Category: A Drash to Start the Day

To Give Candy or Not to Give Candy: That is the Question

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Tomorrow night is Halloween, and all good Believers know this is a pagan and demonic celebration.  But what about the little children, too young to know anything more than this is a time to dress up and get free candy? How do we witness to them? And can we even be an effective witness to a child, whose parents are putting out Jack-O-Lanterns, decorating the house with black cats and witches and dressing up in costumes?

Click on the link below for my feelings about it:

 

PS: in this clip I refer to the days of the week being named after Greek and Germanic Gods, but the names are of Roman and Germanic Gods.

When is Being Polite Not Being a Friend?

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Do you have one of “those” friends? You know…the type that are really nice and fun to be with, but have no recognition of their terrible breath, or smelly clothing, or that their house stinks from dog pee? Or some other socially unacceptable aspect of their person that they are so used to that they never notice it, but everyone else does? And, because we like them and don’t want to hurt their feelings, we have learned to ignore it, ourselves?

Are we really doing them a favor? Are we being polite at the expense of being a good friend and telling them, lovingly and softly, that they have this “problem” they really need to attend to? I would say, “No!”- if we really like someone who does something (or doesn’t do something) that is affecting their ability to be more acceptable in society (in general), we owe it to them to point it out. Even if it means they may be distressed or embarrassed. In the case of socially unacceptable dress or hygiene, ignorance is NOT bliss. In certain cases, we may be hurting their feelings a little but we may also be saving their life: bad breath can be an indication of gum disease which can cause all sorts of health problems, and failing to shower may cause skin lesions that can lead to infections, and…well, you get the point. We may be doing them more of a favor by being honest with them about their personal hygiene than we are by being afraid to tell them.

As important as personal hygiene is, what about one’s spiritual hygiene? We know people, all of us do, that are socially clean but spiritually filthy. Don’t we owe it to them to help them “clean up” their act, too? Of course we do, but you will find (I am willing to bet) that your spiritually dirty friends would rather you told them they stink and need a shower than that they are sinning and setting themselves up for eternal damnation. They would rather be told they have bad breath and ring around the collar than be told about Yeshua’s sacrifice and how it can save their soul.

So, nu? What do we do? I say we try to help them, no matter what, but we do it intelligently. We need to, first and foremost, not say anything until we provide an example of what we are talking about. People do not accept “Do as I say, not as I do” under normal conditions, so with something as difficult as spiritual issues, they absolutely need to see you practicing what you preach before you can address their lack of repentance. As Yeshua tells us in Matthew 7:5, we must first remove the log from our own eye before we tell our brother about the splinter in his eye.

This doesn’t mean we can’t or shouldn’t say anything until we are perfect- that just isn’t going to happen. What we do is live our own life as best as we can to remain obedient to God’s commandments (i.e., Torah- you won’t find anything new or different from Torah anywhere in the New Covenant writings, since that is all that Yeshua and His Disciples taught), and when we screw up make sure that we admit it, ask forgiveness and do better. This is the example I believe is best to show a non-Believer: we are still human, we still make mistakes, and we aren’t expected to stop having fun, making jokes (they just have to be more acceptable in mixed company, that’s all) or living our lives as we want to. The only real difference being that now we want to live our lives in obedience to God instead of obedience to sin, which means we care about how we live our life, we care about others, we care about doing what is right (even when everyone else seems to be doing wrong) and we are repentant when we mess up. It is a life-long commitment to being better tomorrow than we are today. Both spiritually and socially.

Being “holy” means to be separated from the rest. The Supreme Court said that being separate cannot be equal (Brown v. the Board of Education of Topeka-1954), and they were right, but separate doesn’t mean better. We need to separate ourselves just from those things that are not godly. We can still be with the same friends, but we don’t have to partake in things they do which we shouldn’t now; we can still be with family, but we don’t have to partake in events that aren’t spiritually correct (like going to the horse races, for instance); we can still go out on a date, but we won’t stay the night, even if asked.  This is what I think is important when telling friends and family about God and their salvation: they are afraid of what they will lose, and we need to tell and show that they don’t really lose anything except what they didn’t need, in the first place.

Don’t worry so much about hurting someone’s feelings when you know they are ignorant of the bad impression they are leaving on others. And don’t be afraid to tell them, as well as show them, the advantages of accepting Yeshua and committing to being holy.

Being holy is harder than being with the rest of the world, but it really does feel better.

When Does Your Right Conflict with My Right?

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A White Supremacist, Richard Spencer, was at the University of Florida campus the other day for a speaking engagement. There were hundreds of protesters, extra police brought in, some violence (by the protesters) and the Governor declared a state of emergency before Spencer even showed up.

This ministry, Messianic Moment, is not a venue for political activity or opinions, but I couldn’t let this one event go unmentioned.

I am not going to talk about racism; I want to talk about the right to free speech, and when that right should be ignored.

Here are some examples from the past when free speech was legally blocked:

The Alien and Sedition Acts were four bills passed by the Federalist-dominated 5th United States Congress and signed into law by President John Adams in 1798. … The Federalists argued that the bills strengthened national security during an undeclared naval war with France;

The Sedition Act of 1918, enacted during World War I, made it a crime to “willfully utter, print, write, or publish any disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of the Government of the United States” or to “willfully urge, incite, or advocate any curtailment of the production” of the things “necessary or essential to the prosecution of the war.”

Currently there are legal exceptions to free speech: one cannot publicly use obscenity, child pornography, use fighting words and offensive speech, make false statements of fact, incite illegal activities, and under certain conditions regarding the government cannot talk about work, national security, etc.  Of course, these things do happen, proving that what is illegal is not always policed.

The best known example of an exception to free speech is that you can’t scream “FIRE!!” when sitting in a crowded room if there isn’t any fire.

Getting back to the U of F event, the freedom of speech given to Mr. Spencer caused violence, cost the state (probably) tens of thousands of dollars in extra security, property damage and police salaries, and the protesters also spent their own money making signs that, truthfully, were saying things which everyone else already knew.

I would have just told Mr. Spencer that he isn’t welcomed here. His right to free speech and public assembly would infringe on the rights of the general public to their safety by creating a potentially violent confrontation. Even if his words are not inciteful, the message he presents is, and as such does not qualify as “protected” speech under the Constitution.

I believe this country is so obsessed with protecting the rights of the “little guy” that they are abrogating the rights of everyone else.  There are examples everywhere (too many to list) of someone (usually a member of some minority group) claiming their rights have been violated, and consequently trying to get the courts to force the other party to give up their rights in order to appease the plaintiff.

It is the case of the squeaky wheel getting all the grease.

If it was up to me, I would have told Mr. Spencer, “Thanks, but no thanks. Take it somewhere else.” And if he didn’t like that, tough! And as for the people that went to protest, I think the best way to protest someone saying things you don’t agree with is simply don’t go to hear them. Doesn’t that make more sense than showing up, causing a violent scene and costing the state money? Besides that, the violent actions by the protesters gave credibility to his message of supremacy!  He was just talking, they were being violent- who’s the hateful one now?

If protesters just didn’t go, then the only people that showed up would be the ones that agreed with him, and his whole engagement would have been nothing more than “preaching to the choir”- a total waste of his time. And to top it off, the university could have charged him to be there, so instead of the state wasting any number of thousands of dollars, the racist would have paid to have no one show up. Again- doesn’t that make more sense?

The bible tells us we shouldn’t stand by and allow evil, but does that mean we have to go out of our way to protest a speech that is by someone who advocates hatred? Yeshua said we shouldn’t throw pearls before swine (Matthew 7:6), and told Shaul (regarding his persecution of the new Believers) that one shouldn’t kick against the goads (Acts 26:14.) The message is that we shouldn’t waste our time and wisdom fighting against something when we can’t win. There will always be bigotry, hatred and racism so long as there are people in the world. If we were all one skin color and one religion, we would then separate ourselves by eye color, or shape of the nose, or size. It doesn’t really matter what the object of hatred is, there will always be hatred. There will always be love, too, and these two opposites will fight against each other forever.

Love is stronger, but because hatred is easier it will often win out. Sad, but that’s the way it is, and it will be that way until Yeshua rules.

From a spiritual standpoint, I would say we should ignore these events. Don’t go to protest something you disagree with because that will only make it more visible. And if you are in a position to refuse an audience to someone who is preaching what you believe to be sinful, evil or just plain wrong, don’t allow their right to speech overrule your right to speech- speak up and say, “NO: you are not welcome here. Go somewhere else.” If you hear someone speaking hatefulness and biblically incorrect rhetoric, ignore them. The best way to win an argument is to not start one. Personally, I think the biggest insult any one person can give to another is to pretend they just don’t exist.

We are to be a light to the darkness, and in order to do that we must be in the darkness. But there are times we must realize that some darkness will never allow the light to shine. The racist and hateful darkness in the world is often times like a Black Hole, which is so dense light cannot escape it.

Don’t fall into a Black Hole; choose your battles, and don’t waste your time fighting against stupidity and hatred. Instead, ignore it and give it nothing to work with.

Let your speech and godly actions be like water on those fires of hatred, and you will be the light that you need to be.

 

God’s Vineyard is Constantly Being Pruned

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Pruning is when a secondary vine that is producing a lot of fruit is removed from the main vine and transplanted. Once transplanted, it becomes the main vine and (hopefully) produces more vines, all producing good fruit.

Sometimes when a vine doesn’t produce any fruit, or the fruit is substandard, it is pruned to allow the other vines to receive more nutrients from the main vine. The pruned vine may be transplanted to another main vine to see if it does better there, and if it doesn’t produce any fruit anymore it will be thrown into the fire and burned (read the parable found at Luke 13:6-8 about the fruit tree in the garden.)

In our lives we will be pruned, one way or the other, and possibly more than once. Sometimes we are cut off from our vine, and sometimes vines are cut off of us. Overall, pruning is not fun: it cause stress, anxiety and sadness. Our “comfort zone” is being reorganized, and no one likes it when that happens.

My congregation at the Hebraic Roots church I have been attending for 3 1/2 years (of which I am also a Council member and Officer) is undergoing pruning as I write this. I just changed the home page of our web site to reflect that there will no longer be any Shabbat services.  The Senior Pastor (and only one able to fill that position) is stepping down to pursue a theological Master’s Degree that his current employer is paying for, and he knows that working a full time job while pursuing an advanced degree will not leave the time he needs to perform his duties as a full time Pastor.  This is a hard decision for him, as he has been with this church for many years, but it is the right decision for him. The church attendance has also been steadily decreasing, tithes are not meeting expenses, and we haven’t met the requirements for being a sovereign church for (at least) 2 years. The Assembly of God Presbyter has been very kind in allowing us to continue as a Hebraic Roots church with Friday night services, but now we need to dissolve this church and return all the assets to the A of G for them to take charge. They have been very patient and helpful, and will  “re-boot” the church sometime in the immediate future, which will be a “standard” Assembly of God church with Sunday services.

We know we are being pruned, but who knows what, or who, is being pruned? Is the Senior Pastor being pruned to be more fruitful elsewhere? Is the incoming Pastor being pruned to be more fruitful here? Is this congregation being pruned because we haven’t been producing any fruit?

I really don’t know. I would like to think that we have been doing well and we are all, individually, being transplanted somewhere else to continue to do God’s calling in our lives. I think this place has done all  it was supposed to do in God’s plan, and as such now is being cut off. This is a hard thing to accept, but it is the most reasonable one given how the congregation has decreased, no new people are coming in, and our mission of training the Christian churches to know the Torah and their true calling in God’s plan of salvation just hasn’t been happening. However, over the 30 or so years this church has been here it has produced many new ministries that are still doing well, including a large Messianic Synagogue. We are a main vine that has been very fruitful over the years, and now I think we are just all used up.

The only vine that never dies and always produces good fruit is Yeshua.

I believe our Pastor will be more fruitful in his new pursuits, that I will be able to concentrate more on this on-line ministry (and with God’s help become more fruitful myself), and that the incoming Pastor will be given a new opportunity to fulfill his mission and calling for God.

When you are pruned, do not take it as a bad sign. You should, however, take a good look in the mirror and ask why this pruning is taking place. Be fair, be honest with yourself, and be hopeful because I believe as long as we have a heart for God and want to do His will, the pruning we go through, no matter how uncomfortable or even painful, will lead to more good fruit being produced. And, if the pruning is because we have failed to produce fruit, then so be it- we deserve to be pruned. It is then we need to repent, redirect ourselves to producing fruit, and if we do that God will transplant us. Maybe He is cutting us off from a comfort zone we don’t realize is not feeding us, and wants us to be grafted onto a more nutritious vine? You never know, so always try to be fruitful.

Pruning is not fun, it is not enjoyable, and it is most often not desired, but it is a necessary part of meeting God’s calling in our life.

Nice May Not Be Nice

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I was riding my bike last week and came to a large intersection. I walked the bike half-way across, and was standing in the yellow safety zone, waiting for the light to change to red so I could safely cross the three lane highway. A car was coming down the left turn only lane, and stopped about 10 feet before me, which was about 30 feet before the light. He had a green light, and there was no oncoming traffic. He was, I suppose, trying to be nice and allow me to cross the street ahead of him.

Maybe he thought he was being nice, but he was really leading me to my death. The idiot seemed to forget that there were still three lanes of high speed traffic right on the other side of his car, all with a green light and the drivers would be totally blind to me crossing in front of his car. What he thought was being nice was really attempted murder!

I thought about this in spiritual terms, and realized this is what the enemy will do to us if we are careless and just do as we are told. I mean, really now- do you think he will walk up to you and say,”Hey, there! I’m the Devil, I want you to give up your salvation and suffer in eternal torment with me. Whaddaya say?”  Nah- not likely.  What the enemy will do is to approach you carefully, with a great big smile and his hand out to shake yours. He will be nice, he will offer you something that you really want, and it may seem spiritually pleasing to have it. He will try to convince you that he is on your side, he is also a Believer and he knows what is God’s desire for you. He will entice you with worldly rewards and tell you they are blessings from God that you receive for proper obedience.

He will let you cross the street in front of him, knowing there are cars speeding by on the other side, and smiling at you while you walk blindly into traffic.

Yeshua told His Talmudim (Disciples) when He sent them into the world to preach that they need to be wise as serpents, and harmless as doves (Matthew 10:16) so that they can show the love and compassion of Messiah, but not be so stupid as to cross the road blindly and get run over.

I believe God gave me this simple warning to share with you: the enemy will come as a friend, as a helper, and as a Believer who loves the Lord and wants to help you know Him better. He will entice you with spiritual awareness and sound like he really has an insight to God, but he is a false prophet. How will you know the difference? By looking past the nice things and seeing what is behind them. By being on the alert, always, and being suspicious of everything and anything that seems to be too easy to have. Let’s not forget that Yeshua tells us following Him is not easy:

         Luke 9:62   Anyone who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is not worthy of the kingdom of God;

Matthew 10:35   For I have come to turn “‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law-…;

Matthew 8:20    Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

It is better to suspect now and find out later that you are wrong, then to accept blindly and find out later that you are doomed.

This is my formula for knowing if something is from God or from somewhere else: if it is easy to do, gives me worldly rewards and everyone else is doing it, then I probably shouldn’t be doing it.

That, and look twice before crossing the street.

What Changed After Egypt?

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When we read the 4th Commandment in Exodus 20, it reads this way:

“Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns.  For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.”

But later on, after the Israelites have been in the desert for some 40 years and Moses is about to die, he reviews all that has happened, and when he repeats the 10 Commandments in Deuteronomy 5 , the 4th one changes:

“Observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy, as the Lord your God has commanded you.  Six days you shall labor and do all your work,  but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your ox, your donkey or any of your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns, so that your male and female servants may rest, as you do.  Remember that you were slaves in Egypt and that the Lord your God brought you out of there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God has commanded you to observe the Sabbath day.”

Do you see the change? The reason for celebrating the Shabbat has been changed! Initially, when the people were freed they were told that God rested on the Shabbat and so they should, also. These were a people that had been in slavery for 400 years and never had a single day’s rest. Slavery isn’t a 9 to 5 job, it is 24/7/365! If God was able to rest, so can they, and it was a totally new life style for them. But later, after 40 years of having a Shabbat, as they were about to enter the land, God changed the reason for celebrating.

They were about to take possession of a land in which, instead of being a slave, they will have slaves of their own. A land where there will be other people living with them who will be working for them instead of the other way around. So they will need to remember how they were slaves, that once they were mistreated and never had a single day’s rest until God provided it for them. Therefore, they were no longer to emulate God just by resting on Shabbat, but also by providing a Shabbat rest for others.

It may seem the reason for celebrating the Shabbat had changed drastically, but there is a common element between the two: whether they were resting as God rested, or providing others rest as God provided for them, they were still emulating God. At first they were told to rest because God rested, and that was something they needed to learn how to do. By the time they were ready to enter the Land the Shabbat had become a regular part of their lifestyle, and the next step was to learn how to allow others to rest from their work with them, just as God had them rest when He did.

From this point in the bible forward, the Shabbat is (almost always) commanded to be observed because we were once slaves in Egypt and now we are free. In fact, if you really look at it, from the time we entered the Promised Land onward, the impetus for the people to emulate God was in that they were once slaves and now they are free. This is the founding principle of God’s plan of salvation: those who were slaves are now free. First we were slaves to Pharaoh, and God freed us through wondrous miracles. He gave us the Torah, which defined, absolutely, sin from righteousness, and so we were able (as Shaul tells us) to identify sinfulness from sinlessness. With Torah we understood that instead of being slaves to a political system, we were still slaves to a spiritual system; more than that, we understood that the freedom to this spiritual system was also provided by God, through Messiah Yeshua.

What changed between Egypt and the Promised Land was not just the reason for celebrating the Shabbat, but our understanding of God’s plan of salvation. It is all about freedom: freedom from a political system, then freedom from a spiritual system, and ultimately freedom from this plane of existence, itself. Whether we are saved by Messiah or still slave to the world system, we are always going to be enslaved by our physicality, our mortality and our flesh. This will not change until we are resurrected into spiritual beings, and then God’s plan of salvation will be completed.

The good news is that for those that have accepted Yeshua as their Messiah, we are already 2/3’s of the way home! Freed from slavery to a world system, freed from slavery to sin, and now just waiting for our resurrected bodies.

I can hardly wait!

Jesus, the Son of the Father: Are we talking the Messiah or the Murderer?

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We all know the accounting of the trial of Jesus (Yeshua), and how Pilate offered the mob a choice: kill Jesus, the king of the Jews or kill the condemned murderer, Barabbas?  The mob (which was actually controlled by the few, politically powerful men who wanted Yeshua out of their hair) screamed to kill Yeshua.  So the murderer Barabbas, a sinful man who was rebellious to the authorities above him, was released and saved from the death he deserved, and Yeshua, an innocent man who wanted nothing more than to properly interpret the Torah and lead people closer to God, was savagely tortured, nailed to a tree and left hanging until He suffocated to death.

FYI: when crucified, if shock from being nailed to a tree didn’t immediately kill you, death came slowly and tortuously because your body would begin to slump, and with your arms above your chest eventually you would have your airway blocked and you then suffocated.

In some circles, it is believed that Barabbas’ full name was Yeshua Barabbas, which when translated means “salvation, the son of the father.” Now, isn’t that interesting?  So the “son of the father” was freed from sin and death by the sacrifice of “the Son of the Father!” Which, consequently, allowed all people to be saved from the consequences of their sinfulness.

This information may not be new to many of you, but I confess I never really thought about it until recently. Wouldn’t it be interesting if Pilate misunderstood the mob? What I mean is, maybe they were really calling for Barabbas to die and to release Yeshua, but since they both had pretty much the same name, Pilate got it wrong?  That would mean, if Pilate did crucify the wrong man, that  what most of Christianity has taught for 2000 years, specifically that the Jews killed Jesus, would be false!  The right man was crucified, from the standpoint of God’s plan of salvation, but maybe the Jews have been given a bum rap all these years? Maybe we didn’t kill Jesus? Maybe we really wanted to accept Him as Messiah and it was that Roman doofus, Governor Pilate, who didn’t know the difference between Yeshua bar Yosef and Yeshua bar Abbas, that deserves the blame?

For the record: Jews didn’t kill Jesus, and neither did the Romans, it was sin that was the real cause of Jesus having to die.

Well, well…this is an interesting thought, but it isn’t what happened. The mob cried for the Messiah to die; Pilate knew the difference between the murderer Barabbas and the king of the Jews; the right man was crucified and the sins of all men (and women) were nailed to that tree with Him. Not the law, not the Torah, not the commandments, but the consequence of our sin of rejecting those things is what died with Yeshua.

You see, once the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed, there was no place for people to perform the guilt or sin sacrifice, which meant to the Jews that rejected Yeshua they would have no way to atone, thereby able to avoid dying in their sin. Just think for a second how terrible a realization that must have been to them! Yeshua’s sacrifice replaced the need to bring your sacrifice to the Temple, which is how we avoid the consequences of our sin when we repent and ask forgiveness through His name.

Please note that repentance (T’Shuvah) is mandatory for forgiveness- just confessing that you sinned and asking forgiveness, when you really aren’t sorry, really don’t care and don’t have any plans to stop sinning, is not going to get the job done.

The fact that both Yeshua and Barabbas had pretty much the same name (when translated) is an interesting point: it’s not earth shattering, it’s nothing that will affect your salvation, nothing that will turn heads and make people say, “WOW!!”….it’s just an interesting point.  The Messiah and a rebellious murderer had the same name, the same fate and the same judge, but the innocent died and the guilty was freed.  Now, what makes it more interesting (to me) than anything else is not the coincidence, but the similarity to me: I was the guilty, rebellious murderer (of myself) and Yeshua was innocent, but through His death I was set free.

And it can be the same with you: if you are reading this and haven’t accepted Yeshua as your Messiah, who will expiate your sins and provide the justification you need for redemption, then maybe you have been crucifying the wrong person?

 

Minority Rules in America

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I live in Melbourne, Florida, which is located in Brevard County in East Central Florida. In Brevard County we have Atheist groups that have not been asked or allowed to give the invocation at the beginning of a government or organization meeting. Consequently, one of the Atheist groups, calling itself the Central Florida Freethought Community, filed a lawsuit (they had other atheistic groups join) to force the county government to allow them to give an invocation at it’s meetings. The judge ruled that refusing them was a violation of their First and Fourteenth Amendment rights and ordered them to be allowed to give the invocation.

I agree with the judge- the First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, and the Fourteenth Amendment guarantees all citizens equal protection under the law, which means that the Atheists should be allowed to have their freedom of speech. What I don’t agree with is that they have to be allowed to give an invocation: if I want to ask for God’s blessing on a meeting, then I should also have the same 1st and 14th amendment rights to do so, but apparently it doesn’t go both ways in America. The minority rights win out over the majority rights.

Let’s not forget the blatant hypocrisy of this entire lawsuit: an invocation, according to Webster’s Dictionary (1993) is:

  A appeal to a deity or other agent for inspiration, witness, or help; a prayer which is used at the opening of a ceremony or service.

So, if I do not believe in God or a superior being, who am I going to invoke for help? Who am I  praying to if I do not believe that there is anyone up there? Do you see the hypocrisy, or more accurately, the ridiculousness of this claim? They are an organization which says it doesn’t believe in God, a superior entity or prayer demanding that they be allowed to perform a prayer to a superior entity! Huh??

But this is America- the land of the free, the home of the brave, and the judicial system that doesn’t want God involved in anything it does. We did when we started, and we were blessed. Just look at the wonderful things we did when we were a young country: we defeated the greatest military and sea power in the world (twice!); we had some of the greatest leaders the world has ever known; we formed a government that was the first truly representative government and has outlasted nearly every other government that has existed; we were THE world super-power. All of that shows God’s blessing on us. But today? Today we  have kicked God out of our schools, our courtrooms and our government. And what do we have to show for it? Our system of education is much lower than the other developed countries, our economy is weakened, our government is  laughing stock (and not just the current administration), our media lies and misleads the country worse than the town gossip, and the most important things for our youth today are their cell phones and violent video games. We are no longer the leader of the world, in terms of the rest of the world looking up to us- we are a fat, sloppy and lazy giant that once was feared and admired, but now we are the world’s laughing stock. I served this country in the Marine Corps and still love it- it is still one of the best formed governments in the world and we are a sleeping giant- if we ever get our heads back in the game, no other country has a chance against us.

But our heads aren’t in the game, their up our…well, they’re somewhere else. This court case demonstrates absolutely that today the minority does rule in America. The case where the baker refused to bake a cake for a same-sex marriage is at the Supreme Court level- how stupid is that? What?- there isn’t any other bakery around they could get their cake? Will the government force a business to have clients that the business doesn’t want to have? Since when does the right of a business owner to run his or her business the way they want to take second place to someone who wants to force them to accept their business? If I went to a business and they didn’t want to serve me, why would I force them to? What in the world could ever make me think I would get good service from someone who is forced to do something against their personal, religious and/or business ethics?

And if I do not believe in a spiritual entity or prayer, why would I force some organization to allow me to give their invocation? There is only one answer- I want to do it not because I have something to offer, but simply because you said I couldn’t. Oh, yes- I forget to mention that the organizer and leader of the Freethought Community added that he would prefer prayer be completely done away with, but he is willing to accept that his group be allowed to give an invocation. In other words, these “free thinkers” are suing for the government to force others to stop thinking freely.

Oy! And the government agreed, and I understand why. What I don’t understand is how this even got to a courtroom. The judge should have thrown it out as frivolous and unfounded. We all have the right to free speech and to practice our religion (or lack of same) as we choose, so long as we don’t infringe on the rights of others. Well, if I don’t believe in prayer or God and demand that you do not prayer or even mention God, then aren’t I infringing on your rights?

The enemy is at the bottom of this, and he is influencing the government, which he will eventually be in charge of. That is why although I can’t stand to see our government and court system so brutally and obviously manipulated, it is what will be happening more and more, here in America and all around the world, until Yeshua returns and we get things back on line.

TV Commercials are Setting Us Up

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How many hours a day do we watch television? According to a recent report by the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics, here is what they found:

Watching TV was the leisure activity that occupied the most time (2.7 hours per day), accounting for just over half of leisure time, on average, for those age 15 and over. The amount of time people spent watching TV varied by age. Those ages 15 to 44 spent the least amount of time watching TV, averaging around 2.0 hours per day, and those ages 65 and over spent the most time watching TV, averaging over 4.0 hours per day.

Now, what is even worse is that when we watch TV we spend almost 1/3 of our TV time watching commercials.

So, why do I say we are being set up? It’s because the commercials are so stupid, so inane and condescending to males and females that I believe it destroys brain cells!

OK, maybe it’s not all that bad, but think about the kind of messages these commercials are sending to us, and believe me when I say that because we see them so often they are affecting us, even if we don’t know it.

For the Record: one thing I learned in all the years I was a Salesman is this: if you tell people something often enough, no matter how ridiculous it sounds, after a while they will believe it.

Let’s take some examples:

  1. Burger King with the two Whoppers for $6.00 shows a man who opens the bag and sees he has 2 Whoppers. What does he do? He looks around, then closes the bag and pretends he doesn’t know he has an extra Whopper. It may seem funny, but the message it sends is that it is OK to steal if no one knows you did it. The bible tells us if we see something that belongs to our neighbor we are to protect it until we can return it to him (Deuteronomy 22:1), and that we shouldn’t steal (one of the Big Ten.)
  2. A Hot Wheels commercial shows a mother and son driving a hot Mustang and trying to jump a span across a ravine with a washed out bridge. When the car crashes, they are just really playing in the living room with the toy cars. The message of the commercial is that hot wheels toys help children to face the challenges in life. Really? Do you believe that your son or daughter will grow up self-determined, confident and have a strong moral center because they played with Hot Wheels cars?  The message is so condescending and inane, yet I don’t doubt there are parents who might actually think playing with toys will make their children morally upright. The bible tells us differently- Proverbs 22:6 says to bring a child up knowing right from wrong and they will always return to it.
  3. Have you seen those ridiculous commercials for Icebreakers?  The man eats an Icebreaker mint and suddenly is riding a Unicorn through the office to gain a promotion. Stupid! Or the one where the woman asks for 3 weeks vacation, is told two is the standard, so she pops an Icebreaker in her mouth and a Unicorn appears, rears up and crashes through the office glass wall; as she pets and kisses the horse, she says she is not standard and wants three weeks, which the manager automatically agrees to. What message can this be (other than advertisers are using more drugs than ever before)? It is that a candy mint can give you the confidence to succeed. In other words, you can succeed with something other than hard work, dedication and loyalty. Can you see how the mint can easily be exchanged for an amulet, or a token, or some other item indicating witchcraft?

I know this sounds a little far-fetched, and maybe even somewhat paranoid, but I don’t think it is. I have seen too many people who are mesmerized by TV, even to the point where they are almost in a trance-like state while watching. I know because I am often like that, myself! And when we are in these states of brain-dead, zombie-like stupors, we receive these subliminal messages that we are stupid, that stealing is OK, that things can help us get what we want:  do you see now what I am talking about?

When we accept the commercials without thinking about the real messages they send, we are being set up to accept the more serious and sinful messages the enemy will want us to receive. We will want something, and someone, somewhere, sometime will show us a lucky rabbits foot, or an amulet, or something else that empowers us to get what we want.  And we won’t think about what it really represents, which is witchcraft, because we know it is OK to accept it ; we know that because subconsciously we have seen it done over and over and over, somewhere (maybe on TV?) and the person was OK.

Do you recall what Shaul (Paul) calls Satan? He is called the “Prince of the power of the air” (Ephesians 2:2), and how is TV transmitted? That’s right- through the air.

I may be a little over concerned, I’ll admit to that, but I do not think I am that far off base. I am not suggesting you throw your TV out the window or shoot the Satellite dish off your roof with your favorite shotgun, but I do suggest that you pay more attention (or maybe I should say less attention) to the commercials. And especially if you have kids watching- maybe ridicule the commercials and show the child how silly and imbecile they are. Ask the kid if he or she really thinks people are that naive? Teach your self and your children to analyse what the commercial is saying, and not accept that this is real life in any way, shape or form.

The thing that is worse than these commercials is that we watch them, thoughtlessly, with our minds open to suggestion. That’s when the devil sneaks in the open window in the back of our brains.

Hey… it’s OK to watch TV, to enjoy the movies and shows, but just to be safe turn off the sound when the commercials come on, or direct your attention elsewhere.

Better safe than suckered into taking the Mark one day because it was presented as the Happy Meal toy of the week.