ARE WE IN THE 'LAST DAYS'?
Below is a message for those who've been 'Left Behind' by certain premillennial dispensational (or just sensational?) teachings.
It is by no means the 'last word' on the subject but may help you understand the next great cosmic disturbance when Jesus appears again, bringing His saints with Him.
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THE EYE-GATE…
And…when light is actually darkness! (Luke 11:33ff).
 
What I see—or, more accurately, what I choose to look at is what has the most influence on my mind—and indeed, my heart.
 
Images are usually the most powerful means of impacting and influencing our emotions and the thoughts and actions that ensue. That is why the images in television advertising are usually more powerful than the words.
So, the eyes, yes our physical eyes, are the means by which light or darkness—and the influences each of these brings, enter our mind and soul. What we choose to look at, gains access and can either enlighten and brighten the inner being—or darken and corrupt it.
 
Here’s the thing…we see things because light reflects from objects and impinges the extraordinary mechanisms of the eye.
 
What David SAW from his rooftop, and did not look away from, was because light, reflected off a particular form, travelled via his pupils and retinas to his brain, mind and soul. This particular light which he entertained by continuing to look, actually became darkness. (In a sense it was darkness, masquerading as light).
What Bathsheba was doing—bathing—was probably innocent, unless she was being intentionally provocative, which the text does not indicate.
 
In choosing not to look away, David turned physical light into darkness within—and corruption of motive, which then led to the greater darknesses of adultery and murder, with a host of unhappy consequences.
 
Jesus said, “if your eye is single your whole body will be filled with light”, and the Greek word used is HAPLOUS meaning ‘unfolded’ or not double (its antonym is DIPLOUS meaning ‘double’). Jesus was likening the way a lamp lights a house to the way the eye illuminates the ‘house’ of our body.
 
He therefore said, “take heed that the light that is in you, is not darkness”.
‘…then He vanished, FROM THEIR SIGHT’
((Luke 24:31)
 
For Cleopas and the other un-named Emmaus Road walker, it was, momentarily, as Jesus broke the bread and gave thanks, just like it had been before that excruciating death. Excruciating physically for Jesus and psychologically for those close to him.
 
Here was this happy moment of recognition, of presence, of certainty. And then suddenly, having walked an hour or two with them, having accepted their invitation to stay, having broken the bread and revealed Himself—He was not there!
(So extraordinary was it that the two immediately walked the 10 kilometres back to Jerusalem to tell the others!)
 
What was going on?
Surely he was preparing them for the new way and the new reality: how things would be from now on, proceeding no longer by sight or senses—but by a new way to access and enjoy His presence…Faith.
 
Their expectations had not included finding the very One they missed so deeply, actually walking alongside them, expounding the scriptures, as they journeyed!
 
This is how it would be from now on for all who would walk with Him. After all, He promised to send Another—an invisible Other—yes, Holy Spirit, to be alongside in the very same, yet different way as when He had walked with them. Different because not dependent on physical sight, but on different eyes—eyes that have been touched by Him and now see, even in the dark: yes, eyes of faith!
And as by faith we walk the road with Him, He will, as then, expound the scriptures to us and be made known to us.
 
There is not another way—‘the righteous SHALL live by faith.’
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WOULD YOU BELIEVE…?



That primitive and ignorant people once sacrificed
Their babies to stone and wooden gods?
Today we are much less ignorant and ill-informed.
We now sacrifice them to the ‘god’ within or the gods of expediency & convenience.
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When Gnosticism is abroad—SUSPICION & DISCORD rule…
The ‘Christian’ misinformation deluge is upon us.

It’s being peddled mostly by (to give a very large benefit of the doubt) well-intentioned pedlars, many of whom have over-invested in quarter-truths put about with reckless abandon by televangelists and similar influencers of our day.

Recently a neighbour spoke to me with great concern about how we are being manipulated by Big Pharma. Oh dear…of course there is a measure of coercion and Big Pharma is not guiltless in that—nor is Big Retail or Big Sport or Big Gambling: BUT—perhaps it’s time someone spoke up about the coercion and manipulation of BIG Church and Big Christian TV—and coercive methods to bankroll ‘ministry’ and generate both sensation and viewers. The pedlars of silly prosperity-on-demand and healing-on-demand doctrines and the like, topped off with conspiratorial teachings often backed by selected and spuriously interpreted scriptures.

Anyone who preys on people by creating a group of ‘insiders’ who have the real knowledge of what is going on, are simply the Gnostics of the 21st Century. It is simply Gnosticism in new clothing…and Gnosticism is as old as the Garden and the tree of Knowledge!

In the first century Church there soon arose various groups who emphasised personal spiritual (or secret revelation) knowledge above orthodoxy in the teachings, apostolic doctrine, and authority of scripture.

They were the ones ‘in the know’—the insiders who knew what was really going on!
Ring any bells?
Once you believe you have received an ‘inside track’ it’s easy enough to create an audience who want to be on the inside with you because clearly (as you’ve told them) that’s where God is—and no-one wants to miss out on this special blessing that awaits ‘inside’, do they? Blind outsiders can’t see what we can!

The language of the New Gnostics is soon characterised by references to the mysterious ‘they’ who have engineered the evil conspiracies—but ‘we’ know what they’re up to (because of our special knowledge).
There is a whole lot of virtue attached to ‘belonging’ and belonging means you speak the language and use the key words so that you know who is an ‘insider’ and who is not—and this, in turn enables you to virtue-signal and to ‘feel’ righteous.
I am sad (and even angry) at the suspicion, fear and confusion some have sown into millions of lives, not to mention the discord among the people of God.

The ‘gospel’ of the New Gnostics is one that sows suspicion, suspicion, suspicion not to mention the fostering of spiritual elitism and discord.
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THE WATCHER DISCUSSES LIGHT AND DARKNESS…
 
HUMAN: “Jesus said ‘I am the light of the world’ did he not? But today we have so much knowledge and understanding—and what I would describe as enlightenment, so can that still be true?”

WATCHER: “More true than ever.”

HUMAN: “Oh…explain please.”

WATCHER: “Well, have you considered the context in which he said those words? There was a display of darkness occurring at that very moment as he was speaking his light to people, early one morning near the temple.”

HUMAN: “And what was the occurrence you speak of?”

WATCHER: “Pharisees and scribes brought in a woman caught in adultery. They were ready to stone her but what they failed to see was that the motives of their dark hearts was as bad as, or perhaps worse than, her sin.”

HUMAN: “And their motive was?”

WATCHER: “Twofold, no threefold …to test Jesus and to find a means to accuse him. And—they tried to use the woman as a pawn for a game of ‘gotcha’ with Jesus. So there are at least three counts of darkness in their hearts against them.”

HUMAN: “These were men who were pretending they were the light of the world?”

WATCHER: “Aha…you’re getting it! And then he wrote their darkness on the ground and exposed it to them—and to the others—so that they stole wordlessly away.”

HUMAN: “It’s like true Light revealed pretend light as actual darkness. Yes, of course…darkness is just absence of light isn’t it? They had no light within!”

WATCHER: “Wonderful! Exactly so—and is why he then said to the gathered people, ‘I am the Light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the Light of life!”

HUMAN: “And today?”

WATCHER: “Human hearts are the same—and, the more they shut out the true Light, the more desperately they try to manufacture their own light from the darkness within. Soon dark motives reveal themselves in virtue-signalling, hypocrisy, desire for attention and publicity, along with denigration of—or cancelling of others—most especially those who seek to walk by the true Light of the world.
It’s also the reason Jesus said in another place, “If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!”

HUMAN: “Sigh…”

(John Chapter 8)
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Genghis Khan or Joan of Arc?
Simple questions...
If a man believes he is Genghis Khan or a woman thinks she is Joan of Arc...or for that matter, if a woman believes she is Genghis Khan etc., they are usually referred for treatment and therapy before more damage is done.

Everyone would agree that it would do no good for doctors or helpers to provide the man who believes he’s Genghis Khan with a horse and a sword and an army of followers.

On the other hand if a man with all the necessary anatomical components believes he is a woman today, why is it considered wrong or damaging to help them come to terms with that delusion/deception. And secondly, to make it worse, why do others deliberately join them in their delusion to aid and abet it!

Are two or three or a hundred deceived people somehow better than one?
All of us are deceived or deluded about one thing or another, but REAL transformation from any deception begins within and works out from there—and it’s on offer from the only One who has power to transform us in this way. And—to whom we are really meant to come and transition into, and not some warped counterfeit.

It is Jesus Christ. He said and says, wonderful words (and backs them up with wonderful actions), like “COME TO ME all who are labouring and under oppression, and I will give you ease.”