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Blog for Podcast #211 (All Evil Never comes from God

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Intro

This is Dreamwalker1960. As a reminder you can read the transcripts of all my podcasts at dreamwalker1960.com. You can use most podcast platforms if you wish to listen. All you need to do is do a search for Dreamwalker1960.

Discussion

Mark 7:20-23 NKJV – And He said, “What comes out of a man, that defiles a man. For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders, thefts, covetousness, wickedness, deceit, lewdness, an evil eye, blasphemy, pride, foolishness. All these evil things come from within and defile a man.”

I started today with these verses for a reason. Too many times I hear “Why did God do this or that.” Or I hear “Why did God permit this or that to happen.”

You, the listener or reader, must understand. These evil events were caused by those not working with or for God. These evil things came from the people that did them. They did them because they are not servants of God but His enemy. No matter what they may proclaim with their mouths, their actions. Their works show all whom they worship, and it is not the Creator of the universe.

When a nation turns from God. God, who places those that lead it into power. He will allow those that practice evil to rule. This is to punish those within this nation for them turning their backs to God.

Romans 13:1 NKJV – Let every soul be subject to the governing authorities. For there is no authority except from God, and the authorities that exist are appointed by God.

Daniel 2:21 NKJV – And He changes the times and the seasons; He removes kings and raises up kings; He gives wisdom to the wise And knowledge to those who have understanding.

Daniel 4:17 NLT – For this has been decreed by the messengers; it is commanded by the holy ones, so that everyone may know that the Most High rules over the kingdoms of the world. He gives them to anyone he chooses—even to the lowliest of people.”

Most don’t know or understand this. Nor in fact do they wish to understand. God foretold how people would act and behave.

2 Timothy 3:1-5 NKJV – But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come: For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying its power. And from such people turn away!

All that is listed in these verses is considered evil. It shows that it does not come from God, but in the denial of God and His Son our Savior Jesus Christ.

Most in this world have been taught that God promotes evil by the mere fact that it exists. However, if you study the Bible, not just read it. You will come to understand that it is the denial of God and the teaches found within the Bible that causes and creates evil. This is shown in the book of James.

James 3:13-4:10 NKJV – Who is wise and understanding among you? Let him show by good conduct that his works are done in the meekness of wisdom. But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. But the wisdom that is from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. Now the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures. Adulterers and adulteresses! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Whoever therefore wants to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you think that the Scripture says in vain, “The Spirit who dwells in us yearns jealously”? But He gives more grace. Therefore He says: “GOD RESISTS THE PROUD, BUT GIVES GRACE TO THE HUMBLE.” Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.

“But if you have bitter envy and self-seeking in your hearts, do not boast and lie against the truth. This wisdom does not descend from above, but is earthly, sensual, demonic. For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.”

“Where do wars and fights come from among you? Do they not come from your desires for pleasure that war in your members? You lust and do not have. You murder and covet and cannot obtain. You fight and war. Yet you do not have because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.”

Note how these verses I focused upon has one theme. Caring only for what is pleasing to the self at this moment. Christ taught a different message.

Matthew 6:19-21 NKJV – “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal; but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Luke 16:13-15 NKJV – “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.” Now the Pharisees, who were lovers of money, also heard all these things, and they derided Him. And He said to them, “You are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your hearts. For what is highly esteemed among men is an abomination in the sight of God.

Selfishness is the main theme of what is highly esteemed by humanity. The seeking after a large house or multiple houses. Fancy clothing, multiple vehicles. Travel and expensive living. All are seeking after one’s own pleasures.

The Holy Spirit inspired Paul to write these words to Timothy:

 1 Timothy 6:6-10 NKJV – Now godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Then a few verses later these words are spoken to those that consider themselves rich with earthly wealth:

1 Timothy 6:17-19 NKJV – Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Let them do good, that they be rich in good works, ready to give, willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come, that they may lay hold on eternal life.

This is the true path to holiness. Away from evil. This is why in three gospels this is said about earthly possessions:

Mark 10:17-21 NKJV – Now as He was going out on the road, one came running, knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do that I may inherit eternal life?” So Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good but One, that is, God. You know the commandments: ‘DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY,’ ‘DO NOT MURDER,’ ‘DO NOT STEAL,’ ‘DO NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS,’ ‘Do not defraud,’ ‘HONOR YOUR FATHER AND YOUR MOTHER.'” And he answered and said to Him, “Teacher, all these things I have kept from my youth.” Then Jesus, looking at him, loved him, and said to him, “One thing you lack: Go your way, sell whatever you have and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, take up the cross, and follow Me.”

To escape evil, we must live a needs-only existence. If it is not needed it must be gotten rid of.

Example: You marry and have children. You require a large home to allow the children to grow and have their own space to grow. They leave your home. You now have empty rooms filled with items gathering dust. They are no longer needed.

Most keep them and seek more. This is evil, this is sin. We are taught by Jesus Christ Himself to be content with food and clothing. Therefore, the large house is no longer needed. It must go. The majority refuses to do this, which is denial of Jesus Christ Himself.

Matthew 7:13-14 NKJV – “Enter by the narrow gate; for wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and there are many who go in by it. Because narrow is the gate and difficult is the way which leads to life, and there are few who find it.

Evil is keeping our earthly wealth to ourselves. For we are to share it with those in need. This is witnessed by the homelessness we see about us. Many will say that it is the responsibility of those that govern us. It is not. It is our duty as followers of Christ.

If every person that professes to being a follower of Christ would live a needs-only existence and use the rest of their money as instructed in 1 Timothy, there would be no homeless. Period.

Yet there are homeless people all due to selfishness which is evil. For it causes all that is evil, and it comes from one place. The human heart.

Time is quickly running out. Temptations are attacking those that follow Christ. Trying to pull them away from their salvation.

2 Peter 2:12-22 NKJV – But these, like natural brute beasts made to be caught and destroyed, speak evil of the things they do not understand, and will utterly perish in their own corruption, and will receive the wages of unrighteousness, as those who count it pleasure to carouse in the daytime. They are spots and blemishes, carousing in their own deceptions while they feast with you, having eyes full of adultery and that cannot cease from sin, enticing unstable souls. They have a heart trained in covetous practices, and are accursed children. They have forsaken the right way and gone astray, following the way of Balaam the son of Beor, who loved the wages of unrighteousness; but he was rebuked for his iniquity: a dumb donkey speaking with a man’s voice restrained the madness of the prophet. These are wells without water, clouds carried by a tempest, for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever. For when they speak great swelling words of emptiness, they allure through the lusts of the flesh, through lewdness, the ones who have actually escaped from those who live in error. While they promise them liberty, they themselves are slaves of corruption; for by whom a person is overcome, by him also he is brought into bondage. For if, after they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, they are again entangled in them and overcome, the latter end is worse for them than the beginning. For it would have been better for them not to have known the way of righteousness, than having known it, to turn from the holy commandment delivered to them. But it has happened to them according to the true proverb: “A DOG RETURNS TO HIS OWN VOMIT,” and, “a sow, having washed, to her wallowing in the mire.”

Repent and downsize quickly.

God Bless

God First

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re-post
This is stated in the Bible, not actually directly, but when you think upon it does say that. In Matthew (22:37), Mark (12:30) and Luke (10:27), Jesus states that He is adding to the commandment. For He states two things that He calls the greatest commandments. It is also important to state that Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 that He came to fully the law and the prophets not to replace them. This means that the rules that were established in the Old Testament still have power, just in some areas modified since Jesus Himself by dying upon the cross took the need for sacrifices away.
So what I am going to do in this article is define “first” and then I am going to break down the three verses in which Jesus states to place God first. I will then discuss the implication for follow this commandment.
First – Merriam-Webster – preceding all others in time, order, or importance.
Dictionary.com – being before all others with respect to time, order, rank, importance; before some other thing; in preference to something else; rather; sooner.
To be first is to precede and have more importance than anything else.
Matthew 22:37 – Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
Love – agapao – to love – I love, wish well to, take pleasure in, long for; denotes the love of reason, esteem
Here is a quote from the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament:
“The possibility of love for God stands under a radical Either/Or:…… (Matthew 6:24). To love God is to exist for Him as a slave for his lord (cf. Luke 17:7). It is to listen faithfully and obediently to His orders, to place oneself under His lordship, to value above all else the realization of this lordship (cf. Matthew 6:33). It also means, however, to base one’s whole being on God, to cling to Him with unreserved confidence, to leave with Him all care and final responsibility, to live by His hand. It is to hate and despise all that does not serve God nor come from Him, to break with all other ties, to cut away all that hinders (Matthew 5:29), to snap all bonds except that which binds to God alone.” (p.45 vol. 1)
All – holos – “whole” or “all;” all, the whole, entire, complete. NTD – “whole,” “complete,” “undivided,”…. In the NT mostly with a noun, and to express its totality.
Heart – kardia – (Latin cor, “heart”); the heart; lit: the heart; mind, character, inner self, will, intention, center. NTD – The use of this word in the Greek agrees with the OT use and concentrates on the heart as the main organ of psychic and spiritual life, the place in man at which God bears witness to Himself…..
2. That the heart is the center of the inner life of man and the source or seat of all the forces and functions of soul and spirit is attested in many different ways in the NT.
Soul – psuche – life, mind, soul; the soul, life, self. (a) the vital breath, breath of life, (b) the human soul, (c) the soul as the seat of affections and will, (d) the self, (e) a human person, an individual. NTD – the “soul” is the part of the human trinity that was created by God to live beyond the body we now live within. In the Theological Dictionary fifty-two pages is spent discussing the various elements within the meaning in the word “psuche” and breaks it down to each usage within the NT, but this is the key element it boils down to.
Mind – dianoia – imagination, mind, understanding; intellect, insight. In the NTD the use of this word is used to signify the actual using of the mind to formulate a thought or decision.
These words are all used by all three gospels and so have the same meaning.
So Jesus is stating that we are to use our complete and undivided attention with our heart, our inner self; our soul that which is destine to stand in the presence of God; and our thoughts, our mind. To give anything, our complete and undivided attention means it is to be first and thus presiding anything else in our lives even in the exclusion of those things that would become more important than God.
This is what many do not wish to do. They wish to place themselves and their desires before God. They say we must change the teaching of Jesus to fit their definition of what they wish the Bible to say. They say if we do not do this we are the ones in the wrong and the problem.
Here is the problem with that mentality. These are the words of Jesus Christ Himself, and per them we are to place God above all and we are to do it completely. Those that follow this and insist it be followed for it is what Jesus Himself taught are the ones being honest to the Bible and following just as Jesus desired all willing to do so to do. So those trying to change the Bible to allow them to live in sin are the real problem and so we need to stay steadfast to the Bible and continue to follow its literal meanings. For to do otherwise would not place God first, but lower than first which is not where Jesus stated He is ever to be.
Placing God first prepares us for the eternal life that is to come. For God will be the center for all that choose to follow Him and His Son. They command we follow without question, even to the far side of the universe in His service. If you do not place God first you live in sin, for it is counter to the words of Jesus our Savior.

NTD = Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

Confessions of a screwed up middle aged man: I find it astonishing

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“What is it you find astonishing?” asks you the read.
How those that feel they are up holding Christianity, in their eyes, gleefully supporting a person like Donald Trump.
As has been fully established Mr. Trump is a mere human being with flaws and sins of his own to account for.
But those that call themselves “Christian” and oppose Mr. Trump are not doing so out of hate, nor are the majority of them attacking or judging those that do support this mere mortal.
Here is how I see it from my own personal viewpoint.
I have shown within the Bible that from all that has been shown and seen that Mr. Trump is of the world. I have seen no change in this whatsoever. In fact it has been proven more and more that this is the case. The Bible makes it clear that we are to avoid people like this, especially if we are seeking to have them lead us.
The Bible also shows what we are to look for in a leader that does follow the Bible. This again is fully shown not to be how Mr. Trump acts. If you seek further details look through my past articles to get a more detailed look into these points. I will not bother to restate them now for it will distract from where I am trying to get to with this article.
I will say this. Yes there is a divide that has been made very clear within this election. I strongly and wholeheartedly feel it is due to the coming judgment that is approaching this nation and possibly the world itself.
God has sought in the past to see where those that say they followed Him stood. The uniqueness of this nation’s ability to vote for our leaders is also a tool made by God Himself to judge where the heart of this nation’s people stands. The vote shows where people’s hearts and minds are. Where their understanding of God and the Bible stands. (Those that question that God established how this nation picks its leaders has already shown they know nothing of God so I will not bother to explain my belief in that any further for again that is a distraction.)
When the people of Israel were to make account of themselves it was through prayer, supplication and adherence to the Torah. Time and again they failed at this, turning to live in and of the world and each time God punished them till finally in A.D. 7 0 the destruction of the second Temple and the scattering of the nation throughout the world took place. Ever since Reagan left office each Presidential election that has followed we have progressively gotten a choice of ever worse candidates till we have reached the present selection. The worst of them all to have ever run for this office.
In the last election God made it very clear we had an out, but 54,000,000 people that professed to be “Christian” stayed home mainly due to the fact that a Mormon was the candidate. This nation is now suffering the price for this decision to stay home. Everything that has happened in the last four years is on all the heads of those that stayed home, just because the Republican candidate was not “Christian” in their point of view. Yet they have not repented. They have not turned to God and asked for His forgiveness.
Many here will now protest what I have just stated, especially those that are the ones that call themselves “Christian” and have rallied behind Trump.
Here is the thing.
The mere fact that they have rallied behind this man of the world shows they have no true understanding of the Bible or of salvation itself. Their eagerness to run to this man has shown to not only the world, but to God. That they are blind to the truth. That they are hypocrites and they wonder why the Millennials are turning to Socialism and rejecting God.
What the real problem is, is that neither those that call themselves “Christian” nor the Millennials, for the most part have been shown the real image of “Christianity.”
True Christianity does not seek after wealth or rewards upon this earth. True Christianity does not horde the wealth they have for themselves but willingly share it with those in need, not through taxation or allowing the government to do it, but they do it themselves and willingly. This is the very thing that Millennials are seeking to do by running to Socialism, but they have been lied to on what will come from Socialism. Most are not aware that more humans were killed under Mao and Stalin (over 100,000,000) then have died under any of the forty three President of the United States put together. I am not counting wars. I am counting killed just for not agreeing with those in power.
This is the road that the Millennials are heading us down all due to those that think they are “Christian” when in reality they are not.
What needs to change is that all need to come to a true discernment of who God really is. They need to come to a true understanding of who Jesus Christ died for. They need to came to the point of comprehension that true Christianity is not becoming rich and powerful but living modestly and humbly, placing those in need before themselves, which Socialism may promise by its designed to do, but never has nor ever will achieve, because one main element is missing from Socialism………. GOD.
Whenever humanity seeks to control humanity by stating it can only be achieved by humanity, tyranny, famine and death result all due to what comes from within a human being:
Mark 7:20 – And then he added, “It is what comes from inside that defiles you. 21 For from within, out of a person’s heart, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, 22 adultery, greed, wickedness, deceit, lustful desires, envy, slander, pride, and foolishness. 23 All these vile things come from within; they are what defile you.”