Tag: salvation

Anything But Jesus

I have been hearing so much lately about the Taylor Swift concerts and the Beyoncé concerts. Now Burning Man is in the headlines. What do all these have in common, you ask? The ability to draw thousands of people together at one time. Taylor Swift draws an average concert of 54,000 people. Beyoncé draws an average of 70,000 people and the Burning Man drew around 70,000 people. What else do they have in common? The opportunity to introduce evil to thousands, millions of people all while they smile and laugh and beg for more.

It seems rare to find someone lately that is not a Taylor Swift fan. Taylor Swift literally has a cult-like following. Concert goers dress as Taylor and it seems her tickets are in high demand. When you sing a song do you process what you are singing? You should. Words do have power and meaning. She is no longer the young teen who wrote Teardrops On My Guitar. She is a grown up 33-year-old woman who has definitely come into her own. In her song Karma, she says:

Karma is my boyfriend, Karma is a God, Karma is the breeze in my hair on the weekend, Karma’s a relaxing thought, Aren’t you envious that for you it’s not?

If you know anything about karma, it is a belief practiced in Hinduism, Buddhism and Sikhism. People believe that the god vishnu revealed karma to the rishis, or the enlightened persons, and that they carry it from one’s past lives into their new life cycle. Developing into the belief in reincarnation. She is proclaiming that karma is her God. Whether you want to admit it, she is denouncing God, the Creator of the Universe. If you are not for God, you are against him. She performs an occult ritual on stage and proclaimed herself as a witch in a previous X (Twitter) post. “It’s me. I’m witches. Never fear, the willow lonely witch remix is here.” Taylor Swift. You are not just watching an expression of creative art. You are opening your spirit up to a dangerous world. A world where the spiritual realm is real and evil exists. I know, I know, you are all thinking, it’s Taylor Swift, she’s America’s sweetheart. You are being over the top and reading way to much into everything. As Jack Hibbs, the pastor of Calvary Chapel in Chino Hills said, and I’m paraphrasing, evil will not come wrapped with a warning, it will not show up on your doorstep saying, evil inside, be careful how you handle this. Are we so naive to think evil will show up with horns and a pitchfork. Evil comes dressed beautifully, enticing you and making you feel great pleasure.

Now Beyonce, she just comes right out and says it loud and proud. Beyoncé says she is oshun. Oshun is the goddess of love, sensuality, and femininity. This goddess is represented, draped in yellow. Look at Beyoncé’s album Lemonade. She continually dons herself in beaded gowns and headdresses and yellow silk, taking the form of the Virgin Mary, Jesus, venus and the hindu goddess kali. She adorns herself with jewelry and clothing, picturing baphomet. A hermaphroditic winged human figure with the head and feet of a goat that is adorned with numerous esoteric symbols. Occultist Aleister Crowley also adopted baphomet as a symbol in his satanic mass. Her infamous alter ego Sasha Fierce, who she said she felt “come in to her” and “take over” is coincidentally the name of the author who wrote The Book of Shadows. Wiccan and Pagan spells, Black and White magic. So don’t get confused thinking that these things are all coincidence. This is idolatry and the summoning of demons.

The Burning Man festival. I have heard of the Burning Man. Also, I never gave much thought to the Burning Man until this year, when flooding stranded 72,000 people in the Nevada desert. Black Rock City was hit with two to three months’ worth of rain in just 24 hours. So, I said, Huh, what is Burning Man? Let’s take a look. Oh, down the rabbit hole I went. That is a hedonistic playground of pagan and idol worship. Created in 1986 by Larry Harvey on a beach in San Francisco, it stood as a symbol against corporatism and capitalism. Hence, burn down “The Man”. “The Man” started as an 8’ tall figure. Concerns over fire hazards led to it’s relocation after four years. Now, it stands as a 40’ tall wooden/wicker sculpture that rotates effortlessly atop a 35’ tall pedestal. Tickets go for $575.00 – $2,750.00. Coffee and ice are the only items sold after entering. All other goods and services are to be gifted, traded or bartered. Vice magazine wrote, “it is the ultimate departure from reality”. One sign kind of said it all. Non Judgement Day is Coming. The art present there, loosely defined, aims to help you find your inner self or connect with ancient deities for pagan worship. There are rituals and ceremonies invoking and praising false gods, an actual Thunder Dome (Mad Max) and an Orgy Dome. This years theme was Animalia. They strongly associate astrology with the belief that a human and an animal are interconnected beings. The piece of “art” that really stuck out to me was, The 60’ chapel of babel. The artist covered the chapel in black and white portraits of people, animals, flowers, insects and leaves, that were meant to convey that we all belong and there is room for everyone in all versions and reiterations of their expression. Which is contrary to what the Bible says. God did not create us to express ourselves in any perversion that we choose. The vision of Sodom and Gomorrah, if I could ever conjure one up, would be pretty close to Black Rock City during Burning Man. I had to pull myself out of this rabbit hole because the deeper I dove the darker it got. The Burning Man which stood as a symbol against corporatism and capitalism now stands for idolatry, sexual perversion, mind altering drug induced ceremonies and evil at its base level.

So what’s the point? My point is this. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. Ephesians 6:12. Right there in the Bible, it says we are not wrestling or warring with people. We are fighting against spiritual wickedness, against forces of evil. We fight not against humans but against powerful forces of darkness and evil spirits on earth. Our daily battle is not against flesh and blood people but against mighty powers in this dark world and evil spirits in the spiritual world that are present here on earth. If you think demons aren’t real and that satan isn’t real, you are sadly mistaken. Satan was a created being. Demons are just disembodied spirits roaming around looking for a body because they have none. They would just as soon use yours as the person beside you. What can we do? Guard our hearts, study, not just read our Bibles, learn our scripture. Be mindful of what you watch on TV. Pay attention to what you listen to in your music. Pay attention to who you are friends with and find a good Church home. Coming together with other believers will strengthen you. Share your love of Christ with all those you meet. Everyone is searching to fill that empty hole inside them. So many people search and search and will try anything but Jesus. If Jesus is not the ruler of your heart, you leave room for “some thing” else to rule. Fill your life with everything that is Jesus. All Satan needs is a crack and he will stick his foot in the door. He’s pretty persuasive. I know from personal experience. How about you?

His Gift

It’s been a little over two weeks since my Dad passed. He passed away on August 23rd. I miss him very much but the funeral wasn’t as much of a funeral as it was a call to know the Lord. That’s exactly what my Dad would have wanted. Several people stood up to speak about him and how he had touched their lives and how God had come into their life through my Dad. There was laughter and there was tears. My Cousin Bryan spoke and my nephew Nick spoke. They led the service. They both did an amazing job. If you walked in there unsure of who God is and how much he loves you, you walked out knowing the truth. (If you were listening)

The Gospel was spoken on August 31, 2019 at 2:00 PM. It was a celebration of my Dads life and a dedication to the man he was. That was the overwhelming theme. I never heard my Dad or anyone that knew my Dad say he was afraid to talk about the Lord no matter where he was or who he was with. That was who he was and I hope is what everyone that walked out of there will remember about him. He loved Jesus. All you had to do was be listening and have your heart open that day and you could have received the greatest gift you will receive in a lifetime. The gift of Jesus. The gift of eternal life. The gift of being saved. Not by anything that you or I could do. Not by trying super hard or finally earning the right to have him give you that gift but by believing. God loves you as you are, where you are and you just have to accept him and know that he died for you on the cross and shed his blood for you as a sacrifice to wash you clean of your sins. He was buried and rose three days later and ascended into heaven where he sits at the right hand of God where you will see him and live there eternally when you die if you accept him. If you didn’t know that before you walked into Monaghan’s Funeral Home you should have known it when you left. That was my Dads parting gift to all that gathered there that day. I know seeds were planted and they will just need to be watered by the next gardener God puts in the path of those open hearts.

You don’t always get to see the seed you planted flourish in the spiritual world. Sometimes you might not even know that you actually planted a seed. I was so blessed that day to meet a man that I had heard about through the years. Winston Parker. I met him his wife and daughter. This man, if I have the story right, had asked my parents to come to church on many occasions when they were young and I think living the young fun life. I think it may have taken quite a few invites for them to finally go. This man was the reason my Dad accepted Christ. How amazing is that!!! What an awesome sight for him to see. That 50ish years ago he invited a couple to church and they finally came probably to get this guy off their back so he would leave them alone and this is what came of that. That makes me want to shout with joy! Through him Christ has been shared in countless places, throughout the world and will be shared down through generations to come. What a legacy for Winston and what a legacy for my Dad. It was an honor to meet him that day. I am so glad he was able to see the fruit of God’s good work working through him. So the lesson here is, never stop asking. Maybe that friend or couple or co-worker will come to church with you just to get you to stop asking. Maybe that’s all it will take.

What a life my Dad had and how blessed am I to be a part of it. To have been able to call him Dad. It wasn’t a walk in the park for him. He wasn’t a man without faults. There isn’t a man without faults but he did a great thing. He shared this great gift that is more valuable than all the riches in the world. Thank you Dad. You are still my hero. I will see you again and if there’s a DVD player in heaven we can watch The Storm of The Century if we can get God to make it snow. Maybe they have streaming up there. Haha, I’m sure there will be better things to do than watch movies.

My Dad, My Hero