Blog Archives
THEY SAID HE WAS CRAZY
And the majority of “Christians” apparently agree. It is why Unreal Christianity has created any number of fabricated versions of the Lord to suit their tastes and religious sensitivities.
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THE MIND OF CHRIST
Then He went to a house [probably Peter’s], but a throng came together again, so that Jesus and His disciples could not even take food. And when those who belonged to Him (His kinsmen) heard it, they went out to take Him by force, for they kept saying, He is out of His mind (beside Himself, deranged)! And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, He is possessed by Beelzebub, and, By [the help of] the prince of demons He is casting out demons.
And He summoned them to Him and said to them in parables (illustrations or comparisons put beside truths to explain them), How can Satan drive out Satan? [Mark 3:20-23 Amplified Classic]
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, in whose case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelieving so that they might not see the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. [2Corinthians 4:3-4]
But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised. But he who is spiritual appraises all things, yet he himself is appraised by no one. For who has known the mind of the Lord, that he will instruct Him? But we have the mind of Christ. [1Corinthians 2:14-16]
Regardless of their false characterization of His mental makeup, the Lord was essentially the only perfectly sane Man in the loony bin. While this term refers in the greater sense to humanity the world over, the individuals of which exist prior to salvation in a state of sin and often willful separation from their Creator (not smart), it refers especially to the upper caste religious nutcases of His time and their spineless sycophant followers who believed and acted upon senseless dogmas, specious reasonings, and the ultra-casuistry of the Pharisees which gave vent to the creation of an opposition-to-God rebellious belief system and Torah-cancelling “tradition of men” that came to be known as the Oral Law:
Then some Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said, “Why do Your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands when they eat bread.” And He answered and said to them, “Why do you yourselves transgress the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition? For God said, ‘Honor your father and mother,’ and, ‘He who speaks evil of father or mother is to be put to death.’ But you say, ‘Whoever says to his father or mother, “Whatever I have that would help you has been given to God,” he is not to honor his father or his mother.’ And by this you invalidated the word of God for the sake of your tradition. You hypocrites, rightly did Isaiah prophesy of you:
‘This people honors Me with their lips,
But their heart is far away from Me.
‘But in vain do they worship Me,
Teaching as doctrines the precepts of men.’” [Matthew 15:1-9]
That entire religious lunatic asylum slash social outworking construct in ancient first-century AD Palestine, as a dark cloud invasive species within and upon a previous functioning ecosystem, was otherwise plain to see and recognize for what it was by clear-headed observers but alas, apparently never again by the willingly zombified members of the religiously conquered ensconced within. Such people may have been perfectly fine in the head prior to their deceptive indoctrination but after the willful submission of their minds to the masquerading enemies of God—successfully cloaked in faux righteousness and garish over-the-top trying-much-too-hard sheep’s clothing which the faked-out initially failed to properly identify and steer clear of—they became as mere dutiful serfs and lower caste cloned versions of their loony bin masters. Sound familiar?
“The people who were sitting in darkness saw a great Light,
And those who were sitting in the land and shadow of death,
Upon them a Light dawned.” [Matthew 4:16 (quoting Isaiah)]
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites, because you travel around on sea and land to make one proselyte; and when he becomes one, you make him twice as much a son of hell as yourselves.” [Matthew 23:15]
Though crazy behavior is ubiquitous as it certainly was in that place at that time, the most insane thing anyone could ever do is reject the Lord Jesus since it involves eternal proportions. Those who do this and refuse to change their minds up to and including death’s door have sadly sealed their fate and cannot possibly fare well at the judgment seat of God. Of course, rejecting the Lord also includes passively never accepting Him. It also includes not believing in Him or giving one’s heart to Him. Such people do not follow Him and do not appropriate and incorporate His teachings which just happen to reveal the only Way to Life. Most sadly of all, such people never honor the great sacrifice the Lord made on their behalf. What do they gain by rejecting Him? Living in darkness?
There was the true Light which, coming into the world, enlightens every man. He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. [John 1:9-13][1]
GOD-GIVEN RIGHTS AND FREEDOM
The United States of America was founded as a Republic in which We the People cannot legally have their inherent God-given rights abused or eliminated. The founding documents of the USA are saturated with the right of We the People to live freely with freedom and liberty and with the freedom to exercise their free will granted by their Creator. The American government was originally created primarily for the purpose of enforcing the law regarding individual rights.
However, a great many Americans, perhaps by this stage a majority, have been brainwashed into believing the USA was founded as a Democracy. This is asinine. A Democracy is rule by the majority which subverts and quashes non-majority beliefs and principles regardless of truth, often using violence:
“I do not say that democracy has been more pernicious on the whole, and in the long run, than monarchy or aristocracy. Democracy has never been and never can be so durable as aristocracy or monarchy; but while it lasts, it is more bloody than either. …Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.”
John Adams, 2nd President of the United States of America
Democracies engage in such primarily because they do not honor the God-given rights and freedoms of the people. They are effectively mob rule with a powerful authoritarian enforcement arm. In fact, any and every form of government that does not protect and honor the inherent rights of the people (as God does) is evil. America is at present, of course, very far removed from what it once was—a bastion of liberty with a relatively miniscule outward government. As government has grown, now to gargantuan proportions, liberty and freedom have been greatly curtailed. Many of our rights have been trampled. The Fourth Amendment, for example, no longer effectively exists. Read the following first four Amendments of the Bill of Rights and be your own judge regarding how many rights of We the People are still in full effect, especially keeping in mind that a likely majority has been conditioned to willingly practice self-censorship and rights cessation probably due to fear of reprisal or social rejection and cancellation:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;
Or abridging the freedom of speech,
Or of the press;
Or the right of the people peaceably to assemble,
And to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Amendment II
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
Amendment III
No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.
Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.
Now, compare what has happened to a once great country heading ever closer to its eventual demise to what happened to God’s original nation of ancient Israel. It began with one man—Abraham—and then his miracle son Isaac. Isaac had twin sons named Esau and Jacob. Esau was as the aforementioned “natural man” who saw the things of God as mere foolishness. God chose Jacob. Jacob’s name was later changed by God to Israel. Jacob/Israel had twelve sons who became the patriarchs of twelve tribes. The nation continued to grow at a relatively rapid rate but a majority eventually formed which opposed their Creator. The faithful ones of the nation became a very small Remnant. The vast majority in general always opposed God and refused to honor Him. Israel remained that way throughout its history. At the end, during the Last Days of the nation, the long awaited promised Messiah, Savior, Deliverer, and King arrived. He managed to gather a relatively faithful few—the surviving Remnant—great faithful ones who honored Him, stood by Him, and served Him. The majority, however, dishonored Him, rejected Him, and then fully supported those who killed Him.
But because they were a majority, whoever disagreed were seen as deviants and worthy of death. This was democracy in action—mob rule, the rule of the majority over anyone and everyone who did not comply. It is why the chief persecutors of the Lord’s initial followers (the believing minority of Israelites) were comprised of the unbelieving majority of Israelites (primarily Pharisees, Sadducees, and Zealots). A sizable portion of this majority were not true Israelites at all but Idumaeans (Edom)—descendants of Esau. So here we see again the spiritual fight between Isaac’s twin sons just as it was after the Lord’s birth when the Idumaean King Herod tried to kill the Lord Jesus.
Yet despite all the violent attacks and persecution, just as the Lord prophesied, His relatively small band of faithful sheep eventually grew to very great numbers and had a massively beneficial early impact on both their ancestral homeland, throughout the Roman Empire, and the world beyond which continues until this present day! But the great insane majority which opposed the Lord Jesus and killed Him were effectively destroyed less than a mere forty years later and national Israel ceased to exist forever.
The Lord certainly does not want such destruction, pain, and suffering but allows people to destroy themselves if they want to even though He offers a true Way of Life. Be mindful of this as you see so many powerful entities in this world grossly violating the teachings of the Lord and the lives of His people while building on sand foundations and chasing fitful sinful dreams lasting a mere fortnight before sure destruction, while the spiritual Kingdom of the Lord continues growing ever more vibrant and overcoming every attack against it. The Lord’s Light is presently shining ever brighter and His Truth is being revealed in an extraordinary way exposing spiritual darkness on possibly never before seen levels. And the Great Awakening continues.
I encourage each of you my friends to keep fighting the good fight of faith. You may have to fight harder than ever before but His victories will come and His enemies will continue to be defeated. He is faithful! We see this in how the Lord’s earthy life transpired in that at one point it looked as though all was lost but “death was swallowed up in victory” (1Cor 15:54) and the Lord arose from the dead! Therefore it does not matter how dark it may be or how difficult life might have become, He will always bring victory as long as one stays faithful, trusts Him with full confidence, and praises Him always regardless of circumstances. Mature believers have seen such otherwise impossible miracles in their lives many times and know full well what the Lord can do and will do.
And when your victory comes in, and it will, it may be effectively as it was when He defeated His enemies forever on that Sunday resurrection morning long ago when the Lord might have considered this retort against them:
“Who’s crazy now?”
© 2025 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
A STIFFNECKED PEOPLE [Part 2]
Ancient Israel was supposed to be a spiritual exemplar—a light shining to the nations. Instead it became a microcosm of this dark fallen world (the macrocosm).
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LEMMINGS OFF A CLIFF
Like many of you, if not most I assume, I had assumed in my youth that the little rodents called lemmings had an inbred death wish in that a large group of them will on occasion get together and decide they must run at full speed toward a local towering seaside cliff and then rush headlong right over the side, diving into mass lemming destruction in the deep briny waters far below. I never learned why they did this only that they did. And that was that. I probably heard this for the first time when I was quite young and never questioned it, you know, the same way we hear and learn a lot of stuff growing up without ever questioning it (pretty much all of it for most people).
When I got a little older I began to put two and two together and saw the need to question a few things here and there because some of what I learned in life didn’t add up. Somewhere in that youthful time frame was the genesis of my early onset critical thinking skills in that I learned the best course was to question pretty much everything. One of the things I figured out was that lemmings running over a cliff was a myth. They don’t actually do this. Though endowed by the Creator with tiny little rodent brains their brains actually work pretty well which means their gray matter is not really loaded with a little kill switch that somehow gets triggered (by “instinct” I assume?) to gather with a bunch of like-minded ones and go flying into eternity.
However, that does not mean they don’t have a rodent herd mentality because they actually do band together in large groups on special occasions. These are kind of like political rallies or rock concerts. Or lemming mega churches. Actually, banding together in large groups is the way lemmings migrate. In herds. Lemmings migrate in herds. They do this when their present environment no longer adequately engages in supply side economics and they go off looking for a new land of rodent milk and honey. And they are wise enough to travel in very large groups.
On the way over yonder, when they come upon the inevitable natural barrier, they do their best to go around it or through it even if it means a good climb or a decent descent or a good swim through a local body of water. And it is likely, sadly, that there may be a few casualties but not on purpose. It is also likely they have no rebels in their herds like cheesed-up bikers or rat finks or squirrelly agitators. No, the little critters are just migrating together with a herd mentality.
HUMAN HERDS
Regarding rebellion, however, especially spiritual rebellion, humanity in general has been proven over the millennia after the fall of man and advent of spiritual death to also possess a built-in herd mentality and also be in possession of pure animal instincts. Though there is a brain in the head (a much larger one) it often does not have the power to overcome raw unbridled emotions which many people live by or an additional component which the New Testament refers to as “the lust of the flesh.” One would think evolution would have granted an in-brain controller or governor (like in the old lawnmowers) of some kind in the physical evolutionized superior body to limit the desired excesses of physical cravings and whatnot.
But then again, evolution is a ridiculous unscientific theory dashed to bits on the rocks of proven-wrongness though many believe it is why humans actually exhibit animalistic behavior because they are actually animals anyway which seems to be proven worldwide on a daily basis.
Looking for clues, psychology says the human soul is composed of will, mind, and emotions. The New Testament says it a little differently in that the big three composing the entire human are spirit, soul, and body. In both cases there appears to be a controller/governor which should seemingly rule the other two, the first being the will ruling over the mind and emotions and the second being the spirit ruling over the soul and body.
However, the Bible also teaches that the spirit of man died in the Garden of Eden due to the sin of Adam and Eve and cannot ever be resurrected unless one is born again as taught by the Lord Jesus. This means human beings in their natural unregenerate pre-born again state are merely soul and body with no spirit to rule over/control/govern them, which again puts the focus on the will within the soul (according to Psychology) as the only possible authority figure to ride herd on the other hapless members. Such members often have zero impulse control and complete inability to resist temptation.
But where does the human will gets its strength? How can it possibly conjure up the great power it needs to shut down the all-over-the-map, out-of-control, physical-body/fleshly/human-nature/animalistic-tendencies coupled with raw/uninhibited/wild/hysterical/uncontrolled emotions with the consistency of water? That appears to be asking a lot of little mister will and it likely is since this guy was never intended to be able to achieve such a world class accomplishment.
So if the spirit is dead (before being born again) and the will is too weak, what keeps humans on the earthly societal straight and narrow since many people appear to try hard to do what is right, at least in civilized societies with a Christian ethic, and have a pretty good amount of success? What is the actual controller/governor riding herd on one’s behavior? I know what you’re thinking: God has given us a conscience, a built-in sense of right and wrong that seems to be like the little angel guy on one shoulder debating with a little devil guy on the other as both try to convince us to do either the right thing or the wrong thing.
It would appear then, that if a herd of humans gathers together based on doing the right thing then one will have a pretty good society or culture. Or nation. Maybe even a church. Which means there would exist relatively good nations in the world (which must be in the minority because achieving such good nationhood is hard). And of course there would also be nations of the other kind. And sometimes there are nations which have a good conscience so to speak (good leadership) but possess a majority of unwilling members who have the decided tendency to listen to the little devil guy instead of the angel guy.
The opposite would also be true in that, due to unfortunate events like an evil group wresting government control in a good nation, in which a good nation ends up going bad because the good people thereof are too stupid, lazy, willingly uninformed, and hopelessly weak to overthrow the evil ones. (This should sound very familiar.)
What is more, sometimes there is a very special nation such as the ancient nation of Israel which had God Himself as their Leader and yet they still couldn’t get it together the vast majority of the time. I mean, if the Lord God of all Creation is your Leader (Conscience/Controller/Governor), how can you not have a good nation or even a great one? Yet we know the history, however. And we know it almost never worked with ancient Israel except in fits and starts. And that it certainly wasn’t because the Leader was not good because He was both Good and Great. Sadly it has generally been the same with every nation on earth in that they all end up going bad eventually mainly due to a violation of the conscience on an increasingly mass scale.
THE FEW, THE REMNANT, THE SAVED
And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire. [Revelation 20:15]
I would think the evidence of this world would indicate there is therefore nothing to be done about the human problem but await the big incinerator below the big cliff and be done with the whole mess. Actually, as it turns out, that is the final solution. But not for everyone. For the majority of ancient Israel, yes. For the majority of humanity in general, yes. But again, the big fire will not claim everyone. One must take a looksee, therefore, into what the few who escape the culminating conflagration have in common.
We can start with the greatest Human Being who ever lived (there is no second place). Stay tuned…
© 2025 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved. [To Be Continued…]
ALL BECAUSE THEY REFUSE TO REPENT
To repent means to change one’s mind. It means one must allow for new Truth to update one’s mindset. Unfortunately, this demands a commitment many cannot make.
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Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna change my way of thinking
Make myself a different set of rules
Gonna put my good foot forward
And stop being influenced by fools
Bob Dylan [1]
LAST DAYS ARCHETYPE
The Lord Jesus taught that real salvation demands radical change. He expressed a true turn or burn message. He actually stated this literally. He said His own nation would eventually burn due to its refusal to repent. He did everything He could to get this message across.
And following Him was a large crowd of the people, and of women who were mourning and lamenting Him. But Jesus turning to them said, “Daughters of Jerusalem, stop weeping for Me, but weep for yourselves and for your children. For behold, the days are coming when they will say, ‘Blessed are the barren, and the wombs that never bore, and the breasts that never nursed.’ Then they will begin to say to the mountains, ‘Fall on us,’ and to the hills, ‘Cover us.’” [Luke 23:27-30]
This prophecy points directly to the Sixth Seal of Revelation:
Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?” [Revelation 6:15-17]
One might say the Lord failed in His warning. In reality, though He knew the nation was at an end and would cease to exist forever in forty years, and that it would actually involve destruction by fire, He never came to His people to save the nation itself. Why would He try to save a nation that was already destined for destruction? He certainly wanted His nation to be saved and preserved. Again, He did everything He possibly could to gain that outcome.
It must be remembered, however, that He had been fighting that battle of preservation for multiple centuries. He was the one who created the nation in the first place. It was His nation. It began with Abraham. He called out Abraham for this very purpose. He created the miracle child Isaac to exist as the first generation of His nation. Thus, the future nation of Israel was founded on a miracle. And there were untold miracles performed by God to preserve the nation throughout its long history. No one was more involved in creating, preserving, and blessing the nation of Israel than God. He loved Israel with all His heart.
Therefore, no one was more saddened by what ended up happening to His nation than the Lord. His heart was broken. You can see this in the words He spoke to those women lamenting Him. They were words drenched in pathos. He had done everything He could over the many centuries of its existence to keep what ended up happening from happening, but to no avail. He lost the battle. Ironically, those who won the battle against Him destroyed their nation. They destroyed His nation.
And He began to tell the people this parable: “A man planted a vineyard and rented it out to vine-growers, and went on a journey for a long time. At the harvest time he sent a slave to the vine-growers, so that they would give him some of the produce of the vineyard; but the vine-growers beat him and sent him away empty-handed. And he proceeded to send another slave; and they beat him also and treated him shamefully and sent him away empty-handed. And he proceeded to send a third; and this one also they wounded and cast out. The owner of the vineyard said, ‘What shall I do? I will send my beloved son; perhaps they will respect him.’ But when the vine-growers saw him, they reasoned with one another, saying, ‘This is the heir; let us kill him so that the inheritance will be ours.’ So they threw him out of the vineyard and killed him. What, then, will the owner of the vineyard do to them? He will come and destroy these vine-growers and will give the vineyard to others.” [Luke 20:9-16]
And it was all because they refused to change their minds. They refused to allow for new Truth to update their mindset. They had already committed to a different mindset which they adhered to totally which left no room whatsoever for the introduction of anything else. Though absolutely nothing the Lord Jesus taught was ever refuted by His enemies according to the Law of Moses and objective truth, they rejected Him anyway. Why? Because their minds were made up. They were stubborn as mules. Not even the Lord could get through to them. They were obstinate, hard-headed, religious rednecks. At one point their off-the-scale close-mindedness caused the Lord to exclaim the following:
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you build the tombs of the prophets and adorn the monuments of the righteous, and say, ‘If we had been living in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partners with them in shedding the blood of the prophets.’ So you testify against yourselves, that you are sons of those who murdered the prophets. Fill up, then, the measure of the guilt of your fathers. You serpents, you brood of vipers, how will you escape the sentence of hell?” [Matthew 23:29-33][2]
Even then the Lord was thinking of their souls and their eternal destination. Again, He knew they were lost and many were filled with the devil. He knew they were the religious leaders of the most wicked generation of Israel to date. And that is saying a lot in light of so many evil generations of the past. Their world class obstinacy was one thing, but something even greater was the abject weakness of all those who submitted to them. Almost everybody in Israel was scared to death of those guys. There was such rampant fear in the nation drummed up by its leaders, next to no one was willing to challenge them. They knew they would be destroyed if they did. They knew their evil leaders controlled pretty much everything and could make their lives a living hell. How did such an outcome ever transpire in a nation created by God? How could a nation founded on spiritual freedom devolve into such a hellhole? To save their nation, all the people had to do was turn to God and repent. All they had to do was change their sorry way of thinking and get right with God, and then God would have taken care of the rest.
BUT NO! This proved there was something more than simple fear of religious leaders going on. It proved the majority of people actually preferred being led around like a bunch of stupid morons by idiots in charge. Otherwise they would have to do what God required. And what God required was crucifixion of the flesh. He required an elimination of sin from their lives. He required that they quit engaging in sinful practices. He required a total clean up on Aisle One. He required a circumcision of the heart. And though the sins of the average Israelite was less than that of those who led them, they still preferred a life of sin (though often sins of omission) to making the necessary changes that God required.
INSISTENT INSINCERITY
Keep in mind most of these people went to church every week (synagogue). They did what they were told by the leaders thereof. They bought into the program. For many, however, they never actually gave their hearts to God. They only obeyed because they were required to do so. To do otherwise would put them on the outs in society. Doors would close. They would be looked down upon. They would no longer be welcome at the cool kids table. Their popularity would plummet. They would be cancelled. They would get stuck with a low social credit score. Yet as long as they continued to surrender to the religious leaders in charge and obey the main prerequisites they could otherwise sin to their hearts content. The main prerequisites were based on:
(1) We are in control here and you must surrender to our control. (2) What we teach is what you must believe. You are to have no other teachers or doctrines before you. You must have no independent religious or spiritual thought. What we say is what goes. If you don’t understand it you must believe it anyway. (3) In order to be in good standing you must make a full commitment and dedicate yourself fully to our program. If so, all will go well with you. (In other words, you will avert our wrath and the possible disfellowship which could break your back socially.)
The people of the nation thus discovered that as long as they paid the proper obeisance to the religious leaders they could be free to do what they wanted within the set parameters. Some freedom was better than no freedom. As long as they deferred to them, genuflected before them, and essentially kissed their ring then all would go well. Whether they saw themselves as religious sellouts is another issue. There were certainly some who were completely brainwashed and actually believed all the tripe presented to them. Maybe this was the majority. It probably was because over time the constant pontificating from those who dwelt on high would have had an effect. The total lack of any alternate viewpoints would also serve to cause most to become indoctrinated. The fact that no one could ever stand up to the idiots in charge would eventually remove the backbone of the nation and cause it to become docile and subservient toward them. Once the big boys were successful at eliminating any testosterone directed in their direction, the men of the nation were made impotent toward them. They thus couldn’t change their nation for the better if they wanted to.
All the ultimate testosterone and manliness was thus reserved only for the religious elite in charge. Only they were allowed to throw their weight around. Only they could do whatever they wanted and get away with it. The law didn’t apply to them. Only they had no accountability except to themselves which was a circle to nowhere. Sound familiar? And because they controlled the rage factor they could draw up a rage response among those they controlled at any time. Because the men were held in estrogen prison they were ever-burning to get out and allowed the opportunity to vent. Then, whenever they got the word from on high they could be easily directed to enter into instant rage response mode and attack whoever they were directed toward, which were always those with the audacity to question “the elders” and “our tradition” or (aghast!) whoever may preach or teach a different message.
The Lord Jesus had managed to subvert this demonic process much of the time because the people in general were overcome by His great love and compassion, and His willingness to do miracles in their midst to help them. He would heal blind eyes, eliminate their illnesses in a flash, bless them with everything their souls were longing for, forgive and remove their personal sin, assist the poor on a grand scale, and even raise their dead on occasion. He was a force! He was winning hearts and minds!
In the end, however, everyone realized they would also have to change their ways, repent, change their way of thinking, love their enemies, change their hearts, submit fully to God, change their minds, and stop engaging in dead religion.
It was simply too much. There would be way too much to change. Their entire lives would be affected. They would have to start over. It was just too much. It would require way too much faith and too much effort. It would be much easier to simply continue on as before. And that’s the choice they made. They declined the great spiritual power the Lord offered them to make changes for the better.
THE REMNANT
This was not the case for the Remnant. There were some, many untold tens of thousands of Israelites, who actually did obey the Lord Jesus. They recognized Him as their Messiah. They saw that He was the great I AM. They became aware of just who this Man was and the great privilege they were allowed to know Him, be with Him, and honor Him. This brought forth the very first Great Awakening! For forty years the Lord’s new born again Spirit-filled people continued to work toward the salvation of as many of the people of their nation as possible. Many were saved, taught, and made secure. Many developed and came to full spiritual maturation. It was the greatest thing that had ever happened to Israel in all its history, even though the good guys, those who believed in love and loving, were outnumbered and always had to face the incessant hateful wrath of the bad guys.
But the wrath, rage, and hate of the rebellious religious tyrants along with those under their control—the unrepentant majority of insincere, spiritually lazy, surrendered silent sellouts who chose to continue being influenced by fools—caused them all to be without the one thing they needed to save the country: None of them were saved. How could they therefore save the nation or anything else? Their lack of salvation and lack of saving ability left only one other outcome: Their national rebellion and sin content insured they be destined for destruction.
And it was all because they refused to repent.
They refused to change their way of thinking.
They refused to allow for new Truth to update their mindset.
© 2022 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Copyright © 1979 by Special Rider Music
[2] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
YES, THEY REALLY ARE THAT STUPID
The Lord gave us a wake-up call in 1906. What happened then illustrated how powerful the Lord can be when we get it right, even in the face of great opposition.
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It was a powerful event. What was just as striking, however, was the usual resistance by the opposing authoritative Christians. The humble organizers, the good guys, those who were merely self-effacing enough to seek and obey the Lord, were hounded from the very beginning and eventually forced into using the most rudimentary building for services.
They began in a house, but the movement grew too big too fast and they couldn’t allocate enough houses fast enough, so they were blessed with a bigger building, though old and rundown. It had much in common with the Lord’s actual beginning, something we lose the significance of over time. But there really wasn’t any room anywhere in Bethlehem for the Lord to be born. No residence, no inn, no nothing where people normally live. He ended up with the farm animals, something equivalent to our barns, but a small one. He apparently had no problem with this. He even expected it. He expected this world to treat Him in such a way. He was born anyway, in a place none of us would ever permit our own babies to be born, regardless of circumstances.
The same thing happens with His work. The apostle Paul said no people of higher bearing are chosen, in general, for the Lord’s work, largely because they deem themselves far too important. They are also ultra-pampered. There is no room for a pampered preacher in the Lord’s real work, but we are besotten with pampered preachers everywhere we look. In fact, this has become the standard.
Where then, are the real preachers? Where are the real Christians?
In general, you will rarely find them in the limelight. William Seymour was a one-eyed black man shunned by much of Christian society yet the Lord worked wonders through him. The apostle Paul has been wrongly relegated after the fact as some sort of high churchman or great theologian. Of course, he was certainly brilliant, but much more so in a spiritual sense. Prior to his own personal Pentecost he used his theological brilliance and high religious standing to do the very opposite of what the Lord had intended for him. How did he get so lost? How did he get so caught up with his own pride? How did he ever get so full of himself? One might ask about 90% of today’s so-called pastors and preachers and priests and what have you.
To show what must be done NOW to correct this is to show what had to happen to Paul—the Lord knocked him down, thoroughly humiliated him, showed him who the boss was, blinded him and made him helpless, and then completely revamped his life. He showed him how he was completely wrong and on the wrong path and had the wrong attitude. He could have just let him go to hell but He knew Paul would respond correctly to the correct stimuli, which in this case involved knocking him on his butt and destroying everything that he had previously held dear.
Paul responded properly. He quickly ascertained that he had been a giant jerk of the worst kind and was thoroughly embarrassed. After a few days his sight returned. He underwent full repentance, giving himself totally to the Lord for whatever purpose no matter how difficult. He went through further humiliation (from a religious view point, that is) by immersing himself in water in the Name of Jesus, the name of his new Master and Savior, and he was soon filled with the Holy Spirit. It’s all right there in the Book of Acts. It was a complete changeover, beyond even a total remodel. The old Paul was DEAD. A new Paul was BORN.
RESISTING REAL CHRISTIANITY BRINGS GRADUAL DEPRAVITY
The same thing must happen to Unreal Christianity in America or it will continue the death spiral it brought upon itself and has engaged in ever since it rejected that which all must submit to for new life to come forth. It is not so much that the Lord cares all that much for trying to set right those Christian leaders who will never change or repent, like so many of the Pharisees of old. It is that He wants to rescue all those good-hearted Christians living in a lesser state, as Paul was, who are deceived and blinded by fake Christianity. They will never be set free from within. It must come from without, as the Lord must do so much from without since He has been rejected in most places so much from within.
Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God for an image in the form of corruptible man and of birds and four-footed animals and crawling creatures. Therefore God gave them over in the lusts of their hearts to impurity, so that their bodies would be dishonored among them. For they exchanged the truth of God for a lie, and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever. Amen.
For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind… [Romans 1:22-28] [1]
© 2017 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.
Of Their Father the Devil: Political Pharisees
“You are of your father the devil, and you want to do the desires of your father. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. Whenever he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own nature, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” [John 8:44]
To the pure, all things are pure; but to those who are defiled and unbelieving, nothing is pure, but both their mind and their conscience are defiled. They profess to know God, but by their deeds they deny Him, being detestable and disobedient and worthless for any good deed. [Titus 1:15-16]
Woe to those who call evil good, and good evil; Who substitute darkness for light and light for darkness; Who substitute bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight! [Isaiah 5: 20-21]
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One of the greatest evils in this fallen world is evil people in positions of great power. And the worst kind of evil people are those who pretend to be good.
As sin increases exponentially and the authority of the devil continues to invade powerful positions of authority, millions of otherwise moral people with sound minds are so affected and influenced by the power of evil in authority figures that, barring a close walk with God, they also become depraved.
And despite the presence of any number of maniacs engaged in isolated incidents, the worst maniacs are those who use their positions of great power to corrupt huge populations.
For such people, the very best course of action is to repent and get right with God while they still can.
Barring that, they choose the worst course of all—choosing the devil as their father—and expose themselves to the worst judgment of all—eternal separation from God—that perpetrated upon themselves from which no one else can be blamed. They become the worst the human race has to offer and those who should never be in any position of authority.
They will receive the justice they deserve when they face God at the Judgment.
DEFAULT: HELL
The Word of God states that prior to making a decision for God everyone is a sinner bound for hell.
Most people, including most professing “Christians,” do not believe this. Never mind that their own personal history is laden with sins acknowledged or not (most often not), the history of the world clearly reveals, from anyone’s perspective, that it is absolutely true.
Mankind’s history is one of sin, depravity, immorality, murder on a grand scale, and pure evil. Such sin is in every society, culture, and nation that has ever existed.
No one can disprove this because it is impossible to disprove. One won’t get far if one tries and will consequently silently close the book, put it away, and stare with great disillusionment into thin air at the revelation.
This world is no playground. Those who believe it is eventually get creamed. People learn early on that they must defend themselves and quickly seek some form of protection for the purpose of survival. A few, very few, are ultra-protected and blessed with unlimited money and appear to be beyond judgment.
But for such people who have chosen a very temporary dream world, they must know that human bodies do not last forever: They wear out; they get old. And the people existing within said bodies will have to leave the comforts of home one day and enter into what is a completely mysterious future from their perspective.
Eternity is a great unknown for them because they risked everything on this life and living for this world, this very short sojourn that all humans get a chance at, without doing anything whatsoever to prepare for what comes after, which leaves them completely unprepared.
Such people are bold and strong when young and vibrant, when they seemingly have the world by the tail. They shoot their mouths off though they often have no real clue about whatever subject they may be discussing.
Most never consider the cost paid by parents or others, but mostly the cost paid by God to both create them AND die for them to purchase their salvation. They laugh at the idea. They take for granted the cost paid to get them to the place of their comfort from which they choose the opposite of the correct attitude and adopt instead a brash, spoiled-brattish stance revealing them to be the mere posers they are.
THE DOWNWARD SLOPE
But the Pharisees went out and conspired against Him, as to how they might destroy Him. [Matthew 12:14]
All nations go through stages. Great nations are led by great people who are mature, moral, and battle-tested. The final stages of a nation, however, are staffed by the opposite.
When nations go bad, it is because the people in said nation grow immature. They live off the great strength of those who have gone before them, who knew the price that must be paid for greatness.
Immature, spoiled people then choose likeminded people to be their leaders. A nation’s leaders are always a reflection of the populace. Poor nations are poor because they lack the moral strength and resolve to do something about it, and evil leaders rush in to take charge, since no one stops them. They end up taking everything for themselves.
In America, it used to be that political leaders must pass a very strict test placed before them by society at large. It included a morals test. But presently, the idea of a morals test placed upon prospective leaders is a joke. We have not had a series of moral leaders in a long, long time.
Why? Because the country has drifted downward. It began the descent by drifting downward morally. Once morality was thrown out the window no one could put a morals test on leaders. Hence, leaders became depraved.
But there is something else. When a nation of 300 million begins to go bad it takes a while. And while it is descending toward a moral cesspit having lost its way, and thus making completely idiotic choices for leaders, it goes relatively slow. There are many within the down-sliding group that continue to speak out and warn, and the warnings are always given with sufficient time to change course.
But not so with the chosen evil leaders. Their decline into abject immorality is relatively fast. Depending on the immoral state of the country, there are fewer and fewer checks and balances against evil overseers. No one can thus stop them without a drastic course correction.
WHO’S THE BOSS?
“From everyone who has been given much, much will be required; and to whom they entrusted much, of him they will ask all the more.” [Luke 12:48] [1]
In America, the Constitution states the people are the masters and government representatives are servants of the people. Hence, the people are the boss and must therefore always take their responsibility seriously.
This is why, even in a place like America—always imperfect but overall historically more moral and especially free than most other countries—it creates the saddest state of affairs when decent people choose evil people to lead them.
They choose them because they believe their lies. The people are cheated, but the people actually cheat themselves.
Why? Because a big part of immorality is willful ignorance. Americans knew better but neglected their homework and became a nation filled predominantly with ill-informed voters who chose people to lead them for all the wrong reasons.
And now we are stuck with a few, very few, in very, very powerful positions who no longer listen to voters AT ALL.
And why should they? They know the majority of voters are stupid which can easily be proven by their own elections and appointments.
And they know if they can deceive the American public so easily while merely running for office, they can deceive them that much more easily once they gain office.
Hence, Americans have chosen leaders who have zero respect for them and treat them exactly as they feel they should be treated according to their evil inclinations and attitudes.
This makes them maniacs.
Americans should be ashamed.
Things are backwards and upside down.
Americans should do what is required to right the course and regain control.
It begins with repentance and getting right with God.
We have been taken over by Political Pharisees.
© 2015 by RJ Dawson. All Rights Reserved.
[1] Unless otherwise noted all Scriptures are taken from the New American Standard Bible, © 1960, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission.





