In That Day Teachings

Above all, a good heaven,

Beneath all, a good foundation,

In all, a good God.

In That Day Teachings

by Robert Winkler Burke

(Who is published as of 1/2/08 by Amazon's Digital Text Platform on its new Kindle e-book: 
"The Tough Ancient Paths Beyond Today's Popular Christian TV Messages*"
(*Of Weakness, Fear, Greed, Giddiness and Pride)

Reno, Nevada U.S.A.

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root." -- Henry D. Thoreau

7/19/08

Candy-Coated Christ vs. Offensive Jesus – Our Lord said, “Blessed are they who are not offended in me,” when John the Baptist was in prison and seemed to forget who our Savior was.  Further, when the disciples murmured at their teacher’s “hard saying,” Jesus said in John 6:61, “Doth this offend you?”  And Jesus upped the ante with another hard question followed by the statement, “But there are some of you that believe not.”  And Christ ended that chapter’s teaching session with another question and tough pronouncement:  “Will ye also go away?” and “Have not I chosen you twelve, and one of you is a devil?”  Later Jesus gives a prolonged teaching in John chapters 13 through 17.  At about the middle of these great and tough teachings, Jesus stops and says in 16:1, “These things have I spoken unto you, that you should not be offended.”  And of course Peter asks us to “greatly rejoice” regarding the “trial of … faith” (1 Peter 1:6-7) and “Beloved, think it not strange, concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened unto you.”  (1 Peter 4:12)  But things do, indeed, appear to be different in this the beginning of the Twenty-First Century, insofar as American mega churches go.  Conde Nast reporter Karl Taro Greenfeld said the 8/08 issue of the magazine that the lighting around Joel Osteen in one of his arena services made a “halolike luminescence surrounding” the “Reverend Feelgood” as “Joel and Jesus” delivered “my gilded acre of the American dream,” sans offense!  So what can we say?  What can we pray?  How about something non-offensive:  Just be easy on us, oh JA-EASY-ON-US!  But, what do we do when hard trials come with God almighty offense?

7/17/08 Excoriating Puerility vs. Pilgrim’s Progress – Let me be the first to admit my previous post regarding Joel Osteen is somewhat overboard in excoriating his ministry.  I believe his saccharine style is borderline surreptitious, because new believers might later undergo the “shock and awe” of God’s overcoming process unprepared.  But no doubt the Lord uses Osteen as an accomplished fisher of men, as a seeker-friendly solution to bringing in today’s catch of fish.  Back in the late 1980s, I took myself and family to Robert Schuller’s Crystal Cathedral.  The great man baptized my three sons on TV!  Schuller’s “be happy” ministry helped me and my family back to God.  But as a  pre-ordained seeker of God’s higher ways, I found I could not stay there long.  So indeed, the Lord’s ways are mysterious.  I would only wish that God’s shepherds of easy and introductory paths would more readily admit their own elementary function in Christ’s body; and encourage such sheep as are ready and called to move to more advanced shepherds with experience from refiner’s fire, wilderness courses.  Such is many a pilgrim’s progress.  In fact, such is John Bunyan’s 1678 masterpiece, The Pilgrim’s Progress from This World to That Which is to Come.  The internet tells us Bunyan’s book has never been out of print!  Now it is published free on the internet by Google.

See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Pilgrim's_Progress.

Read: http://books.google.com/books?id=Bv0CAAAAQAAJ&dq=pilgrim's+progress&pg=PP1&ots=a-DxOgxlqL&sig=2Q6oiZwbPS-fvNfYqCnFjmRaO6Y&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result#PPP1,M1.

The Parable of Two Teachers – Long ago there once was a village that had two teachers.  They taught their students under the shade of two trees, one bearing apples, the other oranges.  The orange tree teacher taught his students two foreign languages, the languages of the separate countries beyond their respective east and west borders.  “You must learn these languages in order to buy and sell farm produce, fish and trinkets,” he told his students.  Now, the apple tree teacher taught his student the same two foreign languages.  But this teacher told his students, “You must learn these languages in order to interpret in the grand chambers of your king and your queen, or in the battle tents of your generals, or even for the great deeds you will no doubt some day be required to perform out of devotion for God, country, honor and your sacred family’s name.”   The result was one set of students learned just enough of the two foreign languages to make a border purchase of fish or foul.  But the other students were destined to become great couriers, ambassadors, statesmen, spies, interpreters, businessmen and trusted sovereigns of many adventurous affairs for their king, queen and country.

Dear Alan,

Thank you for your kind e-mail. 

Wow.  Would I like to talk to you for a while!  ((Regarding your brutal financial hurts with 35 years exposure to Word of Faith (WOF) in Texas and other Southern regions.))

As I reel under the self-inflicted stresses I have caused my financial condition to undergo, I wonder why... when I was SUCH a good student of and GIVER to the WOF preachers from 1994 through 2001.  I helped Benny Hinn (to buy his media building in California), Kenneth Copeland (to buy his jet, no less,) TBN, Rod Parsley, Joyce Meyer, Creflo Dollar... until I became.... somewhat blind to charlatans -- ecclesiastic or secular  (it didn't matter!) 

In 2,000, I gave over a small fortune to a businessman who provided almost no return whatsover.

I was blinded by greed of the WOF "Give-to-get" preaching, and couldn't see a charlatan businessman as another greedy person to avoid.  But back then I was convinced others who asked for my money weren't to be under suspicion, but to have faith as it must be an opportunity sent of God to repay those donations made to so many WOF preachers!  (Even though I thought I could rationalize business decisions... I do have a college degree!)

Secondly, I myself wasn't under suspicion, either.  From 2,000 to now I have done some rather stupid business decisions... like acquire financing to build up a construction company here in Reno, Nevada.

Third, From this I have learned experientially just what it is to be somewhat blind (financially) and being led by the somewhat blind (financially.)  I became, as it were, beguiled in business as I was beguiled in theology.  The televangelists preached altogether too well.  Their immersion worked... but at what a cost to me personally!  The great immersion Kenneth Copeland repeatedly talks about, was in the end... blind allegiance to their calls for ever greater and more absurd donations, donations made with vague and ridiculous promises that God would repay.  (It builds their faith, but beats up ours!)

So my In That Day Teachings have come at quite a cost.  But they keep being confirmed to me as truth.

For example, look at this article about Joel Osteen:

http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/07/16/Megachurch-Preacher-Joel-Osteen

It starts out as a normal journalism piece, BUT WOW!  By page five...

http://www.portfolio.com/executives/features/2008/07/16/Megachurch-Preacher-Joel-Osteen#page5

Hit the delete button, he (Osteen) urges, and reprogram your mind…

For a moment, as the choir sings, “When the battle is over / and the fighting is done / we’ll lay down our armor / the victories all won,” and the orange, red, and purple stage lights are flashing, and a halolike luminescence surrounds Osteen as he promises to free us from our fears, to lift us above our doubts, to lead us to prosperity and joy, I think about my own worries, my debts, my career, my woes.  [Note:  This is CLASSIC stage hypnotism technique and application… rwb]

How tempting it would be to just stand and turn my will and life over to Jesus if, in exchange, I will be led down a righteous path of prosperity, taken in hand by Jesus, and Joel, and delivered to my gilded acre of the American dream. Yes, yes, why shouldn’t I stand? Because who am I not to want to be saved? Who doesn’t need a little bit of Joel in their life, tonight, every night, forever, leading us from this dark place to our promised land? Together, hands joined, shoulder to shoulder, we will march forward into our glorious future. Delete the negative thoughts, Joel preaches. Yes, yes, delete them.  [And unspoken, give… a hefty offering to activate the WOF seed exchange. – rwb]

… the author seems to be mesmerized.... and repeating the WOF mantras... unable to comprehend what happened to good old-fashioned journalistic skepticism.  The article ends with the unwritten admission of being hypnotized.  (It's just another example of stage hypnotism working so well for the mega-rich televangelists!  And unlike true stage hypnotists you might see in Vegas, televangelist stage hypnotists DON’T explain what has happened after the successful hypnotism occurs on victims!  Vegas hypnotists do explain themselves, which is – of course – more honest and respectable!) 

WOW!  This is too ugly to contemplate.  I wrote:

RE Financial Crises and Osteen's "Big" Living: Perhaps we are in the times spoken of old, when great spiritual things happen. But it takes spiritual eyes to see and understand. So what of the mortgage meltdown crisis? Well, perhaps so many of us have put the cart before the horse. First of all, we are supposed to be good abodes for God. Since God wants to live in us, we can offer Him either a spiritual shack or mansion. He's probably weary of visiting desolation shacks. He probably feels more comfortable in a spiritual mansion, don't you think? A person with a spiritual mansion might have several splendid rooms in which God would enjoy being a welcome guest: One room might represent healing, another prayer, another physical fitness, another compassion, another excellence in a profession, another humility, another in fellowship with man, another in higher lines and precepts, and so on and so forth. But what have the people in the United States done these past several years? We've enjoyed taking risky loans offered to us for "Joel-Osteen-inspired-big” homes, cars and lifestyles beyond our fiscal means. So in essence, we've inhabited carnal "mansions" we were not worthy to occupy, based upon fraudulent lending and borrowing. These classical upended actions, based upon faulty spiritual doctrine, inevitably manifest in the carnal, then explode in the carnal, so God's light shines on the carnal problem, so that honest seekers can finally get to see the true nature of the spiritual problem. God really wants to manifest in every man, woman and child. But with televangelists preaching some escapist topic: "Buy my book!" they say; or extreme prosperity: "Give to me, to get from Gawd!" they say; or escape machinations via second coming fear-mongering: "Tithe to me now, and when Jesus soon returns, he'll give you a break!" they say; such wrong-doctrine messages seem to satisfy as long as preachers prosper and consciences of sheep are sufficiently stupefied. But God wants to live in purer spirits, a mansion we prepare for Him (like the saints of old) BEFORE we get ourselves that cool X,000 square foot "fancy" home.

Now Osteen is a great leader. But much of what works for him is the drool factor: What a great-looking wife (a real trophy that one,) a great-looking church, a regular feast for the eyes and ears, a great book-seller (WOW! He lives on the income and takes no salary!!!) Nothing sells like success, you know.

But the tendency is to focus on all that success and forget to clean up the old soul, so Jesus can inhabit it and then such saintly souls so occupied, can bring heaven to earth now. Many of us have tried the borrow-easy-money-way-that-is-beyond-our-means-to-have-that- big-life-now, and we are reeling. We just believed God would help us take care of the mortgage, and now we just wonder what went wrong with believing them lucky fellas like Joel Osteen, who have a different way of income than normal mortals, God bless him. It just seems harder to get God to bless us who live on the wrong end of the Christian broadcasting video camera.

... in reply to a posting where I first saw it, at the http://www.philcooke.com/ website.

Anyway, this is a veiled reply, since I couldn't sound too harsh or the webmaster would delete my reply.

But writing to you, I'd say pastor Osteen sells a lot more than simple truth, he sells envy quite strongly, he sells his WOF mantras even more strongly and if anyone is guilty of sins of omission, well he qualifies quite strongly there, too!  He's far too "nice" to offer stern correction to WOF excesses and unexplained stage hypnotism practices, from his ministry and other egregious Texas and Atlanta-based ministries!  (He doesn't go in that direction of truth.... Nope, not ever.  Just leave it all unsaid, unexamined.  For wolves, it works!)

Wouldn't Jesus say the obvious: That the WOF/Prosperity/Rapture/Sell/Fear program agenda is entirely self-serving to shepherd wolves and provides little guarantee of any favor with any of the financially abused sheep?  Thus the whole "give-to-us" spiel to "get favor from God" whom they actually CANNOT guarantee any promissory affinity themselves.... is nothing but loving and making a lie!  So they do the last page of the Bible exactly.... backwards!  UGH!  UGH!   UGH!

Further, their donation practices, veiled in witchcraft controlling techniques of stage hypnotism, are perhaps cursed.  That’s why they can never get enough donations, and you can never give enough donations.  The whole thing is cursed.  Witness the absurd lifestyles of the televangelists themselves:  Their actions appear cursed.  They are always in the news for questionable immoral behavior:  Witness Copeland’s 18,000 square foot parsonage, his personal use of the ministry jet, etc. 

On the giving side of the equation, I found my giving to be cursed.  It didn’t release me into insight or blessings.  The more I gave to WO(l)F’ers the more I was spiritually blind to their gross techniques of extraction.  The more I gave, I received little blessing in return:  Just a smaller number in my bank ledger.  And then… finally revelation as to what happened, through the In That Day Teachings!

The internet now has many, many truth aggregation sites that herald the abuses of the financial extortions and excesses of televangelists.  This site, www.inthatdayteachings, simply provides the theological understanding, via Isaiah 28.  The WO(l)F leaders are drunk-on-themselves shepherds, drunk unto their own blasphemous deification, and making more vomit on their tables of doctrine.  (Gross images, yes, but straight from Isaiah 28.) 

Then for the blinded, they listen to line upon line, precept upon precept of babble, and become evermore “immersed” in spiritual blindness.  But for the true seekers, they learn line upon line and precept upon precept of truth, here a little, there a little.  And eventually, such seekers can comprehend, devour and incorporate into themselves great truths.  Such food is very bitter and hard to digest, as the Bible repeatedly says of the prophetic saints. 

The eventual goal is to have such great truth, and so few evil spirits, in oneself, as to be a wonderful and welcoming abode for Jesus Christ to indwell.  This ushers in the New Age and heaven come to earth (despite the worse getting worse!)

But the foul result of modern “give-to-get” televangelism is:  The more you listen to them, the more you are convinced by their proud braggadocio that they are saints, and the further you become from every realizing precisely HOW to become a saint through humility.  You just become a spiritually blinded chump, easily conned by the next woflish preacher or wolfish businessman or even wolfish spouse or anybody, really, who is sufficiently brazen.

Now, if we take a wide-angle step back.... what is happening?  Well, it sure ain't a way for In That Day Teachings to easily get funded!  Whoowee, who wants to pay to hear we all a' been taken?

So I am somewhat befuddled myself.  I feel like crying Jeremiah.  Woe is me, because what I say is true and it doesn't seem to be too popular.... or too self-aggrandizing... in fact, the reverse!

Nevertheless, I have been invited to preach and teach at Bungoma, Kenya by a wonderful black preacher by the name of Benjamin Wamalwa Khaemba.  I will be gone from 7/21/08 to 8/6/08.  And this is still a "troublesome" part of the world, regarding violence.  Still and so, I go, feeling very much sent.

(Perhaps this is God's joke on me.... Back six months ago when Kenya was undergoing much civil violence, I read a satirical piece on John Eldredge, about how he promotes a "sissy" kind of manhood.  I quipped, if you really want to do something daring for God, go to Kenya and preach!)

So now I find myself going to Kenya to preach!  (I hope God is laughing about something in all this!)

And!  I'm going without any "dangerous" looking hair growth below my lower lip!  (I'm totally fu manchu challenged!)

Seriously, I asked for your prayer -- for all prayers from all good souls who read the In That Day Teachings -- for my trip into Africa.

May God bless your obedience to Him.

Hoping all in Christ,

Robert Winkler Burke

Reno, Nevada   USA

775-690-7293 cell

7/16/08 Pray Like Everything – “Pray like everything depends on God; work like everything depends on you.”  And: “Nobody cares how much you know until they know how much you care.” – Elders Beatty and Papenfuss, Mormons respectively from Wyoming and Florida.  These remarkable words of wisdom came to me yesterday in the form of two nineteen-year-old missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ Latter-Day Saints.

Mortgage Meltdowns & Other Irritations – The In That Day Teachings continually stress that these are the times spoken of old, when great spiritual things happen.  But it takes spiritual eyes to see and understand.  So what of the mortgage meltdown crisis?  Well, perhaps so many of us have put the cart before the horse.  First of all, we are supposed to be good abodes for God.  Since God wants to live in us, we can offer Him either a spiritual shack or mansion.  He’s probably weary of visiting desolation shacks.  He probably feels more comfortable in a spiritual mansion, don’t you think?  A person with a spiritual mansion might have several splendid rooms in which God would enjoy being a welcome guest:  One room might represent healing, another prayer, another physical fitness, another compassion, another excellence in a profession, another humility, another in fellowship with man, another in higher lines and precepts, and so on and so forth.  But what have the people in the United States done these past several years?  We’ve enjoyed taking risky loans offered to us for homes, cars and lifestyles beyond our fiscal means.  So in essence, we’ve inhabited “mansions” we were not worthy to occupy, based upon fraudulent lending and borrowing.  These classic upended actions, based upon faulty spiritual doctrine, inevitably manifest in the carnal, then explode  in the carnal, so God’s light shines on the carnal problem, so that honest seekers can finally get to see the true nature of the underlying spiritual problem.  God really wants to subcutaneously manifest in every man, woman and child possible.  But with televangelists preaching the rapture: “Buy my book!” they say; or extreme prosperity: “Give to me, to get from Gawd!” they say; or escape machinations via second coming fear-mongering: “Tithe to me now, and when Jesus soon returns, he’ll give you a break!” they say; such wrong-doctrine messages seem to satisfy as long as self-service goes to the wolf preachers, consciences of sheep are sufficiently stupefied and practically nothing is done to actually cleanse and prepare abodes for Jesus to immediately occupy, co-exist and creatively bring heaven to earth.  So God lets the financial system meltdown until we notice something spiritually is being signaled by God.  Perhaps we should repent massively before something worse comes our way to rouse us from self-absorption?

7/13/08 What Did You Think? – In the great coming revival, New Millennium and much-prophesied “Good Christian Times Coming;” which is purported to have prepared Davidic greats hidden in “wilderness caves,” mighty dread champions, overcoming “watchmen on the wall,” who will usher in a “New Age of Eternal Enlightenment;” when they appear as true shepherds for the world’s confused sheep, to lead them out of the wilderness wasteland of Christian broadcast Babel; what did you think would happen?  Would such new leaders bless the rapture sales machine?  Would they say, “Buy my new rapture book, the first of a series of as many as the market will bear, please?”  Would they say, “Give to me to get from Gawd, sow your biggest seed, even if you borrow, charge the card!”  Would they say, “Let me entertain you with prophetic pabulum, because: that’s entertainment!”  Would they say, “All conflicting doctrine is true, no shepherds are wolves in sheep’s clothing and no televangelist is too rich from widows’ mites, and no enterprise too proud, too uncorrectable or too full of carnal imaginings to not be irreproachable?”  What did you think these long-awaited spiritual warriors would be like?  Yes men?  Yes women?  Brown nosed?  Lovers of the applause of men?  Lovers of mammon?  Sycophants?  Worshippers of weakness?  Wispy voiced?  Non-confrontational?  Lovers and makers of lies?  Perfectly pedigreed?  Un-pilloried by life?  Un-bruised?  Unused?  Unable?  Altogether unready, enfeebled and ready to give up?  Without resolve?  Without solution?  Unrespectable?  Un-loveable?  Unloving?  Altogether disgusting and un-receivable?  And most important of all, when revealed are these people to be absolutely bereft of God’s truth and truth’s God?  Will they, or the church they were born to correct, be abominations of desolation?  What did you think?  What do you now think?  So then, be careful what you expect.

The Prophets are Coming – The following is from a newsletter produced by Don and Bonnie Franklin, of the Prophetic Roundtable of Central Florida:

You have not gathered in vain this night in this house, for it shall begin here in this house, saith the Lord. There is an ancient anointing that is flowing. You have tapped into a well of the Holy Ghost that has been in this nation for centuries, saith the Lord.

     And I'm opening up that well, and I'm going to open up that anointing, and I'm going to send prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet, after prophet into this House.    

     They're coming, saith the Lord. They're coming from the North; they're coming from the South; they're coming from the East and they're coming from the West. They have healing in their hands; they have anointing in their voice; they have the Word of the Lord in their hearts. They are men of valor. They are men of experience. They are men who've been tested in tried in the fires of affliction and the furnaces of crucifixion, saith God. There will be blood coming from their feet; there will be blood coming from their hands; they are men and women who have been crucified by the Lord. They will lead in the Body of Christ…

I am bringing interconnections right now with those that have been hidden behind the scenes for years whom I have developed and I am bringing forth. John the Baptist is going to come out of the wilderness screaming at the Church, screaming at the Church, screaming at the Church, saith the Lord. There’s coming a prophetic mantle across the nations where he comes up out of the wilderness and he begins to minister. After three hundred years of silence John will come forth to speak in the coming days. 

     There will be changes, changes. The winds of change are upon the Church and there’s nothing you can do to stop this. All you can do is begin to flow with it now. Change, change, change is upon the Church worldwide. I’m bringing it back into the End-time Church that I have so long desired. You have no idea how the heart of God desires to see the signs, the wonders, the miracles.

     I will burn the dross out of the body of Christ; I will burn out the false prophets; I will burn out the false apostles. I will burn out those who will merchandize my people. They will not be able to stand the refiners fire in the coming days. I will totally burn out those who will merchandize and use my flock, and I will raise up the true apostolic heart, the true prophetic heart – those that will lay their lives down for the sheep.

     You are the beginning founding stones for this movement, saith God. It has begun here in this house, in this church, in this city and it is traveling now across the nations, across the world. You cannot stop this; all you can do is begin to flow with it. Rejoice, for the day that you have been looking for has dawned; it has come. Welcome to the kingdom of God.  Welcome to the change that is coming upon America.

     I’m calling for kingdom connections worldwide. A transfer of wealth has begun; a transfer of wealth has begun; I will pull it out of the hands that have it and I will give it to those who don’t. Even those ministries that have disobeyed me and consumed upon their own lust, I am going to begin to pull it out of them. I’m going to begin to take their support away; I’m going to begin to transfer it to men and women who will do what I want done with the money. I’m going to cut the legs out from some major ministries; you’re going to watch them fall in the coming days. They’re coming down, down, down, saith the Lord, and you are going up, up, up - not only in the realm of the spirit but the realm of the natural…

You who’ve been faithful to me for years behind the scenes, you who have walked on your knees for years bleeding, crying, begging, begging me for things, I say you are on the edge of it all coming to pass; you are right on the edge of it. I’ve kept you low and I’ve kept you humble and I’ve brought you down to the ground, saith God, and I have put you through many flaming fires to keep you.

     Like the Apostle Paul of old, you have had dungeons, and ships, and prisons, and betrayals, and snakes that bite, and stonings, and beatings, but they’ve been good for you; they have been good for you; they have been good for you. For out of your wounds, and out of your scars, and out of your beatings, and out of your rejections will flow a river of healing, a river of prophecy, a river of anointing, saith God. 

     Fear not, saith the Lord. You will not be left out of what is happening, but you will always minister from your knees; you will always minister from a place of bleeding, saith God, for I have wounded you with the wound of a friend. I have cut you, saith God; I have crucified you, openly, publicly and even shamefully at times, but it is for the things of the kingdom of God and for you own benefit…

The laws of Heaven are different than the laws of earth. Search the Scriptures and you will see my sons did know their times of crying: when the baby Moses separated from his mother did cry, when Joseph separated from his brothers did cry, when he cried in his days and nights in prison, when David separated from two sons in death did cry. 

    Know that when you walk in the steps of a servant of the Most High God, sometimes those steps do lead you through the trail of tears, but know your God does have a plan for your life. Did I not lift up all three of those young men? Did they not know their days of glory, their days of exultation? They knew their times of being in the desert places and of people seeking their lives, but they also put on the robes of leadership. Each one did know their time of leading my people. 

    And the path of leadership, the path to leadership is not an escalator. It’s rough. Your hands and feet will bleed. At times you have to take shelter. At times you will see your dear ones by your side fall, but know, but know, but know that even in all of this you are in my hand. I still see the future; I still have a plan…

Even when you lie in a pool of blood alone by yourself having been wounded, having been betrayed, having been taken advantage of at times, you will cry unto me; you will cry unto me; you will cry unto me and I will come to you in that pool - that flaming pool of affliction and fire and furnace - and you will melt into my arms, into my hands and you will become like me; you will become like me, you will become unto me, saith the Lord. We will become one in spirit and in heart.

     Do not fear when you walk through valleys and trials and shadows. I will meet you. Even though all fall away, I never will. This is the way I raise my men up – my real men. I chastise and humble them and bring them into places they cannot handle and then I meet them in the furnace of affliction and I mold them and I shape them and I take the dross out and gold comes forward and you will be gold, saith God; you will be gold, saith God; you will be gold, saith God, to the nations – spiritual gold, pure heart, pure motives, pure ministry, saith the Lord, refined in the furnace of affliction for use in the Master’s hands…

Lord, burn the chaff and the dross out of the Body of Christ. Take the ministries out that do not belong, God. Every ministry that is walking half way with you, that is not really dedicated to you and is causing problems with the Church, I pray, Lord, that you would take them out; shut them down; get them off the airwaves, God, and bring those people in who flow with the Holy Ghost, who have a heart of compassion and love and kindness and will treat other churches and other people with the love of God and the compassion of Christ and not take advantage of them whenever they see the opportunity, Lord. 

     How wicked. How wicked, God, and they’re saying they represent Christ? Would Christ do something like this? Would the Lord Jesus himself, do this? How can they bear his name, Lord? Oh, that there were Old Testament prophets roaming the earth with a sword of the Lord – like Samuel did with Saul – taking off the heads of these heathen kings, God. 

     Lord, we can’t do it, but you can. I pray that you would move in a judicial manner and bring correction within the Body. You said we have not because we ask not. We ask for correction, your correction on things, your discipline on things – that you would separate the wheat from the chaff and the wolves from the flock. 

     Father, you said when we saw wolves, that we were to react. We were not to stand there and put up with these things and say, “Good wolf; good wolf. Eat a few more sheep if you are hungry; it’s O.K. Take the children’s bread; it’s O.K.” How stupid can we be, God? There are wolves among us, Lord; the dreams are coming in; the warnings are going off. There are wolves all around devouring what belongs to the children, and we sit idle saying, “Should we pet this thing; should we play with this thing?” 

     Oh, that the shepherd’s staff would come down and there wouldn’t be a wolf left within a thousand miles – that the sheep could drink in peace; that the sheep could sit in the pews in peace; that the sheep could come in and sit in their Father’s House and not be merchandised, not have their pockets emptied with people taking off and leaving them as they bleed to death – that your children could have proper and clean churches to be in. 

     You’ve given shepherd staffs for a reason. You’ve given authority for a reason. Paul said, “Turn them over to Satan; why do you tolerate this in your midst? Cast them out." The Scriptures demand that we take action when evil is present. When wolves are in the flock we are to rise up, we are to chastise – the leadership is to rise up, chastise, correct, throw out and discipline that the flock may be protected and be at peace. 

     It’s not being judgmental; it’s not being evil; it’s handling the authority of God properly. Lord, we do call upon you that you would raise up men with backbone, men with the ability to use the shepherd’s staff – prophets with the sword of the Lord to come and remove that, which does not belong there…

And I asked the Lord, "What is this?" And he answered, "Everywhere one of those balls of fire hits, I am going to start a new church." I said, "Really? Lord, there are already churches here." He said, "Yes, but they aren't like this one. This one has the whole package. 

     I love all my churches; they're saved; they're going to heaven, but they are stuck in their theology and won't come any further with me. Many of them believe in salvation; they know that Jesus is their Savior, but they believe all the rest of it is gone, and I cannot get them to change their minds, so they'll be allowed to walk with me with what they know."

     But unto the River Church, it's been given to know the secrets of the kingdom. They're willing to pay the price for it all and there is a price to be paid, but that's alright. The Holy Ghost and fire can take you through anything. It is my will that the church grow and become an example of a New Testament church where there is presented the whole gospel and not just salvation - but salvation along with everything else the Holy Spirit desires to do. 

http://www.propheticroundtable.org/Newsletter/Current_Issue.htm.

7/12/08 Licentiousness Defined – The opposite of liberty is licentiousness, which is a disregard for doing the right thing when it comes to personal matters, which is love of no restraint.  Thus if liberty is dedication to the imposition of mutual self-restraint; licentiousness is dedication to the defamatory destruction of mutual self-restraint.  The licentious then, in effect, are driven by necessity to call good evil and evil good.  A popular version of licentiousness is practiced by those in society who believe youth must have its “fling,” its unrestraint in matters both legal and illegal.  Besides being liberty-hating, this contingent is often simply just immature and self-absorbed.  It has been called the me generation, the virtual reality generation, the lost generation.  This devil of indwelling has many names but one result:  generational wastage.  Some survive.  Some don’t.  Too many youths are hurt by their jaded dissolute passions; passions driven by unsustainable disbelief in the merits of living a noble life, which is dedication to real yet lofty matters that are infinitely better, beyond and before selfish pleasures.

7/10/08 Liberty Further Defined – Liberty is dedication to the imposition of mutual self-restraint.  Government shall be kept self-restrained by the people and, when necessary, the reverse.  A community’s contract with liberty is necessarily a blood pledge.  This cost of blood is at once the cause of extreme sorrow and, eventually, sorrow’s opposite. 

Those who challenge liberty will always be met by sacrificial saints who are willing to exchange their potential injury and its pursuant sorrow for liberty’s life and its pursuant happiness to others, others who may be near siblings or far strangers.  Over time, liberty wins. 

But despite all modernity, barbarians continue to challenge liberty.  These enemies have not drained the chalice of liberty dry.  A miraculous cup then, is this chalice of liberty; whenever at risk of becoming empty, good hearts fill it anew. 

When liberty’s need is small, few fulfill its need.  But when its need is great, a great many will heed its sacrificial call.  Liberty always will be a source of mystery to the enemies it conquers, and it always will be a source of miracles to those whom it protects. 

So then we acknowledge that liberty is largely a mysterious and incomprehensible thing of the spirit.  When unthreatened, liberty appears to – without cost – foster natural improvements to the human condition.  But when liberty is threatened, normal humans can become super humans more selfless, self-restrained, creative, invigorated and empowered than any enemy under any tyrannical banner can ever be.

But liberty can die in a people if they spiritually neither understand nor believe its bountiful blessing nor its bitter bite; its two-edged sword that boldly sacrifices this world’s very best to eliminate this world’s very worst.

From 2/24/08 postings on Liberty

Liberty is the declaration of God-given freedom from oppression of unrestrained selves.  In liberty we restrain ourselves to loving God and man, not being a god against men.  We fear becoming a god against other men and thus restrain ourselves.  Also we come to the aid, when prudent, of innocents who are oppressed by the unrestrained.  Thus to love true liberty is to stand for timeless principles of restraint.

We love Abraham Lincoln not for his looks, but for what he loved unto death, which was duty to the defense and imposition of self-restraint on his day’s contingents of unrestraint.  All such leaders themselves must be models of personal restraint and self-effacement or self-diminishment.

Abraham Lincoln was exemplar in self-restraint.  So was his idol, George Washington.  So were America’s Founding Fathers.  But not so are some unrestrained televangelists of today, who are famously extravagant in personal expenditures and ministry video self-exaltation. 

See now Disney’s classic “Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln” from Disneyland on YouTube as America’s Sixteenth President is honored for his principled enforcement of imposed self-restraint; for his transcendent devotion to liberty.

Great Moments with Mr. Lincoln: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4RR2jSTyGZQ.

7/8/08 Midterm Grades are Out! – Perhaps you might consider reading the Wittenburg Door’s review by John Bloom of US Senator Chuck Grassley’s July 7, 2008 report of his ongoing investigation of the finances of six popular televangelists.  Bloom provides a report card, as did this website on 4/1/08.  Bloom’s headline:  “Benny Gets an A, Kenny Gets an F.”  A video news report is also available within Bloom’s review. 

http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/benny-hinn-gets-a-copeland-gets-f#comments .

http://finance.senate.gov/press/Gpress/2008/prg070708.pdf.

The 7/7/08 Televangelist Humility Scorecard:

Joyce Meyer:            A+ in Humility for “providing extensive answers to all questions.”

Benny Hinn:             A in Humility for “providing extensive answers to all questions.”

R. & P. White:          C in Humility for providing general but “incomplete” answers.

Eddie Long:              D- in Humility for “general” info deemed “not responsive.”

Creflo Dollar:           F- in Humility for declining “to reply to any requested” info.

Kenneth Copeland:   F in Humility for “partial” info deemed “not responsive.”

(Thanks go to John Bloom’s grade report from Wittenburg Door! rwb: I added “in Humility” to the above scorecard.)

The 4/1/08 Televangelist Humility Scorecard:

Joyce Meyer:            A in Humility for turning in required docs by 12/6/07.

Benny Hinn:             C in Humility for 2nd “rolling production” docs sent on 3/28/08.

R. & P. White:          C in Humility for saying they FedExed first docs on 3/28/08.

Eddie Long:              C in Humility for promising first docs by 4/15/08.

Creflo Dollar:           F in Humility for refusing to comply with the US Senators.

Kenneth Copeland:   F in Humility for refusing to comply with the US Senators.

(As originally posted on the In That Day Teaching Website) 

Love Those Lawyers! (Say the Televangelists) – Grassley appears to be annoyed by the weak-argument tactic appearing to be employed by the cash-rich televangelists who apparently don’t want light to shine on financial transactions they deem best kept dark:

“The ministries that continue not to cooperate appear to be heeding the advice of attorneys who are not familiar with congressional oversight in general and specifically the Finance Committee’s oversight and legislative work in the area of tax-exempt organizations over the last seven years. These attorneys who aren’t part of the ministries themselves have a natural incentive to prolong the process as long as possible.” – US Senator Charles Grassley

Bottom Lawyer Lovin’ Line – Grassley appears ready, willing and able to issue US Senate subpoenas to perhaps Long, Dollar and Copeland.  Throughout Grassley’s well written press release, the Senator bemoans the petty tactics of delay signaled by the recalcitrant televangelists.  Grassley ends his 7/7/08 press release with these words:

“The churches not yet cooperating also have retained Washington, D.C., lawyers who stand to gain from dragging out response time to requests for information.” – US Senator Charles Grassley

In That Day Teachings Recommend – Perhaps you might consider reading three thoughtful editorials on revival from Lee Grady, editor of Charisma magazine:

Bam! Pow! When Prayer Ministry Gets Violent:

http://fireinmybones.com/index.php?col=061808~Bam!%20Pow!%20When%20Prayer%20Ministry%20Gets%20Violent

The Marks of Genuine Revival, Part 1:

http://fireinmybones.com/index.php?col=062508~The%20Marks%20of%20Genuine%20Revival,%20Part%201

The Marks of Genuine Revival, Part 2:

http://fireinmybones.com/index.php?col=070208~The%20Marks%20of%20Genuine%20Revival,%20Part%202

Cornerstone of Flexibility – “The cornerstone of mental health is being flexible.” – Dr. Laura Schlessinger.

7/7/08 Subcutaneous Christ  – Christ is supposed to be under our skin, alive and enjoying ourselves.  Expect to find in people you chance to meet an ability to manifest this same Christ, and that the manifestation could enhance, correct, exhort or amplify your ability to manifest this same subcutaneous Christ in new and better ways.  Thus we love one another and honor strangers.  We must honor all whom we suspect harbor Christ living and administrating His being under their skin!  Sadly, worldly people and far too many Christians have little respect for each other or strangers.  The Bible calls this end-times phenomenon cold love.  Some people – and even some preachers– have so little faith in God that they visibly detest meeting a person unimportant in their eyes because they have no knowledge that Christ Himself can potentially be manifesting in whom they show such astonishing disrespect.  Sadly, Christian religion is weak on this teaching.  Worst are non-indwelt-by-God televangelists who must necessarily say of themselves, “I am great, my gospel is great, and you must send me money that is great.”  Since their broadcasting ability gives them an eye (i.e. world view) that alters their audience’s eyes (i.e. world view); their gospel of self can snuff out the flame of Christ indwelling.  The blind leaders see no Christ in their blind viewers, and the blind viewers see no Christ in their leaders; and all are content, except God.  Christ wants to manifest in every man, woman and child possible.  It starts by respecting each image of God, each human.  This is the beginning of receiving water of God through those He inhabits.  Later comes grafting onto the vine of Christ.  This is the work of the Holy Spirit along with certain humans.  God prefers to inhabit people who love people.  People who only love God and His dead saints, but despise this same God who now lives in others whom He delights are some of the planet’s most conflicted beings.  These fakers love God and loath man.  Thus, they occupy a strange spiritual desert where they bypass every oasis of inhabitance, believing the heaven-sent waters from human saints indwelt of God to be retched.  Such miscreants fear the discovery that their religion has produced nothing but a devil under their skin.  And no one knows this hidden mystery better than someone who has God under their skin.  We know this, some of us, because we had a hell of a time getting the devil out from under us, and still have a challenging time keeping God in us!  We should be proud of nothing, if we want God’s good company.  And the best way to keep God’s good company, is to honor His wonderful presence in other souls we meet!  And if we meet souls who are poorly inhabited of God, our indwelt light might encourage or convict them.  Little is accomplished by automatically disrespecting another soul.  We would do well to greet strangers as potential angels, until we discern by the Spirit otherwise.  We must love God so much that we respect all whom we meet, until we discern by the Spirit what comes our way: either a person so saintly as to be angelic or so dastardly to be demonic; or like so many of us a mixture somewhere in between; and why it pleases God that we should so meet; and what would please God that we should do for each other.

Subcutaneous Christ Watch – If the above paragraph is true about human souls, the same can be said for art, nature, anything.  See the 2008 Pixar movie, WALL-E.  Many universal themes of truth and love are available under the skin of this movie. Likewise, watch certain websites.  I was once told by a great observer of religion, “I won’t look at your website, Robert.  If I looked at everyone’s website, I couldn’t do my job.” 

See:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5e16U8UsT4I&feature=related (WALL-E trailer)

7/1/08 Our Hidden World of Victory – The kingdom of heaven is made invisible by pride, rigidity and discord with God; yet made visible by humility, flexibility and concord with God.  Thus, rigid religious institutions with pride cannot see the greater parts of the kingdom of heaven, or the greater parts of truth.  Martial artist James Williams of Encinitas, California says if we allow, accept and don’t fight things that come our way (life, really) then we can access what is available: a surprising way of victory of seemingly effortless enablement, a divine empowerment of fluid grace.  This is visibly observable in certain masters of Russian Martial Art.  This self-defense methodology is called “Systema.”  Systema involves a way of breathing, relaxing, allowing, accepting, conforming and awareness that finds energetic solutions in surprising ways.  Interestingly, this fluid “way” hearkens unto Paul’s “way.”  The common goal is permanent damage to one’s ego, elimination of carnal proclivities and enlightenment unto indwelling of God’s empowering Spirit.  Mikhail Ryabko, senior teacher of Russian Martial Art in Moscow, says not only does the art form date back to the Tenth Century of the Russian Orthodox Church, but as far back as Czar (King) David himself.  If true, then this humble, fluid and God-connected way of finding a way where there is no way seems to confirm the In That Day Teachings’ emphasis on humility, flexibility and God-indwelling; while exposing the ills of pride, rigidity and disconnection from God that is apparent in so many braggadocios television ministers.  (Interestingly, such braggadocios behavior itself is unnoticed by wolf and deceived sheep alike until a modicum of truth is somehow put into them.  In other words, the proud prosperity wolves and the proud prosperity duped  see no truth in In That Day Teachings, until personal apocalypse or divine doings show them the spirits they have been of, which typically are greed, self-service, cheap faith, self-enslavement and fear.) In such hidden truth is our victory.

http://www.russianmartialart.com/main.php?page=clips  (Toronto, Canada)

http://norcalsystema.com/home.html.  (Featuring Vladimir Vasiliev of Toronto.)

http://systemofstrategy.com/james-williams/. James Williams of Encinitas, California.)

Chaos vs. Peace – Times are chaotic.  On the increase: violence, war, inflation, disease, corruption, poverty, enslavement.  This forces some to seek higher truth.  Do prosperity preachers have solutions for the poor, other than to make themselves rich at the poor’s expense?  Will a prosperity mantra keep us from being swindled, after having been swindled by prosperity preachers?  How can darkened eyes see?  Stated coarsely, a prosperity wolf makes his flock unseeing dupes to his extortion and excess with the exception that a few sheep gain eyes and avarice to become wolves also.  We must be wise as the Devil to see through whom he schemes.  Yes, we must have faith; but not self-serving fanatic faith which is disconnected from the God of this present moment.  After all, the solution to most personal problems is to simply be mature.  With maturity we are surprised to find many popular doctrines of religious movements are laugh-out-loud wrong!  Yet we know deep in our hearts we must find God, be cleansed by God and be maturely connected – or indwelt – of God.  This is our – and God’s – heavenly peace. 

6/27/08 Recondite Reconnaissance – God likes to hide a thing.  It is His delight.  And what, pray tell, is the greatest thing He hides?  Himself, of course.  Where?  In people, to see if anybody notices!  Who notices God in man?  The answer is an IQ test for truth.  Ungodly and proud people – no matter how religious or successful in degree, position or power – cannot see God in the images of Himself He inhabits.  They are blind.  But consider the reverse.  Godly and humble people – no matter how unreligious or disenfranchised in degree, position or power – can see God in images of Himself He inhabits.  In Matthew 5: 8 Jesus says, “Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God” (in others like themselves.)  In fact, the God-indwelt can even see the potential for others to be God indwelt.  Such God bearers are well wishing, encouraging and exhorting.  They say, “God be with you.”  Seers see such potential.  They see, like John the Revelator saw, a new heaven coming to earth in perfect symmetry from above to inside; changing the outside from within; which the blind cannot see but those with God’s Spirit can; keeping those with dark spirits outside the gates of God while letting those with spirits of light in.  It is virtually inexplicable to many, yet simply understood by some.  Thus the Book of Revelation is about Jesus revealing Himself in us.  For Jesus to be indwelt in us it might take our undergoing many personal apocalypses to remodel our spiritual house to God’s liking.  But if a Christian is taught too much rapture, end times dispensational eschatology and eternal security teachings; then God indwelling is difficult or impossible to understand.  It becomes too recondite or hidden from carnal comprehension.  It is too abstruse, that is until the ultra personal “that day” of the Bible, which is an individually select day of the Lord’s wrath, return and rejoicing… or continued denial, delay and eventual weeping.  Many Christians have been sold a bill of goods with the mantra “Should Jesus tarry.”  The plain truth is: Jesus never tarries.  We do, especially when His return is hidden from our sight blinded by pride and wrong religious dogma.  Thus, we tarry until we trek enough truth reconnaissance to lose the blindness of false doctrines and gain insight and indwelling of the God of this very moment.  Hallelujah!

Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory: Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus: Whereunto I also labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily. – Colossians 1:26-9

 “…lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.”  – Matthew 28:20

“Behold, I come quickly.”  – Revelation 22:7, 22:12

“Surely, I come quickly.”  – Revelation 22:20

6/26/08 Join, or Die … (Spiritually Speaking) – According to Wikipedia, on May 9, 1754 Benjamin Franklin published a cartoon he drew of a snake cut into eight pieces.  The pieces were labeled with names of New England territories.  The title:  “Join, or Die.”  The popular political cartoon was originally used to promote unity against the French.  Ten years later the image was re-titled “Unite, or Die” for use against the English.  Interestingly, it was also used in the Civil War by both sides.  And now in 2008, the quarter of a millennium-year-old image has been used as the title segment of the HBO miniseries John Adams, which chronicles the life of the second President of the United States.  When an icon keeps re-appearing perhaps there is a lesson in it for us.

Unite, or Die … (Spiritually Speaking) – The In That Day Teachings proclaim Christ wants to manifest in every man, woman and child.  This is the mystery of God, Christ in you, according to Colossians 1:26-29.  This also is Christ’s triple iteration of “Behold, I come quickly,” from the Bible’s last page.  It is what true worshippers of God in spirit and truth receive as a gift for holiness, however brief the episode.  It is also what false religionists fear to be true, because of their unpleasantness to the point of abomination.  In other words, their desolate-of-God witness on earth, often caused by wrong doctrine, points to their spiritual blindness and death in eternity.  This life of ours must be now connected with God’s indwelling Spirit, else our spirit in eternity might not.  The cold, hard truths of the In That Day Teachings are also warm, soft truths:  Humbly honor God and God’s indwelt persons, and be evermore so indwelt yourself.  Hence: “Unite, or Die.”

Appeal to Heaven – The message of God indwelling is also provided, albeit somewhat obscurely, on the Bible’s first page.  In Genesis 1:26, God gives a spiritual command for man to have dominion over his own spirit, soul, body and outside influences of good and evil as represented by fish, fowl, cattle, all the earth and creeping things; so that God might inhabit the image of Himself He created.  Thus images inhabited by their Maker bring heaven’s blessings to earth.  This is heaven’s appeal, and it should also be, like the 1775 Evergreen Tree of Liberty flag, our “Appeal to Heaven.”

See this evocative clip of the HBO introduction to John Adams featuring US liberty flags:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J6DPeCXV5bI.

6/25/08 Who We Are – Tough times accomplish many things, chief among them is telling us who we are.  Christians are supposed to be free.  We are to be free from sin.  And we are to love this freedom.  To be free from sin is to possess the quality of self-restraint.  To enjoy freedom we must join among citizens dedicated to the imposition of self-restraint.  Recently, a great aid to liberty was given us in John Adams, a seven segment miniseries from HBO.  The miniseries, based on a book by the same name by David McCullough, is about the birth of liberty and the United States of America.  Adams was the second US President.  The series explains how George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and other Founding Fathers gave birth to a new kind of freedom.  In this age of uncertainty, we must relearn the gift of liberty and rededicate ourselves to its noble cause.  Christians worldwide would do well to learn, love and enlarge today the miracle that happened two hundred and thirty-two years ago in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

From July 4, 1776 – “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”  – Declaration of Independence

See:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeHepBjAyS0.

June 19, 2008

Dear Pastor Benjamin Wamalwa Khaemba, Bungoma, Kenya, Africa,

Greetings in the blessed name and nature of Christ Jesus our Lord!

I apologize for the gap in my e-mails.  I have been gone on trips to visit with family.

These trips take me away from writing.  But I suppose I need the time off. 

The loneliness God gives me in Reno, Nevada enables my work on In That Day Teachings.  Each topic I write about takes much spiritual effort.  Afterward, I feel enlightened, exhausted, drained and spiritually “worked about.”  Whew!  This has happened hundreds of times.   Most people, including my family, would think I’m crazy.  So it is a mercy to live alone. 

This Fall will mark my fourth year of work on the project.

Soon I hope to schedule a trip to Kenya.  I keep praying for guidance.  Thank you for the kind invitation to teach in Kenya!  You only have embraced the teachings.

Question:  Do you have oversight from bishops or a central denomination of some kind?  If so, have you told them about me?

If you asked me the same question, I would report I have no church oversight.  This, I agree, can be problematical.  On the other hand, I am free to roam with ideas – hopefully not too much!

Nevertheless, the teachings came to me starting in the Spring of 1994.  I received them on and off until 2001.  The prophet who introduced me to these ideas then went to the Lord a few years later.  Then in 2004 I started making video teachings and uploading them to the In That Day Teaching website.  I made mistakes along the way and had to retract some material.

Here is what I believe about the In That Day Teachings:

1)       The teachings line up with Paul’s “Mystery-of-God-Christ-in-You of Colossians  1:26-29.

Col 1:26  Even the mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints:

Col 1:27  To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is Christ in you, the hope of glory:

Col 1:28  Whom we preach, warning every man, and teaching every man in all wisdom; that we may present every man perfect in Christ Jesus:

Col 1:29  Whereunto I also labor, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.

2)      The teachings line up with Revelation Chapter 22’s “Behold, I come quickly” to now indwell humankind that is righteous (OK) or holy (much better.)

3)      The teachings line up with Christ’s concern that we know not what spirit we are of.

4)      The teachings explain that Job was stuck in rigid, religious pride and God wanted him to pioneer breaking through to humble holiness and God indwelling, with the help of young prophet Elihu.  (It’s important to humble self and take help from others in God.)

5)      The teachings line up with all of Isaiah Chapter 28, especially the “line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little, there a little” concept of higher indwelling.

But for now, you alone – or so it seems  – embrace the ideas of In That Day Teachings. 

When I first heard them, I thought every Christian would rejoice that so many answers about the future are now available!  I was told that few cared.  In time I discovered that yes, sadly, few cared.  But you care, my brother!

I thank God for you.  And I look forward to the day we meet and enjoy brotherly fellowship in God.  Hallelujah and amen!  You will boost my confidence.  I have let myself be really beat down.

God’s gift to me is you.  Thank you my brother.  And I thank God for you.

A last word of warning:  I pray my teachings cause no fear, anger and condemnation.  However, they probably will.  You would be amazed at the personal trouble the teachings have caused me.

I want to make it abundantly clear my teachings have nothing to do with a weird philosophy in Christendom called “Dominionism.”  Below I have posted my recent writings on the website.

You see, I don’t wish to “take over” Kenya the nation.  Nor do I wish to “take over” your church or any church.  I wish no people harm, physically or spiritually.  The In That Day Teachings are entirely spiritual, and have nothing to do with carnal warfare, carnal armies or anything carnal. 

Of course, if you improve the spiritual realm, you naturally improve the carnal realm.  That is what I hope will be the wonderful proof of In That Day Teachings:  A people enlightened unto indwelling of Christ, the God of wisdom, welfare and wonder.

Hoping all in Christ,

Robert Winkler Burke

Reno, Nevada  USA

775-690-7293 cell

6/17/08  RE: Here is my second e-mail reply to a person questioning my disbelief in Eternal Security:

Thanks for your e-mail.

For some reason, I never could buy into the circular logic of Eternal Security and once saved always saved predisposition.  Example:  Once a citizen we are not always saved... if we rob a bank!  We go to jail!

So, one day I heard about a previous earth age (the Three Earth Age doctrine.)

I could not dispute the following:

1)  In the previous age, Satan took to his side a third of the angels.  (So says the Bible.)

2)  In this age, God wants as many people as is possible saved.  (So says the Bible.)

Well, now... that is interesting indeed.  This is two earth ages so far...

3)  There is talk of a New Age, of a time of heaven on earth (So says the Bible.)

4)  This makes precisely: Three Earth Ages (So says the Bible.)  No argument possible here.

From here I could see or discern a plan that, in fact, many dispute.

5)  God knew some (if not all) in this previous earth age.  (So records the Bible.)

6)  If so, perhaps those that pleased God (imagine 2%), are today's elect.  (Ez. 5:3)

7)  Today's elect get a form of predisposed salvation (i.e. Moses, Joseph, David), but it can be lost, amazingly.

8)  The elect have always have limited free will and supernatural promptings (i.e. Moses, Joseph, David, even Jesus.)

9)  The elect serve the rest of humanity in humility, unless they get screwed up in renegade pride. (i.e. tv ministers)

10)  Despite talk to the contrary, this is kind of how it is, whether or not Calvinists care. (Elect have no free will.  Most everyone else does have free will.  Even more bizarre, those with free will can volunteer to lose their free will.  And lastly, there may even be a satanic election, a predestined group countering the elect.  This is pondering at things impossible to really prove, but since when is pondering a sin?)

11)  This Three Earth Age knowledge of the elect is useful primarily to the elect, to help understand their callings.

12)  The rest of the world bitterly rants that to believe this concept is to be horribly racist and prejudiced.

13)  The elect keep being born with callings that involve loss of free will to do certain things for God for humankind.

14)  Paul knew and wrote of all of this, but non-elect leaders have misinterpretted election to apply to all people.

15)  I could be wrong but at least this reasoning is not circular.  And the reasoning resonates in my soul.

16)  It is shocking to say so, but the movie "Total Recall" is a great parable explaining much of this.

17)  I know: How dare God use modern movies as parables to explain greater truth!  HE CAN'T DO THAT, they say.

18)  Oh well.  It is very hard job to put God in a box, even a circular reference box.  (Sorry for the cheap joke.)

19)  Interestingly the prophet Bob Jones says he learned in a visitation with the Lord that currently, only two percent of the world’s population makes heaven.

20)  Thus perhaps two percent pleased God in the last earth age.  They became the elect of this age to help another two percent make heaven in this age.  Presumably, the four percent total of all who ever pleased God would in the beyond manage more city growth, as the parable of talents implies?

Hoping all in Christ,

Robert Winkler Burke

Reno, Nevada  USA

Dented Doctrine Described – Today I would like to talk about Dominion Theology, also referred to as Kingdom Now Theology or Latter Rain.  These doctrines are at once much criticized, but also fervently taught by some global media ministries.

Dominion Theology believes Christ’s Kingdom must be set up now, except contrary to In That Day Teachings, dominionists apparently believe this kingdom preparation is, more or less, carnal in nature.  Thus they want to “take back” institutions beyond the church.  The In That Day Teachings emphasize Christ’s kingdom preparation is entirely spiritual in nature.  (Interestingly, some dominionists reject the rapture, correctly believing it to be a false and dissipating distraction.) 

The In That Day Teachings purport that Christ, indeed, lives in our hearts.  Thus Christ’s nature manifests in us at varying levels.  The oft stated goal of In That Day Teachings is to increase the degree to which Christ, indeed, manifests in our hearts.  This is done by believing the right doctrine, which then enables spiritual deliverance and victory in God.  Therefore, no government, no nation, no peoples need to fear In That Day Teachings, unless we fear increasing good people with good spirits.  But, dominion doctrine may scare some people because its goal sometimes is said to “take back” institutions beyond the church.

If dominion theology is zealous about taking back control of institutions of government, school, business and nations, then leave the In That Day Teachings out of it.  Such zealots tends to be somewhat unregenerate, having avoided the overcoming process of spiritual scourging by fiddling with other people’s business.  These zealots believe the carnal world must be controlled and readied for Christ’s literal return.  The In That Day Teachings states the souls of mankind must be improved and readied for Christ’s indwelling return.  This, the teachings say, is our job this Millennium. 

If I am a passenger on a commercial jet, I should want the pilot to be a good pilot.  If the pilot is a good pilot, I should neither be surprised that the pilot is a Christian, or that he is not.  As with the pilot, so the governor, or general or doctor or – in fact – anybody.

To be good at an occupation is to be made of things necessarily different than the things in a person that make them a God-indwelt soul.  Certainly the two endeavors compliment one another, but each alone do not guarantee success of the other. 

Thus by the hallowed precepts of Western Enlightenment, different institutions of man, including executive government, courts, legislature, education, health, safety, art, defense, religion, press, business and such, are – thank God – kept at arm’s distance from each other, while also within each other’s reach for necessary correction to prevent harm to individual or collective rights.

Western Enlightenment is based on two contradictory principles:  Man is good and man is bad.  Man is good enough to warrant protection of single and group rights.  Man is bad enough that force must be used against any single or group of his that infringes on others.  This enlightened reasoning proffers an amazing package of individual and collective checks and balances that – strange enough – work.  In fact, it can be argues no better way exists for conflicted humanity to live in peace.

Thus dominionists seem to put the cart before the horse.  Impatient with God, man and themselves, they believe it their divine duty to somehow take back territory that is not really theirs to take back.

Suppose the Unites States used to be Christian but now is not.  If true, the American Church’s job is not to take over the US government.  Rather it would be to become a better church, would it not?

The In That Day Teachings excoriate the popular televangelists of the US for abrogation of duty to properly prepare souls for indwelling of Christ.  If Jesus could inhabit the souls of US citizens at a vastly greater percentage and power, would not our nation improve?

On the other hand, do we really want television preachers “taking back” and controlling the national defense, the courts, the utilities, the medical establishment, the banks or retirement funds?  If we say, no to such a proposal, then we begin to understand the balance of limits and separation of different natures.

God in His wisdom tells the ocean to go only as far as the shore, and no further.  All things, even God’s glorious church, have limits.  We would be wise to understand this matter of humility.

Jesus knew two-thousand years ago the future was not a re-incarnated Davidic Kingdom, with rigidly righteous “believing” legions of unwashed-by-the-blood, overcoming-avoiding souls who remain disconnected from God’s indwelt spirit yet somehow run the world with Jesus on a literal throne.  No, the coming kingdom of Jesus is entirely spiritual.  It is sufficient to make heaven on earth when that blessed day comes.  This is good news for people wanting more of God’s correcting spirit in them.  It is bad news for people, even the religious, who dread having more of God’s correcting spirit in them. 

The In That Day Teachings focus on soul growth, soul cleansing, soul sight, soul hearing and maximum soul indwelling with Jesus.  That is all and that is enough.

Nevertheless, many can no doubt argue that in regards to Christian religion, there are much more important things to think about.  And whatever those things are, they will have to live with those thoughts.  And those thoughts might have nothing to do with Christ indwelling souls on earth now to bring heaven now.

The beauty of In That Day Teachings, is that as a man or woman thinks about better ways to allow Jesus to manifest in his or her life, so that man or woman will be, which happens to be quite good indeed.  Amen!

6/16/08 Check This Out – See this online listing of “Famous Preachers.”  This online truth aggregator has photos, facts, critiques, biographies, bibliographies, YouTube clips, etc.  Note many of these preachers “narrow-cast” their individual viewpoints, with no mention or explanation of their glaring differences with each other.  This can amount to an unexplained prerequirement of unexamined fealty.  To do this, their view – and our view – must be narrow.  But we can seek to connect doctrinal dots, view at wide-angle and inquire.  This is a goal of In That Day Teachings.

See:  http://www.online-bibleconcordance.com/Ministers/Default.aspx.

RE: Here is my e-mail reply to a person questioning my disbelief in Eternal Security:

In regards to Eternal Security, I could be wrong in my disbelief of it.

Interestingly, my understanding -- and I could be wrong here again -- is that Catholics don't believe in Eternal Security (ES.)  Orthodox believers also reject it.

Anyway, I have met believers of Eternal Security who absolutely freak out at the thought their salvation isn't sure.  Then I propose to look at it just like an enlistee does when joining the US Army.  An enlistee takes an oath of loyalty, goes through boot camp, becomes a soldier. 

The US Army Enlistee:

1)  Serves with no guarantees, but it doesn't freak him out (he is mature)

2)  Hopes to serve his country's army with honor... maybe get some medals.

3)  Hopes to perhaps get a GI Bill scholarship for college...

4)  Gets training, opportunities, insurances, rank, travel, friends, promotions...

5)  Hopes to not die but live...

6)  Hopes to retire with perhaps a pension...

7)  Hopes to receive an honorable discharge…

8)  Could perhaps some day be President of US, Commander in Chief of the military.

This enlistee, as well as all other enlistees, do not FREAK OUT because their future isn't sure.  They are mature in this.  Why can't Christian's be mature in this? 

Dangers for the US Army Enlistee:

1)  He could become a spy for the enemy.  If caught, he might face death.

2)  He could go AWOL.  If caught, he might spend time in jail or be dishonored.

3)  He could lose life or limb in the line of duty.

4)  He could commit adultery with his general's wife and get in big trouble.

5)  He could be discharged and assassinate the US President (Like Oswald, 1963)

6)  He could shoot himself in the foot to avoid duty or otherwise be called a slacker.

7)  He could panic in battle and freeze, despite his best intentions.

8)  He could make mistakes in battle that kills his buddies and hurts his nation.

These are terrible things to consider.  Yet, people still enlist.  And they enlist with no guarantees.  Where there is great risk, so is reward. 

This is reality in the US Army, perhaps even in God’s Army.  The US Army requires great maturity, but God less? 

Hoping all in Christ,

Robert Winkler Burke

Reno, Nevada

775-690-7293 cell

6/14/08 My dear brothers and sisters,

Thank you for reading this website.

My next piece will be a wide-angle lens, “let’s step way back and look at the world” attempt to explain the difference between “In That Day Teachings” and the generally (popular, discredited, loved and loathed) topics of Kingdom Now Theology, Dominion Theology, Post-Millennial Theology purporting Jesus won’t come back until the entire world has heard His gospel, various accusations critics make that each other is leading nefarious cults, anti-Semitism and “the church is spiritual Israel” movement, Third Wave Dominion Revival, etc. 

Whew!  Just typing that I perceive virtue has gone out of me!  (Luke 8:46) Perhaps, just reading it did the same to you!  Yes?

So let’s laugh at the ridiculous arguing; yet somewhere – oh somewhere – is truth! 

I believe God would have us reason together.  So I will attempt to use something called “Enlightened Western Reason.” 

The wide-angle Christian thesis starts with:

a)      Post-Resurrection, Paul and brethren wrote of a mysterious way of indwelling.

b)      Pre-Luther, the Catholics said works get you in heaven, never mind indwelling.

c)      Post-Luther, the “push back” Protestants said faith gets you in heaven, period.

d)     Post-Television, televangelists said donations get you riches and rapture now.

e)      Post-Internet, critical bloggers rejected ideas b, c, and d as being biblically bent.

f)       Post-Streaming Video, some said Christ wants a way to indwell our clean spirits.

This sort of reminds me of dialogue from the 2000 movie, Disney’s The Kid.  Child Rusty is talking to Russ, who is an evangelist image consultant (grin.)  Rusty starts:

I get what you do now, I mean I get what I do – when I grow up for a living.  I figured out how to explain.

Let me hear it.

You help people lie about who they really are, so that they can pretend to be someone else.  Right?

Yeah.

See?  It’s not hard to explain.

Pray for me.

Thanks,

Robert

6/12/08

The Demons Inside Us – Today I heard a talk show with a young woman who called in to complain about the man in her life.  The show’s host, Dr. Laura Schlessinger, told her:

“Most of the time the demons inside us are the most powerful; not the ones across the road… You have to fight your inner demons.”

How refreshing to hear what many popular preachers refuse to preach:  God is spirit. He gave us sprits that we must control.  (Gen 4:6)  Jesus rebuked his disciples saying:

“Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.” (Luke 9:55)

God Deludes the Deluded – Yet some branches of intellectual Christianity refuse to line up with doctor Laura and doctor Jesus.  So what is the cost to Christians for believing such unspiritual intellectualism?  Well for starters, how about gross misunderstanding of our particular time on earth?  This makes sense, if you think about it.  God lets the deluded provoke their own additional confusions.    

Do they provoke me to anger? saith the LORD: do they not provoke themselves to the confusion of their own faces?  (Jeremiah 7:19)

If Christian leaders refuse to see and clean up what wrong spirits they are of, then God won’t let them have a clear idea of the future.  For God is concerned that when we die and our souls and spirits go to judgment, we pass.  He desires us in His future.

Gluttony Spirit – Thus for example, apparently the televangelist Kenneth Copeland has a spirit of jet gluttony, but he won’t look at it and eliminate it.  If he has a Gulfstream, he wants a $20 million Citation X.  If he gets one, he wants two (one for the wife, you know.)  In a video captured on YouTube, he also says he could use a Boeing 747!  Good grief!  He can’t be happy living in an 18,000 square foot parsonage?

Excess Spirit – Thus also, televangelist Benny Hinn is famous for his spirits of extravagance and excess.  (Matthew 23:25)  But Hinn apparently has not dealt with his inner demons.  It is reported his hobby is shopping at Beverly Hills.  He has stayed at $10,000 per night hotels at ministry expense.  He lives next to a Carlton-Ritz hotel on a drive called Ritz Cove in a $12 million parsonage in an enclave for the mega wealthy above the surf at Dana Point, California.  Even a store in Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills put Hinn’s name on its front window as proof of approved patronage by this world famous shopper.  Yet Hinn does not teach to repent of feeding such spirits in himself.

Lust Spirit – Thus also, televangelist Bishop Earl Paulk had a spirit of lust he did not look at and eliminate.  His sexual escapades are so astonishing they will not all be listed here.  Visit Wikipedia for the scandalous reports of how DNA testing proved he is not the uncle to his nephew preacher but rather the father.  At 70, age not self-restraint, is victor.

See:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Earl_Paulk.

Teach Escapism and Self-Destruct – The lesson in this?  Successful teachers of escapology doctrines seem madly driven to demonstrates such extreme escape from self-restraint that they self-destruct.  This is the history of escape-teaching televangelists.  The point is that the doctrine is bad, not the teachers.  The bad doctrine evidences itself in power, when the teacher has power.  The lowly have less ability to escape from self-restraint, so they stay relatively self-restrained.  In other words it is a mercy the sheep taught escapism don’t have the great power of global televangelists that teach them.  The mighty in televangelism teaching escapology can and do escape restraints of morality, maturity and money management.  They need to repent massively.

Bad Doctrine Destroys its Believers – What makes all this low sin in high ministers possible is a) escapist doctrine denying the importance of victory over one’s own inner-demon spirits and b) God insisting that these same high ministers prove themselves long wrong so the world learns that bad doctrine destroys its believers.

So, what is the right doctrine?  First, let us consider that God wants us to overcome sin; sin that is deep, dark, embedded, generational, and hard to get out.  The Second Commandment mentions the curse of disobedience runs to the third and fourth generations.  Exodus 20:4-5:

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image… for I the LORD thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me…

To Get Sin Out – To get sin out we must believe God wants us to see the logs in our eyes, or evil spirits in our soul.  Once we see the evil spirits or inner demons in us, we must confess having them.  This confession denies evil spirits legal rights to stay embedded in us and able to manifest.  We then cast evil spirits out employing the blood of Jesus in prayer, as we deny the spirits power to manifest when they rise up.  (Imagine Kenneth Copeland fighting inner demons wanting to buy Airbus 380 super jumbos!)

And they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony; and they loved not their lives unto the death. – Rev. 12:11

Fanatic Faith Bends Scripture – What is the wrong doctrine that disables the overcoming process?  Consider Fanatic Faith mantras:  They say, “Jesus did it all.”  They say, “I don’t receive trouble, Jesus can have it.”  They say, “I don’t receive poverty, in Jesus I am rich!”  This proves only that scriptures can be bent.  Such believers might be escaping God-ordained opportunities for spiritual overcoming.

Rapture Escapes God Indwelling – Another wrong doctrine is the Rapture.  It purports to whisk unregenerate souls off in a cloud with Jesus before any big tribulations happen to the somnambulant in Christ.  Thus Rapture believers also escape from the soul cleansing process of overcoming.

God actually prefers we clean up our souls without tribulation, but since most of us don’t, He uses our troubles to goad us out of soul stupor.  With tribulation we might see what spirits we are of, and do some long overdue house cleaning.  God uses spirits to stir us.

Because you have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with Sheol (the place of the dead) we have an agreement -- when the overflowing scourge passes through, it will not come to us, for we have made lies our refuge, and in falsehood we have taken shelter. – Isaiah 28:15 Amplified  [The NASB calls it the “overwhelming scourge” – rwb]

As often as it passes through, it [the enemy's scourge] will take you; for morning by morning will it pass through, by day and by night. And it will be utter terror merely to hear and comprehend the report and the message of it [but only hard treatment and dispersion will make you understand God's instruction]. – Isaiah 28:19 Amplified

Now therefore do not be scoffers, lest the bands which bind you be made strong; for a decree of [rwb adds:  spiritual] destruction have I heard from the Lord God of hosts upon the whole land and the whole earth.  – Isaiah 28:22 Amplified

The Four Amazing Spirits – Now at this particular time, which perhaps the Bible identifies as “In That Day,” what does God use to accomplish greater overcoming?  He uses four amazing spirits.  They are otherwise known as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, which refers to Chapter Six of Revelation. 

These four strong spirits, represented by horse and rider, are black for judgment scales, famine, drought and mass starvation, as in a drought of rhema teachings of truth; pale green or gray for bruising, death, hell following, sword and hunger; fiery red for anger, impatience, violence, war, removal of peace and strife unto killing one another; and white for conquering and convicting power of the Holy Spirit, with rider carrying a bow with no arrows and given a crown symbolizing a nonviolent rise to power.

Waves of Spirits Released – So God releases these powerful, but unseen, spirits in waves upon the earth!  We are stirred up in black prejudice and judgment, gray despair and death, red anger and violence and eventually white conviction and repentance. 

Thus when waves of such spirits hit the earth, people are stirred up.  Wild things tend to happen, as with a full moon.  During such wild stirrings, often our inner demons are exposed.  We can use these opportunities to then fight our inner evil spirits who have come out to play, often without our overt permission!  We repent and become overcomers in Christ.  In conclusion, if we knew of this spiritual process, we might have greater victory over our inner demons!  (It is an old process, but becoming ever stronger.)

Behold, the Lord has a strong and mighty agent;

         As a storm of hail, a tempest of destruction,
         Like a storm of mighty overflowing waters,
         He has cast it down to the earth with His hand. – Isaiah 28:2 NASB

A Recent Example – Recently, a Cypress, California pediatrician was arrested because he became infuriated when another person cut in line while he was waiting in his car at a gas station.  He grabbed a tire iron and confronted the line cutter, who called the police, who arrested the doctor.  When interviewed by the local press, the doctor said he was embarrassed by his own surprising behavior.  He said given the opportunity, he would never do that again.  He even said, “Oh my God… We must pray… and be patient.”  Thus did the White Spirit checkmate Red, one hopes. 

See article and video:  http://www.knbc.com/money/16560534/detail.html?rss=la&psp=news.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/25081192/.

True End Times Truth – True end times eschatology is not fearful, not fear-mongering, not something for ministry leaders with egregious spirits to profit from by selling fear-based books, TV shows and conventions to escape-hungry, fear-hungry, distraction-hungry hordes.  This loving and making lies puts sheep and shepherd in desolate whoremonger camps outside God’s gates. The blind lead the blind into ditches.

[But] without are the dogs and those who practice sorceries (magic arts) and impurity [the lewd, adulterers] [and rwb adds:  the proud and excess loving prosperity televangelists who are false prophet wolves in sheep’s clothing using stage hypnotism and crowd control techniques to extort money and keep spiritually unaware the unsuspecting sheep] and the murderers and idolaters and everyone who loves and deals in falsehood (untruth, error deception, cheating).  (Rev. 22:15, Amplified)

Such leaders of souls themselves have souls that look, well, rotten.  Their fruit stinks.  If they have enough money and power to be excessive, they will brandish excess!  They worship it.  And they call evil good and good evil, immersing their flock in nonsense.

But true end times truth helps humans be whole and keenly knowing, indwelt of God, heaven-on-earth expanding and eternally heaven bound.  Such people have souls of which it can be said, “Only God can make a soul so beautiful.”

Enlightenment Unto Indwelling – And the remnant wise of the world can rejoice in the knowledge now available.  They can lead the world in discerning now who has the right doctrine for today and eternity.  The decision will be either to go the way of escape or to get escape out of the way.  Which way gives enlightenment unto indwelling of God?

Rather than the “support-me-and-my-shenanigans-ye-must-not-see” witnessed of so many wayward televangelists, we need the brutal yet somehow pleasant honesty displayed by the above-mentioned repentant doctor and Dr. Laura Schlessinger. 

Fight Your Inner Demons – You have to fight your inner demons.  Don’t chuck the overcoming process of tribulation which surprises you because embarrassing evil spirits have been revealed.  Don’t blind yourself to discerning logs in your eyes with Fanatic Faith mantras of escape.  Don’t waste time with the never-ending intrigues of dispensational, dingdong rapture news.  We must fight our inner demons.

“I, John, your brother and companion (sharer and participator) with you in the tribulation and kingdom and patient endurance [which are] in Jesus…” says the Revelator in chapter 1:9 Amplified.

Twice John records his weakness in worshipping an angel.  This happens at the end of his astonishing career, even on the last page of the Bible!  He shows us the spirit realm is difficult to get right.  And he is wise to transparently expose his weakness, which strengthens his character and enables greater indwelling of God.  Proud (and therefore weak) leaders defend themselves, but humble (and therefore strong) leaders transparently tell of their weak spots.  Follow the example of John.

And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. – Rev. 19:10

And I John saw these things, and heard them. And when I had heard and seen, I fell down to worship before the feet of the angel which showed me these things. Then saith he unto me, See thou do it not: for I am thy fellow servant, and of thy brethren the prophets, and of them which keep the sayings of this book: worship God. – Rev. 22:8-9

We Are Called to Spirit and Truth – Only Satanic pride of religion could make the popular doctrines of media Christianity so screwed up and gone to hell.  Whereas John confesses he did wrong in the spirit twice in the last four chapters of the Bible, escapist Christian leaders refuse to reconsider their wrong doctrine that makes them unrestrained. Their wrong paths provide easy escape, but those paths are damnably destructive. 

Only God could actually have a simpler, better way.  God’s true path is tougher, but purer and surer for the soul.  It is called worshiping God in spirit and truth.  We are called to follow truth, no matter how painful.  Then when we are with truth, we are with God and God is with us.  And all will be well.

Rev. 22:21 Amplified:

“…the Lord Jesus Christ (the Messiah) be with all the saints (God’s holy people, those set apart for God, to be, as it were exclusively His).  [and rwb adds:  to be now and evermore indwelt of God!] Amen (so let it be)!

I Pledge Allegiance Against Excess –Victor Davis Hanson, a history professor from Fresno, California, (http://pajamasmedia.com/victordavishanson/) has made the following modest proposal for liberals and “greens”: 

“Will all the Greens, new-age environmentalists, Gorites, and Huffington Post Hollywood crowd, just make three simple pledges to match their deeds with their rhetoric? (1) I swear I will not fly on any gas-guzzling, carbon-footprinting private jet; (2) I swear I will not live in an energy-wasting house larger than 8,000 square feet; and (3) I swear that I will not drive a car that gets less than 25 mpg. That would be for most of us pretty easy to do; so will the prophets of the environment take the pledge and help the nation and planet?”

My question:  Would it be a sin to ask televangelists to make a similar pledge of allegiance against excess?  They say, “Admire our excess,” but Jesus the reverse:

Mat 23:25  Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.

6/10/08  Dear Pastor Benjamin Walmalwa Khaemba; Bungoma, Kenya, Africa

Greetings in Christ’s beloved name.

I see in yesterday’s news, the computer company Apple Inc. announced their new 3G iPhone which, they say, will soon be available in seventy countries, including Kenya.  It can browse the internet, take pictures, use GPS, do e-mail and just about everything but save a soul!

What, then, in this day will save a soul, a family, a nation?  It is Christ, of course.  He lived, died and lives again to save our souls, families and nations. 

In the movie 1965 The Greatest Story Ever Told, a Roman general asks Herod a question about the Jews.  He says, “Who is their messiah?”    Herod replies, “Someone who will never come.”  Today errant Christian leaders imply a similar sounding message in a devious sort of way; by teaching that Jesus does not come quickly to live indwelt in us.  Rather, they teach to wait for Christ to independently come and rescue us from ourselves.  In this, they do not seem to be actually acquainted with Christ.

So then, who is this Christ?  Indeed, let us ponder the matter.  With some certainty, we know Christ lived as a sinless man two thousand years ago, died for our sins and now sits at the right hand of Father God.  The above mentioned movie has Jesus saying, “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for that which endures, the food of eternal life.”  What food, what truths, what is that for which we should labor?

More specifically, what doctrines of Christianity actually feed Christ’s sheep?  What doctrines actually follow Christ and bring us therefore closer to Father God Himself?  For there are many opposing Christian doctrines, but only one unified Christ.  Let us battle to discover who, then, is Christ?

The war for truth in Christian doctrine has long been avoided because of the fear of battle.  If one side is wrong, it is felt this is too divisive to all.  Balderdash!  If one side in the church is wrong, then its leaders must stop feeding their sheep wrong doctrine!  Lies can never be truths and truths can never be lies.  They are as distant from each other as heaven is from hell.

Now is the time for God’s elect to awaken out of deception and answer the call of truth.  Of the elect it can be truly said the last shall be first.  Of the wayward, the opposite.

And when we look at global Christian media ministries, we see many teachers who have made themselves mega rich through donations from the poor.  These false teachers seem to have a hidden wisdom.  Perhaps this hidden wisdom was spoken in the 1960 movie The Magnificent Seven by Eli Wallach.  He played a charismatic Mexican bandit leader named Caldera.  Caldera defended his robbing from the poor by saying, “If God didn’t want them sheared, He wouldn’t have made them sheep!”

What wayward doctrines have allowed this blasphemy to grow unchecked planetwide?  Primarily, three doctrines of escape have been promulgated by false prophets who are ravenous wolves in sheep’s clothing.

The first false doctrine is called the Rapture, where believers are supposedly beamed away from tribulation aboard clouds of escape.  Actually, Christ does not independently return to take us out of tribulations as a reward for believing in escape.  Rather, Christ lives in us as He guides us with help from the cloud of praying saints of heaven and earth through the creative overcoming process; something that can simultaneously be tribulation, liberation, limiting, freeing, seemingly impossible, possible, judgment, forgiveness, dark, light, old, new, hellacious, heavenly and ultimately part of the restoration of all things of God.  To avoid the restorative overcoming process, to prefer to be ignorant of its eternal blessings, to choose rather to believe it best to await a reward of escape for faith in escape is nothing but high insanity.

The second false doctrine is called the Imminent Second Coming.  This purports that Christ will independently (again!) soon come to restore a Davidic Kingdom on earth where (again!) believers will be rewarded for their supine faith in escape from all maturity.  But there is no such escape, return and reward.  Rather, Christ will independently return only at the end of time and judge all.  At that point, time is over.  All, in fact, is over.  Humankind is not ready for that end point of time.  Let us pray that day is long delayed, for we have much work to do, and our progeny has much work to do, to increase the quickly coming, greatly manifesting Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth in humankind.

For truly it is said, Jesus wants to manifest in every man, woman and child possible.  Our religion must promote, not delay this will and plan of Father God almighty.

The third false doctrine of wayward Christianity is called Eternal Security.  It holds the absurd belief that the ant gives us no lesson; that God prefers to bestow all of eternity’s rewards for no work whatsoever.  Only great and marvelous intellectual dishonesty can successfully argue such dung.  Since I am not interested in or able to fathom intellectual dung, I simply rely on the self-evident truth of the ant.  The Bible defends the ant, and so do I.

These three doctrines comprise Triune Escapology.  From belief in such comes much worse mischief.  Let us look now at two miscreant doxies of deception.  These deadly doctrines look delightfully charming on the surface, much as the appearance of beautiful blue icebergs.  But underneath, these doxies of death delight in sinking unaware ships of speeding delusion. 

These two errant doxies are insidiously clever because they build up the icebergs of teachers while nevertheless sinking the ships of sheep whom they teach.  These doxies thus build up huge teaching ministries, and they justify themselves as God-ordained by the fact of their iceberg’s colossal size.  Yet the leaders remain blind to the multitudes of damaged sheep whose ships they’ve sunk and lay rusting unseen in the unmentionable deep.  Then again, any floating ships found as exceptions to the rule are advertised as ordinary proof of universal maritime benevolence. 

These twin doxies of self-interest are the errant doctrines of Fanatic Faith and Extreme Prosperity.  The latter promises an autonomous god will somehow nebulously shower you with coins, if you directly shower the ravenous wolf in sheep’s clothing with coins.  Put crudely, you give to get screwed.  The former promises an autonomous god will somehow nebulously shower you with every imaginable blessing if you a) so abuse your faith, b) so abuse scripture, c) so abuse God and d) directly shower the ravenous wolf in sheep’s clothing with coins.  Put crudely, you beat up your faith to build up the faith of a ravenous wolf in sheep’s clothing.

And what of these ravenous wolves of Fanatic Faith and Extreme Prosperity?  They have paid a price for their devious self-aggrandizement at the expense of impoverished sheep.  Though they live in many mansions, their manners are cold.  Though they fly high in extravagantly expensive jets, their money grubbing ways are low.  Though their intellects delight in proclaiming the so-called gospel truth, their spirits delight in promulgating their own witness of greed, ego, pride and witchcraft dominion.  Though plastic surgery and miracles of television showmanship make them appear full of everlasting life, their compromises in character made to broadcast God’s good has resulted in worldwide confusion, consternation and death.  For the heathen world looks at Christendom’s broadcast insanity and decides – perhaps rightly – to have none of it until it becomes more God indwelt and sane.

From all of this, what then can we conclude?  Is there no hope?  Is there no way?  Is there no God?  Is there no answer?  Fear not!  God reigns.  God is good.  God provides a way to salvation on earth and in heaven.

What, then, is this way?  Is it not the way of all who are wise?  Have there not always been wise men, wise women, aged folk who remain suspicious of all in whom we need be suspicious?  Have not these wise saints of the village of humanity always applauded those noble human beings whom we must indeed honor?  This remnant of wisdom steadfastly honors the God-indwelt and rejects all false prophets of deception and extravagance.

And what is wisdom but the love of a few primary traits found in the rarified blood of human kindness?  And are not these traits the liberty of self-restraint, faith in the goodness of good, enmity against the evil of evil and hope against all that is the enemy of hope?  This list can be shortened to just one word, love.  And we know God is love.  So all this is simply mankind’s part in becoming one with love, who is in truth, God.

Now this becoming one with God is a mysterious thing.  Paul wrote about it quite a lot.  Jesus talked about it quite a lot.  And now is the time for us to do it quite a lot. 

What stands in our way with becoming one with God are false doctrines.  They give us bad spirits.  And God cannot abide, which is to say live with, lies nor evil spirits.  The solution?  Disavow wrong doctrines; work with God’s overcoming process to remove wrong spirits and renew our minds; be patient through trials and tribulations; never give up; and be a witness of Christ’s overcoming blood and resurrection life in us now dwelling.

Do all this, and you will be spiritually rich.  I cannot guarantee that you will ever be carnally rich, nor can anyone guarantee you will be carnally rich.

But I can say with a fair amount of certainty that the greater your spiritual eyes and ears, the more opportunities you will see in all realms.  Teachers using delusion on their students make them easily deluded and abused by others.  But a true teacher of light refuses to use wiles of deception, in fact exposes methods of delusion and helps students be not such soft targets of prey.

Like John, I hope your soul truly prospers.  And we all tend to underestimate just how much work it takes to allow God to renew our soul.  No doubt the process continues in heaven.  No doubt we would do well not to wait for our day in heaven, but fervently seek all soul improvement possible in our days here on earth.

But having said this, I would not be surprised to hear from other overcomers that with soul growth does come some meaningful improvements in the natural realm.  This doesn’t always happen, mind you.  Be prepared for vicious spikes in vicissitudes of direction and intensity that no sane person wants to experience.  Mysterious are the ways of our Creator.

Nevertheless trust God in all things.  Then, the higher you go in God, whereupon He lives and manifests in you at astonishingly high levels, you might be surprised to discover God will, in turn, trust you in all things.

This co-dependency is of God design.  Thus if we want prosperity independent of God and his true doctrines, we might get prosperity – but with it inescapable woes.  Conversely, God might want to carnally prosper us, but nothing good will happen to us until we learn to work with God on earth to achieve His blessings that contain no sorrows.

It is hard to overemphasize that your duty in achieving such prosperity on earth as can be had, is to invest your time, money and resources as wise as a serpent and as harmless as a dove.  Your duty is not to build the prosperity extremist’s cold and cruel iceberg ministry in order to receive a wayfaring mariner’s blessings from God.  Do this, and you are co-conspirator with ship-sinking ministries of deception.  Your only blessing then becomes to not sink, not drown and hopefully someday see a beacon of true light.  Rather, believe that God’s keen insight, mind and will can inevitably be yours as a shared blessing if you prove to God you can be trusted with higher truths, higher ways and the higher power that comes with higher income.  The emotionally cold captains of extreme prosperity ministries prove their callous disregard for abuse in power with each Matthew 23:25 “excess” purchase they make funded by extortion.  The fruit of ravening wolves in sheep’s clothing is always rotten, as Jesus said.

So there you have it.  God is not an autonomous robot that spits out blessings like a winning slot machine at a casino.  Nor is God desirous to see us cursed.  God is a good God wanting to live in us in harmonious beauty to expand heaven on earth.  To do that, we must not be conflicted with the ugliness of soul sin or the madness of wrong dogma.

The obvious answer is something popular Christian ministry leaders are loathe to dare whisper.  It is to simply reject wrong doctrine, repent massively for years of whoredom with wrong doctrines, embrace the right doctrines, begin greater overcoming processes and become cleaner vessels for God to indwell.

Popular Christian ministries teach variations of Triune Escapology, Fanatic Faith and Extreme Prosperity.  These doxies are messing up the world, or more precisely, brain washing minds of the world.  These minds need to develop into the mind of Christ, and be thus indwelt of God.  These minds need shepherding by true shepherds.  These minds need to be victorious in a New Millennium of simultaneous a) perils of endemic pandemonium with b) counterpoising creative enterprises of God’s powerful expansion of heaven on earth.  This is the restoration of all things.

And what of the elect?  Well, the awakened elect have the onerous (but high privilege) duty of exposing the ravenous wolves, helping the sheep fight for truth and giving them well-taught shepherds.  Such elect live in a somewhat different disposition.  Almost always appearing to be last on earth, and given only limited wherewithal for heroic assignments, perhaps God’s elect shall indeed be first when all is said and done.

Thus the leader of the men of war in The Magnificent Seven, the actor Yul Brynner playing Chris Adams (Christ, the Second Adam?) says at the end of the movie, “The old man was right.  We lost.  The farmers always win.  We always lose.”  This, of course, refers to the high maxim that sometimes the only way to win is to lose.

This is something the Devil has a hard time understanding.  Even we sometimes have a hard time understanding the gain of loss.  Thus Chris’ nemesis, Calvera, cannot believe the Magnificent Seven came back to save the villagers.  With his dying breath he asks, “You came back.  Why?”

Just before the movie ends, we hear the answer.  The wise old man of the village, played by the gentle and beatific Vladimir Sokoloff, says goodbye to the remaining warriors.  He says, “Vayan con Dios,” which is to say, “Go with God.”  Perhaps the salute is an effort to honor each brave one of past, present and future who dedicates his or her eternal life – whatever it takes – to “Be with God.”

It is an echo we hear in the conclusion of David’s beloved Psalm 23:  “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.”

This is why we come, we love, we lose and we conquer:  To be now and ever with God.

I pray you, and all others, receive this message with God's truth and spirit.

Hoping all in Christ,

Robert Winkler Burke

Reno, Nevada    USA

6/7/08

See New Pictures – Please see new pictures from a Navajo artist of the Spirit, Robert Maryboy of Bluff, Utah.  Click on page reference to the left “Maryboy Paintings.”

Time to Fly – See this beautiful montage of video from the 1995 movie Fly Away Home.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXUR0-_azSU

And from Disney’s Rescue Down Under:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lItsFbelsDU&feature=related.

6/4/08 Dear Pastor Benjamin Walmalwa Khaemba,

Greetings in the name of Jesus Christ our Lord and King!

I hope all is well with you, your family and your congregations.

Now I must ask you questions in preparation for my visit to Kenya:

1)       What are Kenya’s problems?  Today’s news says Kenya’s inflation is at 31.5%!

2)      What is your exposure to the Word of Faith teachings?

3)      Are you and your congregation baptized in the Spirit, with evidence of speaking in tongues?

4)      Will you need to interpret to other languages  if I speak to your congregations?

5)      What is your exposure to the Prosperity teachings of USA evangelists?

6)      What is your exposure to Rapture/End Times Dispensational doctrine?

7)      How do you see my theological ideas helping you and your congregations?

8)      Would it be best to teach you only, or also members of your congregations?

My brother,

I am so astonished and grateful that you want to listen to my ideas about God and the Gospel.  Yet I also know my ideas can be highly disturbing to people, if they are not ready to hear them.  So I want to be careful.

I believe your spirit sees some great things in my teachings.  Your spirit delights in them.  You believe Africa needs them.  You want me to come as soon as possible.  Yet it is not clear to me, or perhaps you, just how this great thing is to unfold.

Now I sometimes feel like Paul:  In prison, wanting only more writing supplies!  (Ha!) 

Like Paul, I feel there is a definite way, a way of God.  It is a system of structure.  This system of structure consists of the whole, not the parts that make the whole.  Any of its parts can be misused.  For two thousand years its parts have been, in fact, greatly misused! 

So someone like me comes along and grasps God’s structure of the system, its whole, its design.  And like Paul, I write about it.  I want to correct the problems religion has had by over-emphasizing one part, or by scandalous subversion of other parts, by ignoring several key parts, or the addition of bad parts!  Therefore, my discussions actually take patience, comprehension, forbearance and many aspects of, well.. . the mind of Christ!  So, to the unprepared mind… I can appear quite mad, or at least worthy of stoning!

And you wonder, and I wonder:  How can any of this help Africa, poor Africa, great Africa?

Maybe the problem with Africa is not her parts and people, but her inability to put her parts and people into a system of structure that can steadfastly bless humanity.  So what is missing, actually, is sufficient numbers of improved minds that can comprehend and promote God’s natural  system of structure.

Africa has people, has resources, has wealth, has – in fact – perhaps the greatest opportunities of any nation on earth.  But what it doesn’t have is sufficient numbers of naturally structured minds.

Now just about everything has been tried, has it not, to improve the minds of Africans?  The British tried imperialism; the communists Marxism; the capitalists free trade; and the politicians rage, resentment and revenge.  And what about the missionaries?  Have missionaries tried the Prosperity Gospel?  Have they made little rich bishops throughout Africa that live extravagantly off donations from the poor?  (God forbid!)  Have missionaries tried promoting Eternal Security?  (i.e. Calvanism?)  In this they say God gives you eternal security, but still – somehow – we must work (though they say we don’t need to work) but we must work toward the good of the universe?  Has this missionary effort of Eternal Security evangelism enabled Africa to rise up out of the muck of poverty?  Apparently not!  It has failed.  Why work, when the preacher says we need not work?  Such a working preacher is a hypocrite.  If he believes we need not work, he should not work.  He is conflicted and without peace.  Have missionaries succeeded with their gospel of the rapture?  If tribulation is still coming despite massive tribulation throughout all of Africa and all of the world, then what is tribulation?  If rapture is true, we have needed it for two-thousand years and it hasn’t come.  Rapture doctrine is conflicted, and does nothing for Africa or the world.  It simply gives preachers something to talk about, and when they talk about the rapture, it doesn’t help minds become like Christ  -- and see Christ’s grand system of structure, which is Paul’s “Way” or today I like to re-introduce it as… In That Day Teachings.

So, what is Africa ready for?  A huzzah sermon from me that gets everyone dancing?  (I would enjoy that, mind you!)  Or a sermon that gets everyone weeping?  (I would enjoy that, mind you!)  Or a sermon that gets everyone thinking?  (I would enjoy that, mind you!) Or a sermon that gets everyone healed?  (And I also need healing!)  Or… what, exactly does Kenya, Africa need?

Again, I say Kenya, Africa and even the world needs to understand God’s system of structure, God’s way of Paul, perhaps the In That Day Teachings I’ve produced, anything really that creates maturity of spirit.  This is the age of rocket ships to Mars, while it is also the age of utter depravity.  No single sermon, no single Bible verse, no single man or woman, no single prosperity key, no single thing can help us in this amazing age we live in.  It seems that in all of history, when times are critical, the solution is a systemic maturity of spirit.  It enables us to do the right thing, then the next right thing, and the next right thing after that.

This is what we should hope for:  Enough systemic maturity of spirit to do the right thing and continue to do the right thing.  If we could do that for a long enough time, we’d have heaven on earth or something close enough to it to fool the experts!  Ha!

For my part, it has taken much time… oh, from 1994 to 2008, 14 years… to get where I am now.   If there was a quicker way, perhaps where one could be prayed over and fall down and receive a download from God and rise up and be transformed!   But I don’t think it works that way, do you?

Perhaps my first visit to you in Kenya would consist primarily of our spending time together?

What say you, my brother?

Hoping all in Christ,

Robert Winkler Burke

Reno, Nevada

775-690-7293 cell

The Gospel of Nature – "Early in my life I turned to the motherhood of nature for my personal and spiritual growth. This relationship with the natural world has been my lifeblood. I am drawn to places of mystery where I feel at peace with the power of the Earth's spirit.

Over the years, I have learned to use my photography as a voice for the gospel of nature. It is my goal and mission to communicate the mysterious connections we all share with this land having chosen to be a portrait photographer of God's creations. I will continue to practice ways that bring us a little closer to the spirit of nature. – Michael Fatali"

See Michael Fatali’s website and his astonishingly ethereal photos of the American Southwest:

http://www.fatali.com/.

Un-Rung Heroes

By Robert Winkler Burke

Copyright 6/4/08

We dig

And we try

We wonder why

Could we only but buy

With perhaps a deep sigh

But join we not the sullen ranks

Who store up unhappiness banks

And run their lives in bitter angst

We choose now, to give our thanks

We give all we are and all we know

To homes and lives in this life we sow

This time now is as good as any though

To be – never mind the gall – un-rung hero

So we give

thanks

Pray for a garden, but grab a shovel. – unknown

6/2/08 What is the Future of Christian Media?  A follow up answer to the question from Phil Cooke’s website: 

http://www.philcooke.com/future_of_Christian_media#comment.

Phil, If I may be allowed to expand on the future of Christian media:  Enlightenment unto indwelling of God will happen primarily through maturity of spirit.

Maturity of spirit will first require a certain level of expectation de-programming.  Viewers now expect a ministry program must have the typical exhortation, guilt, entertainment and extraction; but not necessarily any teachings and examples of indwelling of God.  So, do the opposite!

Show how lights are dimmed spiritually by pandering to these less than mature expectations.  Show how stage hypnotists perform techniques often quite similar to televangelist techniques.  Show how pilots who are taught to fly but never fly; well… they never fly.

Mature eyes are open to a great many things.  Surely the height of spiritual awareness is not always imparted by a Neuro-Linguistic Programming pattern interrupt shout of “BOP!” or “TAKE-IT-TAKE-IT-TAKE-IT!”  Nor is maturity to be had in the quick martial arts head-tilt takedown maneuver of throwing a wave of kinetic energy via a minister’s open palm wiggled back and forth on granny’s ever-trusting, pink-locked forehead.

Mature media ministry will be sheep-centric vs. shepherd-centric.  In other words, God indwelling increases when you praise actions of the God-indwelt (as I did here of Phil for raising this topic and this website) vs. sending accolades to a leader because his or her vanity requires it.

Mature ministry is creative.  See Derrin Brown’s YouTube clips of his secular U.K. TV program demonstrating advanced wiles of showmanship and psychology.  He astounds and edifies while creatively proving certain points.

Imagine a Christian program with each episode more creative than the last, making Kingdom of Heaven truths known in this day.  Imagine a pastor humble and brave enough to trust he or she could get advanced precepts and lines going in actual people, different people who are the stars of separate episodes of teaching.  You would see a mature shepherd in the background, encouraging the maturing and “enlightenment unto indwelling” sheep in the foreground. 

The viewers might say something like this: “That shepherd got those sheep manifesting Jesus at a high level!  Each episode he does it with different people, with them doing different aspects of our Lord’s nature!  We are beginning to see the Lord’s return.  It’s not all about mega-wealthy-in-dollars shepherds!  No, why it’s all about mega-wealthy-in-spirit-and-truth sheep!  These common folk take the shepherd’s advanced teachings, and they actually start to shine like Christ, like Moses’ face must have shined from seeing God!  We can actually see God shining in these people taught of the Lord.  It’s an interesting cloud of witnesses.  All captured on video!”

And that, or any number of different things like that, my friends of Phil Cooke, will be the day.

What is the Future of Christian Media?  A question from Phil Cooke’s website: 

http://www.philcooke.com/future_of_Christian_media#comment.

Excellent posts all!

The future?  Just look at Phil’s website.  Every workday he posts an interesting new blog or two attempting to discern the truth about something important to our interests.  Then the blog is open to truth aggregation by accepting cogent comments from intelligent people around the planet.

Hm… This is very open, transparent and altogether good.  Compare this to the diode-casting from major ministries.  No opposing views accepted.  No transparency.  No urgency.  Just fiat.  Just because.   Just same old, same old.

Now, everyone wants to look into the future.  But God keeps it sort of veiled, because that’s how he sets things up.  But he lets His friends know a thing or two.

So, building on Phil’s excellent model, future ministry would have multifaceted broad appeal, would attempt to teach “higher” truths, would employ lots of parables, poems, on-demand videos, interpret modern culture tales and movies, songs, relate to current events, still employ scripture, yada yada.

Oh, and free resources.  Via the internet, modern ministries wouldn’t sell so much.  They’d give so much.  Like make available listings of free Bible software, free Jesus movies, free video on demand, free spoken Bible sites, free Bible word search sites, free instruction, free lessons on how-not-to-get-extorted, free lessons on how -to-recognize-stage hypnotism techniques used in ministry events,  free everything.

And then there is doctrine:  In the future, great ministries will work on one main goal.  And that is enlightenment unto indwelling.  Hearkening back to Jesus’ admonitions that the Kingdom (which is He, Himself) of God is within you, and Colossians’ secret that God lives in us, modern ministries will hold their spirits and truth accountable to this main thing:  Does it make more manifesters of Christ?

So this kind of automatically excludes the prideful heads of ministries, because humility is where all is at.

And prophets, well they must be prophets.  They could prove themselves, like the newspaper in  J. K. Rowlings’  world of Harry Potter, by publishing a kind of “Daily Prophet” giving us a spiritual weather report.

Maybe this is the kind of report Phil Cooke is herein doing.

Then again, I could be wrong.

Robert Winkler Burke

6/1/08 God Can – God can always one up the brazen bad.

5/30/08 (a repeat from 3/4/08 & 3/14/08)  Plenary Doctrinal Absolution – Internet commentary from Christian leaders on the current televangelism scandals seem to have a strange unity of thought.  Their thinking goes like this:  Those caught in the light of scandal must be personally remiss, but remain nonetheless doctrinally pure in triune escapology.  Therefore all other Christian leaders remain doctrinally pure in embracing escapology and can continue to believe in escapology without similar deleterious incidences of grossly self-interested behavior.  It is a weird plenary doctrinal absolution from leadership afraid to look at doctrine-driven difficulties.  These leaders are afraid, in effect, of the abolition of escapist doctrines.  These leaders may fear dot connection and the conclusion that they are guilty of go-along-get-along self-service.  So this silent majority leadership appears to be in co-conspiracy with the caught-in-the-headlights scallywags of self-interested ministry.  This is not repentance.  This is being afraid to look at the root cause to the branch problems.  It looks more like cowardice than wisdom.  It may be that the South is doing it again:  Enslaving souls in wrong doctrine, refusing all federal correction, refusing to be self-restrained, wanting to live by license and not liberty, calling their brand of license liberty, not understanding liberty is dedication to the imposition of self-restraint, calling – in the end – evil good and good evil.  The plenary doctrinal absolutionists end up being nothing so much as absolute anti-abolitionists.  In keeping the doctrines of escape, they avoid this season’s opportunity to find the end of escape and subsequent ability to embrace responsibilities in God that make us truly free. 

Shifting Sorrow – A gambler can be sorry for losing money in Las Vegas one time.  But another gambler can repent and decide to never gamble another time.  Thus Christian leaders can be sorry other escapist leaders got caught in self-interest; while themselves still believing in escapology doctrines that provide excuse for excesses in self-interest.  Or enlightened leaders can disavow escapist doxie, and remove the root of unrestraint.

Inscrutable Wisdom – Great wisdom is near inscrutable.  Fools believe the reverse.

Unending Pride vs. Humble Limits – The televangelist scandals of today are a wake up call for American church leadership to reject wrong doxie and make long overdue reforms.  The wake up is to understand limits of man, especially religious man.  Progress in God may not be to build Babel-like media empires to the sky, to not produce another rapture book, to not sell another escapist DVD teaching or to not fill another jabberwocky conference of crazy excitement.  Progress in God might be the reverse.  A good example to study is the founding documents of the United States.  Why do we not have two hundred and fifty states, including France, Germany and Japan?  The US stopped – wisely – at fifty.  Progress, according to our Founding Fathers, was dedication to the imposition of self-restraint.  This faith is grounded in holy scripture.  Why do Christian networks need endless broadcast studios, antennas and satellites?  For God or for pride?  American politics, business and culture have pioneered liberty’s imposition of self-restraint.  Not so some of the dinosaurs of self-interest leading some media ministries.  It takes maturity to understand not all who call themselves Christian leaders are good people.  Or not all who started out as good Christian leaders have remained good.  Consider that certain televangelists don’t provide warning labels on their donation materials.  Interestingly, car companies do provide airbag and child seat warning labels.  Certain televangelists don’t like financial transparency.  Interestingly, the US government does.  Certain televangelists don’t like to meet and greet the public.  Interestingly, most politicians do.  Certain televangelists don’t like caps on donations.  Interestingly, government watchdog groups have put caps on some political donations.  Certain televangelists appear to want unlimited power to broadcast, grow and receive donations without oversight.  Interestingly, the US Constitution prefers power – in government, anyway – to always be checked by entities designed to balance justice among men.  Which system appears to be more godly?  What prevents a rich foreign government or individual from buying influence though mega-donations from global ministries?  What prevents the peddling of influence by global ministry media moguls?  In truth, large media ministries appear to be at great risk of colossal mistakes because they have chosen to operate – not with dedicated self-restraint – but with too much license.  If they were wiser, they would have instituted license-limiting reforms on themselves already.  But they have been too full of pride to see the moral borders they have already crossed.  Even after the US government corrects them, there will be need for more self-restraint pioneering in media Christianity.  It will be a brave new world of wonderful opportunities to increase the general manifestation of Christ throughout the planet via corrected media ministries.  Finally, church leadership must understand, appreciate and honor those who cogently see and explain this future of rebuke, correction and self-restraint to Christ’s body.  This is the much-needed beginning of the restoration of all things.  To date, Christian leadership seems to prefer honoring the stupefied and stupefying seers of all things – and only things – nebulas, gelded and politically correct.  What these false prophets create is simply more dense fog, fog which they demand be reverentially seen as God’s bright light.  They sow spiritually confusing reality distortion fields.  And they have been doing this for decades.  Honoring this bubblegum prophetic pop must stop, even though it garners great applause of men (and ministry sales.)  Rather, the inevitable honoring of true and correct visionaries of rebuke must begin, however unpleasant it is to senses grown used to nothing but praise (and refusal to harm ministry product sales.)  Evil cannot forever be called good and good called evil.  No matter how unpleasant it may seem, some day evil must be called evil and good must be called good.  In the end, pride always loses and humility always wins.  Our choices simply delay or quicken.

5/29/08

A RECENT LETTER TO A FRIEND:

Hope all is well with you.

As for your comment that I am an original thinker, I must give God the glory.  A prophet taught me a rough outline of teachings, and since 1994 I have been trying to package them into a whole.

When I started four years ago with my website, I thought many televangelists would fly to Reno, meet me and make me one of their advisors; because surely they could see they were in a bucketful of trouble and hurt!   HAH!  Was I deluded!  From day one correspondence I had from televangelism ministries was coldly hostile or simply begging for funds.

(At first I did not realize that by 2004 all televangelism ministries had their guards up extremely high because of their inherent allergic reaction to ..... well, truth.)

But after four years of working with doctrines, I believe the teachings are a Rosetta Stone of sorts.  Here's why I believe my website is not just another complaining blog:

The In That Day Teachings first describe – with stunning clarity – the problems with popular televised ministries.  Secondly, the teachings proscribe a powerful remedy:  Christ's indwelling in purity and holiness -- something FAR, FAR beyond rigid righteousness, or religious pride.  (The tough part:  the requirement to abandon Triune Escapology; the rapture, an imminent second coming to fix all but the escapists, and eternal security.)

Third, even though a lot of the work seems radically new, it is simply a restoration of all things with an almost perfect confirming witness in scriptures.  (It's like orthodox religions without the trappings and it's also like Paul's writings minus the usual misinterpretation that the elect are everybody ((elect means they aren't everybody, right?)) and everybody gets eternal security (which is ludicrous, right?))

Fourth, because of the first three points, the religious establishment HATES these teachings; and more hated than the teachings themselves would be the presenter of them.

The top-down leadership of televangelism cannot abide that these teachings insist humility enables Jesus Christ to more greatly manifest in a person, AND that it is absolutely necessary to honor all who do manifest Christ.

So, I remain a rather frustrated apostle.  I would have thought the cornucopia of creativity worked through me would have gotten some positive attention by now.  Granted, the whole body of work is an unpolished, exploratory theses wherein my immaturity is presented unedited.  But God's maturity in me is gathering momentum and infusing the project with incontrovertible wisdom!  (Ah hopes, anyways. J)

This prophetic package is rejected because it excoriates the religious establishment.  This establishment now seems to use the prophetic only for entertainment.  From my perspective the In That Day Teachings are -- more or less -- self-evident truths.

As you confessed in your missive to me about your financial needs, I also am in need of project funding, building funding and hosting funding.  The problem for us is that apparently, we cannot do it the carnal way so many other Christian ministries do.

Nevertheless, perhaps we both share the faith that if Christianity were done right -- in higher levels of doctrinal truth and holiness -- then perhaps a blessed new era of God's power and love might well indeed manifest.

Bottom line in my teachings is that Christ keenly wants to manifest in every man, woman and child on the planet; and manifest in the greatest amount possible!  (But wrong doctrines in a brain allow wrong spirits in a soul!  And Christ can abide neither.)

Thus, the teachings are not shepherd-centric but sheep-centric; something shepherd-centric people seem to want to fight with all their non-God-indwelt beings.

So you see, I'm a doctrine wonk, which is something that gets me no accolades. 

I am terribly concerned about the inabilities of average Christians to cogently consider doctrines of God.  It is a huge problem of spiritual sight and hearing and being.  The false shepherds waste most opportunities to turn on the lights of souls, but rather seem to be content with dimming them.  Ugh!

Currently, I find I cannot quit this quest.  On the other hand, I don't exactly know what the next step might be, or how to achieve funding.

Granted, the blogosphere is very unhappy with the WOF/Prosperity/TBN Televangelism.  BUT, this same blogosphere is apparently without any faith in the presence of solution.

I believe the presence of solution is Christ manifested in high levels in well-taught seekers.  Further, I believe the In That Day Teachings proffer a scriptural way to get there.

Yet above all excellence must be humility.  So I must be the first always to say I could be wrong in many areas.  But I hope I am not.

Hoping all in Christ,

Robert Winkler Burke

Reno, Nevada

775-690-7293

Maturity Matters – The immature of soul might not believe in God, but surely the mature do.  Those who believe in God might not believe in Jesus, but Jesus said it was best to believe in Him.  Immature Christians might want to escape the responsibility to be Christ-like by believing in the rapture, an imminent return to fix all but escapists themselves and in eternal escape-from-responsibility security.  Another offshoot of Christian escapist immaturity is to believe in prosperity extremism or other fanatic faith schemes where an automaton god blesses all selfish machinations.  Mature Christians believe Jesus comes quickly to manifest Himself in all souls possible at the highest levels possible to bring heaven to earth.  Immature Christians might do nice religious things; but mostly stop just short of anything fully Christ-like in spirit and truth.  Mature Christians so believe that Christ can powerfully indwell the lives of believers, they will greatly honor all in whom Christ they see, so that they can learn to further the real life of Christ in themselves.  Further, such Christ-indwelt people learn the best method available to enhance God bearing is in humility.  Immature Christians do not know that the process of God indwelling is halted by being rigidly righteous and proud.  Thus, immature, proud and rigidly righteous Christians believe they are doing God a service when they ignore, banish or kill those in whom Christ manifests. 

More Than Life Itself – A mature Christian might say, “We must bless he who comes in the nature of God, so that we can likewise be God-filled; because if we do not humble ourselves in the presence of a God bearer and refuse to wish him well, surely we will have displeased God and our own spiritual abodes will remain desolate.”  Thus the immature Christian waits in rebellion for God to come quickly, while dishonoring those flexible, humble and pure abodes in whom God lives.  The indwelt of God enjoy the Creator’s fellowship but bear mankind’s disdain.  Such saints hope to expand heaven on earth.  Sometimes the God bearers’ biggest enemies are not worldly people, who can appreciate purity in a soul, but immature Christians who love their rigid, religious opinion of themselves more than life itself, more than God Himself and especially more than those in whom God indwells Himself.

Anonymous comment regarding an article about Benny Hinn (see below for 5/25 ref.)  “As a reporter who had investigated Mr. Hinn's dealings in the past, please know that this is a vast, money-making operation. Nothing else. Anyone can SAY they're called of God, that they're anointed. But the Bible says to test their fruits. Mr. Hinn's fruits are an organization riddled with the worst vices known to man, a lavish lifestyle beyond the dreams of a Saudi prince, and a "theology" that has more in common with science fiction and fantasy than any known denomination.”

5/28/08

Something Fishy

By Robert Winkler Burke

Copyright 5/28/08

When

is a new thing

not new?

When is everything new

mostly old?

When does the sanity of indwelling

look hazy?

When the wayward body of Christ

has grown lazy.

It’s fishy this bad body of Christ

gone crazy.

Where every madcap persona

hoodwinks

all flora, all fauna.

And whosever would be cult star

claims fame

by the distance from God they are.

5/27/08 Success and Failure – Once there were two fathers who each had a son.  Around the time the boys became twelve years old, each son asked his father the same question.  They asked, “When you were a boy, what did you desire most?”  The first father told his son, “I wanted to become the greatest father in the eyes of his son, and I believe I have entirely succeeded.  But what do you say?”  The second father told his son, “I wanted to become the greatest father in the eyes of his son, but I believe I have entirely failed.  But what do you say?”  Each son replied, “Father, I think you are the best dad in the world.”  But one son was lying.

Cheap Happiness – Once there was a poor old widow who lived by herself in a house in the woods five miles from the closest village.  Every day she walked to the village to buy food.  Every day she complained of rocks in her shoes.  People told her to shake the rocks out of her shoes.  But she enjoyed complaining so much, every day she secretly added another pinch of sand, or small rock or annoying insect of some kind to her shoes so that she would have a fresh complaint.  Such is the way of those who will not forgive.

5/25/08 Standing Guard Against Pride – No man is perfect, yet we must trust men (and women) to preach to us.  How do we know their interpretation of the Bible is correct?  Blind faith is problematic.  What tools can we us to help us discern?  If you find pride in a leader, hedge your bet with him and his doctrines.  If you find humility in a leader, invest more in him and his doctrines; but still hedge the bet.  If you find a leader that likes to use wiles of deception on friends and keep the wiles hidden, avoid that leader.  If you find a leader that likes to expose wiles of deception and doesn’t deceive friends, follow that leader.  Is the leader generally opaque or transparent?  Does the leader claim inerrancy or confess mistakes?  Does the leader espouse no weakness or confess them?  Does the leader have enough clear insight about himself to be a true challenge to an enemy?  Our enemy’s biggest weapon is pride, so is your leader on guard against pride in himself?

Every Once in a While – Consider the following cowboy movie dialogue:

            Rustler:            Is the posse coming?

            Rustler Boss:   No, after ten miles they get tired, go home and call on the Pinkertons.

            Rustler:            Then why are you standing guard?

            Rustler Boss:   Because every once in a while, I’m wrong.

Jesus implied nonbelievers were wiser in carnal things than dopey believers.  He encouraged His children to be wiser than the children of the world.  (Luke 16:8)  He warned His sheep to beware of wolfish shepherds.  Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.  (Matthew 7:15)  We should be aware that all our leaders – except Jesus Himself – every once in a while… are wrong.

Too Much Trust? – The coinage of US money says, “In God We Trust.”  And a joke about that says, “All others must pay in cash!”  How gullible we believers are to believe a scheme of giving will return more money to us than we gave!  God, being a spirit, might choose to multiply the return of the spirit in which we gave.  If for a cause we gave one hundred dollars with one measure of greed, we might receive a hundred-fold measure of greed and never a return on the money.  Do we trust in God or money?  Consider the following cowboy movie dialogue:

            Rustler Boss:   Here’s your share of the money, count it.

            Rustler:            I trust you.

            Rustler Boss:   Well, don’t go trusting me too much!

The Point of Prosperity – If money is power and power corrupts, then money without great maturity is a great corrupter.  Paraphrased, Jesus said, Seek ye first the kingdom of heaven, which is truth and wisdom; then after that all things will be added unto you.  So perhaps the modern world is too focused on prosperity.  By seeking prosperity first, the world becomes a madhouse of money-empowered people bereft of moderating wisdom and godly sensibilities.  Witness one televangelist family that brazenly uses its $20 million ministry jet – paid for by donors – ten percent of the time for personal pleasure trips.  They one up Marie Antoinette:  Instead of saying, “Let them eat cake,” they seem to be saying, “Let them watch us eat cake in which they pay for the cake mix, oil, eggs, frosting, oven, utilities, television studio, cameras, our hairstyles, our make up, our suits, our salaries, our complex of buildings, our website, our retirement, the broadcast time, our luxury jets and let them also buy our DVD videos for repeated immersion in our lovely prosperity!”  To buy into all that would make a person who – by the Grace of God – came into the first-time possession of wealth, highly susceptible to being fleeced.  Being fleeced should not be the gospel of prosperity.  Rather, mature spiritual insight that recognizes and wards off all fleecing schemes should be the gospel of prosperity.  If this is true, then televangelists who con others … would have a history of being conned themselves.  To wit:

According to Rick Ross, starting in 2001 Televangelists Benny Hinn, Kenneth Copeland, Reinhard Bonnke and thousands of other church goers were apparently scammed out of $170 million by Gregory Setser, a businessman offering fantastic returns but accused of having only a Ponzi scheme.  Setser supposedly purchased seven million latex condoms from Brazil and 50,000 liters of corn whiskey for later resale, but mainly used donated funds for family self-enrichment (planes, helicopter, homes, family, mega lifestyle… sound familiar?) while rewarding early partners with great returns via contributions from later partners.  Setser supposedly received a 40 year prison term.  The questions raised by this are:  What difference is there between a carnal Ponzi scheme and a televangelist’s prosperity-spiritual Ponzi scheme?  What, pray tell, made Mr. Hinn and Mr. Copeland open to this kind of fraud?  Why did they fall for promises of 25-50 percent returns in two or three months’ time?  And why were the monies used for condoms and whiskey?

The Story of a Con-Artist Who Conned His Kind – See this from Rick Ross: 

http://www.rickross.com/reference/ipic/ipic3.html.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/ipic/ipic4.html.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/ipic/ipic5.html.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/ipic/ipic6.html.

http://www.rickross.com/reference/ipic/ipic7.html

Tempered Faith – Witness the horror and depravity of un-tempered faith in the American prosperity gospel machine.  An Atlanta septuagenarian is arrested for lying about sleeping with his brother’s wife and siring his “nephew” son, now pastor of his church.  A half dozen prosperity preachers fly in $20-36 million dollar jets while supported by much poorer donors.  Two supposed billionaire ministers refuse to cooperate with a US Senate inquiry into their finances.  A flamboyant healing minister with an eleventh grade education cannot prove to the media his healings, yet he lives in a $12 million oceanfront parsonage in a ritzy enclave for the mega-wealthy.  The founding father of a global Christian network was involved with a fiasco hush-up regarding alleged homosexual trysts with an employee.  The list is seemingly endless.  But it is precisely the record of shame that results from believing in un-checked faith.  Such leaders will never suggest you become a modern-day Berean and Google truth-aggregation internet sites for independent verity confirmation.  Rather, they seem to preach that if you want to be a Christian leader but still engage in a basketful of carnal daring do, then preach un-tempered faith, fanatic faith, in fact, almost any crazy faith will do!  But if you want sanity, if you want translucent love, if you want God living in you now, believe in God’s tempered faith.

Peter’s Faith Tempered – I’ll die for you, Lord, said an unregenerate Peter.  No, you’ll deny Me three times, said the Lord.  I’ll chop off an ear to show my defense of You, my Lord, thought Peter.  I’ll heal the ear, responded the Lord in action.  And he told Peter, Those that live by un-tempered faith, represented by a sword of wrong truth at the wrong time, shall die by un-tempered faith, represented by a sword of wrong truth at the wrong time.  Shall we call down fire, asked Peter and company?  Ye know not what spirits ye are of, replied the Lord.  Don’t go to the cross, Lord, said Peter.  Get behind me, Satan, said the Lord.  You know I love you, said Peter.  I’ll strip away your prideful vows to Me by three times commanding you to feed my sheep, replied the Lord.  You are the Christ, said Peter.  The Lord replied, On this rock of rhema and tempering of faith through an excruciating spiritual maturity process involving repeated baptisms of fire that help you remove your impetuous, stubborn and prideful religious spirits –  as Job was helped long ago remove his prideful religious spirits through epic tribulation – I will make an example of how you – with My loving chastisement – overcame your Adamic nature, and you will thereby be able to build My church.  Even then Peter said, What about John?  The Lord told him to shut up and have his faith tempered one more time.  But at long last the fiery rebukes did their tempering work and Peter the warrior not only wrote two fine books of the Bible, he did indeed become the metamorphic, heat-tempered rock of Christ’s church.  If the sick were within his shadow’s reach, they were healed.  Such is the power of God’s sword in whom prideful, intemperate faith has been pounded out and a more pure faith annealed.

5/24/08

The Teachers

By Robert Winkler Burke

Copyright 5/23/08

The teachers are taught wrong!

The teachers are taught wrong!

…and they know it.

The teachers teach wrong!

The teachers teach wrong!

…but they stow it.

The teachers hide wrong!

The teachers hide wrong!

…they don’t fix it.

The teachers are wrong!

The teachers are wrong!

…they just abide it.

5/23/08 Using Higher Powers to do Base Things – The In That Day Teachings endeavor to explain there are indeed higher ways of God than what some popular Christian media ministries show, especially of themselves.  The six televangelist dynasties being investigated by US Senator Charles Grassley are a case in point.  These ministries tend to show themselves to be highly problematical with gross darkness in finances, gross darkness in wiles of audience control and gross darkness in their inability to answer uncomfortable questions from the public.  This darkness conceals fundamental problems, problems at the root caused by wrong doctrines, motives and faith.  Again, the parable of the X-Men movies gives a good explanation:  The charismatic but misguided Magneto wants to control higher evolved humans using base appeals so they can do base things with higher powers – without believing themselves guilty of wrongs!  The selfless Xavier wants to guide the higher evolved humans using higher appeals so they can do higher things with higher powers – manifesting heavenly self-restraint, which is true liberty!  So there you have it.  The Magneto Televangelists, if you will, appeal to base things using the high things of God, so that they themselves can do financial and other shenanigans under the cover of darkness; with the not too subtle message this easy way can be practiced by the sheep themselves – without guilt!  The Xavier Shepherds see through all these charades, and have the onerous job of deprogramming false shepherds and wrongly taught sheep, which is the restoration of all things godly.  Christianity is the noble struggle to do higher things with the highest power, Jesus Christ of Nazareth, living and being in you.  Wayward Christianity, with its cheap faith, motives and mores, uses higher powers to do base things – like insist on extorting sheep to make billionaire wolves – without much mention Jesus is supposed to live and manifest so transparently in His own that such self-aggrandizement is virtually impossible.

5/22/08 This is Something We Do Every Day – See the following link to read “Benny Hinn: healer or hypnotist?” – Investigative Files, Skeptical Inquirer, May, 2002 by Joe Nickell.  Nickell discusses the alarming similarities between Benny Hinn and a stage hypnotist:  Each employs mood, music or word combinations to encourage the audience falling into a trance.  Each performs a shotgun test to bring the suggestible forward.  Each employs further hidden selection processes.  Each then suggests behavior for the selected to do.  Each then has entertained the audience and gets certain payment for doing so.  Each loads their performance with mesmerizing techniques, which cannot be dropped without losing the mesmerizing.  Nickell quotes a professional hypnotist who says, “This is something we do every day and Mr. Hinn is a real professional.”

See:  http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_3_26/ai_85932614/pg_1.

5/21/08 More Read & Weep Confirmation – See John Bloom’s recent article from The Wittenburg Door, a satire magazine from Dallas-based Trinity Foundation, on Benny Hinn and his outrageous ministry.  The article details some of Hinn’s methods of wily audience control.

See: http://www.wittenburgdoor.com/why-benny-hinn-became-our-wacky-neighbor#comments.

5/20/08 Found:  Methods of Wayward Ministry Madness – The In That Day Teachings have long held that the escapist world of broadcast Christianity is seriously deluded in certain doctrinal areas.  Yet there is no denying these charismatic media ministries are popular.  But if their doctrine is wrong, how do these ministry megaliths have the power to get so much money?  What is the method to their madness?  One answer is to understand how stage magicians, psychological illusionists, mentalists and group hypnotists do their illusionary magic, hidden suggestions, psychological maneuvers, misdirection, showmanship and even Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) tricks on audiences.  These audiences become necessarily both willing and unwitting participants to group delusion.  (See YouTube’s video clips of the English television star Derren Victor Brown and other similar references.)  The problem is not that such performers appear to behave similar to televangelists, it is that so many televangelists appear to behave so much like stage hypnotists!

The Madness:  Eyes Blinded, Ears Deafened – To discuss stage hypnotists with televangelists requires great discernment.  Some truths are just too ugly to tell.  For example, did you know stage hypnotists can induce subjects to fall back, fall into a chair, receive a non-touching punch, make hysterical laughter and any number of things you might see in a Florida revival?  You can watch YouTube video clips wherein hypnotist teachers explain how each induction is performed.  So which one is anti-christ?  Is it the apparently honest and transparent hypnotist teachers or the usually evasive and opaque charismatic televangelists?  Or are both archetype leaders – each in their own way – helping humankind heal at some level?  Then, is deception necessary at this apparently low-conscience-awareness arena they operate in?  And is a higher healing power available in the presence of the reverse; highly taught (as Jesus taught) consciousness that sees through wiles (Jesus called it leaven) via spiritually seeing eyes and hearing ears?  Consider that hypnotists usually don’t preach from the Bible but charismatic televangelists do.  In other words, perhaps charismatic televangelists need see what it is the hypnotists say they do on stage when they teach about their stage tricks.  Then the televangelists might check their own repertoire for the same methods, then publically repent of using them and stop using them from the pulpit.  (If televangelists wanted to really model Christ, they could teach common leaven methods televangelists have used to control audiences… to now open their eyes spiritually, and keep them from such control in the future!) 

The End Goal:  Certain Lighter Things – Watch movies about Jesus.  The Jesus actor usually delivers great teachings in an earnest but slow paced manner.  It looks natural. Compare this with more radical outbursts of charismatic preachers gone wild, as captured by YouTube video clips.  Compared to the actors who portray Jesus on film, charismatic televangelists appear to be more like stage hypnotists who a) have over-size personas that easily project control of audiences through loud and penetrating speech, b) use psyche-controlling words – such as shouting the penetrating word, “TOUCH!”, c) make constant subtle suggestions about what people should be feeling, d) insist that these desired feelings are happening when they say so, e) require time from reality distortion engines for the mass effect to take place and f) the audience is never taught to discern the myriad of techniques used to control, entertain and extract money from them.  Thus the audience seldom goes away more enlightened with discernment about how wily leaven works – which is something Jesus warned His listeners about – rather, the audience leaves with their feelings and wallets lighter. 

The Faith:  Wiles for Miracles or Meekness for Wisdom – Charismatic televangelists and revival leaders do not appear to be overtly conscious of bad choices made for expediency.  These Christian leaders simply copy each other’s style without bothering to understand they become rather like stage hypnotists.  Perhaps such Christian leaders are guilty of not knowing better than to copy this expedient style that works on low-conscience, suggestible groups of people.  Perhaps these leaders are guilty of foregoing critique from themselves or others.  Perhaps they rationalize that since people apparently get healed, all is well despite their culpability in the lowering of audience consciousness.  Perhaps it lets such leaders have unchallenged opaque finances, unchallenged million-dollar jets and unchallenged billionaire wealth.  But until such leaders feel challenged, nothing will change.  Certain Christian leaders will trade wiles for miracles having no greater faith that more, perhaps much more is available from the wisdom of God.

Those interested in watching a couple of movies about Jesus, see Trinity Broadcasting Network's website listed below and click on "The Revolutionary," (my favorite scenes: 10:55 to 25:00) and "The Revolutionary II."  (The acting and music and slow pace are all quite good.)
http://www.tbn.org/index.php/8/1.html

5/19/08

Bound to be Last

By Robert Winkler Burke

Copyright 5/18/08

I speak of epic deeds

and far greater misdeeds

in the wayward body of Christ.

I speak of great love lost

but far greater fortunes gained

in the wayward body of Christ.

His appearance has disappeared

replaced by Judas priests

in the body of Christ heist.

They will never, ever know

who has come and who does go,

these first idols bound to be last.

5/18/08 An Almost Unimaginable Breakthrough – What if breakthrough in God indwelling us was to repent for supporting – in effect creating and sustaining – Christian media monsters and their sevenfold worse seed?  What if the much-heralded charismatic healing revivals, where the fanatic faithful leave with bodies healed but spiritual eyes and ears dulled by wily shenanigans, were just the Matthew 24:24 “great signs and wonders” from “false Christs and false prophets” being so much “that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect”?

Dorian Gray Christs – Some Christian media ministers evidence a fear of aging that is quite reminiscent of  Oscar Wilde’s pre-cosmetic surgery story written in 1891: The Picture of Dorian Gray.  In the story a hedonistic Gray sells his soul to have his painted picture age, thus enabling his pursuit of beautiful debauchery without himself ever aging.  Do our modern day Dorian Gray Christian media leaders now – or will they ever – recognize Jesus coming in me, or you or even – on that rare unselfish moment – themselves?  No, no and no.  They delay the day of Christ’s return in us on earth because they are virtually full of themselves.  And they commit sin subornation by demanding we give them dutiful idol worship and financial support.  This is why – at the core – they cannot answer questions about themselves.  Who they really are – as opposed to the Dorian Gray personas they project themselves to be – is just too hideous and selfish.  They must hide their “Gray” locks.  Their sagging faces and breasts must be surgically uplifted.  They must have big hair, luxury watches, multi-thousand dollar suits, hundred thousand dollar stage sets, multi-million dollar jets and billion dollar ministry fortunes to project that perfect image – each of them in their own way – of Dorian Gray.

Unholy Homogeneity – To do this strange “lo here, lo there” trick, these shepherds preach not of Christ coming quickly in me and you; but of mandatory honor to those in whom Christ is pretended; mandatory dishonor to those in whom Christ dwells and manifests; and that Christ returns in either a rapture program, or reward program or in no particular program because all is supposedly secure.  To this package of lies unholy shepherds of unholy homogeneity must submit and in turn make – if they can do it – you and I submit.  God forbid!

How to Tie God’s Hands – Most of us want God’s blessings in general, and God’s financial blessings in particular.  Yet if the above is true – that the world’s most popular Christian leaders broadcasting on Christian evangelical television programs are seriously deluded – then to support them financially might be contrary to God’s will.  If God wants to fix or shut down these heretofore uncorrectable ministries, our stubborn support of them achieves what for us?  The duplicitous ministries we support financially send us thank you letters with fresh donation envelopes.  God sends us anything but financial bliss.  To support whom makes the world abominable – unable to be indwelt of God – perhaps makes us desolate of blessed finances and blessed Jesus Himself.  Good grief!

Test the Spirits – What then do we do?  Shall we repent massively for supporting deluded shepherds?  Yes!  Shall we repent massively for believing and emulating deluded shepherds?  Yes!  Shall we command out of ourselves spirits of greed and idol worship that attracted us to wolves in sheep’s clothing, wolves of greed and idol worship?  Yes!  Who, then, do we follow and support?  We follow any humble leader in Christ who worships God in spirit and truth.  Does their spirit manifest Christ and would they humbly honor and kindly encourage Christ’s Spirit manifesting in you?  If so, follow and support such leaders.  If not, hold on to your money and run away far!  Test the spirits.

Perchance Be Blessed – Just two thousand years ago the religious leaders of Israel failed to recognize Christ’s coming in His singular body because they were too full of themselves.  Is it not the same today?  The evangelical Christian leaders of television fail to recognize – and thus make even more difficult – Christ’s return in his universal body, which is us: me, you and everyone else possible.  Why can’t these leaders help Christ’s return in His universal body?  Sadly, television’s religious leaders today are often too full of themselves.  Not again, Lord!  But since Christ came once (in a singular body) and was victorious despite strong efforts of the religious leaders of the day to deny Him and His followers; then once again Christ can come quickly (in His universal body) and be victorious despite strong efforts of the religious leaders of the day to deny Him and His followers.  Knowing this, only a fool would bet against God coming quickly.  Multitudes did two thousand years ago as they blindly followed the religious establishment of the day.  And multitudes today deny Christ’s return as they blindly follow the religious establishment of the day.  Nevertheless, gentlemen and ladies:  Do we support humble leaders who say God comes now in sanctified vessels, or proud leaders of carnal prosperity who give us escape from the burden of our Lord’s indwelling?  Each leader archetype says God will bless you for their support.  One must be dead wrong, the other as right as Christ’s reign.  Whom do we believe?  It’s time to place your bets, and perchance be blessed.

5/16/08

Choose Your Chalice

By Robert Winkler Burke

Copyright 5/16/08

The Lord says,

Why do you listen

to them, not Me?

why do you choose

their company –

for eternity?

They want one thing

and it is you

I want one

thing:

for you

to have

Me

I have wisdom

I have truth

I have what

 you need

to get

through

Minds

of men

imbibe lies

and demand

you drink their

desolate chalice dry

5/15/08

Crashing Against My Prejudices

By Robert Winkler Burke

Copyright 5/15/08

Crashing against my prejudices

I cannot live

Crashing against my prejudices

I am tired

of sighing

Crashing against my prejudices

I cannot give

Crashing against my prejudices

I am tired

of dying

Everyone is – Everyone is who they are; let us proceed from there.  – rwb

5/14/08 I Wanna Be Like You? – It may seem to be too much dot connection, but the indwelling-of-God pattern of thought of the In That Day Teachings package, with its mindfulness of watching what truth and spirits we are of, is a beautiful Rosetta Stone understanding of simplicity and godliness.  Compare this to the strange televangelism slight-of-hand obfuscation of extraction justified for the sake of expediency.  The televangelists seem to have a sacrosanct need to promote a compromised gospel of self-service to their own ministries, escape from God-indwelling by all means possible to make it easy enough for the donors to believe something, while never a thought is given regarding the outrageous worshipping of wrong doctrines and worse spirits from the strange-acting shepherds themselves.  And much of televangelism, especially prosperity televangelism is based on engines of envy, selling the message to donors that they can – by sending seed money – have a big hair lifestyle of the rich and famous.  They primarily sell the mantra message, “You Wanna Be Like Me” and with their extraordinary carnal riches, must we all respond with a donation and say, “I Wanna Be Like You?”

See:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EufGFcmM5y0&feature=related.

When I See an Elephant Fly – If the Christian media ministry model were not broken, its multi-billion dollar budgets for global broadcasting would be sufficient to evidence an improving planet of people.  But as the In That Day Teachings have long noted, the current televangelism effort seems to be accomplishing little but making certain dynasty families quite rich.  The In That Day Teachings point to a better way, a biblical way, perhaps even the true way of God.  But this certain way costs the carnal flesh, particularly the insular flesh of the ensconced televangelists of multi-millionaire and billionaire fame.  To preach the better In That Day Teachings way would force such televangelists to massively repent for practicing deceiving wiles promoting an errant gospel that helped the sheep little but themselves a lot.  They would have to see, in essence, they have had too much Beelzebub in their package to cast out Beelzebub.  This would be hard, a hard thing indeed.  The televangelists would have to open the eyes of their donors to the extraction they did with their wiles of deception.  But this is necessary to promote the next level of spiritual growth in seeing and being.  But it is so difficult to imagine that proud ministries could find the humility to do this, it would be like a day “when I see an elephant fly.” 

See:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GOcVkofa1AU&feature=related.

The Impossible Dream – But the alternative, to stand by while the poorly fed send their meager means to the fat cats of wily control, that I cannot – nor do I believe God can – abide.  I wish to live with God indwelling me in soul truth.  I may be wrong, but I believe this hope is shared by all people of good will on earth and all of the saints in heaven.  Let us then separate ourselves from carnal Christianity, wrong doctrines and wrongs spirits; and fly with the eagles of God.  Let us believe God wants to manifest in every man, woman and child possible on the planet in wisdom, insight and fellowship.  But we cannot be beguiled, we cannot be deceived, we cannot believe wrong things and we cannot manifest wrong spirits.  We can only be good.  We can be so good as to be indwelt of God, living and having our being with and in God.  That is my dream.  Deep down, I believe it to be most everyone’s dream.  It is the impossible dream.

See:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RABrrrleB8o.

“The Impossible Dream”

From MAN OF LA MANCHA (1972) Peter O’Toole

To dream the impossible dream

To fight the unbeatable foe

To bear with unbearable sorrow

To run where the brave dare not go

To right the unrightable wrong

To love pure and chaste from afar

To try when your arms are too weary

To reach the unreachable star

This is my quest

To follow that star

No matter how hopeless

No matter how far

To fight for the right

Without question or pause

To be willing to march into Hell

For a heavenly cause

And I know if I'll only be true

To this glorious quest

That my heart will lie peaceful and calm

When I'm laid to my rest

And the world will be better for this

That one man, scorned and covered with scars

Still strove with his last ounce of courage

To reach the unreachable star

5/13/08 Fob Chain Spatial Anchoring (Leaven Detection 101) – What is Fob Chain Spatial Anchoring, and how do modern day Pharisees use it in their quest for audience control and money extraction?  First, recall the movies you have seen about Jesus.  Did the actor portraying Jesus prance about when speaking?  No?  The Jesus actor generally spoke without back-and-forth hand or body motions.  In fact, the scriptures say Jesus often spoke while seated.  Not so our televangelists.  Notice their pendulum-like movements, kind of like a hypnotist’s watch swinging back and forth on a fob (i.e. deception) chain.  Whether the fob is small or big it works like this:  To the right I say something true; “God is good!”  To the left I say something less handsome, “How many of you have had cancer?”  I repeat to the right, “But God is good!”  To the left I say something less nice, “How many of you have had heart trouble?”  I repeat to the right, “But God is good!”  The motion to the right and left is done by a simple open palm, a finger point or a body walk.  What have I done?  I have spiritually anchored to my right a good feeling – a great positive!  To my left I have spiritually anchored a bad feeling – a great negative!  Now I keep doing this wile of mesmerizing until the anchors are hard set.  The audience loves me and my message!  Then without a hint of my devious stratagem designed to outwit the gullible, I ask for financial support.  And where do I stand?  RIGHT!  I stand on my right anchor space – where I have spiritually set in place all the good feeling and great positive.  To apply more pressure to the audience, I might drift over to the lousy spiritual space on the left and consider what might befall the audience member who misses this opportunity to throw money at me, oops I mean, sow money to my org without reproach.  Variations of this ploy include walking forward down to the audience, then back.  Masters at this walk SLOWLY back to the stage with their backside facing the audience.  It is a sign of disrespect to the deceived, really.  (Horses displeased with their caretakers will turn and present their big horse butts as a similar universal message.)  Another variation is simply pitch of voice variations; first high then low, first strong then weak, first loud then quiet, first fast then slow.  Any singsong inanity will do as long as the variation is used in a mesmerizing fashion.  Fob Chain Spatial Anchoring is a wonderful tool of many mammon-challenged televangelists and televangelist wanna-be’s, that is, unless they want to truly feed sheep.  True shepherds might consider exposing such leaven.

See:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KaeiGtmlL2c.  (Video of Right/Left Spatial Anchoring)

Tom Vizzini, http://www.essential-skills.com/.  (Nuero-Linguistic Programming practitioner.)

Joyce Meyer Asks – Recently, Phil Cooke, a media consultant and producer, was asked by the televangelist Joyce Meyer why her viewers and readers sometimes stayed immature.  The main question for Meyer and her dynastied ilk is about maturity.  Can a relatively immature and self-serving ministry make mature, selfless abode-sharers of Christ?  It depends on what is taught.  The immature are taught fixed rules, (i.e. the self-service-to-ministry fixed-rule of tithing.)  The mature (i.e. US Marines, Federal Aviation Administration and Christ’s own disciples) are taught there are no rules, only guidelines.  The immature are taught God will fix everything (i.e. the rapture or a return to cosmetically repair all but the immature.)  The mature are taught God must in us dwell (which prerequires worshipping Him in maturely corrected truth and spirit.)  Finally, the immature receive instruction from leaders using wiles of deception (i.e. Nuero-Linguistic Programming, charismatic wiles of audience control, stealth misdirection, pattern interrupts, swish verity changing, fanatic faith immersion and spatial anchoring) to extract necessary monies.  The mature receive instruction from leaders who teach how to recognize and reject such deception devices as dangerous leaven.  In sum, you cannot shoot out the lights of discernment to get financial gain and expect those whom you’ve made blind will see.  Actually, such immature leaders are highly motivated to keep their reality distortion field machines humming, else the donor base see truly, understand the wiles and stop funding the baby believer factory.  Therefore a properly deceived audience will certainly clap louder – like trained seals – for you when you say, “You can do better than that!”  But because of immature training operations – justified primarily on the need for money extraction of the taught by the teachers – they really cannot.  They cannot do better than that – which is to see and be something better spiritually by way of truly enjoying God’s indwelling wisdom, that is, until the leadership decides itself to be spiritually mature, repent of these widely accepted shenanigans and have a long season of loud mea culpa.

See:  www.philcooke.com.

5/10/08

WORDS FOR AFRICA:

To:  Pastor Benjamin Walmalwa Khaemba, God’s Grace Revival Ministries, Bungoma, Kenya, East Africa, his lovely wife Judith, their children, extended family, prayer team, congregation, nation of Kenya and all of Africa.

From:  Robert Winker Burke, Reno, Nevada, USA

Greetings in the name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ of Nazareth,

And so, what can I say, my brother?  Separated by birth, by race, by nation, by sea and by even time itself; yet together we are in Christ.  We live in a hostile world, yours in one way, mine in another; yet we long for the time when we might be together in peace.  Our world thinks us crazy, yet if we be deemed crazy in Christ’s likeness; then we are just what our world needs.

Does our world need more fighting, more wars, more discord?  God forbid.  Our world needs the solutions of peace.  And what is peace and who is peace?  Is not peace the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and His longing to indwell us?  And is not this peace, this indwelling of Christ in us, so often not recognized as peace by the world that longs for peace?

But direct truth is a hard meal for those unprepared to digest truth.  They spit it out as vile.  And they spit us out as vile.

When then shall we say?  Shall we spit out the truth in us so that we regain the friendship of the world?  Or shall we indiscriminately spew out truth to the unprepared to increase our reviling by the world – as our revenge against the reviling?  Again, God forbid.

There is no going back with God.  Let us learn from our Master.  We shall deliver our truth in generalities and parables to the world.  To the more prepared, we shall deliver precepts, insights and tempting revelations.  And to the mature in soul, we shall deliver hard truths, Divine doctrines and the mysteries of God.

At all times we shall be respectful of all people, all things, all happenings.  We must not judge, for by any act of judging we limit what God can do with all people, all things, all happenings.  Nevertheless, we discern all things in conjunction with God’s spirit.  Know ye not that we shall judge many things beyond?  We neither fear the assignment nor long for it.  We simply accept that the knowledge of Divine judgment is part of maturity in perfected indwelling with God.

And in doing all of this, we shall be mindful that compared to some in God, we know little in God.  Humility alone reigns supreme in these things.  If we can know great things and maturely shepherd this greatness in us; then we might some day qualify to learn even greater things and how to be even greater shepherds for our Master.

And what are these great things other than the facets of the crown diamond that is our Lord Jesus Christ of Nazareth?  He is power, and might and glory.  He is health, and healing and love.  He is God in heaven and God on earth.  And it delights Him to live and be in us!

Oh how the world needs to see Him in us!  Yet I am shamed how little He is in me, compared to how much I see Him greatly manifesting love through you!  Perhaps others feel the same of me, though I have much less love and less power of God than I feel I should.  But this comparative envy is madness born of evil competition, strife and murmuring. 

We must relax our death grip on selfish pride and command it be gone.  And we must hold, but loosely, to the free Spirit of God’s way with man on earth.  And with this love and respect for God, each other in God and the world that needs God, let us carry on as true brothers and sisters of heaven come to earth; thankful for the saints who enable divine empowerment with all prayer.

Whether we be in shame, in honor, in poverty or in wealth; each is a challenge to handle in God’s manifested way.  Let us handle our burdens in this world with the dignity and majesty only the Lord provides.  Let us not be remembered so much for our shame, or honor, or poverty or wealth; but rather let us be remembered, if at all possible, for the dignity and majesty of a God-perfected man or woman in the land of the living doing what God wanted done in the land of the living.

And if we fall, let our time in sin be short; else we be made of no use to God’s kingdom expansion.  And if we rise to heaven’s third realm, let that time also be short; else we be made of no use to God’s kingdom expansion; we being neither too high, low, hot, cool, nor tepid.  In all things let us find the balance of Christ, which is ever-present, ever-possible and ever-pure.

This I pray for you, Pastor Benjamin Walmalwa Khaemba, and your wife, and your children, and your extended family, your prayer team, congregation, nation of Kenya and all of Africa.

Of all people of all times, the great people of Africa have been robbed of dignity and majesty.  It is time for God’s own special spirits of dignity and majesty to return to the peoples of Africa.  Indeed, dignity and majesty shall be restored in Africa – by the King of dignity and majesty.

Hoping all in Christ,

Robert Winkler Burke

Reno, Nevada USA

5/9/08 Brave is the River of Life – Here is a YouTube link to “My Rifle, Pony and Me” sung by Rick Nelson and Dean Martin in front of Walter Brennan (on harmonica?) and John Wayne in the 1959 movie Rio Bravo, directed by Howard Hawks. 

See:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IpEnsdXwFM&NR=1.

My Rifle Pony and Me
Duet w/ Dean Martin Previously Unreleased

Sun is sinking in the west
The cattle go down to the stream
The redwing settles in the nest
It's time for a cowboy to dream

Purple light in the canyon
that is where I long to be
With my three good companions
just my rifle pony and me

Gonna hang my sombrero
on the limb of a tree
Coming home sweet my darling
just my rifle pony and me

Whippoorwill in the willow
sings a sweet melody
Riding to Amarillo
just my rifle pony and me

No more cows to be ropin'
No more strays will I see
'round the bend shell be waitin
For my rifle pony and me
For my rifle my pony and me

My Rifle, Pony and Me – One reviewer writes, “Old school crooning… simple song, simple tune, extraordinary voices.”  Again, we witness another ethereal song, haunting; drawing you in to wonder what it might mean spiritually.  Try this:  Cows represent thoughts of the mind.  A cowboy ropes in those thoughts, casting down all “stray” imaginations – evil spirits and lies, actually.  A cowboy’s horse represents the strength of his good spirits.  That he rides a horse indicates the strength of his spirit is above normal humans.  To call his horse a pony means he is totally comfortable in his “manhood,” or really – highly developed goodness of soul.  He calls it his pony, as though the power of his spirit and might is a casual, close friend.  Then the rifle:  What is that?  As with any weapon, it represents truth.  But what kind of truth does it represent?  A rifle is a long-distance weapon.  It is for the more mature among us.  Rifles actually scare the timid.  This song is a lullaby to assure the weak of spirit to not be fearful and hateful against those highly developed in truth.  (This is why prophets of old were killed.  Normal folk, who didn’t have much truth in them, just had to kill prophets who did.  It is the compromised leaders who really hate prophets, because prophets cannot do anything but stand against the fraudulent.)  Rifles do two things, normally.  They keep bad things away (i.e. an enemy attacker,) through their death at a distance, or they bring good things in, through their death at a distance (i.e. elk.)  So a rifle actually keeps one safe in this parabolic song.  Immature souls have no mature truth (rifle) to keep the bad thoughts out (lies of the Devil and company) or bring good things in (truth of God and company.)  Further, a rifle protects many, not just one.  A rifleman, in this example, is a shepherd of truth whose leadership protects wife, family, community, nation.  Like any good man of war, this one is also a good poet.  He’s mature enough to be comfortable alone, which is part of the calling of a warrior poet.  He’s glad he’s learned the basics with cows, ropes, wrangling, the lay of the land, the way of strays; i.e. the wiles of the Devil, the problems with pride, the value of humility, the treasure of not taking oneself too seriously, the knowledge of the great but the preference for the Divine simple.  (Prophets often must necessarily be both men of war and poets.  The two together prevent an intenseness that can be mistaken for insanity.)  All this and more the cowboy – really, the thinking man who is smart enough to make fun of the best goal of any human: to be a successful scholar and practitioner of life – has learned.  So he sings an ode to what he has discovered it takes to be true in our strange quest that is more than life itself; he sings of how inseparable has become “my rifle, pony and me.”

Who We Are – At a deeper level, the song of relaxed companionship is set in the town Sheriff’s office, where four men are guarding a killer.  Outside is a bandit gang wanting to shoot the four men and spring the killer.  The four men are played by John Wayne, Walter Brennan, Rick Nelson and Dean Martin.  They represent professionals who are either too old, too gimpy, too young or too drunk.  But as professionals, they realize the upcoming showdown against evil is not only their task, it is who they are.  They refuse to ask for help from others who don’t have the sacrificial calling of warrior.  As John Rambo says in another movie, “This is who we are.”

Old school Crooning...simple song, simple tune Extrodinary voices..

5/8/08 Forgetting All That – There once was a decorated US Marine pilot who retired and got a job flying wealthy people around the world in executive jets.  One day he flew one of the world’s richest persons from Hawaii to San Diego.  Near the end of the trip the plane had several malfunctions.  The pilot did everything possible, but the plane was going to crash.  The flight attendants then told him the wealthy passenger was having a heart attack and needed immediate medical attention.  Then the pilot saw his old aircraft carrier.  He decided to crash land on the carrier, which broke all military and civilian rules.  However, the plan worked.  All aboard the plane were saved, including the wealthy passenger, who was taken care of by the aircraft carrier’s doctors.  The wealthy man was so thankful, he gave the pilot a one million dollar bonus.  But soon afterward, the pilot’s pastor asked the pilot for a one hundred thousand dollar tithe, saying that the rule of tithing is fixed.  The pilot told the pastor that the Federal Aviation Administration lets a pilot break fixed rules if it will save lives.  That was, in fact, how he earned the bonus.  The pastor said, “You will have to forget all that.”  The pilot said the US Marines taught him there are no fixed rules, only guidelines and that this flexibility had helped him save himself and his own team members from death in Iraq.  That was, in fact, why he was still alive.  The pastor said, “You will have to forget all that.”  The pilot said that Jesus broke rules and healed on the Sabbath.  He said that’s why he loved Jesus, He was so flexible with His love.  The pastor said, “You will have to forget all that.”  The pilot said John the Baptist said to give to one another and that he wanted to buy a house costing one hundred thousand dollars for his parents and use the rest of the money to support his parents in their old age.  He wanted to honor the fifth commandment of the Bible.  The pastor said, “You will have to forget all that.”  So the pilot gave one hundred thousand dollars to the pastor, and then gave the rest of his reward to the pastor as a love gift on top of the tithe.  And the pilot forgot about all he had become.

5/7/08

America, Why I Love Her

Written by John Mitchum
Poet/Actor

Spoken by Actor

John Wayne

Over orchestra playing “America”

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=mTC77vcg0Sk

You ask me why I love her? Well, give me time, and I'll explain...
Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?
Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?
Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?

Have you heard a Bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines?
Or heard the bellow of a diesel in the Appalachia mines?
Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar?
Do you look with awe and wonder at a Massachusetts shore...
Where men who braved a hard new world, first stepped on Plymouth Rock?
And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock ?

Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies...way up high?
Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?
Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea...
Or bow your head at Gettysburg...in our struggle to be free?

Have you seen the mighty Tetons? ...Have you watched an eagle soar?
Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri's shore?
Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a winters day,
Her waters rage along the shore in a thunderous display?
Does the word "Aloha"... make you warm?
Do you stare in disbelief When you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?

From Alaska's gold to the Everglades...from the Rio Grande to Maine...
My heart cries out... my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.
You ask me why I love her?... I've a million reasons why.
My beautiful America... beneath Gods' wide, wide sky.

5/6/08

Hard Questions a’Coming – This from CBS News on Kenneth Don’t-Question-Me Copeland.  See:  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/01/29/cbsnews_investigates/main3767305.shtml.

Amazing Grace – The following is from an introduction of a prophetic book.  The publishers write that their author went from doubts: “…Okay, Okay, let me write this down before I forget, and let’s just get it over with.”  To passion: “Wow, these words are changing me and the world around me.  Please listen!”  From questioning: “Who needs my poetry?  Why does God want me to write?”  To prophetic convictions: “I see myself in all continents sharing God’s love and truth, and throngs gather around to hear more.  I see thousands get healed.  We have to pray continuously.  We have to trust God.  This is our only protection and hope.”

The author?  Child artist and poet:  Akiane Kramarik, age eleven.  The book is called “Akiane – My Dream Is Bigger Than I, Memories of Tomorrow.”  She says in her website:  “I have been blessed by God.  And if I’m blessed, there is one reason and one reason only, and that is to help others.”  And:  “I want my art to draw people’s attention to God, and I want my poetry to keep people’s attention on God.”

See:  http://www.artakiane.com/akiane_art.htm.

They Don’t Ask

By Robert Winkler Burke

5/5/08 copyright

Why, oh Lord,

why can’t they see

what I can see?

Why can I see

what they cannot?

What lets me see

Your jokes on them?

And what Divine jokes

 on me do I miss?

Tell me,

I must laugh

 with heaven

at myself.

Tell me,

what need I see?

One thing I know.

Those who cannot see

what I wish they could…

Are too busy

(Just let them tell you!)

 knowing

(Just let them tell you!)

and being

(Just let them tell you!)

To ask

God,

What is

the truth?

5/5/08  They Win if We See Nothing– The In That Day Teachings emphasize the importance of always discerning spirits, always knowing what spirit you are of and always living (or worshipping God) in spirit and truth.  Look at the Reverend Jeremiah Wright affair.  This man was for twenty years the pastor of now Presidential candidate Barrack Obama.  Wright’s preaching style is classic charismatic spirits gone wild.  So a tremendous complex of evil spirits manifest (instead of Christ Himself) in Wright more or less continually.  (To be fair, the same is true at lesser levels for John McCain’s John Hagee and any other pastor or person that chooses to manifest spirits other than those of God’s Son.)

Wright employed the following deceiving wiles:  When speaking to an audience, he would a) make a staccato attack on something, b) jump to an a cappella song to distract, c) use intellectual obfuscation by claiming superior knowledge of liberation theology, d) jump to ghetto slang, e) use rap jive, f) quote scriptures in a confusing manner, g) misapply scripture, h) mispronounce God’s name in a shout, i) say something politically bizarre, j) stir up black prejudices against whites, k) promote victimhood bitterness l) and insist all these devices are of Christ.

But in fact, these kinds of things dull one’s spiritual eyes, ears and brain.  The fix?  Stop the immersion brain washing!  So Obama, who has been busy on the campaign trail for two years, finally loses immersion in this obfuscation and sees through Wright’s wiles.  Obama mistakenly says Wright is not the man he knew twenty years ago.  Actually, the hard campaign trail of truth or consequences improved Obama to the degree he could disavow, albeit half-heartedly, Wright’s deceptive character.  Obama is not the same man as twenty years ago.

That leaves us with Obama impatient, and even his wife being impatient, with the press and the pubic questioning the sincerity of their renunciation of Wright.  All this confusion is happening because preachers often don’t want to discuss spirits, for fear of discovery of self-incriminating truths, and how they use deceiving spirits to get and keep power and money.  (See Kenneth Copeland.)

The question is, have the Obamas learned to use Wright’s deceptive wiles?  We appear to have a Potemkin Village world where the front story of truth is minutely inspected but the back story of spiritual meaning is always ignored. 

Is it any wonder that leaders in Christianity, politics and news seem to employ deceiving spirits to gain control over our finances?  They lord spiritual wiles over all who don’t have eyes to see spiritually, these lords who need all to see nothing.  They want us all spiritually blind.  They do it by incessant, fanatic faith immersion.  They say, “You listen to us,” without ever adding, “We never listen to you,” believing we’ll never see what’s missing.  They win if we see nothing.

Questions, Please – Recently the richest man on earth, Warren Buffet, took five hours to answer questions from shareholders.  This compared to certain televangelists ever escaping inconvenient questions.  How can they be responsible to God and have ministries not responsible to anyone but their own personal interests, outside an audience they have convinced to ask no questions? 

5/2/08 What True Searchers Find – The In That Day Teachings state that popular movies may have parabolic messages from God.  Just look at old movies people still watch.  So let us again look at the 1956 movie The Searchers and its ending scene, called “probably the best ending scene in the history of cinema.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woahas_W35A.

Today, let’s focus on the lyrics of the movie’s theme song, “Ride Away.”

A man will search his heart and soul

Go searching way out there

His peace of mind he knows he’ll find

But where, oh Lord, Lord where?

Chorus:

Ride away…Ride away… Ride away!

What is the parabolic message behind this haunting, ethereal song?  Try this:

RIDE AWAY

(go out, outside your selfish self and search the soul universe, and seek, and knock and find that…)

RIGHT WAY (slightly changing the wording)

(of goodness and greatness and humble magnificence available to those who by test, trial and tribulation have eliminated enough soul pride and enlarged enough soul truth to have discovered God was, is and will be always internally and externally available…)

RIGHT AWAY (slightly changing the wording)

Thus, we…

RIDE AWAY

(to the end of ourselves on the solitary soul’s next to last frontier, its penultimate journey; to discover our end and begin a new… )

RIGHT WAY (slightly changing the wording)

 (Which is the beginning of any pure soul’s ultimate adventure: To be evermore, eternally enlightened by literally living and spiritually being with God always and now coming quickly from within to be in us…)

RIGHT AWAY (slightly changing the wording)

This inestimable blessing is what true searchers find.

5/01/08

Stones of Pride – Isn’t the problem with mankind a truth problem?  If mankind could receive truth and conform to truth, wouldn’t that be nice?  But what keeps us from this?  Well, in a word: Lies.  So the bridge to heaven on earth is conforming to truth?  In a word: Yes.  How do we construct this bridge from lies to truth?  With a special kind of truth.  What is this special kind of truth?  It is called self-incriminating truth.  Most people will believe any truth but self-incriminating truth.  Where do we find examples of self-incriminating truth?  You are supposed to find them in church from your leaders, but it is rare to find them there.  Where then do we look for self-incriminating truth?  In the Bible and the people of the Bible.  Where in the Bible?  In people unafraid to say, “I am that man of sin!”  This is the steel and concrete that builds your bridge to God.  And your personal bridge to God’s heaven of greater truth is paved with stones of humility.  And what is the opposite?  It is the brick-and-pitch shepherd that says, “I am that man of God!”  Shepherds who say and believe this cannot build on truth.  They simply build a bridge to hell’s biggest lies.  And their bridge is paved with stones of pride.  What if we have been following such shepherds, and believing them and becoming like them?  Then you have might have been building a spiritual bridge to lies.  How do we get off that bridge?  First, throw away the stones of pride.  Then you will see you have built a structure on pitch and bricks.  Brick, like the gospel, is solid.  But pitch, like lies dispersed with truth, is not.  Once you remove enough stones of pride, you will see your assumptions about the gospel might have been interlaced with many untrue things.  Must we then dismantle this bridge of pitch and brick?  No, simply abandon it and start building your new bridge based on self-incriminating truth and humility.  Let others find abandoned bridges of self-glory and pride.  After a while they will see the bridge goes nowhere good.  If you pray for them, as others have you, they might learn to seek a better place to go.  But it is so hard to think I have been doing good in a vainglorious way that negates the good.  Shepherds boast about the good they are doing, it is how they sometimes ask for money.  Why can’t I boast about the good I am doing, too?  Throw that thought away.  Cast away that stone of pride.  What is the steel and concrete?  The steel is fundamental, unchanging truth surrounded and supported by the once fluid, now firm concrete.  It is a combination of strength and flexibility. If a bridge is too rigid or flexible, it will fail.  The same is true for spiritual rules and ways.  Together concrete and steel can make a bridge that is rigid enough and flexible enough to take the pilgrim to a better place.  This is getting too complicated.  Bridge building, like life, is not easy – but never impossible.  Some try to over simplify things, and simply build a bridge out of inflexible material, like steel that is too brittle.  Or they try to trek, or swim, burrow or fly between the divide.  They miss the point.  I think I get the point!  Yes?  Yes, the point is for me to believe in absolute truth applied in Divine flexibility; and build my life on it!  But who is the designer, inspector and bridge owner?  Well, wouldn’t that be God?  Try God’s Son.  And I’m not supposed to build the bridge alone?  No, with Him you build the bridge.  And others.  Oh yes, I can’t wait to tell others what I now know!  No you don’t, not in pride you don’t.  And don’t tell others what you know until they are ready, and God tells you to tell them.  But I want others to know how much I now know!  That, my friend, is pride.  Okay, don’t tell me, I must get rid of my stones of pride.  Always, first cast out your stones of pride.

4/30/08 The Question Is – New York Daily News commentator Errol Lewis said the problem with Reverend Jeremiah Wright’s Washington D. C. speech at The National Press Club on 4/28/08, was that…

“It’s hard to exaggerate how bad the actual news conference was.  Wright, steeped in an honorable, fiery tradition of Bible-based social criticism, cheapened his arguments and his movement by mugging for the cameras, rolling his eyes, heaping scorn on his critics and acting as if nobody in the room was learned enough to ask a question.”

Perhaps Lewis was describing what spirits the pastor manifested that day.  CBS Chief Correspondent Jay Levine reports that Father Michael Pfleger of St. Sabina Church, who is apparently friends with Wright and US Presidential Candidate Barrack Obama (who attended Wright’s church for twenty years,) said the problem with Wright was basically…

 “the antics, the looks, the dismissive tone, the strut.  It was being flippant, some say being pompous and arrogant.”

Wright also appeared to manifest a spiritual complex of pride, extreme condescension, defiant racial prejudice and outright bizarreness.  Like so many pastors in the small public eye of unaccountable Christianity but not the bigger public eye of general accountability – this perhaps being an example of Western Enlightenment to the rescue of a churched people unable to correct its leaders who blind them – Wright performed his usual routine without belief that any checks and balances might come from reporters whose Berean job is to distinguish truths from lies.  All this came from a black pastor reported to have a multi-million dollar mansion in the white suburbs of Chicago.

The message the In That Day Teachings has been making for almost four years is that Rev. Wright is simply one example of many televangelists broadcast globally unchecked by Western Enlightenment’s critical thinking processes.  Many such televangelists operate with what seems like eternal impunity under a manifestation of bizarre spirits repeating equally bizarre posits.

To paraphrase Lewis, it is hard to exaggerate just how bad certain televangelists actually are.  It is hard to exaggerate just how bad it is that certain televangelists act as if nobody in the room is learned enough to ask a question.  Why?  Well, certain of them never answer questions.  They believe to be above all questioning.  In this they are contrary to Jesus, who often submitted to questions and gave answers He said were not His, but from His Father.

Look at the difficulty US Senator Charles Grassley has had getting answers from five of six televangelists he sent letters of inquiry to on November 5, 2007.   (Only Joyce Meyer met the first deadline, on December 6, 2007.)   Neither demagogues nor demigods suffer being questioned.    Grassley will surely resort to subpoenas on the most recalcitrant of them. 

All this is insanity because of pride that puts the TV preacher above question.  You can go to their assemblies and discover questions are never allowed.  What do they fear?  They fear: Questions on their income, questions on their parsonages, questions on their financial dealings, questions that would reveal the truth about themselves and their dubious spirits. 

What would be revealed is the smoke and mirrors game that has been played with God’s gospel for decades by the spiritual brothers and sisters of Rev. Wright.  This is an archetype of duplicity that has been given a pass by Christian television viewers and the church going public. 

The In That Day Teachings have for almost four years said, look through the smoke and mirrors!  Listen with spiritual ears past the hyperbole.  Reason with your mind why TV ministry finances are opaque.  See that the televangelists shoot out their flock’s soul of discernment with wiles of deceit and extraction.  See that the televangelists themselves seem to care about their own family’s financial kingdom far above the true spiritual enlightenment of the flock they preach to. 

Such televangelists cannot do true kingdom-of-God expansion because to do so would require teaching their flocks to truly see and hear spiritually.  This would identify their own wily spirits, self-enriching antics, extraction and mesmerizing audience-control techniques.  This they can’t do.  It would be too much light and truth.  Against such truth they are steadfastly prejudiced.  In this we see their gospel is not the gospel of God’s desire for us to be pure and therefore indwelt of God.   Their gospel is the gospel of no revelation of any self-incriminating truths about leadership shenanigans, which requires masked de-spiritualization of their own fleeced flock.

So this family of televangelist archetypes marches on, extracting billions, broadcasting their Lilliputian gospel to a world needing no additional deception, enlarging mainly their own personal dynasties, teaching pastors worldwide to do the same to their congregations, teaching congregations worldwide to expect the same done to them, preparing little for the biblical “day.”

And this family of televangelist archetypes hopes against hope that never, ever will come a Reverend Jeremiah Wright exposure incident; an “In That Day” biblical episode of God’s wrath, light and truth; a day when dots are connected and patterns finally understood; a rising tide of true, universal enlightenment of the spirit; or – God forbid, they think – appears any great-learned people with any cogent questions to stop the charade of evil escape artists.  Why, such a day and such a people might usher in the prophesied restoration of all things when heaven comes more fully to earth in significant truth!  Truth?  But such spiritual truth, is just what they oppose!

So, the main question for these shepherds is:  Will they answer to man now, or God later?

4/29/08 Mean Wile, Back at the Trance – Now comes the ex- pastor of a US Presidential candidate, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, defending his outrageous, brazen and hateful sermons against races not of his own tribe.  He says this throw-back tribalism, otherwise known as Liberation Theology, is perfectly normal, acceptable and keenly good for the black church and world at large.  Worse yet, there appears to be a large group of like-minded, similarly indoctrinated believers.  These believers have never apparently been enlightened about the bondage of unforgiveness, resentment and revenge; nor told about audience-control wiles of deception to enable them to see through stylistic, lying frauds like Wright.  Nor do such believers appear to be aware of Western Enlightenment’s noble precepts, purchased by blood to keep a people from believing strife-mongering, prejudice-amplifying demagogues like Wright.  Why?  These In That Day Teachings keep emphasizing that so many televangelists employ fraudulent style, wiles of audience control and fixed-rule over-emphasis to achieve their particular ends:  Goods and glory.  Is it any wonder certain church-taught communities of people, and perhaps even nations, are confused?  You cannot shoot out the lights of discernment by employing wiles of deception to get mammon from the masses and garner anything else but pitch-black grief.  Good grief!

4/28/08 Let My People Go! – It is clear that – for the most part – the Trinity Broadcasting Network (TBN) family of ministries never met a wile of audience control it didn’t like to broadcast globally.  Certainly TBN refuses to teach its audience how to detect and avoid wiles of audience manipulation.  So it is no wonder we have a Reverend Jeremiah Wright as pastor of a US Presidential candidate and his wife.  TBN sows wiles of audience control – not believing the practice shoots out the lights of discernment in souls – and the globally deceiving Christian ministers reap not only darkness covering the earth (by satellite) but, most importantly, gross darkness the people (by immersion.)  This is the important point:  Gross darkness covering the people.  The people must be darkened spiritually; else they would not send billions of dollars to the family dynasties of Crouch, Hinn, Dollar, Copeland and other connoisseurs of the conned.  The problem is you cannot use dark wiles of audience control and money extraction, which is a form of mind control and income slavery, and produce a wise, free and cogent people who will not be deceived by secular politicians (and media) who might use variations of the same techniques used by TV preachers.  Dark political lords would naturally use similar wiles of audience control and extraction to get elected.  Then the dark political lords would do what the dark religious lords do:  They keep the reality distortion fields amped up high, extraction engines humming, self-exaltation machinations at deifying levels, exonerated self-enrichment (of course) and calling of evil good and good evil for as long as possible.  Oh lord, how long?  What then can we say to these sneaky shepherds of subtle mind-rape, soul-control and spiritual enslavement?  How about, “Let my people go!”

The Last Laugh – Since the planet’s goofy televangelists appear to be in an uncorrectable endless loop of self-serving inanity, perhaps God will employ the sword of Western Enlightenment to correct them.  This is funny because the televangelists have grown impervious to correction by the most natural method – biblical truth.  Apparently nothing from the Bible can be used to correct them because they have dented the Bible to serve themselves.  But God, as always, gets the last laugh.  God may use the holy precepts of Western Enlightenment to correct the global ministry gobblers.  With Western Enlightenment’s precepts of self-critique, admission of error, mandate to make ameliorating corrections, through spiritual allegiance to broad principles of good and abandonment of letter-of-the-law fixed rules and dubious methods used by the strong to abuse the weak, God will reintroduce true liberty to our desperate planet.  And here’s the joke:  Western Enlightenment is based upon the Bible.  It is God’s back door way of correcting the TV Bible thumpers, who believe the Bible to be something it isn’t, with the true Bible that is.  The way of God is very self-correcting, though televangelists seem hell-bent to prove otherwise.  But how could God’s way be anything but self-correcting, if it is to be mankind’s universal solution?  God’s way destroys the last prejudice, the prejudice against self-incriminating truths.  America’s Spirit of 1776 was all about such enlightenment. Televangelists are right to believe the gospel message should be heard around the planet.  But must the planet suffer proud and uncorrectable gospel messengers who, by the very witness of their character, know little about God’s true enlightenment?  This Earth cannot endure!  Save our planet, oh mighty Western Enlightenment!  And let God have the last laugh.

4/27/08 In Defense of Reason – In this day of global terrorism aimed against Western culture, let us note a strange disturbance in the defense of reason.  We see a religious war wherein a tribal faction wants dominance over the West’s elements of enlightened reason.  Boiled down to basics, it is one group dedicated to the imposition of intolerance fighting against those dedicated to the imposition of self-restraint.  But let us inspect a serious ripple of disturbance in the West’s line of defense.  Its religious broadcasters, some of them anyway, appear to be crass hypocrites of Western enlightenment and reason.  Specifically, televangelists universally support the West’s defense against irrational tribalism, Muslim extremism, yet the televangelists themselves appear to embrace elements of self-centered tribalism without one whit of introspection (self-critique,) ability to admit imperfection (self-correction,) and therefore form a more perfect union (be further enlightened.)  No, certain televangelists appear to be stuck in a weird, distant-past century where fanatic faith trumps reasoned faith.  And here is how they do it:

1)      Fanatic faith justifies all wiles of audience control and beguilement for furtherance of message and monies, whereas reasoned faith would identify and denounce such practices as being perversely contrary to a soul’s enlightenment and perfection in maturity. 

2)      Fanatic faith justifies Seed-Faith greed, extraction and duplicity – wherein its leaders exchange cash donations for promises of multiplied returns from God Himself, whereas reasoned faith would identify and denounce such practices as being perversely contrary to a soul’s enlightenment and perfection in maturity. 

3)      Fanatic faith justifies fear-mongering through escapist doctrines of rapture and sensational world news, whereas reasoned faith would identify and denounce such practices as being perversely contrary to a soul’s enlightenment and perfection in maturity. 

4)      Fanatic faith justifies escape from the duty to be pure enough to be God-like at minimum or God indwelt at maximum by promulgating escapist doctrines of eternal security or an imminent return of God to fix all things but slacker escapologists, whereas reasoned faith would identify and denounce such practices as being perversely contrary to a soul’s enlightenment and perfection in maturity. 

5)      Fanatic faith justifies its leadership’s financial opacity; refusal to answer questions; need for billionaire wealth under the cover of non-profit, non-taxable benefit, and escape from responsible oversight despite their power to immerse the planet in broadcast, whereas reasoned faith would identify and denounce such practices as being perversely contrary to a soul’s enlightenment and perfection in maturity. 

6)      Fanatic faith denies adherence to flexible guidelines and prefers rigid allegiance to certain fixed rules, such as the law of tithing, which like all fixed rules, can be misused as a tool of the empowered to abuse the disempowered, which is at the core antithetical to the truth and spirit of Western progress, whereas reasoned faith would identify and denounce such practices as being perversely contrary to a soul’s enlightenment and perfection in maturity. 

7)      Fanatic faith justifies any of the above-mentioned means – and all other deleterious means not mentioned, as long as a so-called good end is achieved, meaning promotion somehow of their gospel, however impure and morphed-into-monstrosity it has become over time without applying the corrective principles of Western enlightenment, whereas reasoned faith would identify and denounce such practices as being perversely contrary to a soul’s enlightenment and perfection in maturity. 

In sum, we find to our surprise and chagrin Beelzebub cannot cast out Beelzebub.  By this fact Jesus told us we can identify who are the Beelzebubs in our midst.  This we can do in our time of global crisis, if we truly want to honor our God of reason and therefore actually defend reason.

4/25/08 Laughter, Liberty and Love – The gospel of God includes three wonderful things:  laughter, liberty and love.  Laughter, because the world is funny, we are funny, even God is funny.  Yes, He is.  God has the greatest humor of all.  We must learn of His humor, His wit, His great big jolly eyes of the Spirit.  We also must learn of liberty, for this too is from God.  Liberty is God’s gift to mankind.  And what is liberty?  Is it license to do whatever we want, to be supremely selfish?  No, no a thousand times no.  That is not liberty.  Then what is God’s true liberty?  It is dedication to the imposition of self-restraint.  It is learning to coexist in blissful harmony with man, nature and God.  It is doing unto man, nature and God as you would have man, nature and God do unto you.  And that, my friends, is love.  In fact, universal liberty provides the greatest love, greater even than God’s love alone.  Greater love than God’s love?  How so?  God’s love is great.  But without mankind’s true liberty, man does not restrain himself and he hurts his fellow man and his own environment – the earth.  And the earth rebels.  And man rebels.  And God judges.  But if we could but understand God, and who He is, and what He has done, and what we are supposed to do – well, then my friends, repentance and forgiveness would flow.  And then we might have enough laughter.  We might have enough liberty.  And we might even have enough of the greatest thing, which is God in every thing and one all the time, which is love.  That would be heaven on earth.  And it would be good, so very, very good.  All it takes is more laughter, liberty and love.

4/24/08

The ant: I owe the world a living.
The grasshopper: The world owes me a living.
The televangelist: The world owes me a tithe.

4/23/08  What Makes “In That Day Teachings” Prophetic?

1)       The In That Day Teachings explain that Job was an example of God helping a religious leader see – by way of tribulation – the harm of a religionist’s own rigid righteousness.  Job then repents and enters into relaxed, fluid fellowship with the indwelling of God.  This was how Jesus lived.  Jesus said he only said or did what was His Father’s pleasing.  Normal teachings on Job say that nobody knows why the righteous suffer.  Normal teachings come from perhaps somewhat righteous teachers who are blind to the problems created by their own perhaps rigid-righteous leadership.  Therefore they rely on the Job verse 13:15 “Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him…” and of course, they leave off the rest of the verse!  The rest of the verse says, “but I will maintain mine own ways before him.”  This means rigid old Job wouldn’t budge an inch from his self-righteous rigidity…until Elihu came along and spoke the words of God and shows Job his “Leviathan” pride.  Normal Job teachers completely miss this point, being rigid teachers.  It’s like the What Would Jesus Do question.  It presumes Jesus can’t really be alive and talking with us, so we must presume what He’d do!  But who calls this point in question?  Well, these teachings do.  And the In That Day Teachings call to question the vapid normal teaching on Job; that nobody knows why the righteous suffer.  Once you see the points the In That Day Teachings are making –  that rigid righteous leaders are a big problem for God and God’s sheep –  then you see why the rigid teach no one knows why the righteous suffer!  Good grief, what will it take for our leaders to repent of rigidity?

2)      “In That Day” is explained as the time foretold by the prophets and Jesus when more people would find a way – through personal tribulation – to eliminate enough wrong doctrines, demons and spiritual blindness; that God’s indwelling light and personage of Christ is able to live in soul truth with man.  Soul truth is the key:  Spirit and soul truth.  Often it takes tribulation to get there, whether or not you are a leader.  If you truly want more God in your life, it may take more soul truth, and that may take more tribulation and that can happen to anyone, anytime – without explanation.  In order to see (and be) with more truth (God, really,) suffering may come without explanation.  So there is a reason for suffering, it is just necessarily inscrutable – for the sake of our maturity.

3)      The media ministries of the day are excoriated for teaching pabulum, gross extraction, self-exaltation, wiles of audience control, egregious lack of self-restraint, wasteful redundancy and incalculable harm to sheep of the world needing greater teachings during times of inescapable personal tribulation.

4)      The In That Day Teachings provide a cornucopia of advanced lines and precepts, as foretold by Isaiah’s Chapter 28.  These ways include a) There are no rules, only guidelines, b) rapture is wrong doctrine, c) an imminent second coming of Jesus to fix all ills but the ills of ourselves is wrong doctrine, d) eternal security is wrong doctrine, e) thus b, c and d are Triune Escapology doctrines enabling the escape of God’s indwelling of man on earth, f) most all eschatology and dispensational doctrines are wrong, g) wrong doctrines permit hordes of demons to indwell their hosts, h) right doctrines help a soul expel indwelt demons, i) lovers of right doctrines can become more Christ indwelt than lovers and makers of lies, j) Seed Faith ministry can be wickedly self-serving, k) tithing is a guideline, not a fixed rule, l) etc., etc., etc.

5)      Luke’s Christmas story reveals eight in the birth family and friends of Jesus who were powerfully receptive of the Spirit of God or God’s spiritual ways:  Jesus, Mary, John, Elizabeth, Zacharias, Joseph, Simeon, and Anna.  (This list omits the shepherds and the wise men, who also were obedient to God’s angels and spiritual signs.)  Therefore, since Father God wanted this spiritual surround for His Son – and because it helped His Son be blessed, born and avoid Herod’s killing zone  – modern church leadership would do well to make Christmas an opportunity for Holy Spirit baptism and honor.

6)      The In That Day Teachings say the modern church has made the prophetic into a thing of entertainment or inconsequence.  But true prophetic work is corrective and therefore restorative.  These teachings are full of rebuke and chastisement for the leaders of Christ’s body.  The Book of Revelation calls this love.  Leaders of Christianity seem to believe that avoiding this love is the goal of all saints.  They are wrong.

7)      The church has almost perfectly abrogated its responsibility to usher its sheep through the “In That Day” of indwelt-in-God’s-rhema living.  The overcoming-Adamic-sin process is difficult, not easy; rather inescapable in its tribulation once becoming tribulation’s target, not easily avoided through rapture or other doctrinal delusions; much needing to be explained by Christian media ministries, not avoided altogether with parades of puerile preaching; and therefore much blood guilt is on leaders who poorly equip sheep by feeding them ego and inanities, but blood guilt is not on leaders who feed their sheep by preparing them for the “In That Day” consequences of  lie loving or truth seeking.

8)      The In That Day Teachings emphasize that Jesus Christ wants to manifest in every man, woman and child possible.  Worshiping God in a right spirit and truth makes it possible.  What makes it impossible is believing wrong doctrines and honoring wrong spirits.  But honoring those indwelt of God, however briefly or minutely, is critical.  This takes much humility, especially from leadership.  Much of the Christian media leadership broadcast around the world is consumed in pride – and not surprisingly – manifests little of Christ’s Spirit or truth.  The true meaning of Christ’s triple iterated words from the last page of the Bible – Behold, I come quickly – mean just that.  Since Christ’s resurrection, Jesus has come quickly in lives of humans, but because of religious pride and obfuscation, such comings are rarely recognized or honored.  But now is come the time of great honor and blessings to all who manifest Jesus – in small or great ways – to restore all things, usher heaven to earth and thereby honor and bless our Father, whom we must live to please.

4/21/08 Victory – Victory is not found in the ease of our circumstances nor in the strength of our own resources, but in the presence of the Lord who is with us.  – Roy Lessin.

4/20/08 Job Compared to Commentary, Copeland & DeMille – The In That Day Teachings continually have emphasized the point that Job’s suffering was primarily to get rid of religious, rigid pride – the plague of mankind, especially leaders of mankind.  This is one reason the righteous suffer.  It prevents Davids from becoming Goliaths as they grow in leadership, power, influence and ability – to put it bluntly – to use and abuse the sheep, instead of feed them.  God’s goal for Job was to see the light, repent and become a truly humane leader who sees spiritually, understands what God’s hand is doing, and joins in manifested fellowship with the Godhead to expand the kingdom of heaven on earth.  Amazingly, the destiny of Christian religion has often been to deny this very concept.  But it is what In That Day of the Bible is all about, which is the restoration of God-indwelling in man:  the restoration of all things, starting with proud leaders.

When Job Agreed:  I am That Man – After God spoke through Elihu and made a powerful allegory about how leviathan is like pride in a religiously rigid person (i.e. Job himself,) finally in Chapter 42 Job says in Amplified Bible verses 5-6, “I had heard of You [only] by the hearing of the ear, but now my [spiritual] eye sees You.  Therefore I loathe [my words] and abhor myself and repent in dust and ashes.”  Job saw he was (Chapter 32:1) “[rigidly] righteous.”  Job was a precursor of how things are now supposed to be.  We have seen many such precursors, but they have been little understood, little honored, little emulated.  In fact their opposites are usually the recipients of great honors.  (Regrettably, today’s televangelists often appear to be blind and rigid religionists, unaware they are modeling Job in his Chapters 1-31, and not the restored-unto-God-indwelling-and-true-kingdom-expansion Job of Chapters 32-42.  Maybe they could learn?)

Amplified Bible Commentary – In the Amplified Bible’s Introduction to the Book of Job, we see the writers – like most – seem to miss the Divine point God was making with Job’s life.  They write, “Job acknowledges that our ability is limited and that the purposes of God are beyond our comprehension.”  Thus they basically say they don’t know why the righteous suffer.

Kenneth Copeland Living in De Nile – When self-proclaimed billionaire Kenneth Copeland suffered a tremendous blow to his religious pride by US Senator Charles Grassley investigating Copeland’s ministry finances, Kenneth Copeland responded by bragging to a meeting of preachers, “We sent (Grassley) a several page letter lesson on ‘NO!’…We gave them the address of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C.”  (This is available on video transcripts on www.wittenburgdoor.com.)  Further, Copeland dug in his heels and said, “That is something I’ll go to prison over…So just get used to it!”  Copeland manifested rigid pride, not flexible holiness.  Also, he was teaching others pastors to be rigid, which is bad for sheep to suffer under such.

When DeMille Agreed:  I am That Man – Amazingly, when you agree with your accuser, as Jesus admonished, you might transcend the problem.  It happened to David.  It is not happening to Copeland.  But what happened with the example below encourages us to do what Job did:  Admit rigid leadership, then become flexible, humble and surprisingly God indwelt.  Let’s let Charlton Heston describe what director Cecil B. DeMille did during the making of the epic The Ten Commandments, 1956 version.  In a special feature about the film Heston said:

We were doing a scene with a lot of extras and he was instructing the extras as to what he wanted.  And DeMille took the mike once and he said, “Uh, those young ladies in the back, with the green.  Yes, you miss.  And the (one in the) white robes.  Um, I notice you have been talking together.  Now I have been trying to explain to everybody what I want in this next shot.  And I find it very distracting.  And clearly you are not listening to what we are saying.  It is quite important, this scene.  Why don’t you come down and tell us what you have been talking about?”

And they came down finally. 

And he said, “Here, take my microphone.  And tell us all, what it is you were saying.”

And she took the mike.  And she said, “Well, I was just saying to my friend, ‘I wonder when that old, bald-headed son of a bitch is going to call lunch?’”

And of course, there was a huge laugh. 

And DeMille took the mike back.  And he said, “Lunch!”