A Child is Born

by Keith Gardner

Luke 2:6-7 While they [Mary and Joseph] were there [in Bethlehem], the time came for the baby to be born, and she gave birth to her firstborn, a son. She wrapped him in cloths and placed him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.

The Luke version of the birth of Jesus is the most detailed of all the gospel stories and the most popular. It is a beautiful re-tale of the love of God coming to earth, demonstrating Jesus’ humanity and his vulnerability. For what could be more vulnerable than a new born baby, birthed in a rented barn; in an unfamiliar small town. But the greatest beauty of all is the intentions of the Father being played out in the lives of the most unlikely characters as He lays out for us His divine plan.

God My Provider

by Keith Gardner

Genesis 22:14 So Abraham called that place (Jehovah-jireh) The Lord Will Provide. And to this day it is said, “On the mountain of (Jehovah) the Lord it will be provided.”

I’m sure you have heard the saying as I have; “God helps those who help themselves.” I am also sure you are aware that this saying not only is not in the Bible; its very concept is not scriptural. There is a false conception tied to the saying and it permeates our Christian thinking; “God needs my help.” I spend a great deal of energy working to provide for my family. There have been times I have worked hard to solve some problem. At times I have worried, contrived, and manipulated others to fix relationships in my family or between friends. All because I think God needs my help.

Chiastic Structures Part 2

Let’s look at one more chiastic structure in Mark 1:21-28.

“And they passed along into Capernaum. And entering into the synagogue, at once He taught on the sabbaths. And they were astounded at His doctrine, for He was teaching them as having authority, and not as the scribes. And a man with an unclean spirit was in their synagogue. And he cried out, saying, What is to us and to You, Jesus, Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know You, who You are, the Holy One of God. And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be quiet, and come out of him. And the unclean spirit convulsing him, and crying out with a loud voice, he came out of him. And all were astonished, so as to discuss to themselves, saying, What is this? What new teaching is this, that He commands even the unclean spirits with authority, and they obey Him? And His fame went out at once into all the Galilean neighborhood.” (Mark 1:21-28 LITV)

A “And they passed along into Capernaum.

         B And entering into the synagogue, at once He taught on the sabbaths. And they were astounded at His doctrine, for He was teaching them as having authority, and not as the scribes.

      C And a man with an unclean spirit was in their synagogue. And he cried out,

            D What is to us and to You, Jesus, Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us?

                            E I know You, who You are, the Holy One of God.

            D’ And Jesus rebuked him, saying, Be quiet, and come out of him.

C’ And the unclean spirit convulsing him, and crying out with a loud voice, he came out of him.

 B’ And all were astonished, so as to discuss to themselves, saying, What is this? What new teaching is this, that He commands even the unclean spirits with authority, and they obey Him?

A’ And His fame went out at once into all the Galilean neighborhood.”

Once again we see a dividing line, one that identifies Jesus as being Divine.  On one side of Jesus’ divinity we see the earthly or worldly kingdom, on the other, we see the contrast of the Kingdom of God.  Isn’t that exciting?  Now, every time you read your Bible, you will see these structures, they are everywhere in the Word of God.

Chiastic Structures Part 1

In studying the words of Jesus and scripture in general, I have found a beautifully intricate phenomenon that gives me a greater insight into the Kingdom.  It is called properly chiastic structures, or more simply a parallelism of Kingdom things and worldly things. This structure derives its name from the X-shaped Greek letter χ (chi).  

One of the most famous chiastic structures is Kennedy’s  “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”  If you put each clause on separate lines like this:

Ask not what your country can do for you,

but what you can do for your country.

Then you can draw a line from an idea in the first line to an idea or word in the second line.  Draw a line from country in the first line to country in the second line, and another line from you in the first line to you in the second line.

 You form an X or a reversal of ideas.  This is a chiastic structure which is based on inverted parallelism. You can also use letters or numbers to connect the parallels and I have even color-coded it to make it easier.

At the center of some biblical structures I find many times that there is a dividing line, a passing from death unto life. For example, we find in 1 John 3:9 this chiastic structure:

A No one who is born of God

       B practices sin,

          C because His seed abides in him;

       B and he cannot sin,

A because he is born of God.

We can see that the dividing line of the parallelism or the key of passing from death unto life is to have His seed abiding in us. Some chiastic structures leave the choice that we have to make unstated, but it is clear by the contrasting Kingdoms that a choice has to be made.  Let’s take Jesus’ words in Luke as an example. (Also in Matthew 6:24)

“No servant is able to serve two lords; for either he will hate the one, and he will love the other; or he will cling to one, and he will despise the other. You are unable to serve God and mammon.” (Luke 16:13 LITV)

A “No servant is able to serve two lords

     B for either he will hate the one

       C and he will love the other

       C’ or he will cling to one

     B’ and he will despise the other

A’ You are unable to serve God and mammon.”

The word mammon here is μαμωνᾷ which means material possessions or wealth.  In this chiastic structure we can see the two opposing kingdoms and the choice is up to us to make.  Which side of the chiastic structure do we want to be on?  I don’t think Jesus is saying here that we can’t have possessions or money, just that we cannot “worship” or “serve” money.  Our highest priority should be serving our Lord Jesus Christ, not on amassing wealth or property.
To be continued...

Witchcraft's Deception Part 7

What things do we participate in that is common to man and that does not agree with the holiness of Christ?

Deu 11:16 Take heed to yourselves, that your heart not be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods, and bow down to them;”

When my husband and I were bowing down to numerous other gods, we were in blatant rebellion, casting spells, making potions, seeking to enhance our “experience” with drugs and other sinful practices, we weren’t aware of the Spirit of Balaam which compromises and sells out for personal gain.  We were already sold out.  But this error of Balaam is crafty and worms its way into believer’s lives in the form of little compromises.  We might give in to peer pressure, because everyone else is doing it, we might let our children watch too much secular T.V. so we can spend more time doing what we want to do, we could be allowing our children to play games, watch movies, or read books involving magic.  We might be watching violent and sexually explicit movies, reasoning that at least we aren’t out actually doing the things we are watching.  We might pray that God would make our husbands change; we might be reading the horoscope every day in the paper.  There are many ways the enemy presents witchcraft to us repackaged to appeal to the hearts of Christians.  I’ll give a few more examples:

·         Name it and Claim it may be synonymous with casting spells. Lam 3:37, Eze 13:6

·         Repetitive prayers or prayer practices that substitute themselves for transcendental meditation and mysticism may be synonymous with incantations or mantras. Ecc 5:7, Matthew 6:7, Titus 2:1-6, Eph 6:18, 1Pe 5:8, 1Th 5:6

·         Readings done by psychics can be false prophesies. Jeremiah 23: 25-38

·         Horoscopes and fortunes may be divination. Deu 18:10

 These are just a few things we may need to be careful of in our culture today.  Here is another one.  Have you ever asked anyone if they know Jesus and if they are going to heaven, and they say, “Well, I am a good person, I have morals.”?  Morals are a substitute for Jesus Christ’s standards.  We cannot stand on our own morals.  Morals deny the power and sovereignty of our Lord.  But wait, isn’t it good to have morals?  No, it’s good to have Jesus Christ.

Witchcraft's Deception Part 6

When the Holy Spirit convicted Jason and I and stones started coming to the surface for us to deal with, my husband and I and some friends gathered together all the pagan materials we had collected over the years and we had a book burning!  Later on, a friend reminded me of a verse in Acts that said, “Many of those who had practiced magic brought their books together and burned them in public. They added up the price of the books, and the total came to fifty thousand silver coins. In this powerful way the word of the Lord kept spreading and growing stronger.” (Acts 19:19-20)

There are some people who continue to sin and say that God is merciful, he will forgive them and that is true, but God is Holy and He expects us to read His Word to be able to discern good and evil and when we realize we have been deceived, He means for us to repent and return to Him with all of our hearts!  That is what will set His children apart from the synagogue of satan at the harvest.  I want to make sure that we know that God’s children are different! We will look differently, we will act differently, we will speak differently, we will love differently, we will think differently, and we will have different standards than the world.

2Co 11:3 But I fear lest by any means, as the serpent deceived Eve in his craftiness, so your thoughts should be corrupted from the purity which is due to Christ.

Jesus Christ is pure and Holy.  When you believe with your heart and confess with your mouth and His Holy Spirit comes to live inside of you, whatever that is in there that is not of Him has to go!  That’s why when you started getting saved, all those stones started coming to the surface and you have to let God heal you from them, darkness cannot exist with the Light.
To be continued...

Witchcraft's Deception Part 5

The third standard our precious Lord raises for us is this;

The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit want us to overcome: (Rev 2:14-17)

·         “But I have a few things against you, that you have there those holding the teachings of Balaam, who taught Balak to throw a stumbling-block before the sons of Israel, to eat idol sacrifices, and to commit fornication. So you also have those holding the teaching of the Nicolaitans, which thing I hate. Repent! But if not, I will come to you quickly, and I will make war with them by the sword of My mouth. The one who has an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. To the one overcoming, I will give him to eat from the hidden manna. And I will give to him a white stone, and on the stone a new name having been written, which no one knows except the one receiving it.”

What are the teachings of Balaam and the Nicolaitans and are we holding to them? The teachings of the Nicolaitans included a Gnostic doctrine that included approval of a community of wives, it taught that adultery was not sinful and eating meat sacrificed to idols was permissible. 

In the Book of numbers starting in chapter 22, there is a story of the Israelites journeying into the land of Moab and camping.  So, Balak, king of Moab, being scared that the Israelites would do to them what they did to the Ammorites, sent for a prophet named Balaam to curse God’s people.  He offered him fees for divination and waited on Balaam to seek God’s counsel on the matter.  God answered him many times very quickly and put words in his mouth showing that he was a true prophet and was hearing the voice of the Lord.  You might remember it as the story of the talking ass.   Balaam went and blessed the people instead of cursing them because of his fear of the Lord, but he made one fatal mistake due to his desire for the monetary reward.  He told Balak how to get the Israelites to commit sexual immorality and engage in idol worship so that the Lord would curse them Himself.  After that the Spirit of the Lord left Balaam and he was called a soothsayer afterwards.  This was someone who was hearing clearly the voice of the Lord and who blew it because of greed and selfishness .

When the sons of Israel began playing the harlot with the daughters of Moab, the Lord became angry and told Moses to kill all the ones who had joined themselves to the Baal.  The daughters of Moab were of the serpent’s seed and God would not tolerate the mixture of Holy and evil.  It is referred to as a plague on the sons of Israel and 24,000 died by it.

I think it is safe to say that the Lord will not tolerate His people joining themselves to false gods to commit immoralities.  Maybe the Lord wants us to stop tolerating certain things.

·         We cannot tolerate immorality in our people.

·         We cannot tolerate our people following false doctrine.

·         We cannot tolerate our people worshipping false gods, idolatry, or witchcraft.
To be continued...

Witchcraft's Deception Part 4

But even in the face of the truth of His great mercy and grace, God tells me He has standards.  Revelation chapters 2 and 3 reveal the Lord’s Holy Standards, the things we must overcome in order to sit down with Jesus as He overcame and sat down with His Father on His throne.  Jesus wants His churches to know what He has against them and He wants us to know what to do about it because He loves us and He wants us to overcome!  He even sent us His Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us all things so that we could overcome!  I want to skim the first two standards and then focus on the third one.

Here’s the first one we need to overcome: (Rev 2:4-5)

·         “But I have against you that you left your first love. Then remember from where you have fallen, and repent, and do the first works. And if not, I am coming to you quickly, and will remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent.”

Remember when you were first saved, how zealous you were for the Lord, how much you loved Him and wanted to tell everyone?  Remember how much passion you had?  What did you do?  You went around telling everyone didn’t you?  You were on fire for the Lord! Are you still on fire for the Lord?  Is Jesus Christ the most important thing in your life?  If you feel prompted by the Lord to shout out to Him or call out His name, do you do it or has the fear of man crept in and stolen the freedom of life that the Holy Spirit imparts? Here is the promise; Jesus says that if we overcome this, He will grant to us to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God!

Ok, here’s the next standard: (Rev 2:9-11)

·         “I know your works, and the affliction, and the poverty; but you are rich. And I know the evil speaking of those saying themselves to be Jews, and they are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not at all fear what you are about to suffer. Behold, the devil is about to throw you into prison, so that you may be tried; and you will have affliction ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life. The one who has an ear, hear what the Spirit says to the assemblies. The one overcoming will not at all be hurt by the second death.”

God tells us here to be faithful until the end in the face of imprisonment and affliction.  He says there are going to be evil people pretending to be something they are not. But even in the midst of poverty and affliction, Jesus says, we are rich!  Here’s the promise; if we overcome, we will not be hurt by the second death! To appreciate that we need to know what the second death is.

This is a quote from Matthew Henry’s Commentary for the Whole Bible,

“(1.) There is not only a first, but a second death, a death after the body is dead. (2.) This second death is unspeakably worse than the first death, both in the dying pangs and agonies of it (which are the agonies of the soul, without any mixture of support) and in the duration; it is eternal death, dying the death, to die and to be always dying. This is hurtful indeed, fatally hurtful, to all who fall under it. (3.) From this hurtful, this destructive death, Christ will save all his faithful servants; the second death shall have no power over those who are partakers of the first resurrection: the first death shall not hurt them, and the second death shall have no power over them.”

Praise God!

To be continued...

Witchcraft's Deception Part 3

In the book of Ezra in the Bible, the pagan and heathen King Artaxerxes I, ruler of the Persian Empire, even had more common sense than to appoint judges that would make laws without regard to the Law of God and the law of the King.  “And you, Ezra, according to the wisdom of your God in your hand, you appoint judges and magistrates who may judge all the people who are Beyond the River; all who know the laws of your God; and those who do not know, you cause to know. And whoever will not do the Law of your God, and the law of the king, let judgment be executed diligently on him, whether to death, or to exile, or to confiscation of goods, or imprisonment.  Blessed be Jehovah, the God of our fathers, who has put this in the king's heart, to beautify the house of Jehovah in Jerusalem.” (Ezra 7:25-27)

We all know that satan is a deceiver and a liar.  He seeks to imitate God’s holiness so as to trick us into believing a lie and in turn, he steals our worship.  See, I think the reason we were created was for Jesus Christ’s good pleasure and to worship Him.  If we are beings created to worship, who gets our worship when God doesn’t?

2Co 11:14 says, “And did not Satan marvelously transform himself into an angel of light ?”

            One of the most dangerous tactics that the old serpent uses is that he gets into the government and makes sin legal.  If it’s legal, then it’s ok, right?  Well, not according to God.  In 2 Chronicles there is a story about a King called Manasseh who set an example of having his children sacrificed to false gods which is just satan stealing God’s worship. 

“And he made his sons to pass through the fire in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and did magic and divined, and used sorcery, and used mediums and conjurers; he multiplied the doing of the evil in the eyes of Jehovah, to provoke Him to anger.”(2Ch 33:6)

Making the sons pass through the fire was child sacrifice.  How is satan using the very same tactic in our lives? He gets into the government, working through judges who do not know the laws of the Lord, the laws of Ezra’s God, and makes child sacrifice legal! 

But you know what? I have good news!!! Even Manasseh found forgiveness and peace from God.  2 Chronicles 33 says…

“And when he was distressed, he sought the face of Jehovah his God, and was humbled exceedingly before the face of the God of his fathers; and prayed to Him, and He was entreated of him and heard his supplication, and returned him to Jerusalem to his kingdom; and Manasseh knew that Jehovah, He is God.”
To be continued...

Witchcraft's Deception Part 2

At first, we met some very attractive, cool people that seemed to have a lot in common with us, we went out and bought one of a hundred books on the subject at Barnes and Noble and before we knew it, we were unknowingly bowing down to satan.  I read tarot cards, used a Ouija board, once we even had a séance to conjure the dead. All the secret knowledge and things you had to do to get to the next level were exciting at first, but when the bondage started setting in, the fruits of darkness such as fights between my husband and I, jealousy, drug use, cutting, depression, and there was no more peace at all.

2Ki 9:22 says, "Are you coming in peace?" Joram asked him. "How can there be peace," Jehu answered, "when we still have all the witchcraft and idolatry that your mother Jezebel started?"

Being unbelievers, it was very easy for us to be deceived, but in a believer’s life, the enemy’s tactics have to be much more clever, much more subtle so that the believer doesn’t realize that they are actually deceived.  These tactics are common to us; they are the everyday things that we don’t consider sinful.

The Lord began to open our eyes to our culture and how the enemy had invaded.  I want to share some of the more intimate details of our deception and rebellion, but first I wanted to look specifically how the enemy makes use of our culture in America to deceive believers.

 For the first 150 years of American history, the vast majority of America’s judges conformed their rulings to God’s laws and the laws set in place by the Founders.  Each step that America has taken gets further and further off the path that was set before us by the founding Fathers and gets us closer and closer to total corruption of values, beliefs, and true freedom.

With the breakdown of traditional marriage almost complete with the divorce rate so high, the de-masculinity of men and the equality of woman almost complete with the Equal Rights Amendment, prayer in schools deemed unconstitutional in 1962, sodomy deemed legal in 2003, women’s rights to murder their unborn child since 1973, and our children being primed for de-sensitization toward the homosexual lifestyle, “moral terrorism” is set up for a complete take-over. 

To be continued...

Witchcraft's Deception Part 1

Witchcraft's Deception

 Our culture has embraced “tolerance” of divorce, “tolerance” of other religions, “tolerance” of sexual impurity, and many other evils.  This embracing of ungodly ideals makes it hard for children to know God if He isn’t part of the family life and the fear of the Lord being modeled by parents in their everyday lives.  My husband and I were both products of divorce, abuse, promiscuity, drug abuse, witchcraft, wrath, rejection, and bitterness to name a few.  We were in the process of passing down these ungodly attributes to our children when our merciful and loving Sovereign Lord descended from His Holy place to touch my heart and impart a Spirit of Truth and His Holy Spirit to begin to roll all the stones away that were not of Him.  The moment I totally surrendered and believed “in my heart” I was delivered; I was healed of many afflictions. 

The transformation was astounding enough for my husband to take notice.  A few months later he gave his life to the Lord as well, saying that when he saw all the healing and blessings and prayers answered I was having, he wanted some of that!

Along the path of healing, and as the great Physician released us from the bondages we experienced, and I delved into the scriptures, it became clear that I could recognize and pray against many of the same unclean spirits or strongholds that I had been a part of.  There was unforgiveness, bitterness, wrath, idolatry and spiritual adultery, addiction, abuse, depression, suicide attempts, unworthiness, shame, but the one I want to talk about today is witchcraft. 

     See, in our rebellion against God and parents and everything in general, being children of wrath, my husband and I had been deceived into following the teachings of a heresy called “wicca” which is satanism disguised as an angel of light.  When you practice wicca, you think you are a “good” witch, worshipping nature and doing harm to no one, you are even deceived into believing there is no satan.  Isn’t that typical of the enemy, to make us not believe that he is even there in our lives seeking to kill, steal, and destroy?  This path caused us to participate in rituals that glorified satan, however unknowingly we did it.

At that time, we didn’t even know what witchcraft was.  My definition of witchcraft now is anything that seeks to manipulate, control, or change circumstances to our will and not God’s.  Also, anything we partake of or engage in that is not lining up with the Word of God is witchcraft as well. 

The first part of 1Sa 15:23 says, “For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as iniquity and idolatry.”

In Galatians chapter 5, verse 19-21 says, “They worship idols, practice witchcraft, hate others, and are hard to get along with. People become jealous, angry, and selfish. They not only argue and cause trouble, but they are envious. They get drunk, carry on at wild parties, and do other evil things as well. I told you before, and I am telling you again: No one who does these things will share in the blessings of God's kingdom.”

      The word witchcraft there in the original Greek is φαρμακεια which is where the word pharmaceutical comes from and it means drugs.   Yes, witchcraft is anything from taking or giving drugs against God’s will to reading fortune cookies.  I can remember casting spells to cleanse my home, my jewelry, trying to place magic on talismans or worse yet, people.  It is all very glamorous and seductive at first.
To be continued...

Then the Rain Came

by Keith Gardner

Luke 12:54 He [Jesus] said to the crowd: "When you see a cloud rising in the west, immediately you say, 'It's going to rain,' and it does.

The four Gospels, record the life and words of Jesus, modeling for us a life dedicated to God our Creator. In His teachings He uses rain as a teaching tool three times. In Luke Jesus is illustrating how we look to the skies to make predictions about the weather. He goes on to teach that, likewise, if we know the markers of God’s Word we will recognize our place in history foretold.

Our Father In Heaven

by Keith Gardner

Matthew 6:9-13 “This, then, is how you should pray: ‘Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily bread. Forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’”

It has been thirty some years since high school. I played football and before every game we would recite the Lord’s Prayer. In those days the Lord’s Prayer was known by just about everyone; the Christian and the un-Christian alike; today, not so much. For us familiar with these words they roll off of the tongue with ease. Most of the time, the well-known refrain flies off of our flapping lips without engaging the brain; it has been memorized. But lately these often recited words have been bouncing in my head with my mouth shut tight. There are two phrases in the Lord’s Prayer that have particularly caught my imagination. Those phrases are: “your kingdom come” and “your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. I am gripped by what Jesus might have meant by these statements.

If My People Part 6 - The Bounty

by Keith Gardner

2 Chronicles 7:14 “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”

There is a favor of God. It has often been misunderstood and mistaught, and by some it has been dismissed, but it has never left the Father’s intentions. There is a general goodness and blessedness that is bestowed on the chosen of God. It is seen in the promises that were first given to Abraham and passed down to his descendants. It was repeated to Jacob, and restated to Moses and later to Joshua. The blessings have been handed down throughout time through the seed of Abraham – Jesus Christ. As grafted heirs of the promise the same favor is ours to behold.