strong”, said the people of Babel. They had forgotten that there is a God over men. Jesus told us that when God is not invited to dwell in the house, the demons return, each taking seven other spirits even more wicked than them. Because even with its arms open to all without asking questions and its alleged universality, the new religion is only the old religion reworked and which has made an alliance with even more devious entities. Its iron fist hidden in a velvet glove will be directed more than ever against the living God, and those who serve him. It is designed to subordinate us to gods and goddesses on a human scale and who do not speak, lest feeling our need to be redeemed and transformed, we would turn away from them and return to the living God. The Spirit of the Father alone – He whom Jesus invites us to pray in the secrecy of our room – has the gift of leading us to the open door, that is to say to Jesus who is in facts, our Messiah and our Lord.

Before continuing this story, I open here a parenthesis after I just heard a message. I like this young pastor who is Arthur Thomas. I hope his positions are clear on Bethel Church and its “baptism of fire”, which is part of the much controversial “School of the Supernatural,” for Art delivers exceptional messages on Divine healing. And he is my hero when it comes to living and demonstrating the topic of this chapter. His name may have been wrongly associated with this crowded but misguided church – heresy hunters can be over the top at times, as some proselytes are – we all err on the side of things at times. Take for example: I just discovered a new video on YT. Someone had taken the story of the life of young Akiane Kramarik, and had added a translation of the commentary in French. I added it to my links right away, but then listened to the video until the end and was flabbergasted when I realized that this gentleman was hijacking the content of this video to glorify, not the one who is the object of this quest : Jesus the Christ, nor even the person concerned. But he shamelessly advocated the muse of the forged religion, the Virgin, Ashtarot, Our Lady the Queen of Heaven, a very old mythical figure by man's standard which we know has usurped the identity of the woman who gave birth to Jesus to lead millions of Christians into the dead end of a forbidden devotion ...

We live in a strange world among strange people, and if I unintentionally offended you, I fully take it because it is for your good. Know however that if you feel offended, and perhaps even very angry, it is because an entity which is not you feels threatened by these affirmations. Don't feel hurt but realize that you are a victim of religious deception. The Bible teaches that our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ. Even if this displeases those who advance tendentious interpretations, it nowhere mentions a divine mother, or if it does it is to warn us against a counterfeit religion. Understand that this is not misogyny. We have to admit that Satan does exist and that he certainly did not stand idly by during the great invasion of his empire by Christianity. After having deceived Eve in the garden through the serpent, which affected all her descendants including Mary, the mother of Jesus, he scaffolded from the beginnings of Christianity, several plans that would allow him to recover a posteriori the children that the Christ would take him back and return to their rightful Father, even the most sincere believers, in order to reappropriate their obedience by roundabout ways. He did so, among other means, through a forged religion. The mother is the soul. The father is the spirit. The soul of man is, according to God himself, definitely corrupted. It is irrecoverable, and it is enough to listen to the rhetoric of the theology of the Virgin Mary to be convinced of it. From the time Eve let herself be seduced, the “feeling” lies. I'm not denying the value of true tenderness of heart, but some people are totally lost in their fallacies, which tend to give legitimacy and even to deify, human feelings which have lost their strength and their legitimacy. For it is through the spirit that God finds us – “the Spirit of Truth which the world cannot receive because it does not know him”. “A sword will pierce your soul”, old Simeon prophesied on Mary. This sword will prove to be that of the Spirit in the mouth of her own son. And Mary new it beforehand since she had said: “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant.” She knew she was a sinner like all men and she needed a saviour. Jesus is a friend to the humble and to those who know they are sinners, but he nevertheless remains the three times holy God, before whom all our stratagems collapse.

But according to the Bible, God is a father and also a mother to us. He loves us more fiercely and he knows us more intimately than the best mother. “You shaped me in a wonderful way in my mother's womb, and nothing that I am is hidden from you, you even know every day that is destined for me before these exist”, will David write in Psalm 139. “Your Father knows you need these things”. “Even the hairs of your head are numbered”, Jesus will say. “Wisdom begins with reverence for God. All who observe it have a sound mind and understanding” Psalm 111:10. Those who turn to the Virgin myth generally admit that they do not have a satisfactory relationship with the Father and with Jesus. If we do not come to this experience of the Father, we should ask his forgiveness for doubting his love, and perhaps we will have to tear down the anthropogenic concept of the Olympian gods which has permeated our Christianity, in order to receive a new understanding of the person of God. “Oh you know, I don't read the Bible because I don't understand it. And then this Old Testament God, frankly, it's outdated. But when I pray, I feel that the Virgin is present and I am relieved to be able to unload my worries on her, even if in reality I have to admit that I do not see an answer to my prayers”. You don't make an un-thirsty donkey drink, goes the saying. If you are unaware that you are living in the midst of a lost world, neither will you feel the need for higher wisdom to help you find your way. And how could we fall in love with somebody if we don't spend time with that person, knowing her better and contemplating her? And how could we fall in love with a person if we don't spend time with her, knowing her and watching her live? Otherwise, it is better to fall in love with an image or a plaster statue that will remain on your shelf and that will not cost you in outings and restaurants. In the past, men would have spent a veritable fortune to have access to what is made widely available to us for free. The Bible is a one-way mirror. The first image reflected in it is yours in the midst of your situation. But in the background stands the living and life-giving presence of God.

The first and foremost commandment is this: “Hear, O Israel, the Lord. He is the only true God. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your strength. And you will love your neighbour as yourself”. Is it a matter of feelings? No, these are called commandments. When I did my military service, everything in me initially rebelled against these orders given without possibility of discussion and without sentimentality. But after a while, I began to see the positive fruits that this discipline had on my character, and I quite liked the fact that I no longer needed to analyse everything critically. The effort became almost restful. It is the same with God when we let him lead us, except that with God things always have sense and a meaning, even if this meaning does not appear immediately. But coming back to Art Thomas, he mentioned, in a very good message that I will recommend you listen to, that according to a survey, thirty percent of evangelical Christians do not believe that Jesus is God, and the number even climbs to seventy-five percent when it comes to believing that Yeshua, or Jesus, is a created angel-like being. No wonder, then, that these people also don't believe what they are in Christ. If they were aware of who they are, they would not need the apparitions of an angel of light (*), or heresy hunters, or even a super-apostle, to be told what to do and who they may or may not trust. “The man who has the Spirit judges everything, and he himself is not judged by anyone,” Paul told the Corinthians.

The foundation of the Christian faith is not a dogma, or a church, a religion, or even a discipline extrapolated from the teachings of the apostles. Jesus said: “You search the Scriptures, because you think you have eternal life in them: they are the ones who bear record of me and you do not want to come to me to have life!” The foundation of the Christian life is therefore a person. Either we have that person, or we fill the void with what religion can offer.

To become son and daughter of God indeed passes by this learning of the discernment of the spirits and by our emancipation from the rudimentary principles of the world. The Bible teaches that from its origins, the world we live in has been in the centre of a conflict between two seeds. If there are two offsprings, there must be two progenitors. Many races and tribes inhabit the earth, but all individuals combined, God classifies us into only two spiritual families : the offspring of the women and the offspring of the serpent. This is mentioned in one of the very first chapters of Genesis. This woman is represented there by Eve who symbolizes Life, physical life, but also the life of believers from the moment she is saved, as Paul mentions. She is not Miriam, but the mother of Jesus is part of the equation since she gave life to Christ who is the Messiah of Israel. Israel is indeed this woman who is mentioned prophetically in this text of Genesis, as confirmed by the dream of Joseph, son of Israel, in the light of Revelation 12. And in Isaiah 53, Christ is prophetically attributed an additional seed, acquired by his sacrifice, and which concerns us a priori, us non-Jews who believe in him. So, apart from Christ who was born without the intervention of an earthly father, every man, from his birth, belongs to the serpent because of the venom of the lie that he has instilled in us. But he becomes the seed of the woman (of Abraham and the promises), and the spiritual bride of Christ, from the moment he accepts the Messiah of Israel as his Christ. It's a simple yet complex plot that I discuss in more detail in this other chapter, because it is the cause of everything that is happening in the world today and it is going to be the stake of this final battle, whose ferocity is cause for concern. What can reassure us, perhaps, is the fact that God foretold that Christ and his seed would suffer a heel injury, while we would crush the serpent's head. Paul says that there is no commonality between the sufferings of this present day and the glory that is to come. I close the parenthesis here, but you now see how things could have been diverted for the benefit of the other woman, because it must perhaps be specified : in the Hebrew tradition, the serpent that seduced Eve in the garden was originally a kind of woman with wings. Her wings will be taken away from her as a punishment for her betrayal. She will no longer have her place in heaven and she will have to wander on earth. Disobeying God, she had planned to become Adam's bride, but God had intended Christ for us. We now know who is behind this identity today. We can therefore imagine the feelings that can animate her, vis-à-vis the human race, with regard to Christ whom she crucified but who came back to life to reign over her with his saints, and the pandemonic projects that she has scaffolded for this period of history, at the end of which she will be thrown into a pit where she will remain locked up for a period of a thousand years, before being released to be finally destroyed. I'm telling you, the darkest plots of American soap-series are children's bedtime stories beside this reality, and I would surely not ask this woman to babysit my children.

How do you become a son of God? From this theological confrontation that I mentioned at the beginning, with this friend committed to the faith but who was a little too legalistic in my view, I had the vague feeling that it was necessary to deserve this adoption by making act of holiness. Even if I owe it to this friend's prayer that I was definitely rid of the urge to smoke, I was again confronted with this religious spirit of control, which had made me move away from Catholicism in the first place. It then took me many years of wrestling with doubt, of fasting, self-exorcism attempts and a yo-yo spiritual life where I depended on other people for my substance, experiencing some surges almost immediately followed by long periods of stagnation in a semi-depressive doldrums from which I could not extricate myself, to finally understand that, like many Christians, I had tackled the problem from the wrong end. Truth is that we are born in a sin nature and we cannot shake sin as long as we see ourselves as sinners. If you want to control a snake, you need to grab its head, not its tail. The Bible says of Christ that he crushed the head of the serpent, and Christ himself asserts that those who believe in him will walk on snakes and scorpions, mostly figuratively speaking I reassure you, without them being able to do them any harm. I recommend on this subject a teaching from Andrew Wommack that I put in link here. So my first impression was the right one : We are the sons of God from the very moment we decide to take God's offer to become his sons. It is a change of mindset, and it is this status obtained by faith that gives us the power to overcome the vagaries of our inherited nature. “For you are all sons of God through trusting in Messiah Yeshua. For all of you who were immersed in Messiah have clothed yourselves with Messiah. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female – for you are all one in Messiah Yeshua. And if you belong to Messiah, then you are Abraham’s seed – heirs according to the promise” says Paul to the Galatians. The fact that we recognize that Jesus is the Son of God, but also of believing in what we have become from the moment Jesus reconnected us with our God, opens the door to our spiritual freedom and makes us inherit from all the promises of God. Religion has accustomed us to remaining forever under the authority of a pyramidal order ultimately controlled by the devil. But God made us sit in spiritual places with Christ, writes also the apostle Paul to the Ephesians. God only placed two conditions on us to be considered by him as his sons and daughters : We must decide to be constantly led by his Spirit, according to Romans 8, which implies that we remain filled with him and His Word, and not with the vanity of our life in this world, and we must demonstrate what we believe we now are, by living and acting as peace craftsmen, as Jesus says in Matthew 5:9. So again, God does not expect us to rise to him, but he has joined us in our weakness by placing his Spirit in us as our companion for this trip, so that, inhabited by him, we behave naturally like his sons and daughters and not as helpless sinners or as religious beggars.

With its numerous connotations, the word “adoption” comes sometimes like a shadow in the picture. But the word υιοθεσια (Huiothesia), which was translated by “adoption” for lack of a more adequate word in our Western languages, is not at all depreciating in the sense in which the Bible uses it. It is made up of the roots Huios (son) and Tithemi (placing). According to a commentary, this word is only used five times in the Bible, by Paul, in reference to our position as joint heirs within the promises made by God to Abraham. In John 8, Jesus gives us some explanations which come to enlighten God's project. The inheritance promised to Abraham was the accession of his seed to the same promises that he had made to him. God had promised Abraham that, because he had believed, he would be blessed and his name would be famous. He also would become – and his seed after him –, a source of blessing. His seed would be like the sand of the sea or the stars of heaven that no one can count, and God would put them in possession of foreign territories, “a land of the west where milk and honey flows”. Abraham is the embodiment of the principle that “if you believe, you will see the glory of God”. It is on this principle of the “faith that brings about things which are not into existence”, the very principle God had already used to create our world, that God founded the covenant he made with Abraham and with his descendants. God had however specified that in order to inherit the promises, no mixture would be allowed with man's merit and own achievements. The children of the handmaid (the law, or the religion) would not inherit with those of the free woman (the faith and the Spirit).

It is also by virtue of the faith that God raised up another seed to Abraham, a seed taken from the foreign world, won to Abraham by Christ. Peter said, “Be sorry for your sins and turn from them and be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ, and your sins will be forgiven. You will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This promise is to you and your children. It is to all people everywhere. It is to as many as the Lord our God will call.”  Joined to the children of Israel, these two peoples are called to form one. The heir is like the servant as long as he is a child, says Jesus. But the servant does not stay forever in the house, while the son inherits everything. In another passage in the Bible, Paul says that we were placed under the law as under a tutor. A more descriptive translation than the word “adoption” would therefore be : “our placement in the position of sons, with the immediate change of our hearts, which will be followed later by that of our bodies, so that glorious, they also correspond to our new identity of sons of God”. But in John 8, the masters and teachers of the law react to Jesus' offer to set them free : “We are no one's servants. We are the seed of Abraham and have one father : God, for we are not illegitimate children”. The fact that Jesus was born without a father had not escaped them. Their sarcasm is fair game since Jesus had suggested that they had for father the one who inspired them all their bad thoughts and their murders, that is to say the devil. But Jesus knew his Father perfectly. As he means it, the Father is the one who generates us spiritually and who indwells us. What was true for Jesus is also true for us. After his resurrection, he said to Mary of Magdala: “Go and find my brothers and tell them that I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God”. God does not adopt us as strangers to his race or to his house, or as servants, or even as pets. But from “prodigal” sons that we were, he dresses us in a new robe and puts the ring of his authority on our finger. He kills the fattened calf for us, for what it may mean to everyone. God perfects us by making us reborn of his Spirit, to position us in a dominant manner in spiritual places, while he sets us back into his redeemed family. This found again identity is essential. When we read the Bible, we realize that God has many children, but his great sorrow is that we are not all his sons and daughters. There are the children of wrath (Ephesians 2), the sons of destruction (John 17), the rebellious, deceitful, obstinate, children (many quotes), and there are the sons from the east and west who will sit at the table with Abraham and Jesus while some of the sons of the Kingdom will be thrown out because they did not believe. (Matthew 8).

The early disciples were not necessarily holier than many of us. In fact some were even much worse. Most of them had never attended Bible school, with the possible exception of Saul of Tarsus who for a time became the leader of the persecutors. But these ordinary men and women had one thing in common, and that one thing made them extraordinary. It was the Spirit of adoption that God had poured out upon them on the day of Pentecost. But again, the word “adoption” poorly describes God's intent in sharing his spiritual nature with us. A better translation would be “to put on an identity” or “to appoint to a position” or “to promote”. Remember what the Father said to his eldest son: “Look, dear son, you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours”. The eldest son, who represents believers who come from an obedient religious background and the law, as well as the Jews compared to the non-Jews, did not live in accordance with his status. His mentality had remained that of a servant, hence his frustration when the Father rehabilitated his younger brother who had lived in an erratic way. But after Pentecost, it was precisely this awareness of who they were that now carried the sons of the gift of God like a rushing wave which they were surfing. They had faith, and their joy could withstand persecution. God was with them, in them, and they knew that nothing was impossible for them. Everywhere they went, extraordinary things were happening. The Bible is surprisingly succinct on the details, presumably to avoid us the temptation to seek miracles instead of the One who performs them. But we can still read in the Book of Acts, things that are highly improbable. The apostles walk out of closed prison cells, the dead are resurrected, the paralytics are instantly healed, the sick who were lined up in the streets are all healed without exception as the shadow of an apostle passes over them, others are healed or set free when an handkerchief blessed by an apostle is laid on them, disciples move from one city to another without having to go there – the whole earth seems to be waiting for this revelation of the sons of God. Convicted at the sight of all these wonders, Satanist miracle workers are converted, and thousands of people turn to this faith and embrace the great freedom of the children of God. Of course, this cannot be popular with everyone and persecution doesn't take long to organize. Stephen, a man of grace and power, performed wonders and great miracles among the people. Indicted, he is not afraid to tell his judges their four truths, as before him Jesus did not hesitate to tell them that they were the children of the devil. Stephen paints a grandiose historical fresco for them, to finally remind them that what their fathers were, so are they : stiff-necked people who continually resist God and who are the murderers of the prophets. The very moment he says these things, Jesus shows himself to Stephen in a kind of Imax motion picture which he comments live: “Now I see the heavens open, and the Son of man standing at the right hand of God”. But for those slaves of the spirit of the world who had listened to him with some interest until then, this is too much. Man standing besides God to rule the world, it can only be blasphemy. What they hear contributes to ringing the hallmarks of a beleaguered religion and puts them in a murderous rage.

The history of the world is made of this succession of velleities for the revelation of the sons of God, almost immediately perverted by the devil or repressed in vicious actions going as far as barbaric and bloody repression. I have nothing against religions. They are part of the human landscape, like politics, sport, entertainment. If it is religion that you want, I can recommend the Catholic religion over many others. Even if it subrogated to Christ the Queen of Heaven and substituted human traditions for the Gospel, it will still make the Bible available to you, and this is what allowed me to be saved. The Bible denounces all the liberties they have taken from sound doctrine, but they generally do not read these passages or they interpret them in their own way. But some denominations are more dangerously devious, because error is more subtle in them. All religions approach the things of God in an unrenewed mind, and therefore they are not immune to the control of the forces of evil. Religion brings sterilization, pseudonymisation and the outright eviction of the Spirit of the Lord. Men and women of good try to rekindle the flame, but they face subversive forces that are quick to undermine their efforts or to recuperate the rewards, and this cycle has been repeating for millennia. If religion needs to invoke the Queen of Heaven and if it clings to a system and to traditions, it is because, as Paul said to the Corinthians : “The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God”.

In spite of this, the Kingdom of God, for it is indeed about it, is progressing inexorably. Like an oil stain, the good news of the Gospel of the Sons of God has spread throughout the world for two thousand years and even longer. Jesus told us that his Gospel would be like the leaven that the baker has put in the flour. Society, even if it resists admitting it, has been transformed from within by the gospel. Everywhere in the world, ordinary men and women are convinced that they are called to an extraordinary destiny, and their hopes are in Christ, as are also the hopes we can have for our world. The first disciples like Stephen and his companions, were not afraid of death. They had dared to look Reality in the eye, and what they saw there had changed them forever. They could no longer subscribe to this organized slavery of the sons of God that Satan perpetuates through religion. They were now so free that even living or dying didn't really matter. The war waged by the forces of evil is a lost battle. The reason is simple : their weapon of deterrence, death, has been has been swallowed up in Life by the victory of Christ. 1 Corinthians 15. To be able to nourish ourselves on this truth will undoubtedly be precious in times to come, when the corrupt world will embark on its ultimate assault against God and his people, that which will sign it's end.

This identity has its source in God. It will extend well beyond the years that we can count on earth, for time is a very random notion and it is linked to this earthly existence. But if life was a car, it would be delivered with its owner's manual describing the design of the vehicle, its various elements, giving sound advice on how to drive it and advising maintenance to be made at regular intervals to keep it in excellent condition. You may have bought a used car that came without an owner's manual. Soon, a warning lit up on the dashboard, leaving you puzzled. A call to a friend more knowledgeable in mechanics will have reassured you: “These warnings usually pop on from a certain mileage. It's probably the measuring probe that is worn out and should be replaced. You may just as well ignore it”. I remember my first Subaru, a wrecked vehicle that I had refurbished. As you probably know, these are four-wheel drive vehicles designed to get out of most situations. Still, I got stuck on a sloped road due to an unexpected patch of ice. One wheel was spinning and the car would not move. There are some laborious solutions to get out of such situation and I eventually made my way. One day though, I wondered about the function of a button that stood slightly hidden under the dashboard. By consulting the driver's manual – finally! – I discovered that my car was equipped with a differential lock control. The function that would have helped me out of that awkward situation had been implemented by the car manufacturer. Still, I had to know it and switch it manually as needed.

All cultures combined, the tradition of the elders corresponds to these approximate guesses on effects and their causes, and the more or less relevant interpretations we make of the things that affect us. Some of the findings have been written by the wises in books, and these books have served to the development of religions. All these traditions, oral at the beginning, which were adapted to the particular customs and tinged with tales and legends of the ancient peoples – the nebulous theories of the New Age are a resurgence of old theories brought up to date –, explains that people who, according to scientists have a common origin, may have ultimately very different ideas about life, to the point that the word God is synonymous with love for some, hatred for others, with in between almost as many shades of grey as there are men on the planet, the result being that we cannot support each other and live in good harmony. Our great political and religious figures are aware of the problem and have been working for a long time on the development of a “universal” driver's manual which will serve as the foundation for the iron rod of a world ecumenism. But will this “harmonization” of the truth really bring the solution to the problems of humanity? …

 

The political and religious worlds of today, seem to merge in a common endeavour aimed at preparing the way for a charismatic leader – a strong man who will handle our crises with persuasiveness and efficiency. Like a straw fire, this man will rise says the Bible, but he will be reduced to nothing. Men have never done well with dictators once they realized that their hopes were deceived. But think about this: maybe this Messiah has already come and we didn't know him, because his leadership style was not that which we were accustomed to? Jesus said that mind knowledge is good but is not enough. His teaching must be put in practice so we can witness that it works. The Gospel of Matthew presents us Jesus as the new Moses, he who led his people out of Egypt. We thought we were already in our promised land! Amazing. However, many people imagine that Jesus simply brought a new religion, and this is understandable when one sees what has been done with his teaching. But is religion all that Jesus wanted us to keep from his message? When one reads through the Gospels, one sees that Jesus is continually confronting religion. Not in vain attempts to reform it – Jesus did not even consider reforming religion as something worthwhile. But he rebuked the priest's attitude by compassion for those who were to remain in the darkness, because religion had eclipsed God and it was keeping the people in slavery of its own rules. Jesus goes so far as to accuse the religious leaders of building the mausoleums of the prophets whom their fathers killed, acknowledging by this that they were the sons of the prophet's murderers. We could go on : Who killed the Son of God if not religion ? The death on the cross is a fate that Jesus had accepted before he took flesh. This punishment suffered in our place was at the heart of his mission on earth. By confronting the world and its religion to their powerlessness, to the point that we had to get rid of him so that our institutions could preserve a semblance of legitimacy, Jesus has demonstrated in an indelibly manner that religion is pernicious by the use. All times, religions and faiths combined, religious institutions and world powers always got hand in hand when it came to suppressing the advancement of the Kingdom of God on earth, as the demonstration was made when they thought they had submitted Jesus. But in the vision of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, of which Daniel gave him the interpretation, the feet of the great statue are made of iron mixed with terracotta. Political power and religion can get along, but their assembly is precarious and this marriage is not made to last forever. The Reign of Christ is represented by this stone which is detached without the help of any hand, and which breaks the feet of the statue which are the foundation of our society, causing the collapse of the entire structure put in place by men. “In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands – a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces”.

 

Described by God as the “father of lies,” Satan rules the world through a system of beliefs. These beliefs, when sufficiently developed, become fortresses of reasoning in which men are now prisoners. Whether moral, scientific or religious, these erroneous arguments and the prejudices that accompany them must be exposed and dismantled, with the supernatural weapons of God, specifies the Apostle Paul. The advancement of the Kingdom of God comes at this price. What follows might make some cringe, but it is better to ask oneself the right questions now, so as not have to suffer regrets in eternity : Why, within what constitutes its most visible form today, has religion replaced the Messiah with a woman whose worship precedes by several millennia the birth of the mother of Jesus? Truly, Mary must have had her heart pierced. This imposture is indicative of what this prominent religion is, and of who is actually hiding under a Christian sheepskin. Other religions or denominations are not to be outdone, since each has raised to the position of god, who their dogma, who their seers. Jesus spoke to the religious leaders of his time saying : “You nullify the word of God for the sake of your tradition. And you do many things like that”. Jesus rebuked the priests for having made of religion an institution which allowed them to live at the expense of the people, without however empowering them. He told the rabbis that they were closing the door to knowledge so that people could not enter, and that they themselves did not enter. Religion has hardly evolved since the time of Jesus, simply because it cannot. Religious people administer an institution, like others are interested in politics, sports or business. But this institution is not the Life of God. Paul tells Timothy that many men have adhered to an outward form of piety, while they keep denying what makes its strength. All this happened because we separated faith from compassion to consider God on a purely moral level. For instance, the disciples healed all the sick in accordance with what Christ had taught them. Healing were the manifestations established by God to demonstrate that the Kingdom of Jesus was a reality and that it was ready to appear, in fact, that Christ stood at the door. So when I hear that almost a thousand Italians and Spaniards die every day from Coronavirus, I am sorry and disappointed. Religion continues to hold the truth prisoner. We are helplessly witnessing a devilish genocide on backdrop of propaganda. The ignorance in which we indulge has stripped us from all the good things that Christ has acquired us through his obedience and his death on the cross.

 

For more than two thousand years now, the Kingdom of God has been in our midst, but we have chosen to ignore it. Worse, we fought it and in our churches ! If we have become incompetent theorists, it is because we have left our thinkers all latitude for a schism to operate between the heart of man and the expression of his convictions. This schism is what some consider a religious culture, or dogma, precepts, philosophy or sophistry. Jesus called this double mindedness: hypocrisy, or when one abandons the function to enter in a role. And this explains why today, the Gospel of power has been replaced by a moral message. If you listen to the messages that come from St Peter's Square, and in fact from many churches, most of it is a call to Christian ethics. The rest being an invitation to accept and bear our circumstances until the coming of a new era, which turns out to be elusive. The speeches of our politicians essentially consist in trying to “drown the fish”. Morality is not a bad thing in itself, but it is subjective, arbitrary and partisan. Pursued to its end, it leads to wars of religion. The Taliban's claims are noble, since they aim at exercising a higher level of morality. Hitler was a moral figure, otherwise he would not have been listened to and followed by a Christian nation who was also one of the most cultivated race on earth. In defending their moral values ​​or their dogma, the Jews unwittingly crucified the Son of God and their Messiah. Let's not talk about the fratricidal wars that opposed Catholics to Protestants. The Antichrist, who will soon appear onto the political scene, will be a highly moral character, yet the Bible predicts that he will make war to God and to his saints. Our moral perception of good and evil suits Satan perfectly well, since he reigns through division, and religions are his means of choice to maintaining these divisions between people. But the outcome of the cross at Golgotha was an unforeseen one and represented for him a bitter setback. The dragon was himself crushed and nailed to the earth by the instrument of death which he intended for his adversary.

 

As for Christ, he is risen and he stands in heaven with God, from whom he has received all authority and power on earth and in the heavens ! This is why, in the Apostles' time, the Gospel was not considered a story. The word referred rather to a power (dunamis) provided by the Holy Spirit for the concrete restoration of anyone received the message of the Gospel. Liberation from subjugation, whether to a religion or to a caste, from any moral debt towards tutelary spirits. Liberation from guilt resulting from the non respect of the prescriptions of the law, and also from sin in its generic form. Restoration of the integrity of both our physical body and soul were also to be found in the wake of this spiritual renewal. If the gift was free – for instance Jesus healed all who were sick with no condition –, one condition was however set for this restoration to lead to everlasting life : Jesus summed up his demands in these words: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind and with all your strength, and you shall love your neighbour as yourself”. “This is the law and the prophets”. From the application of these two commandments should flow everything related to the conduct of our life. A return to the law and traditions in autoproclaimed orthodoxy, catholicism or fundamentalism, is now considered a retrograde attitude since it brings the believer back under the jurisdiction of a system that was unable to save us, due to our weakness, and which has now been recuperated by the devil as a means of control. The whole law points to Jesus, therefore, acknowledging the law as the supreme authority is like denying Jesus. But acknowledging Jesus as one's Christ is the fulfilment of the law. To make sure that all understood that the Law of Love is not a cheap alternative: “If anyone wants you to go one mile, go with them two miles” Jesus added.

 

How does grace lead to miracles? Jesus did not preach a dogma, but he demonstrated a practical lifestyle. He knew very well what he was talking about, since his spirit stood with God before he took a human form. Therefore he assisted the creation of the world, which was made through the same principles he applied while he was amongst us. God was not a stranger for him like he is for most of us before Jesus reveals him to us. But when Jesus dared to claim that he was one with the God of their fathers, the religious leaders accused him of being a liar and of having a demon, and this in spite of all the miracles that came to prove his proximity with God. Have things really changed since the time of Jesus? Our hearts are made of the same hard parched earth. Whether we want it or not, we are constantly evaluating people and circumstances on the basis of the old law, the law of the soul, and thus condemning ourselves at the same time. “But there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death” says Paul to the Romans. With the advent of grace, God has substituted a new law for the old one. Therefore, according to God, we are not abandoning the law, but we are exchanging it for a much better one. We are moving into a higher realm, a realm that is no longer of the soul but which is now spiritual and open to the miraculous. The law was given by God to man as a consequence of sin. It is condemnatory and it will remain man's realm forever. But when we move into grace, we are entering in God's realm, a realm which is supernatural. Blessed are those who sow in tears, said Jesus. Our tears of contrition are the ingredient that is most necessary to soften the earth we are made of, and to make it become a fertile soil for the supernatural seeds Jesus wants to plant in us.

 

Nowadays, many are tired of having to undergo a political policy that is only concerned with itself. Politics and religion are hijacked by those who try to impose their narrow view of things on us, and they do so because the flock they have to manage is corrupt itself. If religion had not existed for itself, it would have seen in Jesus, not a dissident which it needed to crush, but the King who personified its fulfilment ! How can one come to lose sight to such extent of the true meaning of things? For, later, the apostles taught that religion, or the law and the various beliefs, were the shadows of the things that were to come, but that the reality is in a man – a human being without distinction of gender, caste or race, reconciled with God and with himself and prefigured by the Christ. “Khristos” is a Greek word that is equivalent to the Hebrew “melekh mashiach”, which means “King Liberator”. This word encompasses the dimension of a new identity that the Messiah will communicate to all who want to walk with him, and who will be restored to their true identity of “Adam”, the men who wear the face of God on this Earth. This identity has been lost over the generations because of what is called “sin,” a word in which we often see excesses and moral conflicts, but which in reality means: to miss the target, to pass at large of the true aim of life. Sin, is living for a world whose priorities are skewed, and failing to recognize that it is led to its ruin by him who Jesus calls “the Prince of this world of darkness". Sin is when we don't join in God's plan for the salvation for this world, and keep doing our own business instead of becoming part of his “ekklesia”, his governing council, here on earth. Salvation is an off the beaten tracks journey, a new trajectory that is sometimes difficult to sustain since we are by nature, talented imitators of our fathers. We will need to pass through a conversion experience. Converting means to stop, turn around and go the other way. God wants to change our mentality, not by mental knowledge only, but by transforming us from within, right into our most profound being. Jesus does not encase us in moral or religious sets of values, but he sets us free from these elementary principles by renewing the spirit in us – he replaces our spiritual DNA with his. What is impossible to attain as humans, then becomes workable. Because if God dwells in us and makes us whole – perfectly ONE with the Father as Jesus prays for us –, then why should we disqualify ourselves? Nothing should be impossible. This glorious perspective which is what God has conceived for men from the beginning, is precisely what religion fights, because religion leads it's mission in an un-renewed spirit and mind and it sees grace as a menace to it's very existence. That's how it came to crucify Jesus and to persecute the true believers. Men who are one with a religion or a church, do not want to live from God's love, but they are driven by the pride of life. They receive their reward, said Jesus. But those who in this life, share the sufferings of Christ, will also take part in his glorious resurrection, as he promised.

 

Some were carried by a great ideal or a utopia while others progressed under the banner of a political movement, a religion or even of a desire to reform their religion. The crowd was compact and each individual progressed, carried by his activities and unable to distinguish the final destination towards which all went. But at a certain point, this eclectic and motley crowd reached the edge of an awful precipice from which smoke, flames of fire and cries of agony rose. Finding themselves trapped into a reality where their peculiarities and their certainties were of no help, people became brutally aware of something they had eluded during their life. Some turned back ... but the inexorable progression of a blind crowd precipitated them into a tragic end, which was certainly not what they had expected. The Spirit of God then said to this young man : “The consequence of sin, is death. You have seen it and I will hold you henceforth responsible for all lives lost among those whom you will have met, and whom you will not have warned”. The tragedy, today, is that, comforted by their number, many people navigate in an artistic vagueness and think : “Let's wait and see what will happen in the end”. While God has made it very clear that, what we can expect has already been promised to us. So there should be no surprise about the outcome of the choices we make during our life.

“For I tell you that your goodness must be a far better thing then the goodness of the scribes and Pharisees, before you can set foot in the kingdom of Heaven at all !” Matthew 5. But what goodness is Jesus talking about? Is it our own goodness? Just as a mere philosophy, the sugary religion leads to spiritual decay and to death. The superficial certainties that are conveyed constitute the spacious path that Jesus mentions. This wide path actually misleads many more people, than proper Satanism does. God is not met in the churches on Sundays, but he is actually wherever someone searches for him very sincerely. Gathering beliefs and enriching oneself with a tradition is like hiding our nakedness behind fig leaves. God does not want his people to be like caddisflies. Authenticity is not in the building of a religious identity that allows us to blend into the landscape, so that God shall not see us. But on the contrary, it consists of putting on a “Teflon spirit", a spirit of truth, freed from the influences of the world, willing to take on its responsibilities and to struggle with God while being nourished with his Word, and thus able to understand the nature of the conflict in which our earthly life commits us. This Spirit is communicated by Christ to those who love him and who put in practice his teaching. True Christian life is a fight against inertia and personal inclination, until we reach that place where we love God and love one another with a heart made whole, and not superficially. Then we will see the promise of Jesus fulfilled : “Whatever you ask in faith in my name, believe that you have received it, and you will see it come to pass.” To enter eternal life means to reach this Victory over self-centerdness, after having followed the path that Christ opened for us when he died on a cross. Why is it so important? Simply because a loving altruism is heavenly mentality! Would you like to spend eternity in a place where all other beings would be so different from you that you would feel very uncomfortable? You would rather run away. And that's how we will ultimately decide for ourselves, of what our eternal destiny shall be.

So when I am asked: Do you believe that the Catholics won't go to Heaven? I answer: Well, from what I see and based on what the Bible says, I can't help but note that many Catholics are missing the mark. But then I should also say that I do not think that many Protestants, Evangelicals, Jehovah's Witnesses or Mormons – you name them –, have a relationship with the Spirit of Jesus that guarantees them immortality either. Please understand that we will not go to heaven because we are good people. Or because we followed the only religious path approved by the successors of Saint Peter, or by those of Luther, or by the self-proclaimed leaders of the Christian cults. And besides this, Jesus hardly talked about a Heaven, but he rather mentioned a Kingdom. Oh, I know that the words have been overused by boring door-to-door proselytes. The real Kingdom of Jesus is not one of those artificial paradises that an exclusive group of people have created on some remote island, where they intend to follow their own rules. But Heaven is this place of proximity with God, a place that we must reach now, while we are alive. “Our communion is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ”, says John. At the time of our physical death, we will be drawn into the reality we are already in communion with, either in the true light of Christ for those who are in communion with him, or, in that of Lucifer, the magnificent liar who followed the path of pride and was doomed to an exile. For many, death will be the dreaded moment of truth. Jesus warned that many would be called, but few would be elected. We belong to a kingdom, but only if we love the King and work for the interests of the Kingdom. I have to decide of my eternal destiny, every day, by the choices I make, by the way I seek God and adjust my life principles on what his Word says, and by leaning my heart towards loving others, since this is also what my King does. Not always easy, but it generates peace.

However, to love is not a synonymous for keeping his mouth shut. Love warns of the catastrophes that await at the turn off. Witnessing to others is actually the best way to keep the flame alive. Am I thinking of myself as being on the sure way to heaven ? Nothing can be taken for granted. There are days when I am discouraged, because of the things I cannot change, discouraged by those who are so attached to inherited values that they don't want to change, discouraged by myself because basically, I am of the same breed. I could turn my back on this destiny at any time, go back to a selfish occupation and lose the benefits of everything I have gained so far, as the Apostle Paul was also aware of. And this while others could join in, in the hour that precedes their death, and win the jackpot, as was the case for this criminal who recognized the Son of God while he was crucified by his side. Jesus does not hide himself from anyone who comes to him with a contrite heart. But death may surprise us before we get to that place, and that would be a bad outcome. For, nowhere in the Bible do we find mention of this Greek notion of a purgatory, where after death, we could be transformed by our own efforts or refined through suffering. This concept is just a devilish myth. On the contrary, the Bible says that an insurmountable abyss will separate each camp. “If a tree falls toward the south or toward the north, in the place where the tree falls, there it will lie”, says the Bible. And while some will inherit of a Kingdom prepared for them since the creation of the world, others will stay caught in an unspeakable quagmire, a place of torment they will never be able to escape. Except if there is a miraculous intervention of God, needless to say. Some people report, however, that as they died, they saw themselves fall into a bottomless abyss. But they unexpectedly came back to life to tell their story, because they had the reflex to cry out to God, or because someone fervently interceded for them. The rest of their life was usually devoted to seeking God, but many have unfortunately chosen to reject God, because of a choice that they judged, was too Manichaean. They wanted a third alternative : their own. But by definition, there is no third way in a kingdom. You are either a stakeholder in the king's plans – and believe me: there is enough to satisfy the most ambitious –, or you are an opponent. An opponent can still be won, if he is smart. “God resists the proud, but he is graceful to the humble”, says James.

 

 

The poet and essayist Henry David Thoreau wrote: “Every generation laughs at the old fashions, but follows religiously the new”. Atheistic scientists would have us believe in the postulates of Darwinism, which assert that our mind – they do not even consider the existence of a spirit – is the evolved product of an accident which occurred billions of years ago, when a soup of chemical elements was fertilized by a plasma of undetermined origin. According to these assumptions, our mind, or consciousness, extinguishes also with the cessation of the physiological functions. Needless to say : they have it all wrong. Whether animal or human, at the origin of every life on the planet is a spirit or a breath (in Hebrews: Ruwach). This is mentioned in Genesis 6: 3 and in Psalm 104:29. We must however distinguish two forms of existence. This “Ruwach” spirit, which is breathed in creatures by God, supports the existence of all beings. In Greek, Ruwach is designated by the word psuché from which derives our word psychology. When God takes his breath away, an animal dies and its body decomposes. But for us as humans, a spiritual remnant of our being slips into a lower place called Hades or Scheol, where according to Jesus, we still exist in a conscious form and are able to review the events of our life. But in a tormenting perspective, since we are aware that we shouldn't have ended in that place, but are now powerless to change our fate since we can no longer interact with the things of this life. It is a waiting place before the resurrection for the final judgment. This thought should make us think twice, if for instance we are contemplating suicide as the end of our problems.

The other form of existence granted to us as sons of Adam, is spiritual and divine. It is designated by the word pneuma. Without this pneuma, we humans are racing cars with flat tires. Jesus says in John 6: “The Spirit (pneuma) only is life giving (zōopoioun). Human effort accomplishes nothing. And the very words I have spoken to you are spirit (pneuma) and life (zōē), but there are some among you who do not believe”. … This life that Jesus talks about here – which obviously does not elicit unanimity – , is Zōē, the divine spiritual life which possesses in itself the capacity to sustain physical life. This is a life that extends far beyond the years that are numbered to us, for it is immortal. We are thereby three-dimensional spiritual beings, endowed with a soul and a body. Unlike animals, we have access to this third dimension which is that of God himself, and it is that dimension which determines also our new identity in Christ. Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5: “So from now on, we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here !” And it is precisely this new dimension that bears our immortality, which should be the subject of our most passionate quests in the days that are numbered to us. Religion aims at showing us the way. But since it can not free itself from the laws of gravity so to speak, religion will invariably keep us into the dead end of religiosity, which is a form of death. Religion takes us into a process that is intended at transforming the inner man through outer interactions. But this just doesn't work. And that is why many people who practice all the requisites of religion, complain that they never feel the presence of God. No wonder that their frustration leads them to become brother killers, like Cain, for some. They worship the Lord in their assemblies and generate human feelings by reciprocal emulation, but their spirit remains as frozen as an icicle. In fact, God designed it to work in the opposite way : It is our spirit that must be indwelt and vivified, so that this life from within can then pervade our soul and body and be reflected outwardly. But the question, both wonderful and dreaded that many people ask themselves is, where to turn to, to be communicated the life giving Spirit? And it's there, in that choice, that many destinies get either done or undone. We must not ignore that the world, particularly in the esoteric and religious realms, is monopolized by those who seek to captivate other men, to lead them astray, in their own bewilderment ... And when we realize that things are not working, what do we do? We give up a faith that is yet to be born, and we return to the things of the world. Or, if we are really serious about it, we demolish and rebuild on the ruins of those who came before us, who a new church, who a new denomination, a cult, an esoteric movement, a philosophical trend, just as elsewhere new political parties are formed in reaction to a situation or opportunity. The magnificent illusion of man is that, building with the same bricks, he thinks that he will succeed where those who came before him have failed. Hope sustains life… But God is not afraid to make a clean sweep of everything, because he has other resources. With birth, death and resurrection, God shows us that his work of creation is also a work of constant renewal. What God offers us, his solution to our stagnation, is not a new religion or a new world policy, but it is a New Man.

A new Man

Therefore, God made us a promise through Isaiah: “For unto us a child is born, to us a Son is given, and the government shall rest on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace”. In this prophecy, God offers us his own son, so that he becomes altogether our role model, our counsellor, our guide, our leader, our king, and even our God and Father and the guarantor of our eternity. From the day of his birth, Jesus, fulfilled every prophetic word given about him. He did it through his life, by his ministry, through his sacrificial death, by his resurrection, by the Spirit he poured out and which now leads his people, and by his government which is already exercised in the heavens, and which will soon be established on earth too. The promise shows us that many dimensions are attached to this Envoy – the Messiah, a character who is both divine and human in nature. When we think of Jesus, we should not remain with just one or the other of the dimensions he embodies, but we should explore them all. For example, this is where we will have to look for the new dimension brought to the Paschal rite by the Lord's Supper. Thus, dead to this world with the perspective of becoming partakers in his resurrection, we must eat and drink of what Jesus designates as his flesh and his blood, in order to live forever. But what is this?

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty. Yet I’ve told you that even though you’ve seen me, you still don’t believe”. “For my Father’s will is that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life, and I will raise them up at the last day”. “I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world”. John 6. Those words reported by John are pretty enigmatic if we don't have the key to decipher them. But of course, Jesus always quoted the Tanakh, the Jewish Bible, and this is where we got those concepts from. The “bread from heaven” was the manna, the bread from the old covenant that Moses gave them to survive their crossing of the wilderness. Jesus is the new manna, the bread from Heaven of a new covenant made by God, this time not in the law but in the Spirit. Manna had to be picked and eaten every day, or at least six days a week. If we have read the whole Gospel of John, we know that it starts with those also enigmatic words: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. …The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” So when Jesus speaks about himself as being flesh and bread, we know that he is not referring to his earthly body. But he has in mind the divine dimension of his nature, because he is the very Word of God that became flesh, and we know that through this Word, every good thing in this world was created. Jesus mission is to share this Word with us as his very life, to give us life. And Peter adds: “Lord, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of the everlasting life”.

Sadly, many are following those who skewed what Jesus said and who have turned this communion into a sorcery practice, through transubstantiation. Why have they done that? To be able to withdraw the Word of God from people's life, in order to keep them in bondage. The crowds that followed Jesus could not understand what he was saying. Some may have understood, if Jesus had told them that he was going to die as a sin offering and if he had placed this sacrifice in the context of the Passover – the exit from Egypt. But for the people of his day, passover was a thing of the past, and they were already in their promised land. What they wanted now was a bold living loud speaking macho leader who would get them organized so they could quick the Romans out of their land, but not a bleeding dead King! Many were utterly disappointed, and the leaders of the nation decided to obliterate this useless prophet and make his name a curse. But after his resurrection, the disciples finally gathered it all: Our bread and our wine are the life giving words of Jesus, made alive in us by the illumination of the Holy Spirit on the one part, and a pure conscience to serve God through the seal of his blood shed to pay for our passage from a kingdom of darkness, into the Kingdom of Light of God the Father and his Son Jesus.

In 1 Corinthians 15:45, we read: “So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam (Christ), is a life-giving spirit” (zōopoioun pneuma). The unfolding of the Genesis story shows how the Elohiym created the world. They aroused animal life from the sea, and from the earth, by breathing in them a breath of life (Ruwach). They created the first Adam. The Elohiym had also brought man much further than the animals by granting him their own Spirit as a pledge of eternity. Man was now in the image of God. They created man Ish and Isha, in two complementary identities, so they could team to accomplish the various tasks that God would be assigning them. This partnership is also a type of the relationship that those who administer his kingdom are called to maintain with Jesus (the Church, the bride of Christ). But because men followed another path, God was forced to prevent them from reaching to the Tree of Life and to live eternally. Henceforth, cut off from the Spirit that made them immortal, human beings created in the image of God never existed in their fullness on Earth. It was not until Jesus Christ came to reveal it all over again, that a true Adams existed. And he came to restore us in this lost identity. This is indeed this “revelation of the sons of God” – a quality that only few people throughout the centuries manifested, that the whole Creation now waits for impatiently, on a large scale, as the apostle Paul alludes in Romans 8. I'm no theologian and those explanations are undoubtedly simplistic. But they should help us understand the purpose and the need for the baptism in the Holy Spirit, for such is my point.

And the Word has dwelt among us.

All through the Bible, God teaches us that there is a close connection between creative power and words. This is a sensible subject and I know that it has been taken over by the New Age philosophy, but this is no reason to throw the baby with the baby's bath. A few years ago, Israeli scholars had brought to light with the help of computerized tools, some of the extraordinary codes hidden in the Bible which prove that the Word of God is completely supernatural – in fact much closer to quantum physics than to literature. More recently, other researchers have discovered with amazement that the human genome is made up of words, and that these words have the same structure as those found in the original Bible. The Bible affirms indeed that our God created everything by his Word, and that the whole world is sustained by his will. In other words, if God would suddenly be disinterested in his Creation work, the world would collapse in a second. Jesus says in John 6 : “It is the Spirit that quickens. The flesh profits nothing: the words that I speak to you, are spirit and life”. In reality, our spirit may have existed long before it got dressed up in this body. Potentially, our spirit rules over genes, over disease – even death is not relevant to it ! But this spirit got sort of annihilated. From the time of our birth, we substituted for it a psychic type of functioning. So it needs to be revived. It must be resurrected, released and re-trained. And that's exactly what God does when He communicates us the Spirit of Jesus. For the Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus who lived from all eternity, but God the Father was able to pour it out on all mankind after Jesus had done his work of atonement in favour of us. All it takes now is for us to receive it.

It is therefore not blood links, which going back to Adam, would make us the sons of God, but it is in a direct filiation accomplished by pouring in us a new spirit, that Jesus baptises us in the Father. Through the gift of his Holy Spirit, God not only communicates immediate eternal life to those who receive it, but he also launches a process of regeneration through which we are progressively recreated in the image of his beloved son. “So that you may know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God”, says Paul to the Ephesians. Jesus gave us the first fruits of Everlasting Life. What he still holds for a day that is certainly not far away, is the glorious body that will come as a reward. Paul implies in his letters that we should make sure that we are not found naked on the day of the retribution, which implies that God expects us to develop into our spiritual identity. How do we develop our muscles? We can do weight training. Passive contemplation is an essentially esoteric and oriental notion and it has no place in authentic Christianity. But meditating the Word of God is a very important aspect of life as a Christian. Speaking in spiritual language or tongues builds our spirit and opens us opportunities. Praying is also indispensable to be fully integrated in the plans of God. But there is a way to combine development and results, to finally have a beautiful house as a reward, and that's by living the Spirit filled obedient life proposed by Jesus. The Christian faith is a conquering faith, in the most peaceful sense of the word however. The Psalms, which refer to the act of contemplating, place this action in the context of the deliverance brought by God, or of his redemptive power, and to behold the glory of his house. For instance, faced with the suffering of men, Jesus unambiguously demonstrates what God's point of view on illness is. He invariably restored men and women whose life had been altered, by commanding healing. God never intends to contemplate and meditate on our suffering without immediate intervention. But what the story of Job may teach us, is that, as a father who is responsible for our growth, God also limited himself in his action, by delegating his authority to us. We are the ones who have to command the devil to release his hold, and we do it by submitting to God first, and then resisting the evil one, says James. To say that the suffering of the world leaves God indifferent is nonsense, if we think that he gave his own life in the most horrendous way, so that our suffering would be overcome once and for all. If suffering persists, it is because that knowledge is not widespread, and God expects Christians – you, me – to finally take up our responsibilities and bring his full Gospel to those around us. Yes, I admit that I am still an unworthy and useless servant, but at least I'm not tweaking the Word of God and perverting his character to escape my responsibilities, as many Christians do unwittingly by admitting wrong church theology.

Even if an angel of God would announce another gospel to you ...

That’s why the contemplation of the Cross, of religious icons, or the veneration of her whom some consider to be the “Mother of God”, hardly have their place in the doctrine of Christ. Of course we can talk about Mary in a loving way. Of course she gave flesh to the Son of God. Mary, the mother of Jesus, is a woman who commands admiration and her destiny was truly extraordinary. But the position in which the church raised her, does not correspond to her. Granting her this status in defiance to the message of the Bible, is an uprising of the church against God. “But we did it because an angel ordered us to do so!” And so what? An angel of God blessed Ishmael, the son of the disobedience of Abraham, and later gave to Muhammad the Koran which constituted the base for Islam. An angel dictated the basics of Mormonism to Joseph Smith. An angel appeared to young Bernadette and later to the children of Fatima. Isn't it strange that practically every cult can claim the apparitions of an angel who brought them light with so-called revelations, and that these revelations are always at odds with what the Bible says? “Even if an angel of God should bring you another gospel, let him be cursed”, warns the apostle Paul. John asks us to test all spirits that present themselves. A spirit that is not of Christ is from the Antichrist. Any spirit that does not promote Jesus as Christ and Lord is from the Antichrist. What has happened within the Catholic Church is that, some have usurped the identity of the mother of Jesus, in order to reintegrate into popular religion, through the ignorance of the people – for only the Protestants had access to the Bible –, a character who has neither part or right in the Gospel. In politics, this is called a devolution of power. In 2 Corinthians 4, Paul says, “If our gospel is still veiled, it is veiled for those who perish; The god of this age has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of Christ, who is the image of God”. It is indeed impossible to speak of the new birth, or of the baptism of the Spirit, without evoking what, within the Christian church, has established itself as a substitute for the new birth. We will then come back to what should rejoice us.

Because you see, words do not convey the same realities for all. Many comfort themselves in believing that they are filled with the Spirit of God. But if we dig a little, we see that they make an amalgamation between Spirit of God and religious practice or devotion, or between the Spirit of Jesus and the doctrine of their congregation. All wisdom does not necessarily come from Above, also says James. If you want to test your wisdom to find out what it's worth, let your wife or husband talk about it ! If he – or she – thinks that you are not very smart but sometimes comes an amazing thought, there is hope. More seriously, “the Spirit of God”, the “Holy Spirit” or “Holy Ghost”, or even “the Spirit of Jesus”, since all these terms are synonymous in the Bible, is not a knowledge which would come to us from theological studies or from having read the works of the Fathers of the Church. The disciples of Jesus had not studied theology. However, even those who despised them recognized them a “presence”. By the simple fact that they had been in contact with him, Jesus had rubbed off on them. Nor is the Holy Spirit the force that in some denominations is dissociated from the person of God. The Holy Spirit is a complete Person : “Spirit of wisdom and understanding, Spirit of counsel and of might, Spirit of knowledge and of fear of the Lord”, as prophesied by Isaiah, about the Spirit who would rest upon the Messiah. If we do not recognize the Holy Spirit as the Presence of Almighty God, it means that we have not yet known him in his fullness. All do not need a “road to Damascus” kind of experience, but God has his ways to reach us individually. The Bible describes Jesus as the Word of God – the Word we read in the Bible – , which his Spirit knows also to remind to our hearts. John makes it clear that “All things were made through him, and nothing that was made was made without him”. The genuine Holy Spirit will never make the written word of God lie, and he will never force people to act like stupid or weird – but the demons will. Same as Jesus was no different than the Father, the Holy Spirit is not less than the person of Jesus, present in spirit in us, with us and in our midst. He is God in fullness with all that this status represents. The fact that we are sheltering such a great treasure does not make us gods however, and God will have to pass us through his crucible so that we learn to “separate silver and gold from the slag”, to use biblical terminology. James says that “we all stumble in many ways. If someone does not flinch in words, he has become a perfect (holy) man, able to hold his whole body in check”.

Know our God to recognize impostors.

Why and how did the veneration of the Virgin come to replace the Spirit of the Almighty in the church and in the life of Christians? Because this is the question that anyone should ask themselves. Theologians provide some answers. For what they are worth, we can quote that Mary is closer to us. She is a woman and a mother, which implies that her heart is more accessible than that of a Father God whom we often assimilate to Zeus alias Jupiter. She is also said to stand as a mediator between us and this God who all too often barricades himself in his holiness. This may sound politically correct, but how much of this is really true? If we are afraid to draw near to God, maybe we should just consider questioning our conception of God. When they begun their journey across the wilderness, the Israelites were terrified by the appearance of God. His holiness was, in regard to their still not sided soul, a crippling factor. “And they said to Moses, “You speak to us, and we will listen. But don’t let God speak directly to us, or we will die!” “Don’t be afraid,” Moses answered them, “for God has come in this way to test you, and so that your fear of him will keep you from sinning!” Exodus 20. At the time of the prophet Samuel, the people asked him: “Give us a king to judge us, like all the other nations have.” Samuel was displeased with their request and went to the Lord for guidance. “Do everything they say to you,” the Lord replied, “for they are rejecting me, not you. They don’t want me to be their king any longer. Ever since I brought them from Egypt, they have continually abandoned me and followed other gods.” 1 Samuel 8. The message that God sends us through these incidents is clear: On the one hand, God is forced to make himself appear awesome so that we do not despise him or sin through excess of familiarity, and on the other hand, when we allow intermediaries to be positioned between him and us, God sees it as the rejection of his person. And if we reject him, God says it's usually because we serve other gods. But Jesus made a statement that left many men bewildered, when he said : “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one can come to the Father except through me. If you had really known me, you would know who my Father is. From now on, you do know him and have seen him !” John 14: 5-7. Jesus repeatedly tells in the Gospels that “he is like the Father, or that the Father is no different from him”. Jesus endeavours was to makes us know God the Father as he is, so that we would no longer be afraid to approach him. When Jesus said: “Come to me, all you who are burdened with a heavy burden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke on you and put yourself in my school, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for yourselves”, Jesus was prophesying in behalf of the Father. For the words which precede this quotation are: “No one knows the Son, except the Father; and no one knows the Father except the Son and the one to whom the Son wants to reveal him”. If Jesus presents us a Father who is gentle and humble in heart, who are we to say that he is not so? By reconciling us with the Father, Jesus not only makes us whole, but he also suppresses any need for substitutes for God.

Who is this Queen of Heaven and when did her worship start amongst Christians?

The idea that Mary would be the mother of God, does not really appear until the middle of the 4th century under the poetic pen of Alexander of Alexandria. Noble surroundings that magnify human feelings, the suffering and joys of motherhood, family traditions, and it must also be said: a welcome form of feminism in a religion where everything is controlled by men, are the reasons why many people are attracted and seduced by this veneration. The mother goddess is a symbol of fertility and prosperity from the dawn of time. She assures us of her protection. But she has also her moods ! We must sacrifice to Pachamama to avoid reprisals from the spirit world. Whole continents are still under her sway, experiencing precariousness when not true poverty. The world runs countless stories and legends that fuel an unconscious fear. In a way, the Queen of Heaven is to religion what the Camorra is to politics. If today, the cult of the Queen of Heaven has grown to such an extent, it is less for the personal benefits that this cult brings than because people who don't live in the proximity of God, think that they are at the mercy of catastrophic events should they upset the tutelary entity which is supposed to protect them. Religion has also taught that “The Virgin” can preserve us from hell. When the Catholics recite: “Pray for us, poor sinners, now and at the time of our death”, they entrust the Virgin with their misfortunes of the present life, but also with their fear of hell after death. The worship of the Virgin is a form of conjuration of fear, and this fear is perpetuated by a religion that is not established on biblical principles.

Who is actually this Queen of Heaven whose worship arouses so many passions? Because, you will have now understood it: Mary of Nazareth, the mother of Jesus, and this Queen of Heaven who has been enthroned since antiquity in the collective unconscious of men, are two separate entities whose destinies are in reality opposed. Why, for example, do we find so many symbols of the religions of the Egyptians and the Babylonians in Catholicism, whereas syncretism is strictly forbidden by God? We can read on Wikipedia that “For many historians, Mary the mother of God would have inherited the symbols and functions of Cybele, the Mother of the gods. She came to fill the gap left in pre-european Christianity by Ceres of the Romans, Rhea or Demeter of the Greeks and Artemis of the Ephesians, also named Diana. This deity is actually known everywhere in the world, under different names and identities. Isis, the Egyptians Queen of Heaven, carries the solar disk between her horns. She has protective powers and the gift of healing. Clever, she knew how to revive the dismembered body of Osiris”. This bears a very actual symbolism, when related to the Roman Empire and the coming World government.   “One is led to believe that all these deities are only variants of one and the same religious concept, which shows some differences according to the countries, explained by the fact that this concept evolved according to the local circumstances and the mentality of the people”, states this article in Wikipedia. The priests of Cybele are eunuchs, which should draw our attention onto 1 Timothy 4. Prophet Jeremiah mentions this Queen of Heaven twice: For the Jews, she is an Assyrian and Babylonian goddess called Astoreth or Ashera, also known as Ishtar in former civilisations. Divine mediator between the gods and between the gods and the humans, she is considered to be the wife of Baal, even if in reality Baal is plural – they are the guardians of the institutions and the traditions. The Helvetia of the Swiss merges in a single entity the myths and legends of the Celtic culture, and the local Roman tutelary goddesses like Berna and Genava. With her Phrygian cap, the Marianne of the French is probably the most popular and the most accomplished of its modern representations. Through the laws of the republic, she exercises her power of life and death right into the secular life – a strange light on this ambassadress of France which thrones in the harbour of New York… All over the world, we find a Queen of Heaven invoked under various names and identities : goddess of fertility, goddess of the crops, safeguarding and moderating goddess, goddess of love. A tradition very present in the Church consists of entrusting the child to the Virgin Mary at the end of the baptism. Unwittingly, Catholic, Orthodox and Coptic families are dedicating their offspring to the Queen of Heaven, and thereby to Lucifer and his angelic realm, granting them rights on their offspring. In the Book of Revelation, Jesus warns us and he is deadly serious. He says that this worship, which he depicts as an adulterous sin, is a promise of death for our children. I know of some situations where mature men and women suffer from personality disorders and are unable to emancipate themselves, faced also with recurring health problems, because their mother invokes the Queen of Heaven in her prayers for them. In all good faith, those Christian mothers keep their families under a demonic hold. And I know of situations where women, but it can be men also, are tormented by inexplicable suffering and illnesses, because they have an altar to this spiritual entity in their house or in their heart, which sums up to having a foothold in the world of Christ and another in pagan worship. God assimilates those who disobey him by engaging in these forbidden practices to those who practice witchcraft ! The devil is an evil executioner who particularly likes to torment those who have a parted heart. So how could we not expose those who draw and keep simple hearted people, who lack the discernment that a basic biblical knowledge would have brought to them, in such a sneaky snare? For all these reasons and for those which we will evoke now, this worship is in direct conflict with the revelation of God in the Bible, and it draws onto us a curse. But where does this myth of the Virgin come from?

Reintegrated into the Catholic Church… in the 20th century!

The concept of a mother goddess has always been very present in ancient religion, in connection with the myth of the repudiated first wife of Adam, an angel of light who from that time, struggles to keep humanity under his or her seduction in order to keep his power over the world. His success rests primarily on ignorance of his disgrace – little we know about the new spiritual bride – or bridegroom – that God has destined for the human race, which is Christ –, and many would like us not to read the Bible, not to find out. The repudiated wife then raises her own son whom she intends to dethrone the father god. This cosmogonist concept is at the origin of Islam for example. It was surreptitiously introduced in traditional Christianity after being adapted to the context of the Gospels. The Philomarianites or Collyridians, formed a Christian sect founded in the 4th century, dedicated to the almost exclusive cult of the Virgin Mary. This resurgence of pagan worship had been officially forbidden in Catholicism for centuries. It was not until 1954 that, under popular pressure from those who sought to revive this cult fuelled by some mysterious apparitions, that Pope Pius XII formalized the cult of the Queen of Heaven and made it a major dogma in the Catholic Church. “He explicitly invoked ex cathedra, papal infallibility, to establish the dogma of the Assumption of Mary in his apostolic constitution”. In fact, a whole set of new doctrines had to be put in place to support this theological concept. But if the mother is not the authentic, who then is this heir that she is bringing forth, should we perhaps wonder? From the beginning of his ministry, Paul denounces those who announce another Jesus. For if you think: for what reason do the heirs of Ishmael recognize the Mary of the Catholics when they hate the Jews so much? Because they recognize her ! But for them, she is Maryam, who gave birth to Īsā in the desert. Very strange and significant amalgamation of two stories ! Think on this: Why is the face of the mother depicted in the icons, undone, when Christ said that we should be able to experience perfect joy? "Mary said: My soul exalts the Lord, And my spirit rejoices in God my Saviour". But think of the sadness that was felt by Hagar, the Egyptian maid, and that of her son Ishmael, when they were cast away from Abraham's family, a disgrace which for all this time continues to demand reparation, as the incessant conflicts of the Middle East suggest. I am not, however, suggesting that Ishmael represents a rival for Christ. The paradigm covers a reality that extends far beyond his person, dating back to the heroic times of the creation of the world. In the book of Revelation, according to John, in chapter 11, a mention is made about an angel of the abyss whose Hebrew name is Abaddon and in Greek Apollyon. He is the direct contender for the role of Christ and he will be leading the armies of destruction.

So, it is certainly true, as some think, that all religions are equal, if we consider that all were initiated or in any case, recovered by the one whom the Lord designates as the Prince of this world of darkness. What is less admitted is that they all lead to this fallen prince. If Jesus called him prince, it means that he is not alone. Just mentioned in Isaiah 34:14, the Talmud relates in more detail the mishap of Lilith, the rejected wife of Adam, outlining her vengeful intentions towards the human race. For, due to her betrayal, God punished her by depriving her of her wings, and she took the form of a mermaid or a serpent. She is now known as the fallen “angel of light” – that's what Lucifer means. The book of Enoch, great-grandfather of Noah, mentions the names of the twenty sons of God who under his patronage, brought science, technology, spirituality and culture to men – a hint to the unanswered questions of the archaeologists. The problem we have now is that all these sons of God, whom the Bible also mentions in Genesis and to whom the apostles refer by calling them “fallen angels”, rebelled against God their father to sleep with women, and they gave them an offspring. In Eden, God said that there would be from now on two offspring, and that the woman's offspring would crush the serpent's head, while he would hurt her ankle. They thus dragged humanity into their downfall in an irremediable way. This bastardized humanity had to be annihilated for the first time by the flood. But the problem was not solved, since these angelic creatures have survived until our days… God could have erased everything and started creation again. But he knew that sooner or later, sin would reappear and should have been dealt with again. This is why Enoch prophesied the sending of a messiah in the continuation of time, whose mission would be to restore men to their relationship with the Creator, so that they could be set apart, before a new creation could take place. Thus, God loved us enough to want to save us by transplanting us into the Kingdom of the Son of his love. And that is what salvation through the cross is for. The cross is a condemnation for those who refuse it, since they in turn crucify the Lord of Glory, as Paul likes to recall in his letter to the Hebrews. But if we accept it by identifying ourselves with the death of Christ, it becomes a spiritual gateway that allows us to pass from this fallen world to the one that is eternal. Only Jesus, because he had been with the Father from the beginning of the world, had the necessary distance to grasp the situation as a whole. I am not inventing: this all stands in the Bible in an inconspicuous form. But what the Bible emphasizes, is the ramifications of this situation correlating to the promises of faith. The following enlightened me a lot when I discovered it. In reality this paradigm illuminates the whole biblical revelation.

I loved Jacob and I hated Esau.

In his Epistle to the Galatians, Paul refers to the biblical account as to an allegory in which Hagar symbolizes the Old Covenant, which is that of the earthly Jerusalem doomed to slavery, while Sarah symbolizes the New Covenant, that of the heavenly Jerusalem. We find in this allegory, the law – which in the Christian context has become universalism or the religious traditions, to which Protestantism and even the evangelical constellation remains subservient at the risk of shocking you, in opposition to what God defines as the “faith”, which is the Life of the Spirit in Christ. “To be versus to believe”, – for even the devils believe, and they tremble –, says Jesus. The first is symbolized by the slave, the second by the free woman. If Sarah and Isaac embody the patient and persevering faith in Christ and its fruit, Hagar emerges as the whisper of unbelief, and its fruit: Ishmael, is the result of a devilish ploy that has led to manifesting the archetype of the Antichrist. This is why moral religion is so dangerous. It creates wrong spirited clones which become potential enemies of the true offspring of Christ. Hagar and her son, dying of thirst and rescued by an angel, were humanized by artists, and it is precisely this woman, enduring hardships but nevertheless promised a great fate – since by this stratagem, her son was able to rob Abraham's blessing, and God cannot deny the promise he made to Abraham – which has become the muse of religious tradition. Even if the Marian drift may appear to some to be a harmless form of expression of human feelings, it must be placed in this context to understand the stake, and the slap it inflicts on Christianity. Despite their similarities, this Virgin and the traditions that carries her will not lead us to freedom, but to wandering and to endless strife and hostility, for such is the other aspect of Ishmael's blessing. The Bible does not hide from us that the whole world stands under the thumb of the evil one. Therefore, we should not just see in this religious drift, a confrontation of theological ideas between Catholics and Protestants, but it is rather a part of this integral conflict which since the fall in Eden, opposes two brothers. Cain and Abel – replaced by Seth –, Abraham and Lot, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau – are all manifestations of a paradigm. They were brothers or at least of the same blood, but their destinies were diametrically opposed. What sets them apart is not their kindness, their intelligence or their justice. But it's the perception they have of themselves. Some knew that they were unworthy, but they had “eyes to see and ears to hear”, and they accepted the discipline of their heavenly Father. While others had made up their own minds about the world. Believing themselves to be in the average of good people, they remained insensitive to the conduct of God. By their concern and their openness, some have entered into the plan of redemption, while those who justified themselves through religious ideas have drowned in the concerns of this world. This is why the Bible speaks of a predestination. Not that God decides arbitrarily of whom he likes and whom he don't. But if we choose the faith of Abel, of Abraham, Israel or Christ, their heritage will also be ours. If on the other hand, we choose the violent way of Cain, the opportunism of Lot, or the hedonism of Esau who for the pleasures of this life despised his birthright – let the reader understand –, leading our own life will bring us into another destiny. When the genuine owner of this world will come to take possession of his inheritance, many masks will have to fall and some will experience shame forever. I now feel in my spirit that I am not writing this by myself.

A judgment that begins in the house.

Jesus warns his church that, in the last days, he will bring order back to the world, beginning with Israel and the church, because they are his household. And how will he do it? Through circumstances. Circumstances will reveal what lives in us. “If you faint in the day of adversity, your strength is small”, says the wise in Proverbs 24:10. Identification with a false conception of God, whether what we were talking about here, or one of the many erroneous theological concepts, mainly about who is really Jesus, promoted by the Christian cults, weakens us by depriving us of whole or part of our Christian identity. The word Christian originally meant: “apprentice-christ”, or something equivalent. Jesus' mission was to restore us into our fellowship with God, so that we would dare to be and behave like his sons and daughters. “Therefore come out from among them, and separate yourselves,” says the Lord. “Do not touch what is unclean, and I will welcome you. I will be a father to you, and you will be sons and daughters to me, says the Almighty Lord”. 2 Corinthians 6:17-18.   Now we can understand that asking Mary or whoever, to “pray for us poor sinners”, and to do it every day and our life through, is likely to keep us in an identity that is not at all what God had envisioned for us. Not only do idols have no power in themselves, but they will prevent us from growing and from manifesting our identity of “the salt of the earth”. What do we mean by that? Salt is an essential element for a dish's flavour. But when Jesus used the term, it was best known as the primary means of food preservation. The story of Abraham's intercession in favour of the city of Sodom, reveals that the presence of just a few “righteous” people even in the most abandoned places, can have a great impact on the well-being of all the inhabitants and even on the destiny of the country. Christians who pray effectively for their authorities and for their city, are this “salt of the earth”. “But if the salt loses its flavour, it is doomed to be thrown outside and passers-by trample on it”, adds Jesus. True Christians are respected even as enemies, but lukewarm warm Christians often end up despised and trampled on. I don't get involved in politics. But I sometimes like to find out how God does things, and report what I see. The following remark could be bothersome, but it is interesting to note that, during the last great elections, a significant part of the American Catholics supported the Democrat party, in spite of its pro-abortion stand, which led critics to say that Catholics hated this man more than they loved their children, or God. Other Christians have been more critical. Despite all the flaws which he is accused of rightly or wrongly, the Republican candidate was designated as the candidate of God for this time and in those circumstances. Because you have to know that there is also an infernal trinity. Where the Queen of Heaven reigns, the Baal reign. And when the Baal rule on a country, they do it on behalf of Moloch, aka Saturn, the god who exercises birth control to satisfy his hatred for young lives who may become his challengers later. So God affirms that, while some cities or countries will prosper for no apparent reason, others will be devastated because of the violence which is done to children there. Joel 3:19. And who will be judged first for passing ungodly laws which permit child killing? You have it : the elderlies.

What I am about to say may seem awkward, but I fully assume it. Maybe I'm not completely right. But in these times of pandemic, shouldn't we ask ourselves if God is not putting his finger on something? I can't help but to compare the COVID death statistics by city or region, with the place which is granted to the Queen of Heaven or to a similar protective deity in those particular geographical areas. It is not about stigmatizing individuals or a community, and may God protect us from a new inquisition. These deductions could be the fortuitous result of unfortunate coincidences, and we must not forget that the whole world is under the power of the evil one and that there is no holy nation, nor is there a perfect church. But Jesus says nevertheless that we should be listening to what God could be trying to say to us “through the signs of the times”, and not be “like a horse or a mule without understanding that you drive with a bit”, in other words, we must not take everything as mere chance and misfortune. The Bible says that God does nothing without revealing first his plans to his servants the prophets, of which I am the least. But let me try this : Milan, New York, are known to be high places of Marian worship. Paris had suffered a real cataclysm with the fire of Notre Dame. South America is a stronghold of the Queen of Heaven. Haitian Catholicism is plagued with witches and the voodoo. Wuhan is a large city of twenty-two million inhabitants. The Orthodox churches of Wuhan and China are dedicated to the Virgin, but what are they in the midst of such large population? China, the empire of the dragon, has its own demons and we will certainly learn some day about the real motivations which made men – but were they only Chinese? I heard about international shares in this laboratory too – create this virus and disseminate the threat. Mere accident or done with purpose, the details are not verifiable yet.

But my point is that a causality is very often highlighted in the Bible. God always told the people of Israel the reason why he authorized their enemies to come and invade their land, or just to oppress them. Where God's protection is invoked, nothing that happens is a mere mishap. if you want to understand why this or that human society does not evolve, look at who are their gods. To name just one of the many situations in which the oppressed Israeli people had to tear down an idol before they could begin to experience release from their enemies, we can mention the fight of Gideon. If you are not familiar with this story, I recommend that you read it and you will certainly see the similarities between this situation and the current context of the COVID. An enemy was putting them under fear pressure by constantly removing their means of livelihood. They were literally starving them. Gideon began his fight by knocking down, as God had told him, the statue of Asherah, a Queen of Heaven from the nearby land of Canaan, actual Palestine, that the Hebrews had adopted after one of their kings had married the daughter of a Philistine priest of Baal. Gideon's own father was the artisan of this monument erected in the heights of the village. This belief had now allowed on these people the oppression of the Midianites Gideon's sacrilegious act had at least the merit of forcing the population to ask themselves the right questions. Because, understand me well: As Christians, we do not encourage anyone to destroy cultural property or heritage belonging to others. This would only justify pursuits and prison. Christians are not Talibans. But we remind people of biblical truth, out of compassion for those who remain captive of false conceptions of God and are unable to fend for themselves. Idols have no power. But their priests have their thumb on people through the lies they can put in people's mind. Facing the wrath of the villagers, Gideon's father was now brought to his senses and he said: “If Baal and Ashera are gods, let them fend for themselves”. What could they expect from idols they had built from a piece of wood and which were not powerful enough to protect the village from the Midianites. Now please extrapolate.

What Paul says to the Ephesians, is that the idols we need to slaughter, they are in us. Then only, we will be able to break free from spiritual oppression as well. “For we do not have to fight against beings of flesh and blood, but against the Powers, against the Authorities, against the Rulers of this world of darkness, and against evil spirits in the spiritual realm”. Plagues and sickness are forms of demonic oppression and they can only reach us when we are spiritually weak. Devils are mere spirits and they have no hands or guns. They make us sick through suggestions. We probably have less to fear from them than from the men they control. But we could also disarm those men who are driven by evil spirits, by learning to use the spiritual authority Jesus is investing us with. From the moment these idols are dethroned in our lives, we could live among them without being affected the least in the world, if not by the sadness and the irritation caused by the unhappiness they cause in people's life. However, the presence of spirit filled people in the midst of idol worshippers can cause them some inconveniences. To not worship false gods, as God is asking us, does not mean that we have to wage a “holy war” against people who do. It starts by taking the beam out of one's own eye. We must address the duality which hides in every one of us, because, as Paul teaches us: we are our worst enemy. If you do your part, God promised that he will fight your battles”. But he will do it in his own way. “Be the sons of your Father who is in heaven. For He makes His sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust”. Matthew 5: 43-45. “If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink. In doing this, you will heap burning coals on his head. Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good”. Romans 12. “Revenge and retributions are mine, says God”. He has moreover his own way of paying back those who are infidel to him, for he does it by “leading them with bands of human kindness and drawing them near with cords of love”. Hosea 11. See, Satan has enemies and slaves, and he is a thief and a killer. But God has only children. God is the father of a large tribe of adolescents. Some of them are a little more disturbed or rowdy than the others, and he needs more time and effort to win them to his love. I believe that our Father deserves both our admiration for his patience, and our sympathy for the painful losses his enemy is inflicting on him, despite his unremitting grace and his arms always stretched.

God has established spiritual laws, in the same way he has established physical laws. In II Chronicles 7:14, God makes a promise to his people, which also brings awareness of some realities: “When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land”. When we let go of our wariness and venture into forbidden zone, God continues to watch over us, but from a distance. He takes responsibility for the wrong that we expose ourselves to, even though he is not the wrongdoer. He designed the world with laws to preserve us. The path is safe, but alligators are hiding in the canal. He wants to spare us unnecessary suffering by making sure that we integrate his principles as our guideline.

Peter, who announces the coming judgment, points out that it will begin with the house of God – all who invoke His Name –, before extending to the whole world. Again, God will use this sign to warn the world of what is coming next. Jesus had already mentioned that God would send his angels to uproot the tares and clean up his field before the final harvest. God is going to force Christianity to sweep the house and to return to its source. The Jews will see it, and hopefully they will experience the fear of the Lord. God does not intend to stop there, and men from all the peoples of the earth will recognize that God is at work, when they will see the prophecies from the Bible being fulfilled. “Let anyone with ears to hear, listen!” said Jesus. Some will understand the message and make the necessary adjustments, while others will be blind on the warnings. One day, Jesus entered the synagogue of Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and he read from the book of Isaiah : “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour”. When Jesus commented on his reading, all were struck by his grace and by his authority. But then he added : “Truly I tell you, no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown”, and he illustrated his point with some biblical accounts. When they understood that Jesus was rising himself as a prophet and judge among them, all became very angry at him, and they would have killed him if Jesus had let them do it. Own religious justice is a powerful idol. To touch someone's idols is to touch, not only to their deep emotional fibre and the certitudes that the rationalism of thought cannot control, but it is threatening their own existence, showing that idolatry has opened the door to demonic infestation. This area of ​​the soul that sin still controls constitutes a fortress of reasoning and a welcome refuge for Satan. Paul experienced it when he visited the city of Ephesus. To prevent him from speaking against their worshipped idol, the inhabitants shouted for two hours: “Great is Artemis of the Ephesians!”. By obliterating our reasoning, repetitive prayers like “Hail Mary” have this hypnotic effect on our mind. Gideon's father could snatch his son from the avenging hand of the inhabitants of Ophra by saying to them a few wise words : “If Baal is a god, let him plead his cause himself, since his altar has been overthrown”. Paul will tell the Corinthians : “For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

We live in a troubled world where the devil works actively for our confusion. His aim is to deceive all the inhabitants of the earth and it would be impossible to escape this seduction should we not read the Bible, and the whole Bible. When did those who watch over your soul, draw your attention to the letters of Jesus to the seven Churches? The book of Revelation was written in an allegorical way, so as not to attract unnecessarily the attention and the wrath of the state and the religious powers. Complementing the Gospels and the Epistles, this book sheds light on many of the traps to which our inner man will be exposed, for as long as we have not acquired our spiritual maturity. Failing to show himself inventive, the devil remains an ace of forgery. The more wisdom we get, the more devious the traps he set before us. That is not to say that anything supernatural is wrong and comes from the devil, but part of it certainly is. The Epistles warn us against lying miracles and wonders, false doctrines, apparitions, angels of light, false workers, false gospels, false prophetic anointings, false apostles and even false Christ. The revelation of Jesus to John, depicts the world in the last days – those very days we now live in. We see the state of the church and the forbidden alliances, the rising of new powers in politics, the world global crises that has started, the many trials that are still ahead of us, and their happy outcome. If we seek with God some understanding, this book will provide crucial insight into the unfolding of the end-times events. Even taken literally by a non educated person, the message is clear: As Elijah said : “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.” In chapter 22 of Revelation, Jesus also makes us understand that, even though this is not clearly visible to our eyes and even less to our society, a selection is taking place amongst people: “Let evildoers do their worst and the dirty-minded go all out in pollution, but let the righteous maintain a straight course and the holy continue on in holiness.” “Yes, I’m on my way! I’ll be there soon! I’m bringing my payroll with me. I’ll pay all people in full for their life’s work. I’m A to Z, the First and the Final, Beginning and Conclusion”.  So, let's not fall asleep being overconfident. Our salvation is found in Christ and in him alone. His mother finally figured it out, when that last part of the human pride that was still in her heart died with her son at the cross. Mary had to die to her Jewish dignity, and she was rejected with her son. But she was resurrected spiritually on the day of Pentecost, when she received that Spirit that she had first fought against, and became a born again Jew with the other disciples.

Who was really Maria, the mother of Jesus?

Just because some have biased her image doesn't mean we should ignore her, on the contrary ! The prophet Micah sets her in the prophecy which announces the coming of “the King who is alive from everlasting ages past”. Isaiah mentions the virginal conception, which will be a sign for Israel, and the fact that this son will be called Emmanuel “God with us”. Mary had made herself available to the Lord to bear the Saviour of Israel. She was made pregnant by the Spirit of God, a unique occurrence in man's history. The Gospels reveal that, although she was informed by the angels of the nature of her mission, she is not able to understand what animates the flesh of her flesh. As a member of the Levity tribe by her mother, descendant of King David by her father, Mary naturally wanted Jesus to assert himself and to take a more prominent role in the religious and political landscape. Mary is one of those who were awaiting the restoration of the Kingdom of Israel, and the prophecies which have been addressed to her quite naturally make her believe that it is the mission which now is the responsibility of her son. But his mother's suggestions which push him into that direction, have the gift of exasperating Jesus : “Woman, what is this between me and you? My time has not yet come”, he replies when she encourages him to demonstrate his powers at the wedding of Cana. In other words: “You know who I am, but I'm not receiving my instructions from the flesh or from the feelings of the human nature, because the devil knows all too well how to manipulate them for his ends”. Later, seeing that Jesus made enemies of the people they held in high esteem, and believing him to be mad, his relatives, under pressure of the religious community, sought to kidnap him to withdraw him from public life. “Your mother and brothers are standing outside, wanting to speak to you.” He replied to him, “Who is my mother, and who are my brothers?” Pointing to his disciples, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.”

Here he comes. His winnowing fork is in his hand.

Today, most practicing Jews who read the Gospels are outraged by the way Jesus treats the teachers of the law. A character who shows such disrespectful attitude towards those who have devoted their lives to helping men to know God better, cannot be sent by God. They think that way, because they have no clue of who Jesus really is. His contemporaries took him for a self-proclaimed prophet, an enlightened freak, and even for a demoniac : “Who are you to teach us? You're not fifty years old and you say, “Before Abraham was, I am ?” Do you consider yourself as the God of Moses? This time we heard him and we know he has a devil !”. The woe of the Jews, is that they were so imbued with their prerogatives as the appointed guardians of the tradition, and so preoccupied with the preservation of the appearances, that they failed to recognize the Big Boss when he visited them in person, in the shape of his only approved son. Through the canticle of Zechariah, Luke reminds us in his Gospel, “that God had made the oath to Abraham to allow us, after we were delivered from the hand of our enemies, to serve him without fear, by walking before him in holiness and justice, every day of our lives”. But the Jews had moved away from that freedom, and like all the other people, they had returned to a religion. By setting their rites and their hierarchy between men and God, they had made their religion a god in its own right. And this is precisely what Jesus came to condemn. “We must obey God rather than men”, will answer Peter and John to the religious leaders who commanded them never to teach again in the name of Jesus. Peter and the apostles did not hesitate to remind them that their religious mentality has led them to crucify the Lord of Glory, which God then raised from the dead. Jesus affirms that he is the stumbling block announced by Isaiah. And he does not blend water with his wine: “It is written: Zeal for your house consumes me”, “Blessed is he for whom I will not be an opportunity of fall”. We should think that God did not leave his heaven to come and die in our place, moreover on a Roman cross, while holding in his hand the brush that will smooth any ruffled feathers. John the Baptist said : “Here he comes, his winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire”.

But not long after breaking free from the law, many Christians fell into the same trap as their fathers, especially when Constantine established Christianity as the official religion of the Roman Empire. What should have been a new lifestyle then shifted into another rite and a sacrifice. Today, few people realize who Jesus really is, and even fewer Christians respect him as one should respect God. Religions like Islam, and false Christian doctrines like the Marian doctrine, Mormonism or that of Jehovah's Witnesses, and the New Apostolic Reformation, essentially aim at diminishing the importance of Jesus, in order to replace him, who with another prophet, who with another divinity, who with a man or a pope or with a set of new apostles. But here's what Paul said to the Philippians about who Jesus is: “Though he was in the form of God, he did not consider being equal with God something to exploit. … He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore, God highly honoured him and gave him a name above all names, so that at the name of Jesus everyone in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, might bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father”. This is why he also said to the Colossians: “Be careful that no one changes your mind and faith by much learning and big sounding ideas. Those things are what men dream up. They are always trying to make new religions. These leave out Christ. For Christ is not only God-like, He is God in human flesh. When you have Christ, you are complete. He is the head over all leaders and powers”. Colossians 2: 8-10

In Hebrews 10, Paul presumably, also says that, “By a unique sacrifice (that of his life), Jesus brought to perfection forever, those who are sanctified, and he now waits that all his enemies have become his footstool”. Paul continues by recalling that “the Lord will judge his people and it is a terrible thing to fall into the hands of the living God”. In Luke 19:27, Jesus also said – speaking of his return : “As for my enemies who did not want me to reign over them, bring them to me and have them put to death before me”. Surprising light on “the nice little Jesus”! Paul, the alleged author of the Epistle to the Hebrews also said : “Since God says: “Their sins and lawless acts I will remember no more”, how can we escape punishment on ourselves if we neglect such great offer for salvation?”. So, let's not stop at the baby Jesus or at the disarmed Jesus represented on a crucifix, lest we forget who the Lord which we claim to serve, really is. If the warnings are serious, it is because the stake is even more. The whole purpose of Creation is to establish a kingdom, over which reigns a king. This king is the most loving and the most magnanimous of all kings, for those he sees as his children. And he is even willing to share his rulership with all. But he will be a fierce lion for those who pervert his Gospel and who obstruct the advancement of his reign, and God knows how many of his so called servants do not have a genuine love for the truth. Paul moreover said to the Philippians : “Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling”.

Peter, head of the Church?

What about Peter and his role in the Church? When Simon met Jesus, Jesus looked at him and said: “You are Simon, son of Jonah; you will be called Cephas, which translated means Peter (Petros)”. Names are very important in the Hebrew tradition and in the Bible. Cephas does not designate a pebble that is thrown at birds. But it is a heavy rock with rounded contours that is very difficult to uplift. Simon comes from Shama and means: “He who listens, who hears”. Jonah means “Dove”. The dove has become the symbol of the Spirit of God. Months or years after they had been walking together, seeing that something had changed in their attitude towards him, Jesus asked the disciples, “Who do you say that I am?” Peter made a step forwards and declared, “You are the Christ, the son of the living God!”. Jesus spoke again and said to him, “You are happy, Simon, son of Jonah; for it was not flesh and blood that revealed this to you, but it is my Father who is in heaven”. And then he added : “Now you are Cephas” (in Greek: Petros). In other words : to the extent that you will let the Father live in you and tame you, from impulsive, boastful and coward as you are now you will become constant like a rock and unshakable. And Jesus added, this time using a different word : “on this Petra” – in other words, on this foundation which is the relation of obedience to God – an obedience that Jesus personifies, – “I will build my Church, against which death itself (the gates of Hades) have no power”. Jesus says to Peter that his true church built on the rock of a living relationship with the Father, will not see Hades, and Jesus also promises to give them the keys that will enable them to obtain the same spiritual achievements that Peter saw Jesus obtain. By being established by Jesus in a privileged relationship with the Father, Peter, like potentially every believer, will regain that authority which God had invested man with when he established Adam as the manager and ruler of all things that are on Earth. “The heaven of heavens is for God, but he put man in charge of the earth”. Psalm 115:15. In Genesis 1:26, God says: .“Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over all creatures...”   The one realm over which God had not given us dominion originally, was other men. Yet, since the time Adam sinned, subjugating other men is what we seek, hence all our conflicts! Men, nations, religions, are involved in the wrong fight and Jesus wants to put us back on track. God will place us in a prominent position if we rule over chaos, but not over men. This recovered spiritual authority will allow us to advance the Kingdom of God on earth, which can be summed up as a confrontation between two spiritual governments. One has already lost the war and we are doomed to win! Jesus is the rock of all ages, the Son of the Living God. Stumbling block for some, cornerstone for others, Jesus builds his church with those who, coming from diverse horizons, are drawn to him by the Father and who, like Peter, received from the Father the revelation that Jesus is the Lord, the Son of the living God. It is on this foundation alone that Jesus builds his “Ekklesia”, that is to say: his government on earth.

But be on your guard. Our breakthroughs sometimes encourage us to be reckless. It is no coincidence if, just after learning to hear the voice of God, Peter had a very traumatizing experience. Proud of his new ability to listen to God, but now hearing from his own heart, he suggested to Jesus the idea that his rejection and slaughter were not inevitable, and that he would in any case not let it happen without fighting for him. But Jesus took it up sharply : “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns”. Matthew 16. Even worse than his reaction to his mother's suggestion. No doubt this was a big blow in Peter's self-confidence. And so, in spite of himself, Peter teaches us that: “A person who does not have the Spirit, does not accept the truths that come from the Mind of God. For him it's all foolishness”. 1 Corinthians 2:14. Wanting to achieve the will of God without being first renewed spiritually, exposes to ongoing disappointment. I could certainly talk of my own mistakes and failures, but I have also witnessed despicable things done by zealous yet legalistic Christians. When theological conceptions come to support the Cainic impulses, then the jealousy and envy inherent to the human nature find a justification.  After the Catholic Inquisition, fundamentalist Islam is the new illustration of the principle. Without looking so far, any exclusive community runs the risk of losing the vitality of love and of seeing frustration win over its members... Peter will experience other setbacks. His failures could easily have left him to the ground, but Jesus had prayed for him. Peter will have to wait for the Pentecost, to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit, to see his spiritual life truly take off and align with the things spoken on him by Jesus.

To save appearances.

Appearances ... Obviously, things did not go the way the members of his family had expected. Because he tackles evil at its root, Jesus, like his cousin John the Baptist before him, is not at all appreciated by the ruling class, and he is increasingly hated by the members of the synagogue who now want to kill him. This was destabilizing for his whole family. “A prophet can find honour anywhere except in his hometown, among his own people, and in his own household”, will Jesus say. This break with her son was predictable, since Mary is an ordinary person, in the noblest sense of the term, a person who identifies with her culture and her people. This is precisely why God chose her to be the mother of her son : “to scatter those who think too highly of themselves and to honour humble people”. But also and first of all, to demonstrate that the flesh, or the lineage, or the merits and by extension the observation of the rules of religion, have no part nor right in the transmission of the gift of God. Jesus will later explain the true nature of his royal lineage, as we can read in Matthew 22:42. Paul will link him to the order of a mysterious Bible character named Melchizedek. Another incident is mentioned in Luke 11 : A demon exposed by Jesus will drive a woman to cry out : “Blessed is the bosom which carried you! happy the breasts that fed you!”. What this woman expressed was a Babylonian conception, still present in the Jewish tradition, moreover taken up by the Catholicism on the basis of the Song of Mary, when she declares that “henceforth all generations will call me blessed”. This conception carried the idea that the transmission of the spiritual heritage took place through the genes of the mother. But here again, Jesus will have to pull out the sword of the truth to set the records straight: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it”. Later, Paul will say that the real Jew is not he who is in the flesh, but he who undergoes circumcision of the heart.

Mary is clearly overwhelmed by what has become her destiny, and we can understand it. But she keeps meditating on those events that surprise her, and which later will go as far as piercing her heart of a woman and a mother. Old Simeon had warned her many years back, but one does not get rid of the human nature and the social and religious culture so easily. So when Jesus has to use “the double-edged sword that comes out of his mouth”, to “judge the thoughts of the heart, separating soul and spirit”, Mary suffers in silence. Still, she is making her humble way and she will be saved at Pentecost, when with the brothers of Jesus and the other disciples, she will receive the spiritual genes of God through the consoling Spirit sent by Jesus. We could say that Mary was born on that day from the Spirit of her Son. So yes, Mary did indeed receive the essence of God within her, but not in a different way than all the believers who are baptised in the Spirit. Mary is our sister in Christ and our mother in faith and hope. The message that Mary leaves us through the prophecies that relate to her life, is that God has made a plan of our salvation, which he worked out from the beginning of the world. This plan takes into account the disloyal human nature that we inherited. He is never surprised. There too much nonsense and sentimentality in the way we live God in the church. If God speaks to us in a virile way in the Bible, it is because he wants real men and women, and warriors! We are invited to persevere in this simplicity and remain faithful until the end. God is not asking something impossible, but his purposes are perfect and we don't have to add to it. No need to shed crocodile tears in front of religious icons. No need to try to hoist ourselves up to Heaven, as suggested by the never ceasing struggle waged by this angel of light, who due to his rebellion, fell from his place with God. The flesh is of no help. It will only draw us close to the “fallen angel who still suffers rejection”. We must rather take example from Mary, by recognizing our lowliness and by obeying the Lord, so that he can seed us with his living Word, which is also a life-giving Presence. Marianist theology will undoubtedly find a certain echo in our flesh. But the Holy Spirit in us will rather draw us into the word of Christ, and this word is where our victory over the world stands.

God invites us to be reborn.

Because it is in this way that he redeems men: by offering them to drop their old identities and by offering them his own genes in a spiritual form. It is a grace that we do not deserve but to which we are entitled, since we were created with this intention. Our heavenly Father is inviting us to commune with his Spirit and to receive his mind and thoughts. This has nothing to do with blood ties, ethnicity, culture, or with belonging to a religious tradition. But it is a gift, available to anyone. God created us with the intention of making a people of small “Like Him”, and that is exactly what he is now perfecting through the lead of Jesus Christ. In 2 Corinthians 5:17, Paul says: “If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creature”. In Jesus, God makes us creatures of a kind that never existed before.

The commitment that changes everything for us, is baptism. Not the religious baptism which they say is the purification of the defilements of the world or of an original sin, or even that which is envisaged as a rite of passage to enter such church. But the baptism of the death to the old life and the receiving of a new life, which was prefigured by the crossing of the Red Sea. The best illustration that I can think of, is that of that child, standing on a table, to whom his papa stretches his arms. But there is a gap. The child knows that if he throws himself into the void, his father will catch him back in flight. Still, there is a hesitation. I mean : a real fight. The baptism of the Holy Spirit is a baptism of truth. This baptism, like any birth, excludes any return. The baby will have to take his first breath of air because the placenta will no longer support him. Nicodemus wanted to enter the spiritual dimension that was attached to his faith. But it was difficult for him to let go of his security, of his intellectual achievements, his position within the religious community, his financial independence, a quiet life set like a Swiss clock, and to plunge naked in… the unknown. To pass from a mental knowledge of the things of God, to the place where we are no longer in charge, is quite an adventure and I still remember that strange feeling even this took place many years ago, an inebriating sensation. But I soon found that there remained this other Paul who now was in constant conflict with new one, until I capitulated… till the next opportunity. “My righteous now lives by faith, but if he withdraws, my soul does not take pleasure in him”. Pierre illustrated it so well when he got out of the boat to lean on the deep waters, something that as everyone knows cannot be accomplished naturally. Dying to this world may seem an insurmountable ordeal. But in reality, nothing in this world deserves that we deprive ourselves of an immersion in the creative love of our Heavenly Father.

“I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also; from now on you know Him, and have seen Him”. John 14: 5-7. Throughout the Gospels, Jesus will repeatedly claim to be like the Father, or he will say that the Father is no different from him. This Jesus whom we have perceived through the Gospels, who was walking among men like you and me, full of empathy for all, healing all the sick people, freeing those who were in bondage, loving indiscriminately – men, women, children, old people, foreigners, invaders, Jews and certainly some priests –, bringing light to all, giving meaning to their life – , this man was, apart perhaps from his outward appearance, mirroring in every way the person of God our Father. Our Father presented him to us as his Son and his trusted representative: “You are my beloved Son, in you I have placed all my love”.

 

“No one has ever seen God; the only begotten Son, who is carried in the Father's arms, is the one who made him known”. John 1:18. “In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. He is the image of the invisible God, the prôtotokos, he who has pre-eminence over all creation. For in him were created all things that are in the heavens and on the earth, the visible and the invisible, thrones, dignities, dominions, authorities. Everything was created by him and for him”. Colossians 1: 14-16.

 

“If you had been there, my brother Lazarus would not have died,” reproached Mary to Jesus. “Mary, I was there in spirit when he died. But now, rest assured : Even your brother is dead, he will live.” “I know that he will be resurrected on the last day, sagely resumed Martha, his other sister ...” “But it is in this life that we needed help, and we would have so loved that Lazarus could accompany us longer” thought probably Mary. “Of course we believe in God. But, God is for life after death. If you had been there, you would not have let God take over our brother's life. But of course, we suppose that God had his reasons. He allowed this to happen to make us grow maybe? Or to spare our brother unnecessary suffering? Or to demonstrate his sovereignty? For who are we to discuss our destiny. Maybe God wanted our brother to be with him so now he can watch over us from there… And who are we to challenge his will anyway”. “Martha, Mary – replied Jesus, I am the resurrection and the life, and I am with you! Now, behold !” With a loud voice, Jesus called the four-days-dead man, who soon appeared at the entry of the tomb, hopping, for his legs were still tied up. “Believe in me,” said Jesus. “I will go to my Father now, but I will not leave you alone. We will send you the Holy Spirit. He will stay with you until the end of this world, and through Him, soon millions like you will be able to do the acts that you saw me doing. And you will make even greater ! For if you join together in my strength, imagine what you could order in my name !” I make you masters of the circumstances, so work while the day lasts ! Stop behaving like frightened children and act as to glorify the Spirit of your Father who dwells in you. Do you think that all these people who die in disasters are greater sinners than you are? Oh no, I tell you. But if you do not change your mindset to act in a new way, you will end up like them : despoiled, crushed and wiped out by the spirits of evil. I triumphed over them at the cross. You who receive my Spirit, you are now my race and my heirs. So don't let them dominate on you anymore, but help those who still suffer under their oppression to take back the life they were stolen.” Later, Jesus breathed on his disciples and he said to them : “Now, go with this good news: Speak to the mountains that stand in your way. Calm the hurricanes. Make all that does not produce good fruit wither from the root. Cast out demons, raise the dead and heal the sick. Announce the reign of your God. If you take hold of the authority I have given you, what you will allow to happen on earth, will happen. And what won't allow to happen, won't happen. Matt 18: 18-19. … Forgive me that paraphrased version of the Gospel, but you have to be able to read things over, to see them from a different angle.

Sometimes we do not know which saint to turn to, but fortunately, Jesus remains the same. “Let little the children come to me and do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to those who are like them”. Luke 18:16. To come to Jesus as a child is to accept to read the Bible as one eats one's daily bread. A child does not hope to understand everything he reads, but he reads hoping he will one day understand. The food we eat makes us grow taller without our knowing how. One day, faced with an ambiguous situation, we will realize that we have acquired a stature that will allow us to cope. Having personal appointments with God by reading the entire Bible and making it our own substance guarantees us a sound mind and a spirit of wisdom and discernment. I am sad to say that I had to remove some links, when I became aware of this deception that the theology of the New Apostolic Reformation represents, which now prevails in an important part of the evangelical world. Some of the preachers mentioned in the links may still be affiliated to the NAR in one way or another. We have seen it throughout the history of the church : when the devil can no longer hold back the advancement of the Kingdom of God, he will encourage the development of a parallel movement in which he will introduce a fermenting agent. Jesus spoke of the “yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees” which is hypocrisy. But the devil can introduce other ferments, or spiritual genes, by which he strives to distort our doctrine and our faith so that it is rendered null. Through false expressions of faith, he will even rise himself in churches and replace Christ. The Bible teaches that the person who has the Spirit must judge of everything. Let's keep in mind, through our quests, that faith should remain a simple and very natural thing. By simple, I mean that feelings should not overwhelm us. There is no place for hysterical exaltation or for hypnotic repetitions in the doctrine of Jesus. Some preachers harangue the crowds, but the effects of persuasion do not last. Others want to multiply the doctrines and make us captive of them. God is not a sorcerer to “sermonize” us, any more than He is a demagogue and a brainwasher. He is not an energy or an impersonal atmosphere, a method, or a discipline. God is not an anointing of liquid love that would get hold of us, making us laugh for no reason and roll on the floor, even if laughter can be liberating when it is genuine. But he is a Spirit of wisdom, of might, of love and self-discipline. He gives us discernment and a sound mind. Jesus is the Truth in all its simplicity, this that goes straight to our hearts. His voice sounds like gentle whispers, but it has the power to free us by producing a deep conviction. His words are the “unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” which gives us the power to change. And by natural, I mean self-determined. Jesus wants to make us a people of kings, and self-determination is what characterizes kingship. The real function of a king is not to take advantage of his people, but it is to use his given authority to serve by protecting the weak and helping the needy. At a time when many seek personal development or a promotion, it is important to remember that, although he existed in the form of God, Jesus stripped himself of all his prerogatives to become a servant. He obeyed God to the extent that he offered his life as a ransom for us all. Now, the heart of the Gospel is that the same Spirit which animated Jesus also comes to dwell in us. Jesus suggests that we increase in the gifts he communicates to us, in order to better serve others.

BETHEL CHURCH: Incorporating New Age Mysticism, Spirit Guides, Messengers, New Outpouring, Spiritual Invasion, Healing Energy, Grave Sucking and more…. I am not a follower of the “International Order of Heresy Hunters”. But when I saw, in a church that I attended, the weird way to say the least, in which some young people behaved after they went through the “School of the Supernatural” of Bethel Church, I knew from the Holy Spirit that a tragedy with many ramifications was unfolding in the Christian world, affecting particularly young people but not only. To see with my own eyes how Satan knew to possess these young people from my area, while making them believe that they were filled with the Holy Spirit, has saddened me and made me indignant. Claiming a Pentecost of a new kind, the movement led by charismatic personalities like Bill Johnson, Kris Valotton, Heidi Baker, Ben Fitzgerald and others, clearly assumes the contributions of the New Age and leads thousands of young Christians, mainly from stagnant evangelical circles, in the emotional web of a form of Christian esotericism. Under the guise of a “New Apostolic Reformation” based on the controversial theology of C. Peter Wagner, they mix in an almost inextricable manner, the genuine Christian concepts with others, that are clearly anti-biblical. Former students bravely denounce some of the trends and practices going on at Bethel, a mega-church located in Redding, California. Hundreds of thousands from around the world having now embraced the NAR's teaching, the transition to apostasy affects an increasing number of churches. It is heartbreaking to have to recommend abstaining from relationships with Christians who otherwise are nice people, and with the few churches that seem to be “alive”. But Jesus gave solemn warnings in his parable of the tares – Tares: those who in his church, come from another kind of seed. “He will send his angels to gather the tares before they are burned”. We must not forget some events of the past and how a nice guy named Jim Jones, led a thousand of his followers to a tragic end. Due to this movement being supported by false theology, and because of the fake “holy spirit” that is spread from there – a really deceitful spirit –, Bethel is a dangerous cult and it puts forward another Jesus. The same disapproval also relates to the gospel of the New Apostolic Reformation movement and all that it produces : books, teachings, worship music. We definitely live in fascinating times…

 

• The KUNDALINI INVASION – How it Happened. Andrew Storm.

• Heidi BAKER – The drunken Delusion.

• The “False Church System” Deception.

 

New Trends in Music

Today we are witnessing a shift in the Christian values and a whole section of the Christian music is also drawn into an irrelevant form of expression. Not to let ourselves be taken away, let's prioritize Spirit and Truth over hype and the new trends.

NEW AGE CHRISTIANITY corrupting the Church – Hillsong, TobyMac, Bethel Music. Cast the merchants from your temple. Our world needs good worship music, but not in the way it wants subliminal rock & roll music. Bethel and Hillsong use their music as a hook to bring people into their false theological system. The worship music that makes God happy is when you open your heart to your Heavenly Father and you become a living song, under your shower or while driving your car or doing your daily tasks or household chores – in fact, anywhere any time. This will make you happy too, and it costs you nothing! The corrupt Music Industry

 

More Teachings on Deception

 

Another Gospel? by Alisa Childers - Book Trailer A movement seeks to redefine Christianity. Some think that it is a much-needed progressive reformation. Others believe that it is an attack on historic Christianity. In her book “Another Gospel?”, Alisa Childers describes the intellectual journey she took over several years as she wrestled with a series of questions that struck at the core of the Christian faith. Also:  How to Spot the Danger Signs of Progressive Christianity in Your Church

• Progressive Christianity and Why it's WORSE Than Atheism, with Alisa Childers

False Spirits vs. The Holy Spirit In The Church – WATCH Our quest for the supernatural can lead us astray. Many Christians struggle in their life with God, because they need to be set free from demonic revival spirits they got at church, in order to be filled with the genuine Holy Spirit.

 

• New Age Christianity in Church – Jesus Culture, Hillsong, TobyMac, Bethel Music

• Should a Church be Seeker sensitive?

• Steven BANCARZ – A counterfeit Christianity is sweeping across churches. A survey indicates that 61% of all practicing Christians are now involved in this counterfeit in one way or another. Former online guru Steven Bancarz, barely escaped the New Age deception that is quietly invading America. “Our culture is exchanging Truth for a lie”, he says.   Check also : What is New Age?

• Strange Fire Conference – What is happening to Christianity?

• The Roots and the Fruits of the New Apostolic Reformation

• Derek PRINCE – Religious Deception. “I believe that for one person that the devil deceived by atheism, there are thousands in hell whom he deceived by religion”. A most vital message.

• Personal Testimonies – “Swept up in the “Third Wave”, there is a deep sadness in me, a sorrow over wasted years and opportunities. I get angry with myself for having been deluded and so easily led into false doctrines and practices.”

• Testimonies of people who came out of apostate churches.

• Why I left the Word of Faith movement.

• New Age, Kundalini, Yoga, & Astral Projection In The Church.

• Eric BARGER – The Most Dangerous Cult.

• Best POPE Ever leads 1.2 billions Roman Catholics to Hell, because he proclaims a False and fatal Gospel.

 

How the Babylonian Religion Has Continued to Our Day | Revelation 17 Many Catholics are great people, and many Mormons are sincere and committed. But are their religions consistent with the Bible? What are the facts? In this teaching, Pastor Chuck Smith looks back on the turning point that Pope Innocent III caused the church to take and on the prophecy of Revelation 17.

Pope Francis's New Book is The Catholic Reset Dr Taylor Marshall is reading the new book by Pope Francis titled “Let us Dream.” He reads most of the prologue and focuses on the direction of Pope Francis regarding secular ideals, “creating something new”, “our new principle”, and “reimagining a new world.” How does that fit in the Catholic theology?

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“Yes, my people perish for lack of knowledge, because you, the priests, have rejected knowledge.”   Hosea 4:6 .

Error is a wild Grass that proliferates in the wastelands of Knowledge.

Many years ago, I heard Derek Prince say this : “Counterfeit faiths and cults grow in the soil of the decline of the church”. To be more acute, I would add that the decline of the church starts as soon as its members don't have a sound and profound personal knowledge of the Bible. Prophet Daniel had predicted, for a distant time, a religious revolution that would bring notorious changes – words that are reported in Daniel 11. Jesus echoed this prediction and he warned us that, once the gospel would have been preached into all nations, almost simultaneously, the despicable and desolate thing announced by the prophet Daniel would have “settled in the holy place”. Many agree on thinking that the future world government of the Antichrist will rule for a short time in Jerusalem and that its leader will go as far as sitting on the throne in the reconstructed temple. But on another level, and since we are now the temple of the living God : at the turn of this century, a prominent leader of the New Age movement has declared that, within 20 years, most evangelical churches would have yielded to the spirits of the New Age.

It would be naïve to think that everything that looks like Christianity is true Christianity. Nowadays, we hear a lot about “new apostles”, “spiritual mantels”, “double portions anointing”, “soaking in the presence”, “seeking the glory”, “heavenly invasion”, “portals”, “baptism of fire”, “awakening” to whatever. A misplaced thirst for the supernatural drives thousands of Christians to places where they hope to get those additional “blessings”, from men who are the waterless fountains that Peter writes about. They have an appearance of piety, but they have denied what makes its strength, that is to say : the truth, as Paul said to Timothy. Evangelical Christianity and Protestantism in general have been plagued by spiritual apathy for decades. And now that they realize that there is more, they turn away from the truth and go looking for what is missing, in the worst possible places. Both Peter and Paul warned us that false teachers would rise from amongst us and take away from from the truth, large crowds of people who don't know how to recognize their right from their left. They’ll say anything that sounds good to exploit their followers, and give the way of truth a bad name. 2 Peter 2.   As Jim Caviezel, the actor who starred in Mel Gibson's film, said: We're going through a tough time before things get better. The devil is going to screen us to find out where our weak points are. He can buy any preacher or church leader, if he pays the price. Some for 1 million, and others for 50 millions. Drawn into the quicksands of money, fame and sexual attractions, they will think they have chosen such or such path, when in reality they will have capitulated. This phenomenon is now so widespread that it is designated by a name : Seeker sensitive churches, churches where everything is done to attract people, most often to the detriment of a solid experience of conversion.

 

“I multiplied the experiments and I pulled out all the stops”. The sentence is not taken from the book of the wisdom of Solomon, but it could have stood there, with in conclusion his famous sentence: “There’s nothing to anything–it’s all smoke.” It rejoins the motto of the Jesuits: “The end justifies the means, always for the greater glory of God” Or even the Koranic verses which incite to lie and to kill, if that helps the progression of Islam. The central question becomes this: Is religion making believers, or is it believers that make up religion? The sense of the question is crucial, even if the question itself makes no sense. Jesus would say that the law was made for the people, and not the people for the law. What the Roman Catholics have done in the realm of the traditions by incorporating into their organization the Roman Septemviri epulonum, and by rehabilitating the worship of the mother goddess – resurgence of the Middle Eastern cults of the Queen of Heaven Isis, or Astarte, always served by the guardians of the traditions: the Baal –, a dissident branch of the Pentecostal movement Word of Faith did it at the level of the experience, by rehabilitating a Gnosticism proscribed by the apostles. You may have heard of the “Latter Rain revival”, “the Toronto Blessing”, the “Lake-land’s Revival” or the “Bethel Church's Tunnel of Fire”. For instance, under the inspiration of the spirits of New Age, Christians went to the Hindu gurus to find by them spiritual powers that are as demonstrative as they are useless. Ultimately demonic, these spiritual influxes which are a legacy of the syncretism of the hippie era comforted by some of William Branham's heresies, are totally foreign to the legacy of the Christian faith. I just got hold as May 2021 of this very sound teaching that I put here in between.

 

Now, this now inextricable mixture of Christian truths, and demonic heresies and spirituality, is one of the most striking characteristics of later time church. Seeds of different origins, growing together in the same field, and producing, which good grain for the granary of God, which straw destined to the fire, are precisely what Jesus tells us about in his parable of the tares. Throughout the Bible, God urges us to keep a spiritual and pure faith, pledge of our new birth as Peter says, consistent with what Christ and his apostles have transmitted to us. However, from the origins of our faith, we note a popular will, or coming from religious authorities, to amalgamate old things with new things and to enrich our faith with traditions from other cultures, supposedly to bring a complementarity, in order to confer on the dogma a certain universality – this is moreover the meaning of the word “catholic”. These amalgamations of pure Judaic traditions with Babylonian cosmogony, Egyptian rebirth, Greek pantheon and Roman church organization, are nothing else than the shenanigans of Satan to reclaim our faith. Denial of some biblical truth or addition of elements which are not acquired to us through the sacrificial death of Jesus at the cross, sums up in the denial of our faith, as Jesus warn us. There is a story in the Bible, in chapter 10 of the book of Leviticus, which illustrates this point particularly well. Two of Aaron's sons had decided to give to their worship an exotic dimension, by bringing to the altar of perfumes, a foreign fire, that is to say a fire that did not come from the altar of sacrifices. “Fire then came out of the Presence of the Lord and consumed them both, and they perished there before God” ... The severity of God's intervention will be explained by the motivation of men. Satan's hidden goal, in giving birth to a false religion, is to anticipate the coming of the Kingdom of Christ in order to somehow pull the rug out from under him. His advent will therefore not occur during the great religious awakening towards which many are working, since this world awakening, led by a coalition of the dominant religions, will in reality be the last conflagration of the religion of Satan during which the faithful believers will be persecuted by their counterparts from the New Religion. We have seen it throughout history, and we will see it again on an unprecedented scale. On the sidelines of this politico-religious conflagration, a spiritual and authentic counter-awakening whose origin is supernatural will continue to spread – a situation which once again can be illustrated by the parable of the tares and the wheat, growing together in the same field. If the inspiration will come from different sources, the manifestations will also emanate from different spirits. You will recognize them by their fruits, Jesus said. What are the fruits of the Kingdom of God? Beautiful masses or celebrations, grandiloquent words, unusual phenomena and supernatural manifestations? You know what men are after. We manage to pass for intelligent beings, until a mermaid passes before our eyes. Women may be more sensitive to reptilian vibrations and to luminescent shimmers. –“Therefore, be sober” recommend the apostles. Jesus said: “Love one another as I have loved you, for by this all will know that you are my disciples: if you have love for one another”. However, to love wrongly and through, we know how to do it. But to love as Jesus loved us by snatching us from Satan's jaws without fear of causing his own loss, that is another thing, although in reality Jesus offered us his life because no one could have taken it from him. Jesus has used the power of the Holy Spirit to save men by bringing them from the darkness of this world into his wonderful light, and he invites us to do so after him. Men are convinced that they have all the light they need, but they do not realize that their light comes from “Lucifer”, the angel whose name means that he can produce at will the light that men are seeking from him. This light is that of a firefly in the night which uses it to be recognized by its pairs, or like that of the monk-fish of the abyss which stirs this bait of light to attract its prey. This is why I refuse to be satisfied with the political correctness of a church life that would be simply natural.

 

 

The power and miracles according to Jesus do not come from this world. They are not to be sought in a particular anointing, in an atmosphere of signs and wonders, nor in electric tingling, in magnetism or in the spiritual energy of Reiki, not even in an “outpouring of liquid love” as some put it. But there is power in the Living Truth of the Word of God, and it is undoubtedly there that we have to seek what today is sorely lacking to the church. The Church has become a place of entertainment and it leads its own life in which God should not interfere. But the Truth is a person. We are not to reinvent God, but rather to invite this person to lead us and remain firmly attached to him, as the Israelites in the wilderness drank from a spiritual rock that accompanied them, and this rock was Christ says the Bible. At the difference though that the Presence is now in us. Jesus said that “If you remain in Me, and My words remain in you, ask whatever you want, and it will be done for you”. As Curry Blake says when quoting Lester Sumrall: God did not sow a son to reap servants, even “anointed” servants. In the Old Covenant, the anointing was an exceptional gift. It is now granted to any believer who receives the Holy Spirit. The problem is not to receive it, but to believe that we have received it. Curry Blake recounts that when he started teaching about the power that comes from faith in the word of Christ, he got his straps pulled up by many preachers and pastors because he dared to touch the legitimacy of their particular anointing. You see, men are still men, and even in the ministry, they want to keep their own game. Some have rights which they have acquired by their merits. But a son has rights because he is his father's son. He may not be perfect in knowledge and in stature, but he is still a son. Through the blood he shed on the cross, Jesus has fully reintegrated us into our family which is that of God. If Christ really lives in us, then we do not need to go begging in the courts of heaven to have intergenerational curses broken, or to receive a particular anointing, special power, a spiritual mantle, a baptism of fire, greater glory, gold dust, holy oil and that sort of thing produced by those who want to compartmentalize the Gospel and make it somewhat their own business. I say it bluntly: let's open our eyes to the manipulation. We are not Harry Potters in the making, and we must know who is the one causing these strange manifestations in order to divert our eyes from our essentials. That Christ is accompanied by glory, I do not want to deny it since it is also my quest. Jesus did feed thousands from the contents of a young boy's picnic box, and there were leftovers. But this bread is not the glory of God, and all who ate of it are dead. The glory of Christ is the people who are delivered and healed and who can thank heaven that the Holy Spirit has opened their eyes to the secret of eternal life. The difference between Harry Potter and Jesus is in the spirit that animates them. One is motivated by the fear of emptiness and the thirst for power, the other gives himself entirely because he is entirely given to God. Too many Christians are looking for Harry Potter-style power. But Jesus warns them that even if they should manage to work miracles, they will still be cast into “outer darkness.” The Christian life is summed up entirely in this statement by the apostle Paul to the Corinthians :  Corinthians : “Christ in you, the hope of glory”. To be complete, does Christ need an additional anointing, or to be supervised by his mother, or to have holy relics of an anointed saint in his wallet? What is God's anointing ? Is it the fact of being shaken like disjointed puppets by the “shaker spirits”, those who shake the gurus and the adepts of Bethel Church? Let’s be reasonable. Paul reminds us of where Christ derives his legitimacy when he quotes this passage: “You are not pleased with animals that have been killed or burned and given as gifts on the altar to take away sin. Then I said, ‘I have come to do what You want, O God. It is written in the Law that I would.’ ”. And Jesus said also: “As the Father sent me, I send you also”. Our obedience to his commandments is our legitimacy before God, and we do not need to be asserted by demons. If we obey what God is telling us in the Bible, we should expect the power of God to manifest. This is the key to the power that humble men of God have witnessed over and over. We live in a time when millions of seeking Christians will be carried away by the magic of who we know. To prosper, we will have to accept the education that God reserves for his sons and which consists essentially in taking power over our sinful habits, which they, can be passed on to us as a generational curse.

 

I have always been sensible to the beauty. But I am constantly struggling to discern true beauty from what is only artifices. In photography, to obtain an image that stands out, what it takes is not to add all you can add to it, but rather, just as for the gem cutter, it is to reveal something beautiful by removing everything that hides it. You enter a church and the many adornments lack to hide the sad reality of a complete absence of life. Oh, you might catch a glimpse of some lurking shadows ready to take hold of the lost souls. Someone once said that the decoration of a place of worship is inversely proportional to the spiritual life that takes place there. It escapes no one that sophisticated people and those who use perfume in excess are not always the cleanest. Circumcision has a symbolic value. God wants us to understand that he attaches great importance to sincerity, and that he hates the the mix of genres. The word sincerity could come from an old Italian expression which meant “without flaw hidden by wax”, an allusion to the works of art whose flaws were sometimes masked with wax. We could also talk about those who put their bodies on show but who have no life of their own. Life is in the eyes. Jesus is God's gaze on us. Adam and Eve were naked before God and they were not ashamed. The nudity in question here is not the absence of a garment, but it is the absence of a separation or guilt. Many people hide their eyes from others. And what touches us a priori in others, is the absence of dissimulation and this innocence which turn their gaze in windows on heaven and on God. Heaven is what everyone is unconsciously looking for. We came from heaven and were born naked, but in order to find our way back to heaven, we will have to clothe ourselves with light. Heaven on earth is Emmanuel: God comes to live in his temples, the temples that we are, each one for his part. John says that those who have this presence amongst them no longer need the light of the sun to illuminate them and their city.

 

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”  One of the characteristics of the spirits of new age Christianity is restlessness. If we give in to a headlong rush, we will eventually fall. John the Baptist said that Jesus was coming, and that he would baptise us with the Holy Ghost and with fire. Not the fire of the inner agitation of the Kundalini of Bethel, or the thunderous rantings of the Word of Faith movement. The sacred fire of Jesus consumes in us this unhealthy agitation which binds us and prevents us from being ourselves. What sets apart Christianity from false religion is the divine peace of Jesus who comes to rest on people who have died to themselves and to this world of raging madness. It is written that before the Messiah returns, God will send Elijah to bring the hearts of the fathers back to their children and the hearts of children to their fathers. God is already raising an army of new Elijahs to confront the prophets of the false order. Their motives will remain misunderstood, for they will refuse to embrace the syncretic religion which will sweep over the world and to which all will have subscribed, thinking that it will bring peace on Earth. They will despise agitation, fear, catastrophic measures, media manipulation. Hated and put to death, they will nevertheless be the last bulwark of Truth in the face of the great politico-religious deception of the end of time. They will have learned that there is more reality and strength in a gentle whisper coming from the mouth of God than in the howls of rage and despair of a world rendered at the end of its reign. Hated and put to death, they will nevertheless be the last bulwark of Truth in the face of the big deception. As the prophet Daniel said : They will act steadfast, because they will have known God. And God will prove them right. Daniel knew what he was talking about, he who had preferred the furnace and the lion's den to comfortable compromises. Yes, we have to learn to know and grow in this Truth.

 

“My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father–Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.”   ”I write to you, dear children, because you know the Father. I write to you, fathers, because you know him who is from the beginning. I write to you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God lives in you, and you have overcome the evil one. Do not love the world or anything in the world.” 1 John 2

 

Why do we see a collapse of this commitment that marriage represents and a disruption of the bisexual understanding of relationships? My answer might surprise you : It is because we have lost sight of the model marriage is based upon. Marriage has always been, by design, an earthly symbol reserved to the human race, representing our celestial union with our great immortal love, which is our God. In this process, the distance set between the missing parts, which see each other but because of their differences, find it sometimes difficult to come together and be reshaped in order to cling with one another, becomes the catalyst for great transformations – this thought should console the waiting souls. When God says: “This is why Ish will leave father and mother to cling to Isha as to become one flesh”, this reality can be transposed to the world in which we have taken shape, and from which we will have to wean ourselves at a certain moment in time in order to marry the nature of Christ. Take away the guiding paradigm, and the expression will take all imaginable forms. Why should we be faithful to a single partner for whom we would be made, if ultimately we were just evolved animals? The more evolved, the more free we should be from any bound. But rather than an evolution, our attachment proves that we are subject to a transformation, into a relational dimension. On a symbolic level, attraction for the same sex could then represent the temptation to escape this transforming quest by yielding to a narcissistic relationship.

Some make the Bible say things it does'nt say, others claim that it affirms nothing and that everything is subject to interpretation. It's not true. The Scriptures couldn't be clearer: God has set a framework for human sexuality, just like for the animals elsewhere, even if his requirements are not the same for all the beings he has created. Everyone will agree that if God asks us to align with his project, it is because he also gives us the power to direct our lives. Oysters don't have the ability to rebound and change their course, but humans can. So why make these misguided people believe that they were born attracted to the same sex, and that this bias is written into their genes? I say this with all the understanding these sensitive souls deserve, homosexuality is not in the genes, but in the spirit. It is actually a lying spirit. However, it is true that a change in an area that touches on our most inner identity may require a substantial intervention. Thousands of people can testify to the change that took place in them when they accepted Jesus as the new foundation for their lives. The Holy Spirit carries within himself the perfect model of every human being, and our true sexual identity is also imbedded into it.

And when Jesus says to the Pharisees: “Since they are no longer two but one, let no one split apart what God has joined together”, Jesus has the couple man and woman in mind, of course, but he also and above all thinks of the team that man and the Holy Spirit will form together in a sacred union that no man under fallacious pretexts should attack in the name of a certain legalism, as the Pharisees were experts in doing, and particularly with regard to Jesus.

If God hadn't forgiven me again and again, I wouldn't be allowed to mention this and I say it as an encouragement to seek a pure life : Paul warns us in chapter 5 of Galatians, not to fool ourselves by thinking that we will escape or fall through the cracks. Paul enumerates a certain number of mores, which if we persist in them, will assuredly deprive us of the enjoyment of the Kingdom of God. Now, if we are prevented from entering His Kingdom, there is only one place we can go and Jesus says it is a place of sorrows, torment and gnashing of teeth. The things that Paul lists here are politely translated into generic concepts. But in the original Greek of the Gospels, the terms are crude. Those words are porneia, akatharsia, aselgeia, eidololatreia, pharmakeia, and others that I let you discover by yourself. And in 1 Corinthians 6, Paul solemnly warns all who live in sexual disorder, and in other disorders, that if they persist, they will not inherit the Kingdom of God. All our sins are forgiven when we bring them to Jesus and nothing that we could have done is unforgivable. Even the shame that the memory of these things arouses, Jesus took it upon himself at the cross. But in return, he really asks us to stop sinning. We stop sinning when we decide to live for Jesus, and no longer just for ourselves.

“It happened that Semiâzâ, the devil, and his henchmen – they are about two dozens mentioned by their names –, held this discussion : “We had succeeded in taking over the place that God created for his sons. However, it is now undeniable that by having had this crazy idea of ​giving to men the possibility of inviting him to dwell in them by his Holy Spirit, God played a very bad trick on us since henceforth, men are now potentially very superior to us. What are we going to do now not to be subjugated by them and to preserve our supremacy on the world? ” So, one of the spirits who were there suggested: “We should just make sure that they don't need to find out who they are! To do that, let's establish a structure which is in all points similar to that which God wishes to put in place to bring them to emancipation, but a system that we will keep under control and which will serve our interests ”. The devil said : “This is a great idea that I should have had myself ! We will continue to politicize the world and we will ensure that this reality which is so dreadful to us, never goes beyond the framework of a religion. We will slip into their cosmogony under false identities and become their pantheon. We can then castrate them spiritually and make them lose what remains of their authority, while ourselves will become stronger through their worship. Let's continue to assist men as we have done so far, so that they see us as their indispensable allies. Let's take advantage of God's righteousness and equitable character in the liberty he has given them : So long as they swear allegiance to us, God will not authorize himself to wipe us from the scene, and we will remain the masters of their world. Let's give them the technological means to control their universe so they don't need to exercise faith. Instead of self-healing, they can cure themselves with chemicals, medical acts and placebos. They will attain the beauty they are after with all sorts of artifices. They have to think they're smart : let's give them a culture. Let them think that the values they defend are those that God has established, by imparting to them traditions. To control them through the economy, we will force them to get everything for money. Let's overwhelm them with work and entertain their free time : They must not have time to think. They must believe that their security is their responsibility, and that peace is synonymous with violence – we will help them refine the art of war. They have to suffer, enough so that they need God, and then we can hammer home that we are God and that their lives are in our hands. Overwhelmed, they will soon regard this Gospel as a torment and the disciples of Christ as a threat to their peace. In last resort, we will bring forward our own Messiah to prolong our reign on Earth. If we succeed, their Messiah will only have to stay where he is, and our existence will not be threatened”.   (Unpublished lessons from the Book of Enoch, and the New Testament).

Such person continues to fight and even to smile, albeit she feels attacked in her health. But to find out, this person is offered to take the COVID-19 test. Then she is told with a serious tone of voice that the test is positive. And since she has been informed previously that, due to her age or her condition, she is in the category of those that will likely die from the virus, you see that person instantly change colour and collapse. From there, a flick will send her in the other world. What has happened in the invisible is that, in the absence of a true faith in a living God, present inside her and who protects her, – or by a faith misplaced, in man, in religion or medicine –, that person has yielded to a spirit of fear. Then, sickness, which in many instances is also a spirit and a thief, broke in and took hold of the house, so to say. Demons “work” in teams of three or more: These two then invited a spirit of death to join in their gruesome party, and they completely overcame that person and killed her. Everything was worked out on a suggestive level, and succeeded because the person knew of no other alternative than to undergo the tyranny.

Like all demonic spirits, fear is a liar. It drives us to make poor decisions, decisions that will pre-empt us. In the book of Revelation, we read that, when they will be afflicted with the plagues, instead of welcoming God who comes to their rescue, men will raise their fists against him and curse him. They will be like wild dogs caught in a snare, who attacks anyone tries to set them free. That's why the Bible tells us not to fear, if not God alone. But if, instead of putting our faith in the news, which by definition are bad – the roaring and tossing of the sea as the Bible puts it –, we place it in the things that God promises us in the Bible, then, a thousand could fall by our side, we will remain standing! This is what God promises in the psalm quoted below. We cannot always prevent a bird from landing on our branches, but we can certainly prevent it from nesting there. Paul was bitten by a viper which hung on his hand, but after shaking it in the fire, he acted as if nothing had happened and felt no harm at all. Why? Because instead of expecting that he would feel bad and swell, he relied on the word of Christ who affirms that nothing can harm us. Just because we have a few symptoms doesn't mean we have to get sick, let alone die. And it is not because our healing is not instantaneous that we must stop believing in it! “Faith is a firm assurance of the things we hope for, a demonstration of those we do not see”. Hebrews 11. After his disgrace, Cain was irritated and he was very dejected. God had said to him: “Certainly, if you do what is right, you will lift up your head. But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at the door, eager to control you. But you must subdue it and be its master”. Cain nevertheless gave way to jealousy and he became a murderer. Once banished, he knew that, far from the face of God, he would himself become a prey. But God told him that if someone killed him, he would be avenged seven times, and he put a sign over him so that whoever met him would not kill him (Genesis 4). As humans, we have at least two levels of spiritual protection. One is acquired, like our immune system. Now, inspired from pastor Curry Blake's teachings, there is another spiritual immune system, much more effective, that must be exercised by our will: “subdue the spirit of sin and its schemes”. Take for instance : vaccines. You will never be fully protected by vaccines, because germs change shape all the time. And with the vaccination, you are injected with other things that will eventually kill you, but usually too slowly for you to realize it. Vaccines are nothing more than a diluted form of death. But if you develop your spiritual immune system, the abundance of life will protected you for almost everything, including poison. By analogy, in intensive care units, they have those special hyper-bar cells, where no germs can enter with the air. If we remain filled with the Holy Spirit and in faith, there is no space for any demon, which usually work out the sickness, to slip in us, and if he was there he will soon regret it. So how do we remain filled? By filling ourselves with life, which is the word of God, and by having faith in it as in God himself.

For the good news, in all these things, is that the process that allows fear to dominate us, also works the other way around ! Faith and heartfelt attachment to the Father's promises protect us and strengthen us. They make us invisible. When an enemy approaches, he sees a protective wall, and then he sees God and flees. Cornered at the Red Sea, the Israelites saw the waters share in two to let them pass through, and then swallow those who had thrown their children into the Nile. To a man who had just been told that his daughter had been taken away by death, Jesus said: “Don’t be afraid; just believe.” Then he spoke to the lifeless body, commanded it to get up, and returned a girl in perfect health to her parents. Pastor Curry Blake relates the case of preacher J.G. Lake, a famous Jesus healer who in the 1930s, volunteered with his team to evacuate the dead bodies from an epidemic that was ravaging South Africa. Dumbfounded, the doctors saw under the microscope that the samples of infected fluids that came in contact with their skin were neutralized. Jesus wasn't afraid to touch the lepers. But leprosy had reasons to be afraid. Where did this strange power come from? In Romans 8, Paul says that “the power of the Spirit who gives us life in union with Jesus Christ has set us free from the power of sin and death.” Now, this domination of the Spirit is exercised over sickness and death. Please understand that it is not denying the disease that will cure us, but it is appealing to a higher law. Faith calls into existence things that are not as if they were, says Paul in Romans 4:17. To declare our healing is to withdraw from a provision God has already placed on our heavenly bank account. And this is an understanding that will be most essential in the times to come.

Jesus warned us that there would be rumours of wars, earthquakes and epidemics. “Don't be alarmed, because these things have to happen,” he said. In other words, we should consider these events as the birth pangs of a new humanity. If a Pharaoh who had not known Joseph, resisted beyond all good sense Moses' request to let his people go, then the advent of the reign of God on earth will not come without meeting strong resistance either. That's why, when facing the terrors that his enemies will spread in an increasing manner in order to strengthen their control over the peoples of the earth, we must not be discouraged. God invites us to step in his camp, which we do by making sure that we get rid of our idols and other substitutes for Him and by identifying with his beloved son. A shaking is coming. “The Lord is king! He is robed in majesty. Indeed, the Lord is robed in majesty and armed with strength. The world stands firm and cannot be shaken”. Psalm 93. But because wickedness now prevails, anything that can be shaken will have to be shaken. Over the next few years or decades, we will experience upheavals, which is an understatement. Medicine will have to face a race which seems already lost. The political and societal context will become explosive. There will be famine. But we will contain those problems and survive, if we take hold of the spiritual weapons that God has prepared to keep us safe. Many are rightly concerned that the ordeal we are going through at the moment is just a taste of what lies ahead. Our new prophets are scientists. They watch the changes that occurr everywhere and sound the alarm, but nobody listens. It is with good reason that Jesus compares us to sheep. For as long as we will have something to graze on, we will look nowhere else. Yet Jesus tries to teach us that there are other sources of food. “My food is to do the will of the one who sent me”. “Man will not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes out of the mouth of God.” One day, Jesus was hungry. He came by a fig tree whose foliage was magnificent and promising, but he found no fruit. To his disciples' amazement, he then cursed that fig tree. The next day, his disciples saw that it had dried from the root. Religion without fruits is condemned. “The axe is already laid at the root. Any tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” The disciples were puzzled at this sign. “I tell you, if you had faith like a mustard seed, you would say to this mountain: move from here to there, and it would obey you”. From here comes the saying: “Faith that moves mountains”.

Jesus said solemnly in three of the Gospels (Matthew 24, Mark 13, Luke 21), that when the signs of his coming will start to appear, all of his prophecies about the end of a political world and the beginning of the millennium of peace, will finalize over the course of a single generation. According to scholars, the sign of the re-greening fig tree was acomplished at the proclamation of independence of the State of Israel, in 1948. How many years does a generation encompass? Eighty years, ninety years? Do the math. If we do not adopt a long-term vision, we will go from disappointment to disappointment and risk being swept away. Does this mean that we should stop living and just hold on our breath? On the contrary. But we must live as a prophetic people, each at our level. What Jesus wants, is for us to raise our heads until our deliverance comes, because the period of history we are entering will be the exciting outcome of millennia of an extraordinary human adventure, the glorious end of a film whose story had a rather bad start, before the shooting of the next episode and the rebounding of the story in exciting new adventures. Do we want to be co-creators of the new world? The ultimate truth, that which we must cling onto now, is that, if we are hidden in Jesus, then for us, death has been swallowed up in Christ's victory and we no longer have to worry about it. Fear comes from evidences that, we believe, cannot be changed. In a war, what can you do to submit people for whom death represents at most, a promotion? Within the religions circulate all kinds of whimsical myths about what awaits us after death. But what Jesus promises us, is holiness. This holiness is the dimension in which man exists as an immortal being. Death temporarily deprives us of our body, which is our mean of interacting with this material world, but it has no influence on our true person which continues to exist. And Jesus promises us the resurrection in a glorious body – a true metamorphosis. The war we are undergoing now is first and foremost a psychological war whose weapons are truths and lies. The victory stands on a spiritual level and must be reached with spiritual weapons. “Don’t be afraid of those who want to kill your body; they cannot touch your soul. But Fear only God, who holds your eternal destiny in his hand”. “Whoever believes in me lives forever, even if he dies”.

But before we reach that place, we have an important mission to fulfil. In Isaiah 41:10, God says: “You are my servant, I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.” In Psalm 91, a psalm that tradition attributes to Moses, God promises protection and peace in the most difficult circumstances. This psalm, which I will quote here before going on, is the “quintessential” antidote to the fuzzy threats and it is could be useful to memorize it. For when I hear that almost a thousand Italians and Spaniards died from the Coronavirus in one day, it makes me extremely sad. They didn't have to die. They died however because they did not know that God has made a supernatural healing solution available to us – no one had told them, not even the Pope ! In their distress, they put their hopes in other men, in the powerless rites of their religion or in the protection of their tutelary gods. Or more pragmatically, in the medical care system, which is also a form of religion. This must be said, so that others can escape, despite the pain and the sorrow which are at the heart of all these tragic situations. Our mind and our strength, are made up of the information to which we subscribe. This may be the right time to turn off the television set, and to tune up onto God.

 

“Do not learn the ways of the nations or be terrified by signs in the heavens, though the nations are terrified by them. For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scarecrow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good.”     Jeremiah 10.

Our weapons are not carnal (medical), says Paul, but they are mighty because they appeal onto God. Leave to our governments, repression, confinement, drugs and vaccines. In regard to what is available to us, these things are inadequate. Instead, God invites us to stand on a higher level of spiritual authority. By seeking first the reign of God and his justice, we can stand on faith and experience a peace which is the tangible sign of his sovereign presence. It is the opposite of this paralysing fear which the world undergoes and to which one reacts by a feverish agitation. Imagine rather: this supreme being, immensely powerful, who stands between us and the evil that could reach us – and even: who wants to hide us in his “feathers”. Well, in the new reality that Jesus has brought to us, God is virtually in each one of us. (This was written at the beginning of the pandemic, and today as June 2021, I want to point the example of the State of South Dakota. These people chose to rely on God, and by resisting the power grab and empowering people, they kept COVID low and avoided the post COVID crisis).

“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were not willing. Look, your house is left to you desolate. I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’” Luke 13:33-35

When he is out of his vehicle, he runs big risks. But when a bush photographer is driving his convertible Land-Rover, he makes one with his vehicle for the lion who watches it, even if I shudder when I realize that it would only take a small jump for the lion to extract a treat from its metal box… Lions don't have that perspicacity and the few who broke the rule have been shot. When an eaglet is hidden in the eagle's feathers, it makes one with the eagle and it has nothing to fear. Since he loves me, I will deliver him; I will protect him, since he knows my name.” For some it may be the right time to take this first decisive step towards He who holds out his arms to them. In these hectic times, let's show our gratitude by trusting us in him and by entrusting our loved ones to him. John says in his epistle that “Perfect love banished fear from our hearts. People have fear when they are afraid of being punished”. Moses knew that a pure conscience makes us strong, and that it acts as an invisible shield. When we love God and walk with him every day, we don't hold to sin. Conversely, the less we know God and the more we are inclined to go drink from other sources and to travel with companions who will distance us from his presence.

Hear me, my people, and I will warn you – if you would only listen to me, Israel! You shall have no foreign god among you; you shall not worship any god other than me. I am the Lord your God, who brought you up out of Egypt. Open wide your mouth and I will fill it. “But my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me. So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices. “If my people would only listen to me, if Israel would only follow my ways, how quickly I would subdue their enemies and turn my hand against their foes! Those who hate the Lord would cringe before him, and their punishment would last forever. But you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you.” Psalm 81. How does one come to this morbid contemplation kind of worship which characterizes religion in its generic form? The result of the veneration of helpless idols is spiritual castration. Any concept or person in which we place our hopes, which disengages us from taking responsibilities and action, is a dumb idol. Please read also my excerpt on the need for a new birth.

The gods of the Egyptians and their Queen of Heaven were not enough to save them from the plagues, since it is in reality their worship which caused them the plagues. Remember : Pharaoh had forced the Israelites to offer their male toddlers to Sobek, their crocodile god, in order to prevent the Hebrews from outnumbering them. They were also enslaved to build stupid pyramids and temples to Osiris, the god who invented religion. Where have the Egyptians and their gods moved today? Ezekiel prophesied, “I will make the land of Egypt desolate among the desolate countries, and its cities shall be deserted among the cities that were desolate. For forty years. I will spread the Egyptians among the nations, I will disperse them in various countries”. As the Jews were dispersed throughout the world to spread the knowledge of the One true God, so were the Egyptians to learn about the One true God. And today, they live among us with their culture and their values, and also those very cults which brought God's punishment to their world. The Egyptians are those who build our world but do not bow their knee before the Christ of God who redeemed us with his blood. We see them everywhere. They can be our father or our mother, even our husband or wife. We were also all of them in the past, as Paul is reminding the Ephesians. God warns us innumerable times in the Bible of what will happen if we take liberties by tolerating in our hearts or in our houses, “high places” of pagan worship. As a by-product of civilization and a religious heritage, high places are in rampant in our culture. Those idols are raised by the devil in order to weaken us, because their veneration can only provoke the jealousy of God. By turning his eyes away, God will leave us at the reach of the curse. “Be completely faithful to the Lord”. Deut 18:13. Either our heart belongs to him entirely, or He is not our Lord at all. It is with great jealousy that God loves us and it is by means of a precious blood that he has redeemed us. “Why do you call me Lord, Lord, and don't do what I tell you?” Here is what Jesus' mother has advised us : “Do everything Jesus tells you”. Even a Pharaoh, a father of the Egyptians, said to them: “Go to Joseph and do what he tells you”. Joseph was a type of Christ, and because they knew to recognize that his wisdom came from a God that was superior to theirs, all the Egyptians were spared the famine that hit the world of the time. But then the problem was that God's people had placed themselves in Pharaoh's shadow. Many years later, God sent Moses to guide his people out of the trap of slavery for food safety. But an alliance had to be established first. The Israelites had to sacrifice a lamb and to sprinkle the lintels of their houses with its blood. This sign would keep the angel of death at a distance when he would bring judgement to Egypt.

Why is this virus so dangerous for our seniors? Our elders represent the heritage, the bulwark of wisdom in front of decaying values, and as such, they are the primary target for the Spirits of Chaos. These spirits have found a weak, point because the elders are held responsible for passing unjust laws, such as those who promote abortion. There is always a return in a law of sowing and reaping. The Egyptians had forced the Israelites to kill their baby boys by throwing them into the Nile, as sacrifices to the crocodile god. But baby Moses escaped. When he understood that a contender to his rulership was born in the land, Herod killed the baby boys of the Israelites, but baby Jesus escaped. How many unborn servants of Jesus were amongst those millions of aborted babies? … All the first-borns of the Egyptians died that night, young and old, but the first-borns of the Israelites were protected. Not by vaccines, but by the blood of a lamb. Our elders don't have to die however. God sacrificed his only Son – his first-born – in our behalf. His blood, if we accept the covenant he offers us, covers our faults and becomes the safe conduct which gives us access to God and to life, with the freedom to live before him for many long years and to serve him without fear, as we are reminded of in this psalm 91. Therefore, there should not be a premature death of his saints. And I will also say that if you had an abortion, yes you received a death mark as you probably know. But there is full forgiveness and there is also healing in the Lamb. You must bring your burden to Jesus and ask Him to heal you. He is the healer of all our sins. There is nothing that he did not take upon himself at the cross, but we must believe.

The Israelites however were not to be satisfied with the sign. After roasting it in the fire, they were ordered to eat this lamb with bitter herbs before daybreak, without leaving anything from it. “You prepare a feast for me in the presence of my enemies”. Psalm 23. It must be remembered that they were treated as slaves by those who used them to build the shrines of their religion. This unique meal was going to empower them to stand and to cross the Red Sea, and walk towards their promised land. If you have seen Mel Gibson's film, you have had a foretaste of the sufferings that Jesus endured – the worst one can imagine –, so that they would be spared to us. He thus took upon himself all the curses that were intended for us, as foretold in Isaiah 53. We were slaves to sin, but he redeemed us. Jesus has made us know Immanuel : God, with us and in us. “It is no longer I who live, it is Christ who lives in me” said the apostle Paul. “If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied”, he said also. Yes, true Christianity means serving God with sometimes a tinge of bitterness because of the things we will let by, but always with great joy in perspective. Someone said: “It's to exchange that which we cannot keep for that which we cannot lose”. Sounds like a fair enough deal to me. The Lord's Supper represents all this, and much more. Paul told the Romans that if they were to identify through their baptism with the death of Jesus, it was so that their lives would from now on reflect his resurrection.

The word which was at the beginning of the creation became flesh and it lived among us, separating the light from the darkness, “treading upon the lion and adder, on the lion cub and the Dragon”. Then Jesus spread that same word over his disciples. It came down from Heaven in the form of tongues of fire. “I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress, My God, in whom I trust”. When we receive the Holy Spirit, we receive this word which has the power to bring into existence the realities of God, those which must prevail over the realities of the world, starting in our lives. “You have already won a victory over them, because the Spirit who lives in you is greater than the spirit who lives in the world”. 1 John 4:4. But even if the devil knows it, he is like a crooked lawyer who will not hesitate to take advantage over us through our ignorance. So we must not hesitate reminding him, as Pastor Curry Blake says. “Submit yourselves therefore to God; resist the devil, and he will flee from you”, said James. When we have to face calamities, God commits us to fight. The spiritual gift of tongues, which we grasp by faith, is an extremely powerful weapon. “Mighty one, put your sword at your side. Put on glory and majesty as if they were your clothes. In your majesty ride out with power to fight for what is true, humble and fair. Let your right hand do wonderful things. Shoot your sharp arrows into the hearts of your enemies. Let the nations come under your control”. Psalm 45: 3-5. Of course we don't fight against people. But by declaring that God reigns, we engage the angels who on our declarations made with faith, will repress the invisible hordes of destructive spirits who act in the dark. Wolves stay away from the fire. A Chinese sage said, “Instead of cursing the darkness, let's light a candle!”. We are invited to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world. But if we let apathy take hold of us, or fear, we could be thrown out as something useless, and then the world may trample on us warns Jesus in Matthew 5: 10-16. A lamp is only a light when it is lit. … “Who knows if you have not come to your royal position for such a time as this?” said Mordecai to his niece, the young Queen Esther, in a very dark moment in their history. Perhaps is it also time for us to rekindle the flame.

There is of course this satanic teaching that the Holy Spirit was given to the early church and is no longer with us today, since we don't need him any more because we have now the word of God, the Bible. But there are many more subtle ways to annihilate the work of God. For instance, we have compartmentalized the personality of Christ through a misunderstanding of certain specialization that are taught in 1 Corinthians 12. Ans so, those who teach us the theory of faith are often not the same who demonstrate it in practice. James tells us that we shouldn't just announce the theory – which I take for myself – but that in order to be credible, we should also demonstrate that what we say is true, by bringing about the miracles of faith. This statement puts many things in their right place. James takes the image of a person to whom one would say: “Goodbye, keep yourself warm and eat well”, without giving that person anything that contribute to his well-being. That's exactly what we do in churches when we pray for people. We must understand that these words which are capable of eliciting miracles, stand at a different level of spiritual authority than the vain evangelical speeches, or the traditional litanies of the Mass. Remember what they saw in Jesus: a man who taught as having authority, unlike their scribes. Jesus did not use the persuasive tools of public speaking, and if he raised his voice it was to make up for the lack of a sound system. But he allowed himself the luxury of speaking the truth, because he was firmly established in his identity. We can't just use a few Bible verses, or throw them in the face of people, and then let God and the sick person take responsibility for what may or may not happen. James says that confessing our sins to one another and anointing with oil cannot hurt, and can be for those who believe in this, a good preparation. But then he says that what will heal the sick is in reality the prayer of faith, or more exactly “the fervent declaration of faith of the righteous”. By the way, it is fortunate that it is the fervent prayer of the righteous which has great effectiveness, and not the prayer of the wicked. James puts this way of praying in parallel with the prayer that Elijah made, when he called the drought over the land, and then a few years later, made the rain fall again. The priests of Baal could do nothing to undo his prayers. Reading this account, I cannot imagine that Elijah achieved this result by politely reciting some litanies and sprinkling holy water to the earth. Jesus himself never performed the rite of anointing with oil, nor did he establish confession of sins as a prerequisite for healing. Jesus did not make a show of his compassion, yet his spiritual authority was sufficient to rescue the sick and the oppressed, no matter their condition. When he says that some evil spirits responsible for illnesses or mental disorders, only come out through prayer and fasting, he is not referring to a church prayer meeting in which people will twist the arm of God to try to force him to do something in favour of the sick, but he speaks of the preliminary determination of those who do want to assume this healing ministry. He says elsewhere that the diehards get hold of the kingdom of God. The disciples could not cure this young boy who had an epilepsy spirit. Jesus rebuked them sharply: “Perverse and unbelieving race! How long will I still be with you?” Because, unlike to what some say, Jesus healed all the sick who came to him, and not just a handful of lucky ones. The Holy Spirit grants no quarters. After Pentecost, the apostles were also able to heal all the sick without distinction, although a few then took their time to heal. Some, to excuse their lack of spiritual authority, take refuge behind bogus phrases like: “God is sovereign”. Of course God is sovereign. But if we claim to be the servants of a sovereign God, shouldn't we be able to uphold his sovereignty? The sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was a total sacrifice, so that our salvation too could be accomplished completely and without any reserve on the part of God to unleash it. “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives”. If God now had to decide on a case-by-case basis who he wanted to heal or not to heal, then no one could heal anyone, for without faith it is impossible to obtain any divine manifestation, says James.

Have you been told – as I have –, that Paul's "thorn in the flesh" was an infirmity that God had inflicted on him to prevent him from boasting? Or that this same Paul could not heal Trophim? That even Jesus could not heal many sick people just because they had unbelief in their heart? That, if the people we pray for aren't healed, it means that God had another plan for them, and that he wants to “teach” them some lessons through an illness he himself inflited on them? These are prejudices and half-truths which die hard in the church. This other blog gives us a nice sample of the pseudo-doctrines that affect the church. They would be anecdotal if they did not outright destroy the promises of God ! Forty years after the facts, I am still exasperated with this evangelical tradition which, when I got my start, quite simply disarmed me ! Our theology is upside down and we have to put it right, before tackling the subterfuges that we ourselves have developed in our hearts. Because if these pretexts for procrastination were able to convince us, it's also because they make our life so much easier. Yet Jesus set out to demonstrate the redeeming love of the Creator. If healing is slow to come, it is because we have not yet been able to demonstrate the divine authority that he has taken care to transmit to us. What will glorify God is not the stoicism that we will show when we go through trials and sickness. It is our own courage that we demonstrate and we do not need Jesus to die with dignity. But Jesus tells us that what will glorify God is when we demonstrate that there is another kingdom that rules over sickness and death, by removing the sick from Satan's oppression by the finger of God. That's where the Bible's message is, and it's that simple.

 

What was the “thorn in the flesh” that Paul was afflicted with?

Paul, it is true, mentions in one of his letters that he had an illness. It seems that, as he had reached a certain age, his eyesight deteriorated. No text explains this hypothesis, but he mentions his large handwriting, and the fact that if “they” could, some would have plucked out their eyes to give them to him. So some believe that Paul was affected with partial blindness as a late sequel to his encounter with the glorified Christ on the road to Damascus, who's radiance had burned his eyes at the time. But when he mentions this “thorn in the flesh” that he had to undergo with the almost permanent harassment of an angel of Satan, the Lord having answered to his supplications to remove him : “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness”, Paul certainly does not refer to his infirmity, or as some suggest, to a mysterious illness that God would have affected him with in order to preserve him from arrogance and from which he could not heal. He does not think of hunger, cold and bareness which were often his lot during his adventurous life on land and at sea either. But when you read the story of his life, you realize that the revelation that this man got from God was so extraordinary – think of all the letters that he has left us and which are as enlightening as the Gospel itself, think of those pieces of cloth that Paul had touched and which healed the sick on whom they were applied –, that Satan must have assigned one of his best agents to accompany him in order to limit as much as possible the scope of his spiritual conquests. When Paul and Barnabas are in Lystra, some people are so impressed by their speech and by the miracles that the Holy Spirit does through them that they want to build two altars and offer them sacrifices. But the same day, these men suddenly come to their sense and they decide to stone the two apostles. Why? Because the angel of Satan who accompanied Paul had done his job of undermining and disinformation. Undergoing relentlessly the Jews' plots to assassinate him, the contradictions of the magicians, the opposition of the crowds, the lashes, the imprisonments, the disparagement of the church leaders, this war of attrition of the traditions and the law wanting to reinstate the teaching, the betrayals of the false believers and finally death during a bloody crackdown on Christians in Rome : his life was certainly not a long, calm river. “All those who are determined to dedicate themselves to their union with Jesus Christ will experience persecution”, he said to Timothy. But as he writes in Romans 8: “In all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us”.

Is brother Curry Blake coming to your area? JGLM on Facebook

Divine Healing Technician Training “Healing has been considered as something mystical that can't be taught or learned. But that's wrong. Jesus did mostly three things when he took his disciples with him : He taught, he preached and he healed. He taught about the Kingdom and he taught on relationship with the Father. When you understand how the Kingdom works and you have a relationship with the Father, you will operate in healing – it's that simple”.

Pastor Curry Blake's Bible teachings I should perhaps hate the thought that one man got it all. But if you've been wandering through the speeches of countless preachers who say but do not demonstrate what they say, or who advocate new age views and values, give yourself another chance. The Bible based, and not theologically biased teachings of Curry Blake, are pragmatic and effective. Putting things straight and simple is sometimes all it takes to make them workable. “It's all in the Bible. People wait for fancy personal words, yet they have not even started to obey what Jesus already told us to do”.

Building Life Teams Christians are not a bunch of individuals but they are a body. All the benefits of the Life in Christ are aimed at one thing: Building the House of God. If Jesus is the chief cornerstone, rejected by men but chosen and precious for God, this house must be made of living bricks. The true sense of the word “Ekklesia” with its power and governing purposes, must be rediscovered. “Life teams are a place where you go to grow, and where you grow to go into the world”.

• Curry Blake – Staying focused on Faith. “The Spirit clearly says that in later times, some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.” 1 Timothy 4. In this essential lesson, Pastor Curry Blake exposes some of the ways in which the enemy has made us ineffective. From habits of life, relationships, hobbies, book readings and entertainment, to watching the exotic hype of a new preacher on Christian TV, every day, the devil spares no effort to have us scattered and to distract us from what really matters, namely: having en entire faith in God.

• Don't Let the devil Submit and Use You. – What is the worth of one single life? In this most earnest message, Curry Blake draws our attention to the importance of the motivations that direct our lives as individuals and as groups or churches.

• Curry BLAKE – Going TO, or just going THROUGH? We need vision. Not this “Get a dream and God will help you fulfil it” attitude, but to get God's dream for our life. He is already working to get it fulfilled and whenever we get on track, we will see it being fulfilled.

• Curry BLAKE – Don't sabotage your Blessings. In order to obtain our healing from God, we must be single minded. Some people die of sickness while they have faith in God. Curry Blake explains how the mentality of relying on other people has made us weak. People think they have faith, when in fact they have faith in the traditions they have been taught at church. “The eye is like a lamp for the body. Suppose your eyes are healthy (single minded). Then your whole body will be full of light. But suppose your eyes can’t see well (are double minded). Then your whole body will be full of darkness”. Matthew 6:21-24. See also James 3.

• Curry BLAKE – The Spirit Is Our Real Us. Many people don't see results because they operate from the soul.

• Curry BLAKE – Releasing The Spirit Into Your Flesh. “People who are the most difficult to heal are church people, because they have heard so many times that Jesus can heal, but they have kept that knowledge at mind level”.  

• Other Videos   from those contributors.

• Curry BLAKE – Faith is Your Servant. Another great practical message from brother Curry Blake, 2019.

• Curry BLAKE – Trust God To Back You Up.

• Curry BLAKE – Intimacy With the Holy Spirit 1.

• Curry BLAKE – Intimacy With the Holy Spirit 2.

• Curry BLAKE – Manifesting Christ.

• Curry BLAKE – Follow the Faith of the Faithful.

• Curry BLAKE – Don't let the devil use You.

• Curry BLAKE – Light, Life & Love. Building character rather than arouse an emotional state.

• Curry BLAKE – The Spirit of Faith in Identification (versus the hype for anointings)

• Curry BLAKE – Structural Miracles. What can we expect from God? –Just anything. “May it be done onto you according to your faith”. No thing is impossible to God.

• Curry BLAKE – In this teaching, Curry Blake addresses some issues that tend to plague today's Church like for instance: the New Age doctrines that say that “there is something more”: need for additional baptisms, gifts or mantels and anointings required in addition to the gift of the Holy Spirit. He says that if you received the Holy Spirit, you have all that is required to accomplish what Jesus asks of you. What you need now is trusting the Word of God and acting accordingly.

• Curry BLAKE – In a marathon, wearing the appropriate shoes is essential if you want to cross the finish line. Why do our prayers have no result? Why are people not healed when we pray for them? The simple reason is that we are not persuaded that God wants, and that He always wants to heal, and we doubt even more than He can do it through our simple faith in Him. Curry Blake's teaching exposes some of the preconceived ideas, those theological “sacred cows” that prevent faith from being effective. He also points out the scriptural keys that will enable us to obtain a result. Curry Blake says he has not been praying for a sick person for over thirty years. Based on the New Testament principle that the Spirit of Jesus is healing and that his will is always to heal people, Christians must impose this will on sickness with faith and obstinacy. A theory that has been verified by the extraordinary results that can be obtained when it is applied. Curry's master words are: “Keep it simple, press on, and trust God for the results”.

• Curry BLAKE – Healing : Your Legal Right. According to Isaiah 53, our healing started the minute Jesus was tied on the whipping post. It was achieved when he was nailed to the cross. Anything we would ad to that or do, to make it happen, is unbelief”.

• Curry BLAKE – Acknowledging What Is In You. Curry Blake not only tells you how to activate your faith, he actually takes you through the process. You will want to listen and do this message everyday.

• Curry BLAKE – God's Master Plan. Learn what you were made for and begin to live it out in your life.

• Curry BLAKE – He gave us His Word.