I Am Legion

 I Am Legion

You are never too far gone. 

 

 

In the books of Luke, Mark, and Matthew we see the story of the Gadarene Demoniac. (Mark 5:1-20, Luke 8:26-39, Matt. 8:28-34)

He had an unclean spirit, which called itself “Legion” because there were many of the demons inhabiting this man.

He lived in the tombs, crying out and running around naked. He attacked people. His family and friends had done everything they could to “Fix” him.

They even tried to hold him down with chains and lock him up, but he broke the chains and nothing could contain this man.

Often the Bible will give us a worst case scenario in order to show us that if God can help this guy with this terrible situation He can help me too.

Many of us have people we know or family members who are totally off the hook. Maybe even you are the one who refuses to live a normal life. Maybe addicted to drugs and alcohol. Maybe you’ve gone off the deep end over some terrible tragedy in your past.

We sometimes open doors into our lives that let demons come in and take root. They give us great ideas that end up in destruction and pain for ourselves and others.

This demoniac seems to be possibly mentally ill, but was he born that way? Did it get worse as he gave himself over to more and more.

Demons have no problem with attacking babies. As children we often do things innocently, which can open doors that lead to a life time of habits or oppression. Things can be done to us, that causes us to open those doors. Consider the serial killer who was abused as a child. Consider the kid who tortures animals.

This guy didn’t care what he looked like. He didn’t care what people thought of him. He didn’t care where he slept. He wanted to do his own thing regardless of what his loved ones thought or tried to get him to do.

He could have been a drunk who refused to live right. Maybe he was like the guy in the prodigal son story. He took his money and went and lived a crazy life, then fell on hard times. (Luke 15:11-32)

But, where the prodigal son heard the call of God and woke up. This guy refused to listen and continued to get worse, and let the demons lead him into even more evil till they had total control.

But even though this guy was really messed up, Jesus came to him.

We see that Jesus took a boat to the other side and all He did there was heal this man, and then He left.

He came for no other purpose but to save this man’s soul and life. He left the others and went for a man who could do nothing to save himself. A man that others feared and even hated. A man full of demons and a background of wickedness.

Then, through a drunken haze, full of crazy thoughts this man saw Jesus and ran to Him. Jesus was his only hope.

And what did Jesus do?

Did He preach a sermon and shame the man?

Did he give a dissertation on the sinful ways of man and sexual immorality?

Did he preach about going to church?

No.

He cast out the demons. He healed the man and saved his soul forever.

You don’t think the man understood what sin was or how sinful he was?

He lived it and saw what it did to him, he didn’t need to be beat down by guilt and shame.

What else did Jesus do?

He allowed the demons to go into the swine as they requested. He showed them mercy as well.

The swine went and drown themselves in the sea rather than have the demons in them. Swine are smarter than humans.

Because of this, the keepers of the swine demanded that Jesus leave their homeland because He had cost them their livelihood.

They cared nothing about the man Jesus had healed and saved.

We often encounter people who care more about money and profit than they do other human beings. They will let people suffer, die and go to hell because it might cost too much.

How many churches have driven out and ruined people who came to them. Because it was too much trouble or too much money to help?

How many churches could open a basement for addiction recovery or visit people in jail, or help poor families down the road? But, instead think that sitting around singing songs is holiness. They rely on traditions of men instead of the Holy Spirit.

What did Jesus tell the demoniac after he was healed?

Did he tell Him, “Go and tell all your friends to quit sinning?”

No.

Jesus told him to go and tell his friends about the good things God had done for him.

Jesus sent him to give his testimony.

To tell others about how Jesus had showed up, and healed him and saved him and gave him his right mind back, and filled him with a purpose and a hope.

Have you told others about the good things God has done for you? have you told people about Jesus and how to be saved?

Jesus said “Whosoever shall confess me before men, him shall the Son of man also confess before the angels of God: But he that denieth me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.”—Luke 12:8-9

In these last days, we shall over come those demons by the power of our testimony and the Blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. (Rev. 12:11)

Jesus comes to us and calls us, no matter where we are or how bad. Just ask Him. He will lift us up out of the sewer and set our feet upon the solid Rock of Himself.

Just like He did for the demoniac.

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Cover photo by pexels/Francesco Ungaro

Overcoming The Saints

 Overcoming The Saints

The saints will be overcome.

 

 

The scriptures are clear that the Anti-Christ will make war with the saints and overcome them. (Dan. 7:25, Rev. 13:7)

I want to point out how this is likely to occur and how it is already started. I am not giving a prophecy here. I’m just pointing out some things.

If you believe in a pre-tribulation rapture, we will not be in agreement here. I believe the saints will be on Earth till the Lord returns and we will meet Him in the air at that time, as the scriptures teach and as the Apostles believed.

Once you toss out that pre-tribulation rapture false teaching. The Word opens up and you start to see Truth.

Understand that Satan is building his kingdom for the Anti-Christ right now, and has been working on it since he caused Adam and Eve to fall in the Garden. One of his tools, is the spirit of antichrist spoken of in First John. (1 John 4:3)

This spirit along with the fallen angels, demons and unclean spirits have enslaved humanity and used them to build the Luciferian kingdom, seen the image of Daniel chapter two.

When Jesus died and rose He broke their yoke of power in the spirit, and the Saints began spreading the Gospel to get people saved before Jesus Christ’s return.

Satan and his forces have infiltrated every human institution. They use everything to build his demonic kingdom on Earth to prepare for the Anti-Christ to come.

In the mean time, the saints have been disrupting this building and saving souls.

The forces of Satan have worked to corrupt the Church, and divide it and destroy it since it’s inception. But, the people in the Church who are really saved, have continued to serve Christ through all these years. Creating new denominations and new ministries, despite persecution.

Fast forward to today.

The spirit of antichrist has continued to break up churches and denominations over many things, women as pastors, homosexuals as pastors, gay marriage, abortion, politics, social concerns, vaccines, and the treatment of illegal immigrants.

These hot button issues, along with how churches have treated people in general because of false brethren being in leadership has created an atmosphere where there are two separate churches.

The Right wing church and the Left wing church. Currently, both are still united in Christ, because there are many on both sides who still confess Him as Lord.

But, there is great anger between these two sides. Satan has caused it. It is simply a divide and conquer strategy. The people in the various churches have ignored the Word and the Spirit and have let these things divide them and get them to take their eye off Christ’s true mission. Saving souls, and helping people. Love conquers all.

The American culture war has been brought into the Church.

So here we are perched on a cliff.

The scriptures say that the saints will be given over to the Anti-Christ to overcome them. (Rev. 13:7)

This is probably what Paul is talking about when He speaks of the restrainer being removed. (2 Thess. 2)

The Holy Spirit will not be removed in a rapture, but will stop restraining the Anti-Christ. Deception will increase, and the elect saints will only know the truth because they know the Word and listen to the Holy Spirit teaching them (1 John 2:27, Matt. 24:24)

That time has been prepared.

The Trump administration has interpreted laws and executive orders in such a way as to use them to fight against the Communists who seek to destroy America.

If Trump and the Right lose power and the Left comes to power. Those same methods could be used against the Right, and the Church.

By executive order churches who have tax exempt status can be forced to accept things they do not want to accept or lose the exemption. (It should not be hard to imagine what sorts of things churches would be forced to accept or do.)

This will require faith to resist and will destroy many churches financially.

Hate speech and disinformation laws could be enacted to silence preaching and the Gospel or go to jail. It has already been done world wide.

Homeschooling and religious schooling can be shut down, and kids forced to go to schools, colleges and universities where they are brainwashed, to prepare them to accept the Anti-Christ system to come. The indoctrination is already happening.

The hatred toward the Church can be amped up and certain Christian groups could be labeled hate groups or even terrorist organizations; unless the church has a government trained and licensed pastor, and accepts the things forced on them.

This is similar to what they do in China. They have two churches; the government sanctioned churches and the illegal underground church. The government churches have pastors who are licensed and required to report on church members who show signs of being real Christians, or who do not support the government. They will be beaten, jailed and killed. The underground church is hunted.

Along with the rise of the Anti-Christ, will come the False Prophet.

We do not know a lot about this guy, but from what I can tell he will create a religion that will serve everyone. It will incorporate the doctrines of all religions. It will answer questions people never knew. It will be spiritual but also scientifically accurate. But, it will reject Jesus Christ as Lord. Jesus will be taught. But, He won’t be considered Lord. They will believe there have been many christs, and Jesus is one.

People will flock to this religion and many people who have claimed to be Christian will turn to it as well. This could be the great falling away. This will be the Apostate Church.

When the Anti-Christ rises up, there will be large amounts of people in the church who have believed in the Pre-tribulation rapture who will be shocked. The Anti-Christ is not supposed to rise up yet, they will say. But, here he is.

Now, so the false teachers can keep their pride they will come up with some excuse why the rapture hasn’t happened yet. They will claim the Lord has delayed His coming.

Jesus said “But and if that servant say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and shall begin to beat the menservants and maidens, and to eat and drink, and to be drunken”—Luke 12:45

These false brethren will turn back to the world, and join the Apostate Church and will join in the persecution of the saints when the Anti-Christ comes.

And the Anti-Christ will allow or sanction persecution of the saints.

As the Lord said “the brother shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the child: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and cause them to be put to death. And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.” (Matt. 10:21-22)

False brethren will betray the saints. Children brainwashed in government schools will snitch on parents. Fathers will betray kids who hear about Jesus, to cause them to be put to death.

We see cancel culture on the internet all the time. It will get far worse.

The saints will be forced into hiding, like they do in China and other countries.

The United States is the last country where we are free to preach, and spread the Gospel. Satan seeks to destroy that freedom, and stop the Word.

Throughout history Satan and his fallen angels and demons have caused human suffering. They tempt and twisted and lead humans to sin and fall. They have caused or twisted every bad thing in history.

It will get worse as the four horsemen do their work. (Rev. 6)

Now, the Anti-Christ will solve all those problems Satan created. The whole world will run after him. The false prophet will proclaim Him as a god, sent from above to help us, like many christs before.

And the Apostate Church who have joined with the False Prophet’s religion will agree and worship the Anti-Christ, and will receive the Mark. (Rev. 13)

While the Saints are in hiding, being murdered and tortured. Starving and suffering because they reject the Mark and cannot buy or sell anything.

The Mark will probably be connected to ID, Bank Accounts, Medical Records, Criminal Records, and not having the Mark will destroy a person and make them “illegal”.

Consider what happened during Covid when the government demanded people take the vaccine or get fired. Remember, how many businesses and companies agreed globally. That was a test by the Luciferian forces.

Do not be deceived. The time is drawing close.

And the saints will be wore out, and overcome.

I do not say defeated, because we have victory in Christ. Jesus does not allow us to be defeated.

Then, the Lord comes and destroys the False Prophet and Anti-Christ. He sets up His kingdom on Earth.

And this is when the false brethren will come out to meet Him with no oil. (Matt. 25)

They will have buried their gift in a napkin. (Luke 19:12-27)

They will say “Lord Lord, have we not done wonderful works?” and be told to depart because they never knew Him. (Matt. 7:21-23)

They will be sent into darkness, because they refused to help the least of these Christ’s brethren. (Matt. 25)

Probably during the persecution, and because these false brethren never had the Holy Spirit, so never really served Christ at all despite the works they did. They never really confessed Him as Lord.

The time is drawing near.

Turn to the Lord and ask Him to save you. Give yourself to Him fully and trust Him to save you. Not because you obey this rule or do this work, but because He promises to. (Rom. 10:9-10)

Turn to God and ask Him to save you. Confess Jesus is the Lord, and believe God raised Him from the dead. Get baptized. Take communion. Read and study God’s Word. Let the Holy Spirit guide you.

You can see the direction things are going.

Do not be caught on the wrong side of the fence. When the time of deception comes, it will be harder and harder to discern the truth and turn to God.

Eventually the door will be shut, and there will be time no more. Grace and salvation will end. Just like when God shut the door on Noah’s Ark. Just like when the angels shut Lot’s door, and struck those outside blind. (Gen. 7:16, Gen 19:10-11)

There will be a point when the good news of the Gospel is over, and the bad news comes.

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Cover photo by the author.

The Christian And Violence

 The Christian And Violence

 What is the truth?

 

I want to start with the ultimate truth, then talk about the current times, and prophecy.

If you want to know God’s will on any subject you can probably find it in the Garden at Creation.

There was no evil or death present. Nothing killed anything else.

The humans and animals all ate fruits, veggies and nuts. This did not kill anything. They ate the fruits and pooped out the seeds spreading more life.

There was no killing of any kind. There was no violence.

All creatures including humans had all of their needs met. There was no competition. There was no striving to avoid pain and death. There was no disease.

Adam and Eve had a purpose, and walked with God.

So, when you speak of God and political views and how things should be.

The Garden is God’s will.

That is Paradise, which will come again when Christ returns and the city of God is on the Earth.

We see the teachings of Jesus about love, forgiveness, turning the other cheek, loving our enemies and other lessons clearly speaking of non-violence.

We see him being brutally murdered by Satan, through religious, and civil leaders. While He submitted and forgave them, like a lamb.

He forgave and took upon Himself the sins of the world, to save us if we turn to Him. He did not violently destroy them, even though He had twelve legions of angels ready. (Matt. 26:53)

And when we turn to Him and ask Him to save us, He fills us with the Holy Spirit, which starts working to bring out the Fruit of the Spirit in us. This is “love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.” (Gal. 5:22-23)

Not violence. The violence in us is the flesh. Not the Spirit. It’s the old man. Not the new spirit man.

Christians are to love God and others. We are to help others and spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Even if that leads to persecution and death.

“Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.”–Psalm 116:15

Because when we die knowing Him and serving Him, we go home to Paradise to be with Him.

We die for God’s purpose and we die for others.

We die to ourselves and live for Him.

This is a fact. This is spiritual reality.

BUT…

Because of the Fall, we live in a world filled with evil, death, darkness and ruled by the enemy; Satan. We are surrounded by corruption, murder, robbery and all forms of evil wickedness constantly. People doing the most heinous things, being guided by demons and their own sinful nature. Even the saints are striving with demons who whisper to the flesh.

It’s every where.

Jesus prayed “I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them from the evil.”– John 17:15

We are in this evil world, but we are protected from the evil corrupting our souls as well, if we know Him.

We confess our sins to Him and He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness –1 John 1:8-10

He washes our feet as we walk in this filthy world.

He has given us the Law to show us we are sinners and need Him, but also to help us have order in this world ruled by evil.

In the Law and in the Old Testament we see plainly that because of the Fall; because we are surrounded by evil, in a world ruled by Satan. There are times when violence is required and allowed, lest the evil take over.

Of course, violence does not have to be killing.

There is all kinds of violence that can occur short of killing.

The Bible says, “Thou shalt not kill” it does not say, “Thou shalt not beat severely”

Just to clarify.

As believers we should not want violence. The Holy Spirit guides our heart toward peace. love and mercy.

But, there are various levels of violence.

According to scripture, we are allowed to kill humans and animals, for the following reasons.

War, Capital Punishment, Self-Defense, Defense Of Others, Defense of the Nation, Sacrifice (animals), and Procuring Food and Survival Needs (animals).

You will find that all reasons fit within these categories.

All of these are to be done truthfully, prayerfully and with righteous judgement.

We are not supposed to want to just go out and kill for no proper reason. To get land, or trophies or money. To exterminate whole groups. For hatred or revenge, or sinful reasons.

If we are saints our hearts are to be turned towards God and what His will is.

It’s hard.

Sometimes we show mercy.

But sometimes we must destroy evil, without letting the evil consume us.

The New Testament speaks of the ruler bearing the sword for the evil doer. (Rom. 13:1-8)

God set up government for the purpose of making things safe and good, so the saints can live in the spirit in this evil world.

God is our ruler, not humans.

God does not condone sin and corruption in government any more than He does in the individual. It needs to be dealt with.

There are those who think evil is fine, if it comes under the guise of government authority. That is not the case.

We are called to serve God. We are called to answer to Him.

Government is to be a servant of God, and should be doing right, and it is our responsibility to make sure it does.

But do we do it violently?

We are to use every means we can to change things without killing people.

It’s that simple.

But there is a time for everything. There is a time for war. There is a time to kill. There is also a time to heal, and a time for peace. We have seen these times, where war is needed to stop evil and to bring those responsible to justice. (Ecc. 3:1-8)

It’s up to God, when those times are.

We know His voice. If we know Him. He let’s us know.

He raises up people, for such a time as this.

The saint must understand that this world is being pushed by the spirit of antichrist and the forces of Satan, toward the building of the Kingdom of the Anti-Christ to come.

It is being prepared.

According to God’s Word, the saints will be defeated, and we will face persecution like nothing ever seen before. (Rev. 13:7, Dan. 7:25, Luke 21, Matt. 24, Rev. 6:9, Rev. 20:4 )

“Yea, for thy sake are we killed all the day long; we are counted as sheep for the slaughter.”—Psalm 44:22

“And he shall speak great words against the most High, and shall wear out the saints of the most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time.”— Dan.7:25

God allows it.

There will be people who have been in church claiming to be Christians, who actually never knew Jesus and will become the Apostate Church following the False Prophet; who will lead them into worshiping the Anti-Christ.

Those false brethren will betray the saints.

Their leaders at church will sell them out.

Their own children probably brainwashed in schools, colleges and universities, will turn their parents in to be jailed and killed.

And the Anti-Christ will wear out the saints and make war against them and kill them. (Rev. 13:7)

The saints waging war with violence will not matter, it will compound to more violence. It will add to the defeat of the saints. (Rev. 13:10)

We will see the enemy destroyed when Christ returns and sets up His Kingdom on Earth. Justice will come. (Rev. 14)

All of this is the doctrine of spiritual warfare. It is the truth from God’s Word, about the saints and violence.

“The weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;”— 2 Cor. 10:4

God’s Word teaches us how to wage war. The Holy Spirit teaches us how to wage war.

We overcome the enemy by the Blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony, and not loving our lives more than Jesus. (Rev. 12:11)

Our purpose is to Love God, Love others and to tell them what great things God has done for us.

We are saved. We are forgiven and called to protect the least of these and call them to Christ. (Matt. 25)

Get to work.

The time draws near.

Jesus is coming.

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Cover by pexels

Fear Not

 

Fear Not

God is with us 

 

“Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.” –Luke 12:32

“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.”— 2 Tim. 1:7

“So that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.”— Heb. 13:6

“There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love.”— 1 John 4:18

“Fear none of those things which thou shalt suffer: behold, the devil shall cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried; and ye shall have tribulation ten days: be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.”— Rev. 2:10

When we read these verses we can see that we are not supposed to fear anything. God is with us.

If we believe that God is right beside us, and even in us through His Holy Spirit, then why do we have fear? Our God is bigger than anything in this world, and anything the devil can throw at us.

These verses above indicate that there is a spirit of fear. A demonic entity which harasses us. It says in First John that we are tormented by fear.

Therefore battling fear is Spiritual Warfare. It’s something we can overcome.

The first thing needs to be faith and trust in God, His goodness and His Word.

Nothing else matters.

I harp on this idea of a relationship with God. When we know Him, we know where to turn. We can trust Him. Even when everything around us is terrible and we are in our darkest days we can trust Him. Even though the devil tries to get us to turn from God, and curse God, and doubt Him. We can trust Him. And that is power. For in our weakness we are strong when we turn to Him.

 God is not against us. It is His good pleasure to give us the Kingdom. He is for us.

Say it out loud. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.

“God is with me! He wants to give me the kingdom, He is not out to get me. He is my helper, I will not fear.”

Believe it.

We can overcome fear in His Power, His Love and His Wisdom.

We can pray and know He hears. He promises that if we ask anything in His name He will do it. —John 14:14

No doubts. Trust Him. He hears and is moving.

Fear be gone! God is with me!

Love casts out fear. Confront the fear in love.

Do the loving thing.

When faced with fear, love others. Do unto others as you would have done to you. Loving others takes your mind off of self, and onto other people. Use the fear to fuel love. Overcome evil with good.

Remember that God loves you. If we are saved, then we are perfect in God’s Love. Remember this. He loves through us. Let Him love you and love others through you.

The devil threw some of them into prison. They were told to fear not. So, what did they do? How did they overcome fear?

They loved. They prayed for the guards and other inmates. They preached the Gospel and spoke faith to the other prisoners. They comforted the sick in prison. They helped each other. They loved, in the midst of fear and hate, and temptations for anger. They turned prison into purpose. That is how you cast out fear.

Love casts out fear.

Praise God. Loving Him and praising Him casts out fear. You cannot hold fear in your mind, while praising God at the same time.

We also overcome fear through a sound mind. We have a sound mind by knowing God’s Word. By seeking Him for wisdom and understanding and truth. By having faith in His Word. By prayer and His guidance.

We can look at how God has brought us through things in the past, and trust that He will again. We can go and seek out the truth. Study, ask, learn, seek answers. Fear thrives in the unknown.

We can ask ourselves, “What is the worst case scenario? Has God let the worst things happen to me? What if He does? He will be with me through it.”

Overcome and drive out fear through Power, Love and a Sound mind. We can drive it out through Him, and His Word, and Faith in Him and His Word. We trust that He is good and He is with us.

 Spirit of Fear be gone in Jesus name.

Say it out loud. Cast the spirit out.

Remember times when God was with you and saw you through. Trust Him.

Dark times are coming, according to prophecy.

We need to be able to wage spiritual warfare and cast out fear.

Remember during Covid, when the virus was everywhere and fear was running with it? Remember when the vaccine came out and they were forcing people to take it or lose their jobs?

That was a picture of what is coming.

They will say, take the Mark of the Beast or lose your job.

When you see saints being rounded up, and your own pastors turning you in for refusing to bow to the Anti-Christ.

Fear not.

Love not your life unto death. —Rev. 12:11

Fear keeps us down, and keeps us from acting in faith.

Drive out the fear, in Jesus name.

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