The world has never been faced with so many monumental decisions from presidential elections to propping up the world’s economy, one wonders how to pray. Never has the world been so plagued with one natural disaster after another causing a great strain on the world’s economy and the survivability of its citizens, one wonders how to pray. As the war drums beat louder from madmen of the East promising death and destruction to Israel and America, one wonders how to pray. Finally, as all manner of wickedness seems to go unabated and the streets are filled anarchists, one wonders how to pray. Now take a half an hour and get your thoughts together and after you get them together… toss them out because they will be of no use to you. Start by getting in the Spirit, the Muslim can’t do it, the Hindu can’t do it, the unbeliever can’t do it, but you can, because without it you are wasting your time. And to be truly in the Spirit means to reject your independence and learn total dependence upon God. God is not interested in your ideals, your solutions, or your agenda to bring change to a besieged world. On the other hand, He is interested in your total submission to His will.

Now that you are in the Spirit, you can close the door to your closet. You will be conducting business between you and God alone. “Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed by thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:9-10). The veil has been lifted and you see the world the way God sees it. All the nationalistic boundaries are erased, all cultures eradicated, all political and social barriers are removed, and all racial differences eliminated. So what else does God see when He looks in the earth? He sees His faithful remnant in every part of the world and sees the pagan hordes encamped against them.  In shock, we have a new way of thinking! We no longer support one country against another. We no longer support one politician against another. We no longer highly esteem one culture or race over another. Conversely we support every Christian in prayer over the pagan encamped against him. We acknowledge that Satan is leading the pagan around by the nose to do his will and our prayers finally begin to take shape.

We pray, Holy Father remove the blind fold from the pagan hordes so that they see your magnificent love flowing though us to our brethren in every part of the world. We pray let us boldly proclaim to the pagan hordes that your judgment is raining down from heaven with hopes that they might see their pitiful condition and repent. Let us also pray for our brothers and sisters around the world that they will die to self and walk in the Spirit at all times and in every situation. Let them not be overcome by the many trials and tribulations in the world, but allow it to awaken the spirit within them to come and walk closer to You, Oh, Lord. As Christians join hands from around the world and allow God’s Holy Spirit to lead them in prayer it will have a profound effect upon the world in which we live. As we fast approach the end of days, use this time in effectual prayer to bring about real change in a beleaguered world, augmenting the polarization between the only two groups that exists. Amen

Let’s assume for a moment that God has pulled back that spiritual veil and he has allowed you to see everything that Satan is doing by filling the airwaves and cyberspace with his half-truths and miss-information to lead God’s children into bondage, what would you do? Well, that is the very topic of this blog. In the last Great War both sides would send miss-information to the other side in the hopes that they would take the bait and move their troops into an area were the enemy was waiting to ambush them. I believe that Satan is doing the same thing in the last days. He is sending out miss-information with the hope that Christians will also take the bait and be defeated by the enemy. Some of the things I have seen people post on Facebook from the internet are absolutely mind boggling. I am afraid if Christians start believing some of these half-truths and miss-information then it will lead them to do something completely out of character for a Christian. To do so will lead them to be arrested as enemies of the State and treated like terrorists.

I would like to spare you of that, so I am pleading with you to spend all of your time learning the truth of who you are in-Christ. This will be your sure defense against the enemy and his half-truths. The Apostle Paul said that God will send a deluding influence so that people would believe the lie because they refused to love the truth. How strong is this deluding influence is beyond our comprehension, but I can say that many will fight you to retain what they perceive is the truth found on the internet. In these last days we need to be lovers of the truth not of half-truths and miss-information found on the internet. The truth will not spend all of its time trying to uncover some supposed plot by the enemy or unearth some secret organization to unite everyone together into the New World Order. These things will surly come, but we are called to occupy until He comes by spending all of our time in true inconvenient service one to another. Our true identity in Christ is service one to another and if Satan can mess with that, which he is doing on the internet, then Christians will be soundly defeated.

There are many things which our Lord told us to watch, such as earthquakes in various places, wars and rumors of wars, famines, and the increase in wickedness. We should also be aware of the great distress which is already upon us as detailed in the book of Revelation, but again this should not keep us from our task. Our goal has not changed in two thousand years and must not change just because we are now living in the age of the internet. The goal is the same: spreading the gospel of peace between God and man, engaging the real enemy, warning people to flee from the wrath to come by embracing Christ, and loving one another through inconvenient service. Finally, warn but don’t chase every rabbit on the internet looking for the truth, because it could lead to your demise. While I will admit there are some good Christian sites committed to just teaching the truth of God’s Word, to help you grow in Christ and fulfill your calling, they are few and far between.

“Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!  Who feels like rejoicing when you are having your own little pity party worried about how things are going to work out. Yet, this rejoicing the Bible is talking about is the result of being in the Lord. One cannot help from rejoicing when they are in the Lord becoming one in attitude, aspiration, and sharing a since of accomplishment. When you are in the Lord there is the reality that you are doing exactly what God desires. On the other hand, to be in the world one takes control of his life attempting to fulfill his needs and desires, which almost always leads to anxiety and its accompanying stress if not accomplished. So the first step in overcoming anxiety is to live your life in the Lord to such a degree that you are allowing Him to fulfill your every need, which brings forth great joy! It’s antithetical to rejoice in the Lord and be anxious at the same time.

The second step in overcoming anxiety is to, “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” The word gentleness has an element of selflessness and was interpreted by Luther as yieldingness. When anxiety rises its ugly head it often times is presumed to be the cause of another individual who is depriving you of your needs or causing you undue harm. The level of anxiety is heightened as the anxious person plots retaliation or how to devise a plan to escape the snare of the Fowler.  So what does the Bible say, yield to the other person, and let your gentleness be evident to all. If you need to cancel the debt, withdraw the request, or turn the other cheek, in so doing you have overcome anxiety and sent the devil to flight. Our best motivator for following this command is recognizing that the, “Lord is near.”The King James Version translates it, “the Lord is at hand.” Indeed the Judge is at the door! This should have a sobering effect upon those having anxious thoughts driven by their selfish desires apart from trusting in the Lord to deliver what’s really needed.

The next step in overcoming anxiety is a straight forward biblical command, “Do not be anxious about anything.” Does that mean that anxiety is a sin? Clearly to violate a command in Scripture is a sin. This is not a sin to be taken lightly because it doesn’t trust God to provide. He made this abundantly clear in the Sermon on the Mount. Our Lord gave multiple illustrations about each of those physical needs, such as clothing, food, and drink that could cause people to have anxiety if not readily available to those seeking them. In conclusion our Lord tells us that all these things will be delivered unto those who first seek His Kingdom and His righteousness. Again, we are brought back to the same conclusion that trusting in the Lord to provide is the very key to overcoming anxiety. Not by dwelling on the problem. Not by taking control. Not by plotting retaliation or devising a plan to escape. Not by being anxious, but by trusting in the Lord, which leads us to the final step.

We bring those anxious thoughts before the Lord in prayer and petition accompanied with thanksgiving. Lay it all before the Lord in infinite detail; don’t leave anything out. Petition your Father in Heaven thanking Him in advance knowing in all faith that He will answer your prayer and deliver you from the very thing that has caused your anxiety. So what is the outcome? Peace! We have a peace that defies understanding. Anyone who has agonized, worried, and been in the pit of anxiety will long for peace. When we follow these simple steps from Scripture then peace will come in a flash with overwhelming joy. In an instant everything that seemed so difficult and confusing will become so clear as if a fog has been lifted enabling us to see His marvelous plan. All the pressure from this world will be instantly evaporated and the peace that defies understanding will fill our soul. To stand firm in the last days we must overcome anxiety and stand upon the Rock to withstand the violent storms that lie ahead.

This article is taken from my new book: “Stand Firm” to be released in August.

The Bible tells us exactly what we need to know and not anything more. So we need to be very careful to not recklessly add things that don’t belong or to remove things that do in order to accommodate science. This has been shamefully done by those who want to integrate science with Biblical truth. So let’s begin with Cain’s wife, where did he get her? To start with there is no indication that Eve did not give birth to daughters prior to the birth of Cain, “with the Lord’s help” and her excitement that she now “brought forth a man.” (See Gen. 4:1) There’s the probability that she also brought forth additional sons and daughters prior to and after the birth of Abel, who was hoped to play a significant role in carrying on the blessed seed that would one day crush the head of the serpent. (See Gen. 4:25) The point is prior to Cain slaying his brother there were a significant number of relatives both near and far (land of Nod) from which to get a wife, especially if they followed God’s command to be fruitful and multiply. The Biblical importance of this story is not to give us details but to demonstrate that there would be two groups of people; one following after Cain who turned his back on God and the other blessed son, Seth who now after the death of his brother would carry on the blood line by calling on the name of the Lord.

“Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living” (Gen.3:20).  So next, how do we deal with the prehistoric man and the carbon dating that shows he lived thousands of years prior to the biblical account of creation? How do we account for the differences between the Neanderthal man and modern man? Granted there is a slight difference between the sizes of the skull where the Neanderthal has the largest, but there is no conclusive evidence that he was anymore inferior than the rest of humanity. Being separated from God, the advanced culture of Adam’s clan, untreatable debilitating diseases, and cast into a dangerous environment could have played a significant role in his development and living conditions. Then there is the possibility that they could have been mutants from some catastrophic disaster, it’s interesting that they were all found in holes and caves. Or yet another possibility is that they could be offshoots of the intermarriage of the sons of God with the daughters of men that indeed created a different being, not too dissimilar from modern humans. (See Gen. 6:1-2) Fred H. Smith, a physical anthropologist at Loyola University in Chicago who has been studying Neanderthal DNA said, “They were believed to be scavengers who made primitive tools and were incapable of language or symbolic thought.”Now, he says, researchers believe that Neanderthals “were highly intelligent, able to adapt to a wide variety of ecological zones, and capable of developing highly functional tools to help them do so. They were quite accomplished.”There is also an indication that either these or others were “giants in the earth in those days,” (See Gen. 6: 4) which were all destroyed by the worldwide flood in Noah’s day. There is no conclusive evidence that the methodology used in DNA sequencing can predate prehistoric man before the biblical account of creation.  It is not necessary to accept any of these possibilities to accommodate science and fill in the details; rather we need to accept the creation account on faith, believing that God has given us all the information we need.

Now concerning the age of the world, the ‘Flood Geology,’ which makes the single year of Noah’s Flood the period in which were deposited the sediments and fossils unusually considered to have been laid down over many millions of years. This view is expounded in detail in J.C. Whitcomb and H.M. Morris, the Genesis Flood. And even if you don’t accept this last point as a probability then consider that we don’t know how long Adam and Eve actually stayed in the Garden of Eden prior to the fall. Could it be thousands or even millions of years? It stands to reason that Adam did not begin to count the years of his life until after his expulsion from the Garden, no longer having the ability to partake of the tree of life. Clearly on that day he both died spiritually and began his long trek toward physical death 930 years later. Then there was the six days of creation; were they six literal days as we calculate time or were they more? The Bible indicates: “With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day” (II Peter 3:8).  In all of the religious writings prior to the fourth century they believed that the world was created in six thousand years, not six literal days. Again, it is not necessary to accept any of these possibilities to accommodate science and fill in the details; rather we need to accept the creation account on faith, believing that God has given us all the information we need. Whatever we determine to be true in our mind it must not disqualify the biblical account that God created the world and after creating man in His own image placed him in the Garden. And that all men came from one man – Adam.

If anyone is willing to do their own research, which many have, then they are convinced that science cannot disprove the Genesis account of creation and specifically that we are all of the same blood, that we are all of the same race, the race of Adam. If we allow the Bible to speak for itself then we know that all the “so called” different races all came from the same stock and were separated at the Tower of Babel. As different language groups were separated into different regions of the world it did not take long before they began to adapt to their unique environment and over thousands of years the pigment of their skin changed and their eyes also compensated with slight variations. There is proof that there is only a .2 % difference in people.  We are all of the same race. If we as Christians can accept this truth of the Bible then we should not fall for the devils lies to separate over so called racial differences. Christians should be on the forefront of restoring the foundations. The only two races God sees are those who are lost and those who are saved. In order to reach the lost with the gospel of Jesus Christ we need to take them back to the beginning when God created the world and the first man Adam, so that they can accept the second Adam Jesus Christ, who was the promised seed who crushed the head of the old serpent.

Humanity collectively has felt helpless to do anything about it. We can sound the warning most times, but not always. We have our first responders and many others who line up to provide help after the disaster. We can only dream of having a global weather net to control the weather and lessen the earthquakes and volcanoes, but no such technology exists and mankind is really helpless to do anything about it. It appears that our world is coming apart and to use biblical language it is “wearing out” and about ready to be “rolled up like an old robe.” We know that the prophets have been speaking about the end of days now for over three millennium and almost everyone now agrees that day is fast approaching.  So what should be our response?

The simple answer to this question is we must stand on the rock! It’s time we laid a firm foundation in Jesus Christ by knowing what we believe and believing what we know. As the foundations begin to crumble we must hang on to the truth that our gospel is without beginning or end; that it’s exclusive being only one way to heaven; that there is a literal hell and non-believers will be banished there by a merciful and just God; and to follow Christ we must pick up our cross, die to self, and live for Him. This is only the first step toward the solid rock as we learn to trust in God exclusively to make us into a new creation; by rejecting any systems of philosophy to modify our behavior or solve our multitude of emotional and psychological problems. We take our place upon the rock by learning from Jesus Christ all of His beautiful commands and putting them into practice as He continues the process of growing us from one degree of glory to another. We never lose hope that He will make us into the perfect image of His Son Jesus Christ.

Now when the great and mighty powers are unleashed upon the planet in the form of tornadoes, hurricanes, volcanoes, earthquakes, firestorms, and floods we take our stand firmly upon the solid rock. As the medal enters the furnace of affliction we must not falter through disbelief. We must not waiver in our commitment to Christ. We must not allow our foundation to crumble through the integration of worldliness. So with our face toward the wind we fear God and not anything else. We glorify God in all things and worship Him as the Creator of the universe. We may lose our home. We may lose our business. We may lose our loved ones. We may even lose our life, but our hope must remain strong as we think of all that awaits us in heaven above. Dear children, as the world falls apart we must grow stronger in Christ. And it’s through that great strength that we’re able to encourage others to stand firm.