Daniel 4:1-3, “Nebuchadnezzar the king to all the peoples, nations, and men of every language that live in all the earth: ‘May your peace abound! It has seemed good to me to declare the signs and wonders which the Most High God has done for me. How great are His signs and how mighty are His wonders! His kingdom is an everlasting kingdom and His dominion is from generation to generation.’”

There is something called buyer’s remorse after purchasing something, like an automobile, and then wondering the next day if the right thing were done. If the doubt lingers long enough, it will turn into fear. Sometimes this is a valid experience. Many find that they have been pressured into making a purchase they later regret; they actually did make a bad decision. However, the problem is that an emotion like buyer’s remorse can have at its source fear or a lack of peace, and both will feel the same way. When I purchased my house (the best investment I ever made), I was filled with fear. “How will I make the payments? What if I lose the house?” I had the peace of God when I bought the house, but the enemy and my humanity (wanting to be a success at playing God) attempted to prompt me to surrender my peace to the situation. Fear began directing me rather than the peace of God. I can have fear and the peace of God at the same time; I just need to recognize the difference. I must ask myself, “Was God leading you? Did you not lift the situation up to Him? Is it not impossible to lead sheep that are not moving? Isn’t it His job to take me to the right place?” Then I can see that my decision was made in peace, and I cannot let fear drive me, even if the situation does not work out as I thought that it should. For example, what if I lose my job and cannot make the house payments? That does not mean that I was not listening on the day that He led me to buy it. Some will say that this is a cop-out. Well, amen. We Christians are the only ones allowed a cop-out, because our God causes all things to work together for the good.

Christians have made mistakes and at times been bad witnesses of the Truth, but they are the only positive in a negative world. Again, the world takes someone that is a .5% success, puts him under a magnifying glass, and tries to make it look as if he were a 100% success without Christ. I have been accused of tearing down the accomplishments of non-Christians. Well, amen. I do not do it by way of judgment, but to prove the point that these people were not the successes without Christ that we were led to believe they were. Also, those who accuse me of this do the very same thing with anyone and everything Christian. I do not buy it. Without Christ’s life in man, we would be in the dark ages. It is also interesting that Christians are the only ones whose belief system allows for them to take criticism. Try to criticize a Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, or a communist, and see how far it goes. It will not be heard or accepted. Since Christians are the ones who listen, they get the majority of complaints directed toward them. Watch a group like Amnesty International make more noise about a single instance of discrimination within a Christian country than it does a wholesale slaughter in a non-Christian country. Why? The Christian has a higher standard, that being the behavior of Christ. The Christian is sensitive toward others because he is cognizant of having received mercy, and he will show it in return. The problem is that the world is constantly making an appeal to the wrong people. Christ and His family simply are not messing up the world.

Galatians 4:4, “But when the fullness of the time came, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the Law.”

Interesting that Jesus came at the perfect time in history. This perfect time included His people’s being surrounded and suffocated by an occupying force. It was the perfect time because men would be less tempted to look around than up! He basically said little about the government, such as, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s.” Why? In Pakistan I was scheduled to speak to a group of Muslims. I was asked before the sermon, “What will you be saying against Islam?” I responded, “I don’t teach Islam.” Again a question came, “No, but what will you be saying against Islam.” I said, “I don’t preach Islam. Brothers, to teach against Islam is the same as teaching for it. Islam would still occupy my mind and the minds of the listeners. I don’t have time. I will be teaching only Jesus.” I spoke for two hours on the way to live and then Who was the Way. Over 40 Muslims believed in Jesus. I don’t believe I would have seen those results had my sermon been against Islam. Jesus just didn’t have time for politics, which are of the world and will die when the world is destroyed. Why not talk about something that is permanent? Because of the expanded awareness of Christ in me, I am becoming more and more disinterested in the world of politics. To focus on it stirs my pride, angers me, makes me accuse men, fills me with fear, and has me debating facts—or, often, misinformation–and issues that in reality I don’t know about. I have watched the evening news reporting on a place to which I have been going for enough years to know there is very little truth in what is being said. The Koreans once said to me, “Do you know when the man representing the media and the news is lying?” I said, “No, tell me!” Their response was, “When his lips are moving.” This is not the age of information but the age of misinformation, and perhaps there has never been a time in history when there was less truth being broadcast throughout the world. Yet, we possess the TRUTH. We can speak about Jesus and don’t have to worry if we are lying or not. We can hear and read of Jesus and know that it is the TRUTH. Jesus came at the perfect time and the focus was on Him, the Father, and the Kingdom. We are finding ourselves in the perfect time for the focus to be on the same things.

James 1:14, “But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust.” Galatians 5:16-17, “But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh. For the flesh sets its desire against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; for these are in opposition to one another, so that you may not do the things that you please.”

I am starting to believe that people are deceived because there is something in them desiring the deception. First, if Satan has the ability to deceive all men, then all men would be deceived. Obviously he does not have that kind of power. So what does he look for in a man that would allow for a deception? Satan is looking for something in the heart of man where the deception can begin. It would be impossible for Christ to deceive any person, for there is nothing in Christ that the flesh desires. True Christianity cannot deceive, for again, nothing in the flesh wants anything at all to do with Christianity.

Christianity has one message for my flesh: “Move over!” So what is it that makes man’s heart open to deception? I believe it is the desire of a heart that says, “I can be God.” Rephrased, it is the desire of the heart to be independent from God. This is why the Mormon religion is so successful; it is cleverer than the early Catholics who embraced the local gods of the people, or just gave them different names. As you know, many “Catholic” countries are rife with blends of Catholicism and witchcraft. Haiti is an example. However, the Mormons offer something more: man can actually become a god. Man can invite his wife to his celestial kingdom, where she can be eternally pregnant. This “deception” has incredible drawing power to those who have suffered under the hand of their unjust god, or who have served a god all of their lives. After all, who would not want to believe that he could become the one who hands out punishment and receives gifts from others?

Such a person is deceived with a ludicrous teaching, but moving past the cobweb to the spider, we see at the root a heart that says, “I want to be God.” Deceptions all offer the flesh something, and Christ is always taking something away from the flesh. When someone converts to Mormonism, or any of the other “-isms,” I never feel that the Mormons won one while the Christians lost one. Instead, I believe that the person, in believing the deception of Mormonism, actually revealed a heart previously hidden that is anti-Christ. Again, we see that nothing is working against us. God is permitting all the “-isms” for the revelation of hearts. The germ of every cult is this promise of keeping the flesh alive through some kind of God-playing. The amazing thing is that it holds any attraction, when it is so much easier to have a God than to play God.

Romans 6:6-7, Knowing this, that our old self was crucified with Him, in order that our body of sin might be done away with, so that we would no longer be slaves to sin; for he who has died is freed from sin.

Many view slavery to sin as analogous to a machine and a driver. A machine has no will of its own, being completely dominated and controlled by the driver, who turns it on, moves the handles, expects response from the machine, and turns it back off. This is the “life” of a machine; its state of being without a will, without the ability to choose, shows a true example of passivity. Many unbelievers and believers alike have embraced the philosophy toward the slavery of sin wherein sin is the driver and the unbeliever or believer is nothing more than a machine. Sin has complete control over the unbeliever or the believer, who in turn must yield to its dictates. This view of life is soul killing in that it strips man of all hope. If one cannot choose, why even get out of bed? Why keep moving forward to a pre-determined judgment? When those in the world say that their sexual orientation is pre-determined, they have just confessed to being a hopeless machine slave. To convince a believer that he has an addiction is to persuade him that he has no choice. What, then, is there to do but allow sin to turn his switch to on, move him in its direction, and turn him off at its bidding? Oddly, the heterosexual is told that he or she can say no to sex, but the homosexual cannot.

We are not machines, and sin is not the driver. Unlike the piece of machinery, we have free will. However, our Creator, the Master, has set the parameters of our choices. Though thus limited in our choices, we still have choice. As a slave a person can work or not work, live or be killed, eat or not eat, sin or not sin, love or not love. There is a lot that a slave can do and a lot that a slave cannot do. Certainly he cannot leave. Spiritually, sin might be the master, but still the person can choose to do good (follow the Law) or choose to sin (disobey the Law). Now, sin does not sit on a believer or unbeliever controlling; instead, sin manipulates by appealing to pride and the desires of the flesh. Sin cannot control; it is not allowed to do so. Sin gets its adrenaline rush from manipulating someone to choose against God, choose sin, or choose the keeping of the Law. Anyone can simply say “no” to sin. I have seen and met unbelievers that one day said “no” to this or that sin; they meant it and it stuck. How much more empowered is the believer? Sin is a big annoyance, it has the power to deceive, and it is relentless. When someone is the slave of sin, all choices are calculated by sin to serve sin. However, the capability is still there to choose, or how could an unbeliever choose Christ? Once Christ is chosen, a person is taken out of the dominion of sin and placed in the Kingdom of God. He is still a slave (serving a wonderful Master!). However, the parameters are much grander and the choices far more varied. A slave still must choose. We read in John 5:19, “the Son can do nothing of Himself, unless it is something He sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, these things the Son also does in like manner.” Jesus did do something; He chose to do nothing on His own. That is not passivity.

I once finished a meeting and was verbally attacked by another. I did something: I prayed, I listened, I rested, and I heard nothing from Jesus, so I said nothing. It appeared to others that I did nothing, but I was actually doing a lot of choosing. As a slave of righteousness, I can do a lot of choosing. At other times I have actively done nothing by waiting and listening, and He spoke. In those instances I spoke what I heard, and it was redemptive, as Jesus always is. Again, it is soul killing if as a believer I think I am a machine without free will. I am a slave to Christ, but I do not just sit around waiting for Jesus to get in the driver’s seat. I work within the parameters He has set for me, his slave, and I have so many choices and freedoms that He actually calls me His friend, His beloved, His brother, and His bride. This slave must put one foot in front of the other and walk by faith. This slave must deny his lying emotions. There are many things that my Master will not do for me, because it is His will that I do them for myself, and I am to obey my beautiful Master. What a wonderful kingdom is His; what a great day it is to be a slave. Now, the old slave died, so sin can no longer lay any claim whatsoever on me as a believer. If sin wants to grab back the old slave, it will just end up with a handful of spiritual dust.

The things of the world belong to the world.

Matthew 8:22, “But Jesus said to him, ‘Follow Me, and allow the dead to bury their own dead.’”
I don’t know about you, but I have had it with the media. This is not the age of information but the age of misinformation. When I was asked what I thought of the President, and my response was, “I don’t know him,” the inquirer proceeded to tell me exactly what he was like. I asked, “How do you know all that?” “Well, it was on television!” Amazing! I have done the same thing myself. Actually, I have been in different parts of the world when things are unstable or in an uproar; not once have I found it to be like the reports on television. I listened to a reporter who was purportedly asking questions. However, he was only making accusations and then writing his own commentary. The fellow being thus “interviewed” finally asked, “Who told you I ever said such a thing?” The reporter went quiet, because no one had ever said that, he had made it up. There is the constant promoting of an agenda in the media. Why is all the bad news shown on TV? The news is calculated to stir our flesh to fear, resentment, frustration, anxiety, bigotry, and divisions. Once the bad news is received and our focus is on it, we will surrender our peace to it. There is always something the world offers to stir pride, to encourage self-righteousness or unrighteousness, and to make us think the world and its “elite” must do something. It’s all piffle. We can’t believe any of it. I can go months without watching the news, and nothing has changed the next time I see it. It would be interesting to look at what was reported as absolute truth last year and see where the facts lie today. This brings me to my point. Should I just keep my head in the sand and ignore the world and what is happening around me? Well, Jesus said it the best, “Let the dead bury their own dead!” The things of the world belong to the world. The world is creating the mess, let them report it and stew over it. They are dead; let them bury their dead. Lay it all aside and follow Him; we are alive, and we have a kingdom of truth. Like the scuba diver, the things that bother the fish ultimately don’t bother him, for his world exists above. What happens in the world, even if it is true, does not change our job description.

Eph 6:12, For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.

We attended a bullfight in Spain. I can’t say that it is an enjoyable experience, but it is an interesting one. Having grown up on and around a farm, the kill before butchering was never something that I looked forward to. Some would argue that the death of the bull in a bullfight is as humane as the death in a slaughterhouse. Well, amen, they both happen. After watching six bulls fight the matadors, my admiration for bulls has gone way up.

Religion is religion, and Jesus isn’t a religion, He is a relationship.

As a child, I was never allowed to even touch a bull. There was the temptation when feeding the cows and petting them to do the same to the bull. However, any advance toward the bull was met with a strong rebuke from my grandfather. He had hauled several and seen men gored; he never trusted any bull. The bulls in Spain enter the arena full of attitude, strength, and catlike quickness. They look for anything that is moving and immediately charge. The power is awe-inspiring to witness; they send every matador scrambling behind a thick wooden wall, and then they hammer the wall with their horns. I just had never witnessed that in a bull, nor had I seen that kind of endurance. It is impressive.

Because of the bull’s strength and superiority, the fight would take hours if the bull were not slowed down. Nothing about a bullfight is fair (the only way to make it less fair would be to remove one of the bull’s legs). Carrying a spear, a horseman rides in on a heavily padded and blindfolded horse. The bull will immediately head for the horse. The first bull we saw actually knocked the horse over and was able to gore it, even as the rider, falling down, drove the spear deep into the bull. Next, four matadors begin to wear the bull down by having the bull make a series of charges at the pink cape. When the bull is sufficiently tiring, another matador will come with two colorful skewers. He will let the bull charge him straight on and then jump, driving the skewers into the back of the bull and maneuvering sideways just in time to be missed by the horns. This is repeated three times. Still, the stamina of the bull at this point is awing. The matador, with his large, red cape, will now come out to work the bull until it finally has its strength bled out of it. With an air of satisfaction he draws a sword; the great beast bows its head, ready to charge one more time at the rag that has given it so much grief, and the matador drives the sword into the heart of the great beast. Some are better at this than others, but ideally, the bull’s demise is quick, and it drops, immediately dead. The whole exhibition takes around 15 minutes.
Personally, I think the matadors should wear little tight pants because they fight like girls.

OK, why all this talk of bullfights? I couldn’t help but think about our fight against the “rulers, powers, forces of darkness, and spiritual forces of wickedness.” In Christ, the battle is won. On the cross He did not say, “To be continued!” He said, “It is finished.” We in Christ, like the bull, have the superior strength. However, the bull makes one fatal mistake by thinking the cape, a simple piece of lifeless rag, is the enemy, the source of its pain! I kept thinking to myself, If only you would stop fighting the rag, stop looking down, look up at the head, and move eighteen inches to the right! The battle would be yours. Even to its dying breath, the bull was eyeing the rag as the matador drove the sword deep into his heart. A physically superior creature defeated because of a wrong focus. How often in our spiritual battles the enemy has our focus on something other than him; we never pay attention to his ugly head.

So many times I have talked to couples ready to divorce over absolutely nothing but a rag. However, the enemy keeps poking and making them think that the rag is what is hurting them. It isn’t the rag! It is the one behind the rag. Move eighteen inches to the right, go for the head, and you will see the truth of it. Many times, I will stop in the middle of a situation and just say, “The Lord rebuke you!” I know the issue isn’t the issue; there is someone behind the issue and I want to go for the head. The believer has the superior strength, but it will do no good if it is focused in the wrong place. So many just bow and let the enemy drive the sword deep into the heart. There will nearly always be the need for 20% improvement in any relationship (the rag). Why let the 20% steal the 80% joy? On any given day, you should immediately be able to say three things that are right about your situation and about your mate. Well, again, we need grace to go for the head.

The believers in Spain, as in Portugal, have to labor. Christians are not embraced; Catholicism, with its religious spirit, has driven the least little desire out of the people to look for something spiritual. Therefore, Jesus just isn’t easily considered. I can’t say the people are hardhearted; it is just that their definition of Jesus includes suffering, crawling, misery, bondage, lack of joy, confinement, and total deadness. With that definition, why look any further into the prospect? Our friends have worked here for 12 years, and the end result, in part, is this little meeting that we are going to have in the morning. They have invited their friends and coworkers. They have done everything to make it a beautiful experience for them.

We are to be in a small room in a new “meditation” lodge. We will have four hours of teaching and then a vegetarian meal. Nine people arrive. Two are unbelievers. I have been told by the Lord the direction to take in the teaching. I will spend the first three hours talking about how we live, how we feel, what we think, and the struggles of man. I will not mention Jesus until the end. After three hours, it was obvious that Jesus had, as He always does, the right people there. If He gets all the glory, then He must do all the work, and He does. As I talk about Jesus, everything must be redefined, for the words that we commonly use have one meaning to us but another to them. Nearly every term has a distorted religious meaning. I just stick to Jesus, His uniqueness, His love, His difference, His life, and all that He is. Then we talk about His being our life. Not praying, “Jesus, help me,” but praying, “Jesus, come and be my words, my life, my love, my joy, my everything.” I wasn’t saying anything that I have not said a hundred times before, and yet, when I looked up, there were only a few dry eyes. The one girl, an unbeliever, came immediately up to me, and crying said, “Something has awakened in me! I knew I needed something; I knew I was being called!” The fellow, who we were really surprised even came, was right into it.

As we shifted to dinner, the topic was Jesus. One brother, with a beautiful heart, has labored for years and only has a few couples around Spain that have come to Jesus. He was excited and said, “This approach of life, of getting in the person’s skin, of showing in that context the need for Jesus, will be received. We will pray about putting a conference together for the couples I know around Spain.” Well, amen, I am also tagging along, building on the work of others.

Next we move to the house. I wanted to show my friends how the approach worked individually. That was great fun. Then the two “former” unbelievers showed up with dinner. We talked about Jesus until nearly 1:00 a.m. As I was being driven home, my friend turned to me, “In twelve years, that is the most openness that I have ever experienced with a group of people. It is the deepest conversation that we have ever had.” It excited me, and yet it vexed me, for I could see how he and his wife had suffered here in loneliness, going it by themselves, how much they forfeited to be with these people and to labor in such a religious environment. Again, the ugliest religion in the world is Christianity. There is nothing that will kill the spirit of man like the Christian religion. Why? Every other religion is made to be a religion. Christianity is centered in a great God Who lives through us. Try to make it a religion of lists, and the standard will become so high that the people will be wiped out; they then will focus on some insignificant speck that they CAN accomplish, as though it were of ultimate importance, in order to avoid the fact of their failure to be “like” Jesus. It becomes so obvious that at some time and place during the history of the Catholic Church, it became expedient, to the carnal, to have a “Christian religion.” This religion would stir the pride of the masses and make them forget that they should not be fighting for the earthly kingdom of a man and actually forsaking Jesus. The whole thing tends to sicken us in light of the fact that Jesus is alive (mind you, we wouldn’t have that light without the revelation of the Spirit, and this will always soften our criticism).

I have a silent disgust for all things religious. I suppose that I shouldn’t, in fairness, contain it to the Catholics, but Jesus is not a religion. He never wrote anything, and His emphasis was that there was no obstacle between man and God. Religion is religion, and Jesus isn’t a religion, He is a relationship.

I Tim. 2:5, For there is one God, and one mediator also between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, 6who gave Himself as a ransom for all, the testimony given at the proper time.

We have a history with God that proves to us that His is a better way.

I Cor. 2:12, Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God.
I was talking to a group of the brothers and asked them to do a simple exercise. Take a sheet of paper and draw a line down the middle. On the left-hand side write down all that you thought you would receive in life, and on the right-hand side list what you have actually received. In the end, everyone agreed that the list on the right was much bigger; all had received more than they had ever imagined. That being the case, I asked if their objectives in life were as good as the Lord’s plan. We have ideas of what we want that are often based outside of the love of God. That is, we don’t fully trust that what He gives will be better than what we can obtain in the power of the flesh. I remember a friend, years ago, saying to me with conviction, “I don’t want my own will! I have had it, and it isn’t as good as God’s.” Well, amen. We have a history with God that proves to us that His is a better way. I am getting through with plans and simply saying each and every day, “Thy will, not mine.” Why not relax? He has done a great job up to this point. “Do not worry then, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear for clothing?’ For the Gentiles eagerly seek all these things; for your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow; for tomorrow will care for itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”