A Final Warning to Those Trying to Change Me

November 16, 2022

Beginning the day as I usually do, reading my devotions, I was asking God as always, to speak to me out of the Scripture, showing me what I needed to see and what He wanted me to do. Reading out of Ezekiel 3 as part of the assigned reading for the day, it became very clear to me that God was calling me to write another warning, a final warning of His impending wrath and judgment, to be poured out on these people absolutely determined to see me divorced from Julie and living as a queer in the gay community. It is because they have determined in their hearts and minds that I can’t be anything but a homo because of their observations of me and my background, and that I am not “being true to myself” by living as the straight man that I am, that God’s fiercest wrath is coming down on them, and swiftly.

Just who all is this warning issued to? Everybody involved, according to what God has shown me, except for those who have hearts still tender enough to respond to His grace and mercy. First and foremost, it is the LGBTQI+ activists engaged in the lifestyle, who will face some of the worst of God’s wrath and judgment. How do I know this? They’re the ones who have pointed their fingers at me, saying I just have to be one of them, and that I must come join them in the lifestyle, its promotion, and the Marxist ideals on which they’ve based their movement. They’ve declared that anyone they see who they want as another queer sex partner is gay, or must become gay, and is going to join them no matter what. It is for this rigid determination that anyone and everyone they want to come join them in their perversion that God will bring down His hand of doom and judgment on this whole LGBTQI rights movement as He did on Sodom, Gomorrah, and the other cities of the plain where Lot lived, as we read in Genesis 19. That doesn’t mean God will rain down fire and brimstone on them, but He will execute His judgment in a way that there will be no mistaking that it has come from Him.

Another group of people facing God’s wrath and judgment for all the evils they’ve done to me are the pagan witchcraft practitioners who have cast all kinds of spells on me to effeminize me in every way possible, and give me all the appearance of being a homo. Their curses on my body have affected me in so many ways that it’s a wonder I’m still alive, because I’m sure some were intended to kill me. God has seen and heard every one of these curses and spells, and He has decreed that everyone who has engaged in placing these on me who does not repent of their evil and turn to Jesus instead, will be tormented day and night throughout all eternity for the wickedness they’ve done to me and others. If they want to argue that when they die, they’ll just be gone, and that’s it’s because there is no human soul, then they’re being totally hypocritical. One cannot believe in the spirit world, as they obviously do when they invoke spiritual powers on others through their spells, and not also believe in the existence of an eternal human soul. That part of ;us will never die, but it is our choice as to where that soul will spend eternity, either in God’s glorious presence, or in eternal torment apart from Him.

Still another group facing God’s wrath and judgment for the evil they’ve done to me are those from the Marxist Deep State who are involved in this effort to see me land in the queer community. This would be the people who provided the illegal surveillance equipment that has been used on me and Julie, for the last almost 14 years. These are the people who have no qualms about breaking any and all laws to achieve the delusional Utopian world they blindly believe could be. They are the ones that have furnished the technical know-how as well as the equipment to those in the apartment below us to monitor everything I say, do, or even write to see what they can use against me to ultimately land me out in the homo community. They’ve also set up the apparatus to burn or spray whatever biological agents they have aimed up into our apartment at me to foul up my health. They also are the ones who have hacked my computers and phones, doing everything they can to disrupt anything I attempt to do, up to and including even trying to get work. They are determined, above everyone involved, to see me “outed” and living as a queer, to make sure I will never expose the breadth and depth of the crimes they are willing to commit to see me bow to their will. God has shown me His is reserving some of His fiercest acts of wrath against these, so that their evil deeds against Julie and me will become public knowledge, with nothing hidden.

The last group facing God’s wrath and judgment for all this wicked effort to “out” me falsely and wrongfully are the false teachers and preachers who espouse the lies that God sanctions and blesses homosexual behavior and other sexual aberrations. The ministers of mainline liberal Protestant churches who teach and preach that not only approve of but encourage people to “go gay,” will face the most excruciating eternal tormenting for despising God’s Word, the Bible, treating it with contempt, and contradicting its truths. They will be judged severely for all eternity for twisting Scripture, declaring what God calls evil, good, and what God calls good, evil. They will be tormented night and day eternally for leading so many others astray with their teaching.

So, when will this doom and judgment fall on all these I’ve mentioned? Obviously, I don’t know. Nor do I know exactly how He will bring it about. I only know that He has shown me at different times from different Bible passages that some of these people will die violent, unnatural deaths from freak accidents or other mishaps, while others may end up being the targets of other people with murderous agendas, or even a political coup. I’ve wrestled hard with my own bitter hatred and rage toward these people who have done all these things to tear Julie and me apart. But the Lord has shown me repeatedly that I don’t need to pray for anyone’s death, nor should I. That’s entirely up to Him as God.

What He has shown me I have to pray for is that the lies of Satan concerning human sexuality be exposed, especially to those caught up in homosexual living. Apparently, He has done this for some and brought them to a saving knowledge of Jesus instead. I pray this will prove true for many more, but know not all will. It grieves me personally to think of some dying over trying to turn me into a queer, but God has shown me that is the penalty they are bringing on themselves for their stubborn persistence in trying to make me come join them. Those who aren’t struck down by God for their evil-doing will be left deeply ashamed and disgraced for what they’ve done. I pray this brings them to Christ.

NINETEEN YEARS IN HELL

When my wife, Julie, and I decided to move down to Black Mountain, North Carolina from Pennsylvania in 2003, we looked at the town as a mountain paradise. Surrounded by some of the highest mountains in Appalachia, the scenery was breathtaking, and with the Billy Graham family estate up on a mountain above us, the Billy Graham Training Center, and the Graham Association radio station WMIT, all close by, I thought this was an ideal place for the kind of ministry work I saw myself doing in the future. What we didn’t know about Black Mountain and the surrounding Asheville area at the time is that it had become a magnet area for people involved in pagan religion with all of its occult practices including witchcraft, and those actively involved in the gay lifestyle. Neither of those factors would necessarily have kept us from coming here because we believed God was genuinely calling us down here to this area. What I could not have foreseen was the amount of money and power these people, especially the gays, had behind them.

We rented an apartment in a three-story, wooden framed building in a back corner of a circle in Black Mountain, choosing one of the middle floor units because it contained an extra closet for storage space. What we didn’t anticipate is that middle floor apartment would end up being a trap, where neighbors below and above could take advantage of the wooden floors and engage in a variety of forms of harassment. When we first moved in, I prayed the apartment would be a place of peace and refuge. Very quickly, it turned out not to be.

Barely two months after we’d moved in, the trouble began, for me in particular. Julie had found an accounting job with a small manufacturer in Asheville, while I was sending out resumes and other materials for the work I thought God had led us here for. At 6:45 one morning, Julie was showering, preparing for work. Our line phone number was active, but it was not listed yet in the local directories. Despite this, I got a phone call from a young man “inviting” me to come over to his place at that hour to give him oral sex. At first, I thought it might be a joke, so I asked him who he was. When he gave me his name, I knew it wasn’t a joke; the man was serious, and talked as though I should know who he was, as If I should already be connected with his gay community. What really shook me was the fact he not only knew my name and had my number before it was listed, but was brazen enough to call me at that hour to come join him in gay sex, even with my wife with me. I was to learn quickly that it didn’t matter that I was married. If the queer men in the area looked at me and decided I had to be one of them, they became determined to tear me away from Julie and make me one of their partners. I also found they weren’t about to take “No” for an answer. This is the other side of the LGBTQI rights discussion: They don’t want anyone trying to turn any of their number away from the gay lifestyle through “conversion therapy,” but they have no hesitation about going after straight people, including married ones, to make them come join them.

In the nineteen years since then, I have endured an unending assault by gays and lesbians, along with their left-wing supporters, to pull me away from Julie to get me to come join them in their lifestyle. In the first five years after we came to Black Mountain, the gay community tried several times to lure me into downtown Asheville under the guise of supposed concerts by groups from the sixties and seventies that only someone from my age group would likely know. Whenever they would call me to see if I would come, they always offered me only one ticket. When I mentioned my wife Julie would be interested in coming with me, they would immediately balk at that, saying they really could only provide one ticket, which they sent to me, intending it only for me. As I looked into this further, I found there were no such concerts taking place in Asheville, and were not meant to benefit the Asheville Fire Fighters Association as they claimed.

The next thing that happened during that time was that Julie received a strange phone call from a man who didn’t identify himself, but told her something sinister sounding, something to the effect that her life was going to be altered and she would lose something important to her. Not long after, she was diagnosed with Stage Two breast cancer. She underwent chemotherapy, which her oncologist warned us could permanently damage her in ways that could adversely affect our marriage. She survived and is still with me, but unfortunately, the doctor’s prediction has all but proven true. To this day, I can’t help but wonder if that call she received was from a homosexual Satanist whose cult put a curse on her to give her cancer, in the obvious hope it would claim her and get her out of the way to get to me. A lot of people might find this preposterous, but I’m well aware that Satan can inflict diseases on people (he did Job in the Bible), and it would not at all shock me to learn this was the case.

By 2008, the effort to break up my marriage and move me out into the homo community shifted from gay men trying to lure me, to sorcery being used on me. I first observed it from a couple of encounters with women who apparently were lesbian witches who made it a point to get in my face and tell me I was going to be “outed.” Then, we had a new neighbor move into the apartment below us, a retired teacher from Ohio. It didn’t take long for her to become good friends with the neighbor woman in the house next door to our building, who together became very committed to seeing me leave Julie behind and go live with queers. She came up to our apartment one evening and proceeded to tell us she was getting into sorcery, giving me a hard, sidewise glance when she said it. Then began what is now almost fourteen years of a constant attack on my mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual health, trying to either bend my mind or heart to developing a sexual attraction for men, or causing Julie to turn on me and kick me out, giving them the opportunity to push me out into the gay community ( which wouldn’t have happened anyway).

Along with the usage of witchcraft against me, I’ve had to endure all kinds of tormenting and taunting from residents in the apartments above and below us, doing some really vicious things like spraying different kinds of scented vapors up through our heating system, and even up through the floor, which caused my sinuses to swell and drain, filling my respiratory system with congestion. This would lead to rather severe coughing and wheezing. Other forms of taunting and harassment I’ve had to put up with have been so childish they’re not worth my even describing. But the main purpose behind it, I determined, is to try to set me off, get me to blow up in a rage and threaten one of my neighbors, so they could call up whoever was overseeing the effort to come and arrest me and take me to a psychiatric hospital where they could work on “deprogramming me of my bigoted religious beliefs,” as the left would call them, and persuade me that I am a homosexual who needs to “come out” and go join the queer community.

If all of this sounds completely outlandish, let me remind you that we’re living in a time when the FBI is bursting into people’s homes without warrants, arresting individuals on charges that don’t involve real crimes, but rather Marxist “Woke ideology.” That is what I’ve determined is behind this effort to break up my marriage of nearly twenty-eight-and-a-half years, and send me out into the gay community. This is what Marxist philosophy teaches (or shall I say brainwashes) its adherents to believe: psychotherapy in the right form can change any person’s thinking to make them into different persons altogether in terms of their beliefs. The way Marxist thought works in this follows a three-step progression, as was observed in the past in the Bolshevik and Maoist revolutions in Russia and China. First, psychotherapy is employed to “gently” persuade citizens who weren’t following communist ideals to change their way of thinking completely and embrace the Marxist regime. Then came torture methods to force them to change if that didn’t work. Finally, execution was the last step with those who just would not comply.

I mentioned the wooden floors of our apartment building and how they provide a convenient way to taunt and harass. This includes the usage of illegal, sophisticated surveillance equipment used by our U.S. military. This equipment, from what I’ve been able to tell, involves microphones so sensitive they can pick up the faintest whisper, and cameras that have the ability to not only see through floors and walls, but pick up facial expressions that reveal moods and attitudes, and even read written or printed materials we’re reading or writing. How do I know these devices are being used on us? I’ve heard different reactions at various times from those down below us to things I’ve said or whispered even in a soft voice, and through having different things such as noises or scents directed up at me that appear to irritate or anger me. Again, the whole purpose is to monitor everything I’m doing and look for any way possible to aggravate me into making a threat against somebody specifically, so i can be hauled away for psychiatric treatment, with a mandate given to the psychiatrists that the only place I’d go to from there is the homo community.

I know many reading this will wonder if I might just need psychiatric treatment for telling about this. I know what I’ve experienced, and it isn’t just my imagination. I’ve had to live with the reality that ever since I was a teenager, I’ve been labeled a homosexual, just because of my outward appearance, the way I speak sometimes, and some of my traits which make me less aggressive than other men. I’ve fought the stigma and the bitter taste of being branded something I absolutely am NOT, just because others see me that way and mistreat me or insist that I should be living as a queer. But with God as my witness, I can say unequivocally that I am, and have always been, attracted to women, not men. I know there are many from the LGBTQI rights movement and their Marxist comrades who will adamantly assert otherwise, but I know what I am, and more importantly, God knows what I am, and he certainly didn’t make me to be a homo. What really rankles me in all of this are all these people from this movement who laugh up their sleeves at poor Julie for being “too stupid to know the difference between a gay and a straight man.” She is not. She knew she was NOT marrying a closet queer when she married me.

I have been sweating out getting this posted into my web site, because I have had my computers hacked repeatedly, trying to block me from publishing my convictions, particularly about homosexuality. I’ve also had my phones hacked as well, even knocking me off my cell network. I can’t do anything at our apartment because it is automatically monitored, and unless I am only looking at emails, I may find the signal from the cell towers getting blocked. That’s just the kind of equipment these people have to make life as difficult for me as possible. That begs an obvious question for those reading this: Why do we stay in that apartment and building? The answer to that is twofold: 1) We can’t find any place any cheaper or as cheap as what we have in this expensive Asheville area, and 2) Whatever attempts we might make to leave would likely be thwarted by the people running this operation against me to see me divorced and living with queers, not moving on with Julie somewhere else. That’s the kind of power and resources this LGBTQI movement with its Marxist Deep State backers, have to control the lives of other people.

I found this to be true with the issue of employment as well. According to the Marxists and gay community, I’m not supposed to have employment or do anything that would enable me to earn an income to support Julie and me. A few years ago, I attempted to sign up to work for one of the grocery delivery companies, where I would work as an independent contractor, shopping for and then delivering groceries to customers. I managed to download most of their company app onto my phone, but when I tried to actually connect with the company via their toll free phone numbers that would enable me to confer with them on any customer problems, all I got was a computer response that gave a different company name. and then promptly cut me off. When I complained out loud to Julie about this, I overheard a young man I suspect is a possible federal agent working with and handling this crew downstairs saying, “He figures out everything we try to do to him.” I could tell he was talking about me because this was followed by a new wave of tormenting, intended to really push me over the edge.

I’m sharing all of this, because the Lord has shown me it was up to me to tell this story; He was not going to do it for me. What He will do now as a result of my publishing this, I don’t know. What these Marxist gay rights proponents will do about it, may be what God uses to expose this whole evil effort against me and bring it to a halt. You will notice I have not named names even of people I do happen to know who’ve been involved in this, and that is because I have no desire to incite violence against anyone over this. As for forgiving the people involved for all this evil I’ve had to endure, I continue to invoke the words of Jesus from Luke 23: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” With that, I place this account, and the people about which I have written in His hands. May His will be done in this situation.


Hydrogen Fueled EV’s: The Best Solution to the Fossil Fuel-Exhaust Emissions Problem

Amidst the growing calls for more Americans to buy or lease electric vehicles, whether they can afford them or not, there is something being left out of the discussion by government, media, and the general public. That is the matter of what fuels the batteries powering the elective motors in these vehicles which then requires the vehicles to be plugged into electrical outlets and recharged. The substances found in the batteries of these EV’s are either lithium or cobalt. While these materials may be fairly efficient in providing power from the batteries to the motors, that doesn’t mean that they’re cheap to obtain or don’t present other problems in their long-term usage.

My understanding is that lithium and cobalt are both difficult to find and expensive to mine. Added to this, these minerals contribute their own forms of environmental damage once the batteries in such vehicles wear out and have to be discarded. Both lithium and cobalt can contaminate ground water and soil, adding to the problems we’re already battling in our environment with our discarded waste. On top of this, we have the problem of added strain on our electrical grids with all the charging of the batteries in these vehicles from day to day. Further, the supply of lithium and cobalt are not nearly as plentiful as are fossil fuels, and the push to market and sell EV’s with batteries powered by these minerals will only lead to another fuel crisis as their supplies dwindle.

So what is the real answer to the problem of ending exhaust emissions from motor vehicles by replacing fossil fuels with something sustainable? Unless you’re a Marxist who believes the solution is the elimination of motor vehicles, (along with 90% of the world’s human population), the answer lies in hydrogen. Derived from water, it is the most plentiful gas in the material world and universe. When hydrogen atoms are fused together to produce energy, the only biproduct is water. This is the irony in the whole discussion of “green energy” by environmentalists that’s either being overlooked, or ignored. While there are difficulties in the harnessing of hydrogen energy safely, the long-term rewards and benefits to the world are staggering when it comes to meeting energy needs with clean energy.

Without a doubt, hydrogen is a highly explosive gas that releases tremendous energy when it explodes as we learned form the Hindenburg tragedy, and from experiments with hydrogen warheads. Finding ways to safely use hydrogen as an energy is a challenge, and is costly. The process of removing it from water, is complicated, I understand, and is expensive. But at some point we have to ask, What is cheap about exploring more places to drill for oil, or finding more places with lithium or cobalt to mine? There is considerable expense in all of that, and it still doesn’t provide a good long-term solution to the energy problem.

The building of hydrogen-fusion power plants, and the carrying of hydrogen fuel cells in cars necessitates the construction of stronger, tougher materials in the building and tanks housing both. The explosive nature of hydrogen requires the strongest materials possible to guard against rupture from accidents. This is why I have read that auto companies are reluctant to experiment with hydrogen fuel cells in their vehicles, because of the expensive tanks that have to be installed in the vehicles to house the fuel cells, Most auto companies have stayed away from hydrogen fuel cells to power electric vehicles, except for two: Toyota and Hyundai.

Each of these companies has produced an electric car that operates on hydrogen fuel cells. For Toyota, it’s a mid-sized, rear-wheel drive sedan called the Mirai, which according to Consumer Reports, has lowered its price this year to a base price of $49,500. Hyundai’s entry into the hydrogen fuel cell EV class is a small SUV called the Nexo. It’s price is around $60,000. Both of these cars are only currently sold in certain urban areas of California, because those are the only places where you’ll find hydrogen fuel cell refilling stations. It only takes about five minutes to refill these cells, as opposed to twenty minutes to charge a lithium or cobalt-powered EV at one of Elon Musk’s fast-charging stations, or overnight at one’s home charging outlet.

As for the cost of these vehicles, there is research being conducted at places like The University of Buffalo to find strong but cheaper materials to make fuel cell tanks that won’t easily rupture or cause explosions. Such research needs to be encouraged by the government and more of the auto industry, to where more such EV’s will be produced not only by Toyota and Hyundai, but other automakers as well. Those two companies deserve a lot of credit for sticking their corporate necks out and experimenting with hydrogen fuel-powered EV’s. As for the availability of hydrogen fuel cell refilling stations, the infrastructure is already there if the oil companies were willing to pick up the ball and run with it, installing hydrogen pumps at their gas stations across the country. Until these things are in place, I have no interested in buying an electric vehicle, no matter how many environmentalists and government bureaucrats say I should. Until I can afford one and until I can have a hydrogen fuel cell powered EV that I can refuel all across the country, I won’t be buying one.

A Culture of Lies, Destruction, & Murder As Predicted in the Bible

My sister passed along a photo on Facebook of a chicken farm burning to the ground, the 19th such farm to be torched so far this year by arson. This farm was a major supplier of eggs, selling some 3 million a day. In Pennsylvania and Iowa, millions of chickens and turkeys have had to be slaughtered this year because of bird flu. I was listening to a succession of farmers and ranchers call into the Sean Hannity radio program, speaking of how they were facing potential bankruptcy with the soaring fuel prices. Livestock producers are especially hard hit, not only the poultry farmers but the cattlemen as well, who have the added problem of getting their cattle to market with a truck-driver shortage and only four packing companies in the country processing meat.

The very fact that 19 poultry farms have been targeted by arsonists is a demonstration of the “woke” culture at work to push what is really a Marxist agenda on the country. That Marxism has its foundations in demonic influences has become very apparent, because who else but Marxist-backed radical animal rights activists would destroy the livelihoods of agricultural workers, not to mention a good part of our nation’s food supply, to send the clear message to all the rest of us that we’re all supposed to become vegans. Never mind that they killed so many birds (how’s that for protecting animals?). They just want us all to quit eating eggs and meat as part of the development of a “utopian world,” as the envision it.

This goes along with what LGBTQ radicals are saying, that we’re all supposed to “evolve” into homosexuals, with young children taught if they want to go transgender, that’s good, and that being gay is preferable to being straight. What this translates into as that heterosexual behavior (and marriage) should ultimately be eliminated, and the traditional family become a thing of the past. This is very much in keeping with what Karl Marx envisioned for the world in a “utopian” state. This is what the “woke” culture is completely committed to–making the final push to see the U.S., and then the whole world, in a godless society where everyone’s queer, lives on vegetation, and no longer works at any kind of a job. They’re all just supposed to live in perfect harmony with each other. This is exactly what Satan wants to see Marxists push for, because he knows it would end up in the complete annihilation of the human race.

How do I know Satan was the originator of Marxist ideology? Because that clearly shows up in the various evil things Marx advocated, things which we see foretold in Scripture. The “woke” movement has drawn followers from various churches and religious backgrounds with this call for the realization of a perfect ideal, conflict-free world, where all injustices are redressed, and equity is assured for all people. What so many don’t realize is they have been duped into believing such a delusion, that humans would even be capable of forming a world at perfect peace and harmony apart from its Creator. But this is the influence of Satan and the demonic spirits who partner with him. The Apostle Paul brings this into focus in I Timothy 4:1-3, in which he writes:

“Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.” (ESV)

This describes exactly what we’re seeing in this neo-Marxist “woke” movement. The Apostle Paul was given a revelation of the evil that would be unleashed on the earth in the closing days of time, with an assault on human sexuality as God designed and intended it to be, and restrictions on what they eat, can buy, or even say or think. People who have totally sold out to this demonic political ideology, even in the name of trying to be “good Christians,” fail to recognize how badly their minds have been twisted by demonic powers.

All of this is what Paul refers to in Verse 1 of this passage concerning those who would forsake the teachings of Jesus and the Christian faith to follow after “deceitful spirits and teachings of demons.” The rise of New Age spirituality and neo-paganism over the last four decades in this country has led many people, including those in Christian churches, to the worship of the Mother Earth goddess Gaia, and the practice of sorcery and witchcraft. All of this leaves these people wide open to the controlling power of Satan and his demon cohorts. Those of us who have been pastors for any period of time can attest that when people dabble in the occult, they open themselves up to demonic possession, which can then lead to criminal behavior, up to and including murder. Add the Satan-concocted philosophy of Marxism with its ultimate call of mass genocide against everyone on earth who will not embrace the Godless, demonic, delusion of utopia, and we end up where we are as a nation today.

So what do we do about this Marxist “woke” movement? Insurrection against the current administration is NOT the answer. Praying for God to move on the hearts and minds of those caught up in this whole Marxist culture, and in particular, that they be delivered from the demonic influences driving them to engage in all their evil activities, is. As Paul wrote in Ephesians 6:12, “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the cosmic powers over this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places.” We need to pray for God to pour out His Holy Spirit on the nation and Marxists especially, as they will see clearly whose lies they believe, and turn to God and His truth instead.

It is Satan’s goal and program to divide and destroy, be it a marriage, a family, or a nation. In Hebrew his name is Abaddon, and in Greek, Apollyon. Both names mean Destroyer. What makes this name so appropriate is that it’s entirely within his nature and character to be a liar, a thief, and a murderer. Naturally, he would whisper into the mind and heart of a young Karl Marx a hatred for everything that God made good, turning him against the Judeo/Christian tradition after his father insisted their family convert from Judaism to the Lutheran Church, all for the sake of financial advantage. Whether or not Karl Marx himself became demon-possessed, we do not know. But one thing is certain: the philosophy he developed is demoniacal in what it proposes, especially when it comes to the principle of the ends (a Godless utopian world) justifies whatever means necessary to reach it, including the mass slaughter of any and all people who stand in its way.

Scripture quotations taken from The ESB Bible, (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version) copyright 2001, by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

Arise and Save: A Psalm 3 Meditation

His own son had seized power by stealth, stealing the hearts of the Israelite people by advertising himself as a judge of the people. King David had not been the best father when it came to correcting his sons’ bad behavior. Now his son Absalom had taken control of Jerusalem and was ruling over Israel, while David had fled to the east. (2 Samuel 14-17). He wrote this psalm during this crisis, and in it, he affirms his faith and trust in God to save him from his son’s treachery. David begins the psalm by acknowledging that Absalom had build up a strong following of enemies looking to kill him, believing that God was on their side. David contrasts this with the reality that God is his shield and protector, the One who enables him to keep his head up and maintain his kingship.

David writes of how he prayed to the Lord and received an assuring answer. Despite his life being under threat, he tells of being able to lie down and sleep at night, without fear of how big the army was that was backing Absalom. His petition in the last stanza of Psalm 3 (verses 7-8), calls upon God to save him from this effort to kill him, recognizing that God deals with his enemies in a very powerful and forceful way. The reason is that salvation is God’s possession and provision, and grants it to those who earnestly seek Him.

This psalm can serve as a morning prayer for anyone who becomes a target of attack, harassment, character assassination, or outright oppression, with others seeking to destroy their lives. You don’t have to be somebody as important as a king to experience threats against your life, family, or well-being. I’ve been battling with people for over a decade who’ve been totally committed to turning me into the opposite of everything I am as a man, a husband to a loving woman, and a Christian. I’ve been the target of a very aggressive campaign by the militant LGBTQ rights movement and their Marxist supporters to brainwash me through psychiatry into joining them in the queer lifestyle, waving the rainbow flag, and carrying the banner for the Marxist Utopian Deep State, as its known by many. I’ve learned that militant gay rights activists who want more queer sex partners won’t take “No” for an answer unless something happens to them that causes them to back down. That’s left me in a perpetual combat mode against these people and the very powerful and wealthy pro-Marxist organization backing them. They’ve utilized the apartment building Julie and I have been living in with its wooden floors to do illegal surveillance on us, interfering with my computers, monitoring my phone, and blocking me from the means of earning a living. They’ve subjected us to physical assault with various toxic substances blown up through our ventilation ducts and our floors to cause respiratory problems.

Through all of this, I’ve had to learn how to trust God with the battle and the people involved and pray for God’s saving work among them, and His deliverance of me from their evil plot. I’ve had to learn to lie down at night and rest in the arms of Jesus, trusting Him to protect me from anything these people might do to me, and from Satan and his demon cohorts trying to take possession of me. I can join with David in saying, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

Ministering to Those Who Need Christ Most

I’ve wrestled with this issue because of the struggle I’ve had to find natural compassion for the spiritually lost who are hostile to the Christian faith. I’m deeply troubled over the fact that I find it much easier to judge and condemn people than show Christ’s love to them. I struggle with the problem of pointing people to Christ without giving the appearance of approving of their sin. I’m working to learn Christ’s way of touching the lives of people the way He did, showing them unconditional love while at the same time making it clear that their sin displeases God. The only difference here is that I am not Jesus, and I most certainly am not sinless. This is why it’s so important for me to keep in mind the words of Scripture that the truth will set us free (John 8:32). Christ came to set people free from the control of sin, not just its penalty.

I think of the words of Jesus to the woman caught in adultery: “Neither do I condemn you. Go, and sin no more.” (John 8:11) Jesus was never about excusing away sin any more than He was about simply damning people into hell. He always sought to give people the opportunity to repent of sin and turn to Him to become all that He wanted them to be. The same is true today, even in a culture that increasingly doesn’t even want to hear about or be confronted for sin. The need to help people understand what is displeasing to God has never been greater. Yet to find a way to explain that in love is challenging when we try to share it with people who accuse Christians of spouting hate every time we try to present God’s truth.

When it comes to this matter of speaking to LGBTQ+ rights activists, I’ve had other believers including family members tell me repeatedly that instead of getting angry and showing bitterness and rage toward them, we need to be ready to share the truth with those who are caught up in these lifestyle problems, doing so in a loving, compassionate way. I certainly agree with this in principle. In practical reality, however, it isn’t holding up. Too many of the gay men I’ve run into are so thoroughly steeped in the lifestyle that they are only interested in finding more queer sex partners, not listening to someone share the Gospel with them.

That doesn’t mean there are no spiritually hungry people among practicing homosexual, bisexual, and transgender people. I’m aware there are some among the LGBTQ+ movement who are questioning it, wrestling with doubts about the rightness of it, and some who are choosing to leave the lifestyle and movement behind. This of course, enrages leaders in the movement, especially those who also happen to be Marxists, and are using the issues of sexual orientation and gender identity as marquee causes to support, ultimately to help push the utopian delusion of Karl Marx. Individuals who have left the gay lifestyle or who have switched back to their birth gender have found themselves the targets of angry threats and expressions of outright hate for defecting from the movement. These LGBTQ+ activists become guilty of the very thing they accuse those of who disagree with them.

Even as the Equality Act has been debated in Congress, and questions about sex education curriculum introduced into our schools by LGBTQ+ rights people are raised by parents, I come back to a foundational question: Does anybody know or care what God thinks of this LGBTQ+ movement and what they’re promoting? I know this involves a sharp debate between Darwinist secular humanists, and proponents of the Judeo-Christian worldview. But when we lay the debate aside, and look at the two competing points, another question arises: Which takes more faith to believe, that we humans and every other living creature on this earth evolved by random chance out of the primordial slime, or were formed out of the dust of the ground by an all-wise, intelligent designer, a Creator-God?

This question lies at the heart of the whole debate over human sexuality. Are we evolving toward becoming all queers, with human reproduction only accomplished by artificial insemination in the future, or are we designed and meant by the Creator to be heterosexual only, with all the other variations in sexual behavior developing after humanity turned its back on that Creator? If we follow the first view, than any form of human behavior is justifiable, sexual or otherwise. If we follow the second, then we must conclude that there are standards of conduct established by that all-wise Creator-God that come to us in the form of absolute truth. When I look around at this world and all the different complex life forms that exist upon it, especially humans with the way we’re made, I find it vastly more difficult to believe that we and everything else around us just evolved by chance, than I do that an intelligent, all-wise and all-powerful Creator formed and fashioned us.

So how do I and others who follow Christ as Lord and Savior speak to those who are a part of this Marxist-based, LGBTQ+ rights movement? I think we have to start with pointing out the differences in the two worldviews that reflect the thinking of the two camps. We have to start by explaining how, from what we know about their lives from history, that Charles Darwin and Karl Marx grew up with religious backgrounds, but both came to hate religion, especially Christianity. Darwin turned against the Christian faith when God did not answer a prayer request of his affirmatively. Marx began to hate all religion, and Christianity especially, when his Jewish father decided to convert his whole family to the Lutheran Church for the sake of greater economic prosperity gained from more favor from other Germans. The end result was that Karl grew up rejecting all organized religion as “the opiate of the masses,” and developed his atheist political ideology on the basis of that hatred for religion. He hated Christianity intensely, viewing it as the source of much of the world’s “systemic evils” as he called them, particularly capitalism.

Darwin developed his theory of evolution out of his contempt for God and the Christian faith, by postulating that all of the world and universe, including humanity, evolved by random chance. In recent decades, the greater scientific community has declared Darwin’s theory to be established fact, with anyone disagreeing instantly attacked and labelled as anti-science, and anti-intellectual. The problem is, when scientists vehemently assert that a concept which is still based on assumptions and not absolute proven fact, cease to be scientists and become politicians. Where those assumptions are rooted in hatred and bitterness toward God and faith, as they were with Darwin, then the world ends up with an anti-democratic system of thought disguised as science that proves not only insulting to people of faith, but de-humanizing and destructive to the world in general. It was the theory of evolution with its emphasis on ideas such as survival of the fittest that became the justification for Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Fascism. There, the de-humanizing affect of labelling humans as just animals became the ideal support for the annihilation of certain races and ethnicities of people.

When I speak of evolutionary theory, I am not referring to the concept of microevolution, the process in which species adapt or adjust to changes in their surrounding environment. We see plenty of evidence for this in nature. But the problem lies with the concept of macroevolution in which species form and evolve from lower forms of life. This theory was really Darwin’s way of rejecting the existence of a Creator-God along with the supernatural. But just because one chooses to reject the existence of God or a spirit world doesn’t mean they cease to be. Again, I see far more evidence for the existence of the supernatural than I do for only a material world and universe.

Karl Marx was delighted to grab hold of Darwin’s theory and apply it to his atheistic political philosophy, based upon his concept of dialectic materialism. In his assault on both capitalism and religion (mainly Christianity), Marx sought to form a whole new worldview that not only rejected the existence of God and the supernatural, but to push the world rapidly and violently toward the evolution of a one-world, anarchistic society with no economy, no laws, no government, no religion, and no morality. It would be a world in which all the remaining people on earth who were not eliminated by the mass genocide he advocated to achieve this society he called Utopia, would learn to live in perfect harmony with each other, with no conflicts, no competition between people, and no one claiming ownership over anything. In light of how we humans have behaved toward each other over the centuries, this utopian concept is naive at best, and demonic at worst. A perfectly harmonious, Godless society is not even a remote possibility in light of what we know of human nature, especially if it is bought at the price of massive bloodshed, which Marx called for.

This brings me back to the issue of the LGBTQ+ rights movement and its efforts to see everyone in this country and ultimately the world, embracing the idea of all people “evolving” into queers, to create the utopian society they wish to see develop. The first and obvious problem with this is the matter of reproduction. There is no guarantee that artificial insemination is always going to work, and if so many people, especially men, are eliminated through a worldwide Marxist revolution, the possibility is very real and great the human race itself could become extinct. Furthermore, the massive and bloody revolution Marx called for would most likely result in the total annihilation of humanity. As a Christian, I don’t believe that either will happen because we have the promise that Jesus will return before the world could reach such catastrophic destruction.

This brings me back to the Judeo-Christian worldview and its focus on an almighty, sovereign, holy, Creator-God. While I can’t prove His existence to anyone, I can say that if you decide to seek Him out yourself because you really want to know He’s for real, you will find Him. God will make Himself known to you, and provide the way for you to come to Him through His Son, Jesus Christ. He knows you inside out, and there’s nothing you can hide from Him. As for His nature and character, God is changeless and so is His written Word, the Bible. As our Creator, He determined how we were to function sexually, with one man married to one woman, in order to both reproduce and provide a stable home environment. It is we humans, after our first father and mother sinned, who started heading down all kinds of bizarre and perverted pathways in our quest for sexual pleasure.

Contrary to what some theologians assert today, neither God, nor our understanding of Him are evolving with the changes in culture. Here again, the destructive nature of social Darwinism and Marxism have worked into the thinking of much of today’s church, affecting so many who have listened to such teaching that instead of recognizing God making us into His own image, we try to re-create God into our image. This in turn, leads to all kinds of heresies, including the idea that we can live sexually any way we see fit, and God will just smile down upon it. No. what God established at creation for man and woman is the pattern and form He intended for human sexuality.

The Bible tells us that Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and forever. (Hebrews 13:8) Whether one believes in Him or not, He is returning to this earth one day. When He does, time will have run out to make things right with Him, if one doesn’t pass away in death first. One of the myths of Marxism is that there is no soul, and when humans die, that’s it, life just ends for them. But there are too many people who have experienced temporary death, and who found out otherwise, to dismiss the idea of a soul. Our souls live on for eternity, even though our bodies don’t. The question now I must ask is: Where will YOUR soul spend eternity? It will either spend it in the glorious eternal presence of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, or it will spend it in eternal darkness, isolation, and torment. The choice is ours to make, even as the Holy Spirit, convicts us of our sin. If God’s Spirit is speaking to you about your sins, will you respond to Him? Just pray this prayer:

Lord Jesus, I confess that I am a sinner and need your forgiveness. I want to turn away from my sins, and live for You. Please forgive me, cleanse me of my sins, and fill me with Your Spirit that I may have the power to live for You. In Your Name, Amen.

Abraham: A Model for Intercession

(Based on Genesis 18: 16-33)

When we think of intercessory prayer, we usually think of praying for loved ones in need, or for friends who may need a fresh touch from Christ, or who may even need to come to salvation through Him. We don’t usually think of praying for God to not overthrow a city or country. But this is what Abraham found himself doing when he was met by a human manifestation of God, (who many scholars believe was actually Jesus in a pre-incarnate appearance.) They came to his place where his tents were pitched, to speak to him and Sarah his wife about the son they would be holding in a year, a son born to them miraculously in their old age.

Then, in Verse 16, the men rise up and look down toward the plain to the east, where the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah were. Abraham recognized that God had decreed disaster upon those cities, and he was naturally concerned about his nephew Lot, who had settled in Sodom with his family. In Verses 17-18, we read that the Lord speaks to the two angels with Him in Abraham’s presence, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do…?” Abraham developed a strong, close bond with God over the years, and trusted Him deeply. But Abraham’s trust in God was about to be tested, even as the Lord says in Verse 20, “The outcry of Sodom and Gomorrah is indeed great, and their sin is exceedingly grave. (Verse 21) I will go down now, and see if they have done entirely according to its outcry, which has come to me: and if not, I will know.” Abraham listens to this, and understands the doom and destruction that is impending for Sodom and Gomorrah. He thinks of Lot, but he thinks of more than him.

Abraham proceeds to approach the three visitors and address the One he recognizes as divine. He asks this difficult question in Verse 23, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” This is a question placed by Abraham not out of disrespect or presumption, but out of his deep faith and love for God, and the close friendship he formed with God. Abraham continues in Verse 24, “Suppose there are fifty righteous in the city; will You indeed sweep it away and not spare the place for the sake of the righteous who are in it? (Verse 25) Far be it from You to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous and the wicked are treated alike. Far be it from You! Shall not the Judge of all the earth deal justly?” This twenty-fifth verse is really key to this passage, because in it Abraham lays out his case for God’s mercy and compassion to be shown to some extremely evil people in several cities. Abraham appeals to God’s justice and goodness in not annihilating His own creations in the person of his fellow human beings just because of their sin. In essence, Abraham is saying, “God, You’re too good for that! You’re too fair and just to wipe out the righteous with the wicked.” He then proceeds to reduce the number of potentially righteous people in Sodom in his appeal for mercy down to just ten, all in an effort to get God to spare the city of Sodom from destruction. Abraham, throughout his appeal, acknowledges he is addressing the Almighty God of the universe, but still pours out his heart to Him as one friend to another.

A key question comes in here concerning the matter of intercession: Is it right to ask God to go against His holy nature and character by not punishing people for sin when a situation calls for it? That’s really not what Abraham is doing here. While he is certainly appealing for the sparing of Sodom from destruction for the sake of his nephew Lot and his family, he is also appealing for the deliverance of any and all people in Sodom. Abraham does this because he can’t imagine God being cruel and heartless in killing off righteous people who follow Him in faith with those who are evil. Abraham is not telling God , “Lay aside Your holy character and not punish those who refuse to stop doing evil.” He is saying, “Just don’t destroy Your faithful ones along with those who are wicked.”

This gives us some important lessons when it comes to intercession. We’re living in a day when we have people from the LGBTQ rights movement who want to push homosexuality and other immoral practices to the extent that even perceived thinking in an adverse way toward them would be labeled a “hate crime.” This appears to be the low to which Sodom and Gomorrah sank in the days of Abraham and Lot, as we read on in Genesis 19. But for Abraham, interceding for the lives of very evil people as well as his nephew, serves as a reminder to us Bible-believing Christians here in America today that we need to pray for the salvation of people involved in this whole LGBTQ rights movement and their political backers. We need to pray that God will reveal His truth and love to them, turning their hearts and minds away from this Satanic delusion concerning human sexuality.

This does not mean that we should accuse God of being unfair, unloving, and unjust, should He choose to bring His wrath and judgement against this movement. God’s holy nature and character will never allow Him to wink at sin. But even if God brings destruction on this movement and its supporters, we must still recognize that God is always good and does what it right. So, the point of all this is: remembering our own need for God’s grace and mercy to save us from sin and eternal destruction should drive us to pray for the salvation of even the most evil people we may know or know about. It is not for us to determine where other people should end up for eternity, but only up to God in His holy wisdom. When God brings disaster and destruction on evil people, we must remember it is because they were unrepentant in their attitude, determined to do nothing but evil, and God reached a point where He would tolerate their wickedness no longer. But if they do repent, then we need to be joyful and thankful about it, giving God praise and glory for their salvation, and embrace them as new brothers and sisters in Christ, even if they have hurt us. Which way will it be for you?

(Scripture quotations taken from the New American Standard Bible, 1995 edition.)

“Praying for Justice: Persistence is the Key”

A scripture passage I read frequently is the Parable of the Persistent Widow, found in Luke 18:1-8. It’s the only place in the Gospels where this parable of Jesus is found, and it serves to illustrate just how important persistent prayer is. This is a topic that has been at the forefront of my life in recent years, even as I have wrestled with an ongoing injustice waged against me by others. While I don’t care to write about the specifics of that now, I do wish to share what I’ve learned about injustice versus God’s justice through this experience, and the examination of this scripture.

The beginning word of Verse 1 is often translated as either “Then” or “Now”. This shows a connection to Jesus’ previous discourse in Chapter 17 to His disciples concerning His second coming. Jesus appears to be linking His thoughts on His eventual return to Earth with the matter of prayer–ongoing, persistent, prayer. The verse tells us Jesus is instructing His disciples “that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart.” This is presented as His purpose for telling this parable. Jesus recognized trying times were coming for His followers, and He wanted to prepare them to handle them. His story is of a city judge who had no regard for either God or  people. He saw himself as one who had unquestionable authority and cared little, if any, what anyone thought of him. He reminds me of a lot of today’s politicians and judges who have been corrupted by power.

Jesus proceeds with the story by bringing in a widow, a very stubborn, persistent widow, who had little, if anything, left to lose. He describes her as one who appeals to the judge day after day for “legal protection from my opponent,” as Jesus presents this. The judge, as Jesus explains, at first ignores her. But because she persists in coming after him, calling out for him to grant her justice, he finally caves in. Widows in Jesus’ day would have had no social standing or power, but her sheer persistence brings the judge to the point of exasperation in which he declares that while he couldn’t care less about justice, he would grant this widow’s request to get her off his back. The judge says that “by continually coming she will wear me out.” The Greek here can literally be translated “punch me in the eye.” The implication here is that the widow made herself such a pest to the judge that he feared he would end up suffering public disgrace over her.

Jesus now moves the parable to pointing out the thrust of what the unrighteous judge said. He’s comparing the judge with His father to whom His faithful followers appeal “day and night”. Jesus raises the rhetorical question “will not God bring about justice for His elect, and will He delay long over them? I tell you that He will bring about justice for them quickly. What Jesus is telling His disciples and us is that unlike a corrupt, unjust judge who doesn’t care, God cares intensely about all of us and is interested in hearing our petitions for His help. In the context here, Jesus is also saying that as the world approaches the end of time with evil intensifying along with the persecution of His church, that God’s justice will prevail over the earth at the end.

Jesus interestingly closes the parable with another rhetorical question: “However, when the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on the earth?” This question is meant to focus our attention on the reality that as injustice and persecution increases against the true followers of Christ in the end times, those followers will need to hold onto their faith no matter how difficult their situation becomes. They must not give in to the pressure the culture around them exerts on them to conform to that which violates God’s Word. This is the kind of faith that only stands up through persistent prayer.

That brings me to apply what this parable really has to say to us today. In the last several years, we’ve watched ISIS behead, drown, and crucify Christian believers in the Middle East. We have witnessed Christians brutally attacked in other nations in Asia and Africa. Recent reports from China show it is ramping up efforts to silence biblical Christianity again by burning churches, arresting and imprisoning pastors, and trying to stop the teaching of the faith to children. Here in the U.S., the political Far Left is showing its determination to criminalize the biblical Christian faith for its teachings against certain practices it wants to promote.

As for me personally, I find myself confronted continually with a false and slanderous accusation against my moral character, marriage, and Christian testimony, that day and night I have to give over to our Almighty Judge for His final verdict and my vindication. I have already determined that if it costs me my life standing for this, so be it. I’d much rather be killed for standing for God’s truth than give in to what the culture wants me to be and be lost eternally because of it. That’s the kind of faith Jesus wants to find in us when He returns. That’s a faith that stands up to any injustice, because while oppressors may kill Christ’s faithful followers for not renouncing their faith, that can’t kill their souls. Knowing that is what keeps me standing up for Christ and His truth, no matter what gets thrown at me.

(Scripture quotations from The New American Standard Bible, 1995 updated edition, Anaheim, California, Foundation Publications.)

When God Brings Justice His Way

Justice. We’ve heard the cry for it from school and restaurant shootings, from the family and friends of a black teenager gunned down by a young cop only 90 minutes after his swearing-in, and from a growing number of men and women violated sexually by predatory men in positions of importance or prominence. Sometimes the word “justice” gets replaced with “vengeance,” which means something else entirely, but nonetheless, we hear the desperate calls for it from those who feel powerless against those in authority over them. Common with all of these cries for justice is the anger and vehemence with which these calls are made. Some of the demonstrations surrounding some of these events have almost taken on the tone of lynching parties, which is a natural result of what happens when violence has occurred claiming innocent lives, and those left as victims in its wake feel they have no power to change what has caused the evil in the first place.

I can personally identify with that sense of hopelessness and despair, along with the rage that usually accompanies situations in which one becomes a victim of other people’s evil schemes, finding I can do nothing about them except cry out to God. In dealing with my own situation, I have found God guiding me to different scriptures to aid me in praying about the problems in accordance with His will. One of those scriptures I’ve been praying out of in recent months is Psalm 94, identified by scholars as one of the justice psalms. In this psalm, God is implored to avenge His people who faithfully follow and serve Him on those who oppress, rob, and even murder them. The oppressors in this psalm are those in positions of power and authority who have the means to crush anyone at will who tries to stop them or call them to account. They tend to attack those who are the most vulnerable and least capable of fighting back. The psalm begins with a call for God to be the God of vengeance, and to bring “recompense” or turnabout, onto those who have attacked and abused others. The psalm describes the offenders as those who laugh off any kind of acknowledgment from God of their actions, assuming He pays no attention to whatever they do, no matter how evil it may be.

The psalmist follows up this description of the offenders with a series of rhetorical questions that point out the folly of regarding God as either uninvolved, unconcerned, or nonexistent when it comes to watching and taking note of what evil is inflicted on others. God is described here as the one who made the ear and the eye, and most certainly hears and sees everything that goes on within and among His creation. He is also the one who gives humans the capacity to learn, and gives His reprimands to nations and individuals that defy Him and His principles. A key verse in this psalm is 11: “The Lord knows the thoughts of man, That they are a mere breath.” The idea here is that there is nothing that anyone on this earth can do that will ever escape God’s notice, and that they will be held accountable by Him for it.

As for those who have been violated and victimized in one way or another, the psalmist writes that they are blessed by God if they follow Him and listen to His correction for the sin in their own lives, allowing Him to teach them the right way He has laid out for the world to follow. Such persons find God intervening and providing help and peace in trying situations caused by those determined to harm them. The psalmist makes it clear that God never turns His back on His children who call out to Him for deliverance and justice. He also declares in the psalm that God will work in a nation or culture to change the powers in control toward that which He declares to be right, bringing a halt to the injustice and oppression. Then in verse 16, the psalmist pours out two rhetorical questions which focus attention on God’s intervening grace and help while oppression is ongoing. The questions bring out the fact that God will not wait until the day of final judgment, when Christ returns to earth, to mete out His justice against those who absolutely refuse to stop doing evil to His faithful ones.

This leads into the final stanza in which the psalmist writes of how God has protected and cared for him through all the attacks against him, and of how He continues to help him. He describes how God’s mercy and love keep sustaining him through an ongoing threat against him by those in places of power. He shares how God even helps him with anxiety over the oppression, bringing peace and hope where there appears to be nothing but hopelessness and despair. Then, in verse 20, another rhetorical question concerning corrupt evil powers is raised: “Can a throne of destruction be allied with You, One which devises mischief by decree?” This question drives home the fact that God will not work with a corrupt government or business or any other human organization that seeks to cruelly oppress the most vulnerable, weakest, and most helpless people. Even as such evil powers gather their forces together to silence and destroy those who are endeavoring to live for God, the Almighty is working to bring their evil schemes back on their own heads, as the psalmist describes. God knows the plans that arise in the hearts and minds of evil people even before they hatch them, and He is prepared to rescue and protect His faithful followers from being destroyed spiritually by them. The psalmist points out this contrast between the plots of those trying to destroy their faith and God’s protection for them from that fate. Psalm 94 concludes with verse 23 in which God is shown bringing the wicked conniving of evil people back on them, ultimately destroying them if they remain unrepentant of their wrongdoing.

The reason this psalm has resonated with me in recent years is because I too, as a writer, a husband of a loving wife of 24 years, and as a Christian minister, have been the target of an evil plot by a large organization I can’t even name directly, because I don’t know who all it includes. For the past 15 years, since my wife and I moved to Black Mountain, North Carolina, to seek new ministry opportunities, I have found myself instead being attacked by the large and powerful LGBTQ community and their supporters in the Asheville area with an all-out effort to force me into the gay lifestyle. I’m talking about phone calls from gay men wanting me to come and have rendezvous with them, lesbians practicing witchcraft telling me to my face “We’re going to make you come out,” and numerous hacks and attacks on my computers with Trojan horses and other malware attempting to block me from writing anything about homosexuality. Added to this has been day and night harassment in our apartment while I have been there in an effort to unnerve me, getting me so upset, that I might spout a verbal threat against someone personally, for the purpose of having authorities summoned immediately to have me taken away to a state mental hospital. There psychiatrists would be charged with the task of “deprogramming me of my bigoted religious beliefs,” and persuading me that I am a queer who needs to leave his wife and go live that way among the LGBTQ community. The main practical problem with this: I have absolutely no desire for or inclination to engage in gay sex, the litmus test for determining if one’s sexual orientation goes that way.

One other thing to note in all my experience with this is the fact that LGBTQ rights activists and their friends aren’t the only people involved in this effort to discredit and silence me, which is really the main goal. There is a larger, hidden organization behind them, something that attorney Jay Sekulow of the American Center for Law and Justice has identified as a “deep state,” one with an agenda to force our entire country and the world into the ultimate realization of Karl Marx’s anarchistic state he called Utopia. The LGBTQ community is easy for this organization to use, since they share many of the same political and social goals. One of their primary objectives is to eliminate all vestiges of the Christian faith that stand not only in opposition to homosexuality and other departures from what God established for human sexuality, but also any teaching that call for people to devote themselves to God in Christ. The belief here is that with Christianity’s influence eliminated from the earth through whatever means of coercion or genocide is necessary, the world will then be able to move unopposed into such a supposedly perfect existence. Once again, the primary method employed in achieving this now is the tactic of discredit and silence, which is what I have been experiencing.

In reading Psalm 94, I find God reminding me He has seen and heard everything that has been done against me and my wife, and His judgment and justice are coming for it. I have no need to seek vengeance on any of these people, because He will expose their evil deeds and plans at the appropriate time. According to this psalm, God will show Himself to be God,and His Word, which so many today so quickly reject as the truth. Does God love LGBTQ people? Absolutely, because He made them in His own image, and sent His Son to die for them, just like He did for me and all the rest of us sinners. But there comes a point in time in Which He says, “No more of this evil!” and stops it in whatever way He deems best. While He permits His faithful followers to be martyred for their faith, He will never allow them to be arbitrarily forced to go against Him or His truth, without His judgment coming against those who attempt this. This is the hope in which I continue to live and work, praying that some from these groups will come to recognize the lies of Satan that have deceived them, and turn away from this evil. That’s all possible through Jesus Christ.

If all of this reads as too far-fetched, let me share with you what I have learned about the radical elements of the LGBTQ movement. They operate under the belief that gay people are the most “evolved” of all humans, and that all of humanity should be moving in that direction sexually. Never mind what God said about human sexuality in Genesis 2. That’s totally irrelevant and mythological to them. What I’ve also learned about them, especially male queers, is that when they want new gay sex partners, they recognize almost no restraints on getting what they want. They will harass a man they see and want in stores or other public places, particularly restrooms, to try to get them to come with them. The usage of witchcraft and sorcery against men who won’t comply with what they want is another tactic some are employing, calling upon the forces of spiritual darkness to turn a straight man away from his wife and family to come join up with them. None of this has worked with me, and won’t, because God has kept his hand of care on me, just as the writer of Psalm 94 wrote, with the promise that His justice is coming against those who have persisted in attacking me in these ways.

What’s Missing from the School Violence Discussion

In the weeks since the massacre in Parkland, Florida, I’ve shared the heavy heart of many others, young and old, over the senseless loss of life at the hands of a troubled young man. For seventeen lives to be snuffed out because of a succession of failures on the part of many to identify this teenager as a serious risk is both infuriating and disheartening. Added to this, for gun owners comes the prospect of an eventual ban on the sale of military style assault weapons to regular citizens, which raises the inevitable questions about Second Amendment rights versus the need to protect school children. This, of course, will continue to be debated even as lawmakers wrestle with the writing and passage of legislation to restrict access to firearms as well as providing more mental health services to those deemed as high risk.
While the discussion and debate in the wake of tragedies caused by gun violence rages between advocates of firearms bans and gun enthusiasts who call for arming teachers and more mental health care, there’s another element to this whole problem I’m not hearing much about. It’s the role of how our whole educational process impacts the way our children today see themselves and each other. The teaching of evolution in our schools as an ironclad, unquestionable  scientific fact has left multiple generations in our culture with a schizophrenic view of humanity. The concept of survival of the fittest creates a dilemma for our culture, and for our youth in particular, when it comes to the matter of civility. If we’re all just animals, as evolutionists assert, with no more intrinsic value than a pig or a rabbit (if we even have that much), then why should we be so concerned about bullying, or even gun violence among kids? According to natural, evolutionary processes, do not the weaker, sicklier, less intelligent members of a species need to die off and get out of the way of the stronger, more intelligent, more advanced? What does this teach our children about being human?
I raise these rhetorical questions in order to focus our attention on factors that contribute to youth violence. While much is being said about identifying the mentally disturbed and sending them into treatment (i.e. medication to control their angry impulses), we don’t seem to be so willing to take a serious look at what our children are being taught about life in school and elsewhere. Take for example, the matter of human sexuality. Our schools and media, along with the scientific community, tell our kids that because humans are animals, whenever our hormones kick in, or our prostate glands fill up, we must get sex wherever we can get it. “You cannot do without sex any more than dogs or cats can,” is the message our youth receive. So, we make 12-year-old girls get vaccinated against HPV, while we explain to our young boys how to use condoms. This is all under the belief that kids are going to do it, because after all, they’re just animals following their natural impulses. But then, we pass laws governing sex, declaring the age of consent to be 16 in most states. So the message then to the kids is: “We know you’re going to have sex, because you’re animals, so that’s why we’re teaching you how to do it safely at age 12. But because of laws governing us humans that guard against sex crimes, you’d better wait until you’re 16 or you could get arrested and charged with statutory rape.” What do we have here? A mixed message based on animal science versus human reality. This is what I call cultural schizophrenia: confusing kids with a conflicting message about what they are and should be and how they should act.
Let’s translate this now to the matter of school violence. On the one hand, we teach children that as human beings we need to learn to celebrate people’s differences, grow to appreciate diversity, and treat each other with respect and dignity, including those with various challenges, physical and mental. But then we tell them that because of the laws of natural selection with the principle of survival of the fittest governing humans as well as the rest of the natural world, people who are somehow “defective” or “undesirable” for reasons physical, mental, philosophical, or religious, will need to be done away with if the planet is ever going to realize the “utopian” state that will supposedly ensure its survival. So, once again, children are given a mixed message that says “All people should be loved and appreciated as they are, but only those people who can learn to live in perfect harmony with each other and nature will live in the new world order of a brotherhood of humanity.” Again, this is teaching that amounts to cultural schizophrenia (not to mention a subtle promotion of Marx’s doctrine of mass genocide against utopian resistors.)
What’s the connection between the mixed message of evolutionary natural selection versus human dignity, and the problem of school violence? Let’s look at the young man at the center of the Parkland, Florida tragedy. Here’s a boy whose violent, aggressive, anti-social behavior got him thrown out of 3 different high schools, we are told. In one way or another, at some time, he got the message, “You’re not right as a human being, you don’t fit in, and therefore, you’re not going to be good for anything on this earth to help the planet or anyone on it, in the future.” Imagine his internalizing this message and its impact on his overall psyche. Mix in bullying and taunting by peers with the purchase of guns put into his possession and what do we have? A troubled young man who finds himself marginalized and ostracized by the immediate culture around him that he knows, leaving him with the feeling that if his life isn’t worth anything, then maybe nobody else’s is either. That in no way justifies the horrific act of bloodshed he committed against 17 innocent persons in that high school on Valentine’s Day. But does it not, at some point, illustrate the results of teaching our youth contradictory concepts of humanity?
As for the issue of bullying, we can and should try to stop it in our schools and elsewhere to prevent such tragedies as school mass shootings from continuing. But even with bullying, is there not a certain measure of split-tongued hypocrisy in our cries against it? If we teach kids that survival of the fittest applies to all species including humans, is it not natural then for children who are strong, healthy, and who lack any physical or mental abnormalities to taunt, harass, and abuse those who do? If the laws of natural selection are at work here according to scientific evolution, is this not a logical way for humans to work with nature to progressively eliminate those from the race who would weaken the gene pool with physical or mental deformities, or religious beliefs that stand in the way of evolutionary progress leading to an idyllic, utopian existence? Dare I even suggest that those who won’t likely help the earth move into such an existence must by necessity die from illness, suicide, or genocide, to get them out of the way of such “progress”? In no way am I endorsing bullying here. But I can’t help raising questions about the logical consequences of teaching children the importance of treating all people with dignity and respect out of one corner of our collective, cultural mouths, and then teaching them out of the other that only those humans who will help move the planet into a perfect, harmonious existence deserve to be allowed to live on it.
To summarize, what I am asking here is: Are we willing to look at this problem of school violence and gun control through a lens other than just getting rid of weapons? The bombings in Austin, Texas remind us that guns aren’t the only weapons that can bring death and destruction at the hands of a young man. But perhaps if we began elevating the true value of human beings above that of dogs, cats, pigs, or cockroaches in the educating of our children, would we not find that the message they receive from us concerning what it means to be human will be singular and sane, not schizophrenic? Or is that asking too much of an elitist, sophisticated  and rationalistic culture that says it cannot tolerate any obstacles to the realization of the utopian dream? Might our children learn and live better if they’re told they’re “made a little lower than the angels” (Psalm 8:5), instead of being told they’re lower than pigs?