The Perfection Of Weakness

BY CHERYL MCGRATH on SEPTEMBER 18, 2018



There’s a misconception, a lie if you like, that is pervasive within modern Christian church culture.  At one time I was fully immersed in it; maybe you have been also.  It goes along these lines:  ‘’As Christians we are called to be strong, authoritative personalities who know what we’re about, face every challenge with courageous determination, and exercise spiritual authority with grit and fortitude.  We are the mighty conquering army of Christ, His champions.  We just need to believe it and walk this world demonstrating the authority with which He has crowned us.” Sounds like scriptural truth, and so it is, but it’s not the all-truth that the Holy Spirit came to lead us into (Jn. 16:13).

And so it was that Sunday after Sunday, and mid-week also, the message of this desirable Christian “persona” was preached, quoted, sung, encouraged and expected among the congregation.  Unquestioned. For to question it would appear to display doubt and unbelief, which in such an atmosphere would mark us as less than committed.  We would turn up for our regular infusion of positive attitude, often wounded, wrecked and ragged from just doing life in this world, receive our group power shot and leave quietly repeating the appropriate verses and phrases to ourselves, feeling uplifted, strong and ready to slay giants.

For a day or so.

By which time we needed another shot. And by which time instead of feeling strong, powerful and invincible, we were beginning to feel defeated, condemned and worthless, in fact anything but this Christian persona we were supposed to be living.

There’s another Christian persona promoted among some Christian church cultures that teaches believers they are weak, sinful, wicked beings, powerless to change anything in this world, who must daily strive for holiness to please a disapproving God who will hopefully one day whisk them away into Heaven where they will never have to think about the horrors of this world again.  Let’s be clear this persona is just as false and impossible to live up to as the first one I described.  Both are rooted in man-made religion. Both are anti-Christ.  Neither are the Kingdom of God.

You may have spent some time in one or both of these environments, or you may not identify at all with either of them. If you don’t you can thank God for sparing you.  But there are many who will read this and will know to either a small or a large degree exactly what I’m on about.

Many of us have heard countless sermons, sung myriads of songs, and read innumerable books telling us if we just believe we are the strong, bold leaders, warriors and life-bearers the Bible says we are, we will be walking as the overcomers God wants us to be.  We are told over and over again that boldness, strength, determination and persistence are the character traits God values and needs in His people.  And if you’re lacking in these, well you just don’t believe hard enough.  We need to surround ourselves with “strong” brothers and sisters.  We need to come to more meetings, sing more songs, hear more positive preaching, until we DO believe, right?  Simple.

Here’s the thing.  In decades of being immersed in various church cultures – mainstream, Pentecostal, charismatic and several varieties in between – I never once heard a sermon to explain this:

And He said to me: “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness”.  Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” (2 Cor. 12:9)

Power is perfected in weakness?  Really?  Bear in mind this is Paul quoting Christ.  Who among us, in our church environments of spiritualised positive thinking, ever considered such a concept?  As we told our stories and sang our songs about how strong we are, imagining Jesus in the background smiling, nodding and approving, who knew we were merely boasting in the strength of our own flesh?

Paul continues:

Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

Friends, if we are intent on continuing the journey out of Christian religious culture and pursuing the Kingdom of God, we need a far deeper revelation of what it means to be content with weakness, and to be strong only when we are weak!

Personally, I am finding as the Kingdom expands within me, I am more powerless, more weak, more dependent on the indwelling Life of Christ than ever before in over fifty years on this Christ following journey.   Don’t misunderstand me.  I am not speaking of a weakness which is victimhood, nor am I speaking of a weakness that is grounded in fear and intimidation or indecisiveness.  Kingdom living requires courage and deep commitment.  But I am speaking of a weakness that manifests as utter and complete dependence on Christ’s love, grace and faithfulness at a deeper level than many of us have ever known.  A weakness that knows nothing for certain except that He will get us through whatever we’re facing, because there is nothing left in us that can do so.

In my life I have known others to call me a ‘’strong woman’’.  Determination has been one of my chief personality traits, even as a very small child.  More often than not gritting my teeth and drawing on my resources of sheer dogged determination have propelled me forward where others fainted by the wayside.  But at this point of the journey I feel the strength of that life-long determination fading as it is crucified along with other strengths of personality that are a stumbling block to my relationship with Christ.

I feel emptied.

On every level of life at this present time I am confronted with several impossible situations that are utterly beyond my influence or any semblance of control, no matter what I do.  The reality that only Christ can change anything, from relationships, to health, to jobs, to finances, to politics, to weather, to weariness, to life and death situations, is more palpable by the hour.  But so is the reality of His faithfulness and His ability to keep me, no matter what.

This is not comfortable.  Pursuing the Kingdom is a costly venture.  We may as well start to deal with the fact that strength in the Kingdom is infinitely different to what the world (and often the church) calls strength.  We may as well start coming to terms with the truth that God actually chooses the weak over the strong (1 Cor. 1 27-29).

Pursuing Christ and His Kingdom will cost you everything that is strong in your flesh and you will be left feeling powerless, vulnerable and fragile. You will be required to surrender all the natural talents and attributes that you have relied upon, including all that is so admired by the world.  But in exchange you will connect with the unmatched power of Christ’s endless Life within you and discover it is the strongest, safest, most trustworthy thing you can ever depend upon. And depend upon it you will.

Was this what Jesus was teaching us when He said “apart from Me you can do nothing”? (Jn. 15:5) Can it really be that He meant it…..literally? He Himself often repeated that He could do nothing on His own initiative. Absolute dependence on the Father was His life secret, hidden in plain sight (Jn. 5:19; 5:30; 8:28).   Absolute dependence on Christ is to be ours, as the Spirit transforms the Bride ever more deeply into His perfect image.  This is what it means to be found “leaning on her Beloved’’.

The perfection of weakness.  It’s the way to the strength we have so long pretended to own.  It’s the way of the Kingdom.

© Cheryl McGrath, Bread for the Bride, 2018. Copyright Notice: Permission is granted to freely reproduce any Bread for the Bride articles in emails or internet blogs, unaltered, and providing this copyright notice is included.     To permanently display an article on any static website please contact me for permission.

Elon Musk warns A.I. could create an ‘immortal dictator from which we can never escape’

CNBC 

Superintelligence — a form of artificial intelligence (AI) smarter than humans — could create an “immortal dictator,” billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk warned.

In a documentary by American filmmaker Chris Paine, Musk said that the development of superintelligence by a company or other organization of people could result in a form of AI that governs the world.

“The least scary future I can think of is one where we have at least democratized AI because if one company or small group of people manages to develop godlike digital superintelligence, they could take over the world,” Musk said.

“At least when there’s an evil dictator, that human is going to die. But for an AI, there would be no death. It would live forever. And then you’d have an immortal dictator from which we can never escape.”

The documentary by Paine examines a number of examples of AI, including autonomous weapons, Wall Street technology and algorithms driving fake news. It also draws from cultural examples of AI, such as the 1999 film “The Matrix” and 2016 film “Ex Machina.”

Musk cited Google’s DeepMind as an example of a company looking to develop superintelligence. In 2016, AlphaGo, a program developed by the company, beat champion Lee Se-dol at the board game Go. It was seen a major achievement in the development of AI, after IBM’s Deep Blue computer defeated chess champion Garry Kasparov in 1997.

Musk said: “The DeepMind system can win at any game. It can already beat all the original Atari games. It is super human; it plays all the games at super speed in less than a minute.”

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO said that artificial intelligence “doesn’t have to be evil to destroy humanity.”

“If AI has a goal and humanity just happens to be in the way, it will destroy humanity as a matter of course without even thinking about it. No hard feelings,” Musk said.

“It’s just like, if we’re building a road and an anthill just happens to be in the way, we don’t hate ants, we’re just building a road, and so, goodbye anthill.”

Last year, Musk warned that the global race toward AI could result in a third world war. The entrepreneur has also suggested that the emerging technology could pose a greater risk to the world than a nuclear conflict with North Korea.

Musk believes that humans should merge with AI to avoid the risk of becoming irrelevant. He is the co-founder of Neuralink, a start-up that reportedly wants to link the human brain with a computer interface.

He quit the board of OpenAI, a non-profit organization aimed at promoting and developing AI safely, in February.

Strong Warning: 'Cup of God's Wrath Is Nearly Full'

9:00AM EDT 4/8/2019 R. LOREN SANDFORD



I am issuing a stronger prophetic warning than I ever have. I wrote in Visions of the Coming Days in 2011 that the U.S. was not yet under wrath. I differentiated judgment from wrath by saying that judgment is the pressure brought to bear by a loving and patient God to separate right from wrong and good from evil. When judgment fails to produce that result—when repentance does not come—wrath falls as God's last resort to remedy the greater destruction wickedness brings. I said in 2011 that we were perhaps 3/4 of the way through the season of judgment. I am now saying that the cup of the Lord's wrath is nearly full.

I prophesied in 2015 that we would see a level and depth of corruption exposed in the U.S. government that would rock the nation. We're seeing it now on both sides of the political aisle, and there is more to come. Many of those surrounding President Trump have come under indictment, although the Mueller report has absolved him of collusion with the Russians and finds insufficient evidence for obstruction of justice. Crimes are surfacing from the last presidential administration that have yet to be prosecuted. Sexual immorality has accelerated in both quantity and perversity culture-wide—and even in the church—until it permeates nearly every television show and movie production in reflection of the condition of the culture these are meant to entertain. It is, of course, presented as normal, natural and good.

Our president, for all the good he has done, continues to speak foolishly, hurling insults at his enemies, feeding division and hatred in spite of scriptural admonitions to the contrary. "There is one who speaks rashly like the thrusts of a sword, But the tongue of the wise brings healing" (Prov. 12:18, NASB). Another would be Proverbs 15:2, "The tongue of the wise makes knowledge acceptable, But the mouth of fools spouts folly" or Proverbs 16:7, "When a man's ways are pleasing to the Lord, He makes even his enemies to be at peace with him."

I find myself deeply troubled when Christians defend this set of obvious flaws and attack those who call for prayer for change in the president's character. Ungodly actions can never produce godly results and ought never to be justified or defended. The nation is being torn apart, and the president's rhetoric tends to feed it.

Too many have made an idolatry of patriotism. Love of country must never be elevated to the level of becoming an element of our faith. To do so is a form of idolatry, and yet, great numbers of evangelical and charismatic Christians like me have unwittingly engaged in this form of idol worship. Although founded on Christian principles, America is neither divine nor the salvation of the world. Government is neither our hope nor our king. Jesus alone carries those things for us.

As if 60 million aborted babies since 1973 weren't enough, states are now legalizing third- trimester abortions as well as withholding medical treatment for babies who survive abortion procedures. Children can be murdered even during labor and delivery. God destroyed Israel and took the people into the Babylonian exile for the sacrifice of their children to Baal/Molech. He'll do it again for an unrepentant culture that has been repeatedly warned concerning sacrificing its children on the altar of our self-focus. Trust me when I say that as we have devalued life in the womb, forced euthanasia of the aged will eventually follow. I've not said much about abortion for a number of years, but recently, the burden of the Lord's wrath has built up in my heart until it has become an urgent matter. Wrath is coming.

That doesn't even begin to address the issue of resurgent racism and racial violence we have seen. Idolatry will always produce hatred because it is authored by the author of hate. There is no excuse for it under any circumstances. In the gospel there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, but only sons and daughters of the living God.

I can't say that I see a turning any time soon. The culture—our society—has made a firm decision as to what it will be. Wrath is now imminent. We yet have time for repentance, awakening and preparation as God's people, and we can pray for an extension to give more time to wake up and prepare, but it won't be a long one.

The season of the fulfillment of Isaiah 60 is nearly upon us and we must make ourselves ready:

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you. For behold, darkness will cover the earth and deep darkness the peoples; But the Lord will rise upon you and His glory will appear upon you. Nations will come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your rising (vv. 1-3).

A great outpouring of the Holy Spirit is coming. In the midst of judgment and the gathering darkness, our destiny is to shine. It's the hour of our greatest blessing, a time of victory for us who believe. Governments will seek us out for solutions, just as Pharaoh sought out Joseph and Nebuchadnezzar sought out Daniel. The verses that follow Isaiah 60:1-3 promise that people will stream to the light they see in God's people as His favor is poured out.

Sin never works. It makes promises it can't keep and only destroys. Damaged and hurting people need to see lighthouses shining in the darkness, exhibiting the Father's love, Jesus' compassion and the power of the Holy Spirit for healing and restoration. A great harvest of souls will be gathered in. It's time to get our house in order. The hour is both late and urgent.

R. Loren Sandford is an author, musician and the founder and senior pastor of New Song Church and Ministries in Denver, Colorado. He has a bachelor's degree in music and a Master of Divinity from Fuller Theological Seminary. In addition to pastoring, Sandford has an international teaching and worship ministry. Married since 1972, he and his wife, Beth, have two daughters and one son. They live in Denver, Colorado.

The 1906 Azusa Street Revival and Miracle Stories

Why the Azusa Street Revival Ended

In September of 2009, I had the privilege to travel to Los Angeles, California, and visit some of the original sites where the historic Azusa Street Revival transpired. As I shared some of my personal experiences online through Facebook and other forms of social media, one of my friends asked me to reflect on why the Azusa Street Revival ended.
 

The question of why religious revivals end is one that comes up often and usually elicits a number of different responses from people. Obviously the gradual breakdown of something that God has been in the middle of can be a mystery. So as I share my reflections, I cannot claim to have complete insight into these things.

In the case of the waning of the Azusa Street Revival, there was a number of things that hindered it. I would like share a few of them below.

Losing the Mailing List

One of the biggest setbacks of the Azusa Street Revival came with the sudden loss of their extensive mailing list in 1909. After some disagreement, Florence Crawford, the strong-willed secretary of the Apostolic Faith Mission abruptly left town with the extensive roster of subscribers. Without this, the mission's newspaper could no longer be circulated. As a direct result, the vast crowds stopped coming to the services. With absolutely no media to broadcast the testimonies or provide information about the ongoing meetings, many were convinced that the revival had ended. Without new visitors, the subsequent meetings began to lose much of the impact and urgency that they once had. With fewer people to pray for, many of the other problems that had been lying under the surface finally began to emerge. Soon conflict and disagreement became more pronounced in the once tranquil congregation. Sadly, nothing would ever be the same again at the Apostolic Faith Mission.

Cantankerous, Independent People

In time, many ridiculous conflicts arose at the Mission. Several of the participants began to have disagreements over various things. For example, since neckties were little more than frivolous adornment, should they be worn by sanctified men? This debate invited even more arguments. Members also fought over whether constructing a storm shelter at the Mission demonstrated a lack of faith or not. Of course, one of the more absurd conflicts was over William Seymour's marriage to Jennie Evans Moore in 1908 (This is something that may have contributed to Florence Crawford and Clara Lum leaving the Mission the following year). As foolish as this this conflict was, it shouldn't be that surprising. Early Pentecostal and Holiness people were very cantankerous and independent. It was often hard for them to agree with others for any length of time. Many would break rank over the smallest  differences of opinion. There is little doubt that rambunctious, obstinate people were bulk of the membership of the Apostolic Faith Mission on 312 Azusa Street in Los Angeles, California. This contributed even further to the waning of the revival.

Competing Churches

There was something else that may have contributed to the breakdown of the revival. Some of the leaders who attended the services were convinced that they could do a much better job of perpetuating the revival than William Seymour and his team. By the second and third year of the revival, several competing missions popped up around Los Angeles; attempting to take the attention away from the Apostolic Faith Mission. Interestingly, one of which was a congregation launched by the infamous Charles F. Parham, the Pentecostal leader who had first influenced Seymour with the Pentecostal message in Houston, Texas. When Parham visited the meetings, he didn't like what he saw and began to voice his opposition. It wasn't long before he attempted to start a competing work nearby. Many of preachers would visit the revival services for a week or two and then launch out in their own work. A few succeeded in their efforts, but, like Parham, most failed. These ongoing expressions of opposition and conflict confused the people and made it difficult for the work to continue.

Doctrinal Wars

To make matters worse, a tense theological war over the appropriation and experience of sanctification erupted on Azusa Street in 1911. Coming from a Wesleyan-Holiness background, Pastor William Seymour and his associates believed that sanctification, or a "moral cleansing," was a second, instantaneous work of grace. This was the standard view of all holiness leaders at this time. Yet others arose, William Durham to be specific, who taught that sanctification was more of a gradual process. While Seymour was away, Durham preached his understanding of the "finished work of Christ" at the Apostolic Faith Mission. When Seymour returned, he was aghast and felt compelled to lock Durham out of the church. This argument created a great schism among the ranks of the congregation that only intensified when Durham proceeded to start a new church nearby. A significant number of Seymour's congregation joined Durham and a gaping hole was felt in the already troubled congregation. This was truly a terrible wound that it really never recovered from.

So, What Was It?

So, what is it that truly caused the gradual waning of the Azusa Street Revival? Well, as I have already shared, there was likely a number of different things that contributed to its breakdown.

We have seen how the mailing list was stolen and how this impeded the revival's promotion. Also, there was the terrible problems of disharmony and schism. Of course, the intense theological battles contributed to opposing factions and a general loss of trust among leaders. These attitudes and expressions all contributed to this great revival's cessation.

I guess things first began to wane in the fall of 1909. Just a couple of years later, the revival at the Apostolic Faith Mission was pretty much gone. While there is no denying that the flames of revival quickly spread around the world, impacting untold thousands, it had certainly ended in Los Angeles by 1912.

While it is difficult to perfectly pin down the cause of the Azusa Street Revival's waning, I believe we can make some valid observations that apply to us today. Modern-day revivalists need to work to avoid schisms and intense personal conflict. However difficult it might be, we should learn to major on the majors and minor on the minors. If we could only figure out how to stay together in spite of our differences, our ministerial impact will be intensified.

Yet, as I finish this historic exploration, I think there is one important lesson that the revival at Azusa Street provides for us. I believe that it helps us to understand that revivals seldom end because of the trouble without. No, revivals end because of the trouble within.

J.D. King is the director of the World Revival Network and associate pastor of World Revival Church.

What You Need to Know About the Powerful Women Who Helped Ignite the Azusa Street Revival

One hundred thirteen years ago, on April 14, a home prayer group moved its prayer meeting from 214 Bonnie Bae Street to an old dilapidated building at 312 Azusa Street in downtown Los Angles. From there, the prayer meeting became the famous Azusa Street Revival, and from this humble location, the message of Pentecost was spread around the world.

The move was made necessary when the crowds began to overflow onto the porch and into the yard of the Asberry home after a powerful outpouring of the Holy Spirit, with many speaking in tongues and gifts of the Holy Spirit being manifest. This prompted the group to search for, and obtain, a larger facility for their prayer meeting.

The old 40-by-60-foot two-story structure they found at 312 Azusa Street had formerly been a Methodist Episcopal Church, but more recently had been used as a stable and warehouse. They removed the debris and installed rough plank benches and a makeshift pulpit made from wooden shoeboxes. On April 14, 1906, they held their first meeting in the new facilities and revival fires blazed even more brightly.

Prayer Released Power

Although the prayer meeting was soon organized into a church that they called "The Apostolic Faith Mission," prayer continued to be the foremost activity. One participant wrote, "The whole place was steeped in prayer."

William Seymour, the recognized leader, spent much of his time behind the pulpit with his head inside the top shoebox, praying. An unpretentious man, Seymour's intense prayer life was rooted in a deep hunger for God and a recognition of his own human frailty. In later life, he wrote,

Before I met Parham, such a hunger to have more of God was in my heart that I prayed for five hours a day for two and a half years. I got to Los Angeles, and there the hunger was not less but more. I prayed, "God, what can I do?" The Spirit said, "Pray more." "But Lord, I am praying five hours a day now." I increased my hours of prayer to seven and prayed on for a year and a half more. I prayed to God to give what Parham preached, the real Holy Ghost and fire with tongues of love and power from God like the apostles had.

A spirit of prayer thus continued to characterize all aspects of the revival. Ernest S. Williams, who later became general superintendent of the Assemblies of God, visited the revival as a young man in 1907 and was astounded at what he encountered. Many year later, he wrote,

I wish I could describe what I saw. Prayer and worship were everywhere. The altar area was filled with seekers; some were kneeling; others were prone on the floor; some were speaking in tongues. Everyone was doing something; all were seemingly lost in God. I simply stood and looked, for I had never seen anything like it.

Women Played Prominent Roles

Although Seymour was acknowledged as the leader of the Azusa Street Revival, it was a black woman, Lucy Farrow, who provided the initial spark that ignited that revival. According to Mother Cotton, an early participant in the revival, no one spoke in tongues until Farrow arrived and began laying hands on the people and praying for them to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Farrow, who was the niece of the famous abolitionist, Frederick Douglas, had been Seymour's pastor in Houston, and he first heard of the baptism in the Holy Spirit and speaking in tongues from her. That she was held in high esteem by Seymour, is indicated by the fact that he specifically asked her to come from Texas to Los Angeles to teach them about the baptism in the Holy Spirit. This occurred while they were still meeting in the Asberry home on Bonnie Brae Street.

It was only after she arrived and began laying hands on people that the prayer group experienced an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, with many speaking in tongues and other spiritual gifts being manifest. A contemporary said, "She had an amazing gift for laying hands on people and them receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit."

It was Farrow's example, no doubt, that resulted in women having out-front roles in the revival. Many women evangelists, missionaries, church planters and pastors went out from the revival. The January 1908 issue of The Apostolic Faith, the official publication of the revival, carried a statement about the role of women. It reads,

Before Pentecost, the woman could only go into the "court of the women" and not into the inner court. But when our Lord poured out Pentecost, He brought all those faithful women with the other disciples into the upper room and God baptized them all in the same room and made no difference. All the women received the anointed oil of the Holy Ghost and were able to preach the same as men. They both were co-workers in Eden and both fell into sin; so they both have to come together and work in the Gospel.

The Revival Impacts Modern Muslim Nations

The impact of the revival was phenomenal, with its influence spreading around the globe. This was made personally real to me when, in 2006, Susan and I were invited to be part of the ministry team for "Azusa Asia-Indonesia," which was organized by Spirit-filled Asian believers to commemorate the 100-year anniversary of the Azusa Street Revival.

Held in Jakarta, Indonesia, the largest Muslim nation in the world, I had the privilege of speaking to 70,000 people in the soccer stadium. This was not an evangelistic crusade, but a gathering of Spirit-filled, Asian believers who had come together to honor the Azusa Street Revival as a vital part of their spiritual heritage. Seymour, Farrow and others must have been smiling.

Susan preached twice in a large Spirit-filled church in Jakarta pastored by a woman, who was one of the supporters of Azusa Asia-Indonesia. In her home city of Jakarta, she was following in the footsteps of Farrow, Crawford and many other women who went forth from Azusa Street to preach the Gospel,

Sue also spoke at Bethel Seminary, which was located in a reputed jihadist area. In both places she saw many of the same manifestations that would have occurred at Azusa Street such as weeping, falling to the floor and speaking in tongues.

This experience highlighted for me the pervasive influence of the Asuza Street Revival for here we were in the largest Muslim nation in the world celebrating the 100-year anniversary of that revival. It was also a reminder that we are living in the time period spoken of in Acts 2:17, where Peter said,

"'In the last days it shall be,' says God, 'that I will pour out My Spirit on all flesh; your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams'" (Acts 2:17).

What the Church Needs Now

The outpouring of the Holy Spirit that began on the Day of Pentecost was preceded by at least seven days of intense prayer in the upper room, and prayer continued to be a vital and fundamental part of the life of the early church.

In a similar way, the power of Azusa Street was preceded by times of intense prayer and seeking after God. Arthur T. Pierce was correct when he said, "There has never been a spiritual awakening in any country or locality that did not begin in united prayer."

What, therefore, is needed in the church today is not better preachers or more talented singers or a different church order. To borrow from the words of E.M. Bounds:

What the Church needs to-day is not more machinery or better, not new organizations or more and novel methods, but people whom the Holy Ghost can use—people of prayer, people mighty in prayer. The Holy Ghost does not flow through methods, but through people. He does not come on machinery, but on people. He does not anoint plans, but people—people of prayer, people mighty in prayer. 

Dr. Eddie Hyatt is the founder of America Reawakening, whose purpose is to educate Americans concerning their true Christian heritage, and to inspire the Christians of America to unite in praying for another great, spiritual awakening. His books on revival are available from Amazon and his website at eddiehyatt.com.

Deadly germs, Lost cures: A Mysterious Infection, Spanning the Globe in a Climate of Secrecy

Dr. Johanna Rhodes, an infectious disease expert at Imperial College London. "We are driving this with the use of anti-fungicides on crops," she said of drug-resistant germs.



MATT RICHTEL and ANDREW JACOBS
7.4.2019

Last May, an elderly man was admitted to the Brooklyn branch of Mount Sinai Hospital for abdominal surgery. A blood test revealed that he was infected with a newly discovered germ as deadly as it was mysterious.

Doctors swiftly isolated him in the intensive care unit. The germ, a fungus called Candida auris, preys on people with weakened immune systems, and it is quietly spreading across the globe.

Over the last five years, it has hit a neonatal unit in Venezuela, swept through a hospital in Spain, forced a prestigious British medical center to shut down its intensive care unit, and taken root in India, Pakistan and South Africa.

Recently C. auris reached New York , New Jersey and Illinois, leading the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to add it to a list of germs deemed “urgent threats.”

The man at Mount Sinai died after 90 days in the hospital, but C. auris did not. Tests showed it was everywhere in his room, so invasive that the hospital needed special cleaning equipment and had to rip out some of the ceiling and floor tiles to eradicate it.

“Everything was positive — the walls, the bed, the doors, the curtains, the phones, the sink, the whiteboard, the poles, the pump,” said Dr. Scott Lorin, the hospital’s president. “The mattress, the bed rails, the canister holes, the window shades, the ceiling, everything in the room was positive.”

C. auris is so tenacious, in part, because it is impervious to major antifungal medications, making it a new example of one of the world’s most intractable health threats: the rise of drug-resistant infections.

For decades, public health experts have warned that the overuse of antibiotics was reducing the effectiveness of drugs that have lengthened life spans by curing bacterial infections once commonly fatal. But lately, there has been an explosion of resistant fungi as well, adding a new and frightening dimension to a phenomenon that is undermining a pillar of modern medicine.

“It’s an enormous problem,” said Matthew Fisher, a professor of fungal epidemiology at Imperial College London, who was a co-author of a recent scientific review on the rise of resistant fungi. “We depend on being able to treat those patients with antifungals.”

Simply put, fungi, just like bacteria, are evolving defenses to survive modern medicines.

Yet even as world health leaders have pleaded for more restraint in prescribing antimicrobial drugs to combat bacteria and fungi — convening the United Nations General Assembly in 2016 to manage an emerging crisis — gluttonous overuse of them in hospitals, clinics and farming has continued.

Resistant germs are often called “superbugs,” but this is simplistic because they don’t typically kill everyone. Instead, they are most lethal to people with immature or compromised immune systems, including newborns and the elderly, smokers, diabetics and people with autoimmune disorders who take steroids that suppress the body’s defenses.

Scientists say that unless more effective new medicines are developed and unnecessary use of antimicrobial drugs is sharply curbed, risk will spread to healthier populations. A study the British government funded projects that if policies are not put in place to slow the rise of drug resistance, 10 million people could die worldwide of all such infections in 2050, eclipsing the eight million expected to die that year from cancer.

In the United States, two million people contract resistant infections annually, and 23,000 die from them, according to the official C.D.C. estimate. That number was based on 2010 figures; more recent estimates from researchers at Washington University School of Medicine put the death toll at 162,000. Worldwide fatalities from resistant infections are estimated at 700,000.

Antibiotics and antifungals are both essential to combat infections in people, but antibiotics are also used widely to prevent disease in farm animals, and antifungals are also applied to prevent agricultural plants from rotting. Some scientists cite evidence that rampant use of fungicides on crops is contributing to the surge in drug-resistant fungi infecting humans.

Yet as the problem grows, it is little understood by the public — in part because the very existence of resistant infections is often cloaked in secrecy.

With bacteria and fungi alike, hospitals and local governments are reluctant to disclose outbreaks for fear of being seen as infection hubs. Even the C.D.C., under its agreement with states, is not allowed to make public the location or name of hospitals involved in outbreaks. State governments have in many cases declined to publicly share information beyond acknowledging that they have had cases.

All the while, the germs are easily spread — carried on hands and equipment inside hospitals; ferried on meat and manure-fertilized vegetables from farms; transported across borders by travelers and on exports and imports; and transferred by patients from nursing home to hospital and back.

C. auris, which infected the man at Mount Sinai, is one of dozens of dangerous bacteria and fungi that have developed resistance. Yet, like most of them, it is a threat that is virtually unknown to the public.

Other prominent strains of the fungus Candida — one of the most common causes of bloodstream infections in hospitals — have not developed significant resistance to drugs, but more than 90 percent of C. auris infections are resistant to at least one drug, and 30 percent are resistant to two or more drugs, the C.D.C. said.

Dr. Lynn Sosa, Connecticut’s deputy state epidemiologist, said she now saw C. auris as “the top” threat among resistant infections. “It’s pretty much unbeatable and difficult to identity,” she said.

Nearly half of patients who contract C. auris die within 90 days, according to the C.D.C. Yet the world’s experts have not nailed down where it came from in the first place.

“It is a creature from the black lagoon,” said Dr. Tom Chiller, who heads the fungal branch at the C.D.C., which is spearheading a global detective effort to find treatments and stop the spread. “It bubbled up and now it is everywhere.”

‘No need’ to tell the public

In late 2015, Dr. Johanna Rhodes, an infectious disease expert at Imperial College London, got a panicked call from the Royal Brompton Hospital, a British medical center outside London. C. auris had taken root there months earlier, and the hospital couldn’t clear it.

“‘We have no idea where it’s coming from. We’ve never heard of it. It’s just spread like wildfire,’” Dr. Rhodes said she was told. She agreed to help the hospital identify the fungus’s genetic profile and clean it from rooms.

Under her direction, hospital workers used a special device to spray aerosolized hydrogen peroxide around a room used for a patient with C. auris, the theory being that the vapor would scour each nook and cranny. They left the device going for a week. Then they put a “settle plate” in the middle of the room with a gel at the bottom that would serve as a place for any surviving microbes to grow, Dr. Rhodes said.

Only one organism grew back. C. auris.

It was spreading, but word of it was not. The hospital, a specialty lung and heart center that draws wealthy patients from the Middle East and around Europe, alerted the British government and told infected patients, but made no public announcement.

“There was no need to put out a news release during the outbreak,” said Oliver Wilkinson, a spokesman for the hospital.

This hushed panic is playing out in hospitals around the world. Individual institutions and national, state and local governments have been reluctant to publicize outbreaks of resistant infections, arguing there is no point in scaring patients — or prospective ones.

Dr. Silke Schelenz, Royal Brompton’s infectious disease specialist, found the lack of urgency from the government and hospital in the early stages of the outbreak “very, very frustrating.”

“They obviously didn’t want to lose reputation,” Dr. Schelenz said. “It hadn’t impacted our surgical outcomes.”

By the end of June 2016, a scientific paper reported “an ongoing outbreak of 50 C. auris cases” at Royal Brompton, and the hospital took an extraordinary step: It shut down its I.C.U. for 11 days, moving intensive care patients to another floor, again with no announcement.

Days later the hospital finally acknowledged to a newspaper that it had a problem. A headline in The Daily Telegraph warned, “Intensive Care Unit Closed After Deadly New Superbug Emerges in the U.K.” (Later research said there were eventually 72 total cases, though some patients were only carriers and were not infected by the fungus.)

Yet the issue remained little known internationally, while an even bigger outbreak had begun in Valencia, Spain, at the 992-bed Hospital Universitari i Politècnic La Fe. There, unbeknown to the public or unaffected patients, 372 people were colonized — meaning they had the germ on their body but were not sick with it — and 85 developed bloodstream infections. A paper in the journal Mycoses reported that 41 percent of the infected patients died within 30 days.

A statement from the hospital said it was not necessarily C. auris that killed them. “It is very difficult to discern whether patients die from the pathogen or with it, since they are patients with many underlying diseases and in very serious general condition,” the statement said.

As with Royal Brompton, the hospital in Spain did not make any public announcement. It still has not.

One author of the article in Mycoses, a doctor at the hospital, said in an email that the hospital did not want him to speak to journalists because it “is concerned about the public image of the hospital.”

The secrecy infuriates patient advocates, who say people have a right to know if there is an outbreak so they can decide whether to go to a hospital, particularly when dealing with a nonurgent matter, like elective surgery.

“Why the heck are we reading about an outbreak almost a year and a half later — and not have it front-page news the day after it happens?” said Dr. Kevin Kavanagh, a physician in Kentucky and board chairman of Health Watch USA , a nonprofit patient advocacy group. “You wouldn’t tolerate this at a restaurant with a food poisoning outbreak.”

Health officials say that disclosing outbreaks frightens patients about a situation they can do nothing about, particularly when the risks are unclear.

“It’s hard enough with these organisms for health care providers to wrap their heads around it,” said Dr. Anna Yaffee, a former C.D.C. outbreak investigator who dealt with resistant infection outbreaks in Kentucky in which the hospitals were not publicly disclosed. “It’s really impossible to message to the public.”

Officials in London did alert the C.D.C. to the Royal Brompton outbreak while it was occurring. And the C.D.C. realized it needed to get the word to American hospitals. On June 24, 2016, the C.D.C. blasted a nationwide warning to hospitals and medical groups and set up an email address, candidaauris@cdc.gov, to field queries. Dr. Snigdha Vallabhaneni, a key member of the fungal team, expected to get a trickle — “maybe a message every month.”

Instead, within weeks, her inbox exploded.

Coming to America

In the United States, 587 cases of people having contracted C. auris have been reported, concentrated with 309 in New York, 104 in New Jersey and 144 in Illinois, according to the C.D.C.

The symptoms — fever, aches and fatigue — are seemingly ordinary, but when a person gets infected, particularly someone already unhealthy, such commonplace symptoms can be fatal.

The earliest known case in the United States involved a woman who arrived at a New York hospital on May 6, 2013, seeking care for respiratory failure. She was 61 and from the United Arab Emirates, and she died a week later, after testing positive for the fungus. At the time, the hospital hadn’t thought much of it, but three years later, it sent the case to the C.D.C. after reading the agency’s June 2016 advisory.

This woman probably was not America’s first C. auris patient. She carried a strain different from the South Asian one most common here. It killed a 56-year-old American woman who had traveled to India in March 2017 for elective abdominal surgery, contracted C. auris and was airlifted back to a hospital in Connecticut that officials will not identify. She was later transferred to a Texas hospital, where she died.

The germ has spread into long-term care facilities. In Chicago, 50 percent of the residents at some nursing homes have tested positive for it, the C.D.C. has reported. The fungus can grow on intravenous lines and ventilators.

Workers who care for patients infected with C. auris worry for their own safety. Dr. Matthew McCarthy, who has treated several C. auris patients at Weill Cornell Medical Center in New York, described experiencing an unusual fear when treating a 30-year-old man.

“I found myself not wanting to touch the guy,” he said. “I didn’t want to take it from the guy and bring it to someone else.” He did his job and thoroughly examined the patient, but said, “There was an overwhelming feeling of being terrified of accidentally picking it up on a sock or tie or gown.”

The role of pesticides?

As the C.D.C. works to limit the spread of drug-resistant C. auris, its investigators have been trying to answer the vexing question: Where in the world did it come from?

The first time doctors encountered C. auris was in the ear of a woman in Japan in 2009 (auris is Latin for ear). It seemed innocuous at the time, a cousin of common, easily treated fungal infections.

Three years later, it appeared in an unusual test result in the lab of Dr. Jacques Meis , a microbiologist in Nijmegen, the Netherlands, who was analyzing a bloodstream infection in 18 patients from four hospitals in India. Soon, new clusters of C. auris seemed to emerge with each passing month in different parts of the world.

The C.D.C. investigators theorized that C. auris started in Asia and spread across the globe. But when the agency compared the entire genome of auris samples from India and Pakistan, Venezuela, South Africa and Japan, it found that its origin was not a single place, and there was not a single auris strain.

The genome sequencing showed that there were four distinctive versions of the fungus, with differences so profound that they suggested that these strains had diverged thousands of years ago and emerged as resistant pathogens from harmless environmental strains in four different places at the same time.

“Somehow, it made a jump almost seemingly simultaneously, and seemed to spread and it is drug resistant, which is really mind-boggling,” Dr. Vallabhaneni said.

There are different theories as to what happened with C. auris. Dr. Meis, the Dutch researcher, said he believed that drug-resistant fungi were developing thanks to heavy use of fungicides on crops.

Dr. Meis became intrigued by resistant fungi when he heard about the case of a 63-year-old patient in the Netherlands who died in 2005 from a fungus called Aspergillus. It proved resistant to a front-line antifungal treatment called itraconazole. That drug is a virtual copy of the azole pesticides that are used to dust crops the world over and account for more than one-third of all fungicide sales .

A 2013 paper in Plos Pathogens said that it appeared to be no coincidence that drug-resistant Aspergillus was showing up in the environment where the azole fungicides were used. The fungus appeared in 12 percent of Dutch soil samples, for example, but also in “flower beds, compost, leaves, plant seeds, soil samples of tea gardens, paddy fields, hospital surroundings, and aerial samples of hospitals.”

Dr. Meis visited the C.D.C. last summer to share research and theorize that the same thing is happening with C. auris, which is also found in the soil: Azoles have created an environment so hostile that the fungi are evolving, with resistant strains surviving.

This is similar to concerns that resistant bacteria are growing because of excessive use of antibiotics in livestock for health and growth promotion. As with antibiotics in farm animals, azoles are used widely on crops.

“On everything — potatoes, beans, wheat, anything you can think of, tomatoes, onions,” said Dr. Rhodes, the infectious disease specialist who worked on the London outbreak. “We are driving this with the use of antifungicides on crops.”

Dr. Chiller theorizes that C. auris may have benefited from the heavy use of fungicides. His idea is that C. auris actually has existed for thousands of years, hidden in the world’s crevices, a not particularly aggressive bug. But as azoles began destroying more prevalent fungi, an opportunity arrived for C. auris to enter the breach, a germ that had the ability to readily resist fungicides now suitable for a world in which fungi less able to resist are under attack.

The mystery of C. auris’s emergence remains unsolved, and its origin seems, for the moment, to be less important than stopping its spread.

Resistance and denial

For now, the uncertainty around C. auris has led to a climate of fear, and sometimes denial.

Last spring, Jasmine Cutler, 29, went to visit her 72-year-old father at a hospital in New York City, where he had been admitted because of complications from a surgery the previous month.

When she arrived at his room, she discovered that he had been sitting for at least an hour in a recliner, in his own feces, because no one had come when he had called for help to use the bathroom. Ms. Cutler said it became clear to her that the staff was afraid to touch him because a test had shown that he was carrying C. auris.

“I saw doctors and nurses looking in the window of his room,” she said. “My father’s not a guinea pig. You’re not going to treat him like a freak at a show.”

He was eventually discharged and told he no longer carried the fungus. But he declined to be named, saying he feared being associated with the frightening infection.

Source MSN

Bible site where ‘God met Moses’ to be BULLDOZED

by By Henry Holloway -  Jan 21, 2019

A BIBLICAL site where God is claimed to have met Moses is set to bulldozed by Saudi Arabia to make away for a super city, it is feared.

Bible scholars have claimed there is evidence that suggests the peak Jabal al-Lawz in the Middle Eastern kingdom is actually Mount Sinai.

The site is a 8,460 foot peak known as the "mountain of almonds", located in north east Saudi Arabia near the border with Jordan.

Moses leads the Israelites to the mountain which is enveloped by fire, smoke and thunder, according to the Book of Exodus in the Bible.

The prophet then ascends Mount Sinai where he convenes with God to receive the Ten Commandments.

Experts from the Doubting Thomas Research Foundation have backed the location of Sinai, and also pointed out the fact it lies right in the footprint of proposed Saudi mega city Neom.

Neom is a project proposed by Riyadh that would cover 10,200 square miles - 33 times the size of New York - and would end up covering the suspected Holy site from the Bible.

“Saudi construction in the area may destroy key evidence”

Ryan Mauro
Security analyst Ryan Mauro and the Doubting Thomas Research Foundation released a documentary with detailing their evidence of Sinai in Saudi Arabia.

It is claimed there is proof of the Israelites encampment at the foot of the mountain, which also has a blackened peak as if it was set on fire.

Historians and Biblical scholars remained divided on the location of the real Sinai in the Middle East.

However, the researchers and explorers fear its location could never be found if the Neom project bulldozes the area.



BIBLICAL: Is Jabal al Lawz really Mount Sinai where God met Moses? (Pic: DTRF)

In the documentary titled Finding The Mountain of Moses: The Real Mount Sinai in Saudia Arabia, they lay out their case for Sinai and highlight the risk posed by Neom.

Mauro said: “The Saudis are constructing a super city that is planned to be 33 times the size of New York.

“If all of us don’t take action, Saudi construction in the area may destroy key evidence and prevent excavation for the foreseeable future.”

The Sinai In Arabia project has been set up in bid to rally the Saudi authorities to preserve the sites for further investigation.

HISTORICAL: These ruins may be of the temple set up by the Israelites (Pic: DTRF)

Neom was announced by crown prince Mohammed bin Salman in 2017 as part of a massive investment programme to reinvent Saudi Arabia.

The $500 billion project was hoped to have its first sections completed in 2025 and the city would extend 286 miles along the coast of the Red Sea.

Much of the investment was hoped to come from state oil firm Saudi Aramco, with there being plans for the city to be heavily automated using robots - and the name even means future and new in Greek and Arabic.

Plans for the city have stalled however after the Saudi state were suspected in orchestrating the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi - with the crown prince admitting the “no one will invest in years”.

MEGACITY: Saudi Arabia is planning to build Neom a city 33 times bigger than New York (Pic: SA)

Doubting Thomas Research Foundation experts claim evidence around Jabal al-Lawz includes cave paintings of calves - matching up the with the Bible story of the golden idol.

It is also claimed there is a “massive ancient graveyard” near the mountain, where the calf worshippers would have been buried after they were executed in the Bible.

Ruined ancient structures on the site have also been claimed to be evidence of the Israelites time at the foot of Sinai, including what may have been the “12 pillars” described in the Bible.

Fences have been set up around the mountain by the Saudi authorities marking it as an archaeological site, but their own experts dismissed claims Jabal al-Lawz is Mount Sinai.

https://600wrec.iheart.com/featured/the-ben-ferguson-show/content/2019-01-21-bible-site-where-god-met-moses-to-be-bulldozed/

The Lord Will Expose Lying Prophets in Media

10:00AM EST 2/26/2019 WANDA ALGER



Just as the Lord has raised up watchmen and watchwomen in this hour to pray for this nation and report what they see in the distance, so are there secular prophets and watchmen who are broadcasting false information and biased predictions aimed at undermining the agenda of heaven. Many of these false prophets manipulate the facts and skew our perceptions in order to keep us from learning the truth.

Those who are being used of the Lord to sound the alarm are often ridiculed, mocked or totally ignored by the mainstream media. The challenge we have faced is to see through the confusion in order to see God's plan at work. As believers continue to pray for those who report the news in the secular arena, we can be encouraged by a story in the Old Testament that sheds light on God's higher purpose and strategy.

In 1 Kings 22:13-37, the story is told of how God placed a lying spirit into the prophets of King Ahab's court, specifically so he would be "enticed" to listen—and thus be destroyed. Ahab had continually ignored the voice of the Lord and was rebellious in his heart. Because God saw the force of Ahab's false prophets at work, He used their own self-interest and greed against them. The king's ego led him to believe the false narrative, and he went into battle without the Lord's blessing.

Only one prophet, Micaiah, discerned the true voice of the Lord and warned Ahab not to go. Going against all the other false prophets, he risked his life to be faithful to God's word. It so enraged Ahab, he sided with his court and marched straight into a death trap. Just one word from a true prophet of God was all that was needed to institute God's plan, and those who opposed Him were destroyed.

Scriptures tell us that God hardens hearts in order that His power might be seen (Rom. 9:17). Even as we pray for hearts to be softened towards the Father's will and heaven's plan, God sees those whose hearts are unregenerate and fixed against Him. He uses their own self-inflated importance and pride to accomplish His purposes.

We can take courage in this because God's enemies will be destroyed. As only He can do, His strategy draws them right into a corner with no way out. Those who speak truth will be vindicated, and God's plans will succeed. It doesn't matter how big the secular media giants are; God's Word is bigger. Even as we watch the false prophets of the day lie and manipulate the facts for their own gain, a trap is being set. God is pulling the strings and determining the outcome. Our part is to continue to pray and intercede for truth to be heard and God's will to be done.

To the watchmen of the hour, God says, "Declare My Word! Report the truth! Do not fear the enemy or those who prophesy against Me. Do not retaliate, but let My Word accomplish its purposes. Yours is to sound the alarm and trust My plan."

God wrote the playbook, and He is making His moves. The enemies of God will not prevail. Though their reports may be outrageous and their godless rants filled with contempt, it is the prayers and proclamations of God's prophetic people that will signal heaven's response for justice.

The strategy is simple: Trust in God. Declare His Word and watch His enemies fall. Their own deception will take them down.

For this reason, God sends them a powerful delusion so they will believe the lie and so all will be condemned who have not believed the truth but have delighted in unrighteousness (see 2 Thess. 2:11-12).

Wanda Alger is a field correspondent with Intercessors for America. She ministers with her husband in Winchester, Virginia. Follow her blog at wandaalger.me.

'Stop Apologizing!': A Prophetic Word for Authentic Prophets

10:00AM EST 3/5/2019 DAWN HILL



Over the past few days, I keep hearing this stirring in my spirit. It began on Sunday morning when the Lord started speaking to me during a time of worship. I heard Him say, "Stop apologizing." I wrote the things down He was speaking to me, and I want to share them with the body of Christ. I truly believe that God is searching for those who will not apologize to the world for the power of His holy Word and the ferocity of His everlasting love yearning to set them free from the entanglement of sin.

As the body of Christ, we have been established as a city on a hill that cannot be hidden. We are the light of the world (Matt. 5:14). If we are the light, why are we apologizing for letting the light shine? You see, His light pushes back the darkness. Jesus doesn't apologize for pushing back the darkness; He simply overcomes it making His ways known. We are to make His ways known by demonstration of His kingdom in word and deed. Resist putting a dimmer switch on the light within you. There can be a temptation to dim the light of Christ from our lamps so as not to offend. Bright light is offensive to those whose vision is not accustomed to it. We inadvertently apologize for preaching more of the Word than our opinion. We apologize away the penalty of sin and the call to righteousness before God. This is good news, beloved! Let it shine!

The word apologize means to express regret for something that one has done wrong. Standing on the Word of God and the truth of His Word needs no apology. No matter how difficult it may be to hear the truth, He changes not. He has no shifting shadow in Him (James 1:17). Be encouraged to stand upon the infallible Word of God in this hour, unashamed and unapologetic. First Peter 3:13 -17 says,

"Now who is there to harm you if you are zealous for what is good? But even if you should suffer for righteousness' sake, you will be blessed. Have no fear of them, nor be troubled, but in your hearts honor Christ the Lord as holy, always being prepared to make a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect, having a good conscience, so that, when you are slandered, those who revile your good behavior in Christ may be put to shame. For it is better to suffer for doing good, if that should be God's will, than for doing evil."

This passage charges us to make a defense with gentleness and respect for our relationship and the hope we have in Christ. This sounds like it would be unobtrusive and without revile before others, but this is not the case. If our personal version of the gospel is edited for content so that it is suitable for the carnal nature of a person, then it is not authentic but rather apologetic. I am increasingly aware of the heart of the Father drawing us back to what truly matters, and every facet of Him matters. Stop apologizing, church. The authentic gospel and presence of the Holy Spirit offends, brings persecution and multiplies the church. Reformation is not satisfied with warm corpses shrouded in bondage, and reformation does not apologize for being mindful of another's eternity. Wake up, church! Arise and shine!

Prophet, Stop Apologizing

I want to speak to the authentic prophetic mouthpieces in this hour. Stop apologizing for a concentrated word. There is a hesitation to release a word that is difficult and not well-received. This is not a statement to usher in rebellion or dissension. This is a rally to all the authentic voices of God to stop apologizing for wielding the sword of the Spirit. The Lord woke me up the other morning to Jeremiah 23, and I wept as I read it. It is past time for a healthy dose of salt to penetrate the body. Sugar is in abundance, and exhortation comes on the winds of loving warnings so that we do not lose our flavor. Contend to be one standing in the council of the Lord, proclaiming His words to His people (Jer. 23:22). Stop apologizing for ministering purity and for refusing to flow with dead fish. Stop apologizing for calling a spade a spade. If it is perversion, then it is perversion. If it is murder, then it is murder. Do not come off the wall, watchmen. Do not relent in sounding the alarm. I know it is hard, but the reward is not the roaring approval of the crowd. The reward is Jesus. I fully believe that God is cleaning house in this hour, and those who will declare the truth of His infallible nature and His infallible Word will be given a voice to those willing to listen because genuine hunger desires substantial sustenance.

Areas where the body of Christ has been spiritually ill will be healed by authenticity only found in Him. I am so encouraged by what I sense in the Spirit because we are on the precipice of something of astronomical proportions. It does not come with bowing to the culture in the world. It comes when the church takes its place and without apology establishes the counterculture originating from the throne room. This is a church without apology.

Dawn Hill is a Christ-follower and a freelance writer. She writes a blog called "Lovesick Scribe."

This article originally appeared at lovesickscribe.com.

Is the Church Being Taken Over by Success-Seeking Pastors?

By Bob Ditmer - May 29, 2018



Some are recognizing a trend in the church toward focusing less on humility, weakness and sacrifice, and instead prioritizing triumph, power and boasting of success.

Authors Jamin Goggin and Kyle Strobel wrote about the trend in The Way of the Dragon or the Way of the Lamb.

In it they write about pastoral pride with some personal confessions, “I have seen my thirst for power driving my ministry. I have viewed other pastors as competition and the church as a means of self-glory. I have acted in ways that place me alongside the power mongers I so readily critiqued.”

J.D. Greear, pastor of The Summit Church in Raleigh-Durham, N.C., sees the trend too and it worries him. He is so concerned that he had his staff read Goggin and Strobel’s book.

Pastoral pride is real

In a recent article on his website he said the criticism hit close to home.

Early in my ministry, I was praying for miraculous revival in Durham, where our church is. The Holy Spirit impressed upon me this thought: “What if I bring the revival you are asking for…but do it through another church?” I knew the right answer. I should have said, ‘Yes, Lord! You must increase and I must decrease!’ But the impulsive answer that bubbled up from my heart was much less flattering.

Ethan Renoe, a youth pastor in Denver, says that need for power and influence doesn’t happen only in the confines of the church building; it’s now evident on Facebook and Twitter:

I think social media highlights everyone’s insecurities, not just pastors. I have felt the pull to be a famous pastor, like a new Judah Smith or Carl Lentz, rather than to focus on the people God has placed me over in a given season. If anything, I wonder if this is something younger pastors can learn from the older generation. For instance, my current pastor is in his 60s, has never been on social media, and is unquestioningly committed to his small, local church. He feels no temptation to gain followers, likes, views or a book deal; his focus is to pastor well the church God has given him for the past 30 years.

Greear identifies “focusing on the big things” as one of the danger signs of becoming obsessed with power.

This is probably my greatest temptation in ministry. I am always eager to rush ahead, trying get to the “next thing.” That impatience might look impressive to others (and it may feel great when I’m “accomplishing” things), but it leaves hurting people by the wayside.

Another example of a desire to be a “dragon,” according to Goggin and Strobel, is an inattention to developing the next generation of leader: “Toxic leaders do not develop other leaders because they pose a threat to their own power.”

Renoe, a young pastor, has seen it.

I feel like there are elements of the older generation which are unwilling to ‘pass the torch’ to the next generation of church leaders. This is evidenced most widely by the Boomers’ invention of megachurches and tele-preaching to satellite campuses. What better way to tell a millennial pastor-to-be, “No, you’re not ready to preach, I’d rather preach to all of the campuses than to raise up a new leader and let you preach to one of them.”

Renoe points to Tim Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian in New York City as one church leader who’s doing it well.

Keller could easily seize the preaching control and install giant screens to do the preaching, but instead he has chosen to raise up new, younger pastors to fill his shoes when he moves on. Personally, as someone who has seven years (and counting) of theological and biblical training and education, and about the same amount of time in practice, I can count on one finger the number of times I have been asked to preach to a pastor’s congregation.

Greear offers this advice to senior pastors:

Our attitude toward power should always be, “I will serve in this role until someone better comes along.” Always. Don’t get caught up asking, in fear, “What will happen to me if I raise up this other leader?” After all, people don’t usually look to those who empower new leaders and think, “Well, that person is dispensable.” Empowering others isn’t self-sabotage; it’s wise.

And he suggests pastors look for two or three others who they can invest in “hoping that they will one day excel, replace or surpass you.”

Bob Ditmer has worked in Christian media for more than 20 years including positions with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and Focus on the Family.

Why Are We Afraid to Preach About Sin?

J.Lee Grady

I don't like angry preachers. If a person mixes a sermon with hateful language, he's in the wrong profession. Yet today we've jumped to the opposite extreme. Now we are so afraid of sounding angry that we stopped confronting sin altogether.

We can't preach about materialism because we might offend rich people in the audience—as well as the poor people who buy Lotto tickets every week. We can't preach about fornication because there are people in the church who are living together. We can't preach about adultery or homosexuality because our culture says it's hateful to label those behaviors sins.

We can't preach about domestic violence because there are deacons who sometimes hit their wives. We can't preach about abortion because there might be pro-choice Democrats in the pews (or hypocritical Republicans who say they are pro-life but who secretly pay for abortions for their own daughters). And in the Trump era, we can't challenge racist attitudes toward immigrants because evangelical Christians are expected to blindly support a wall to keep Mexicans out of our country.

And the list goes on. In fact, some preachers are avoiding the word "sin" altogether because it's too "negative." Church growth experts tell us that people want a "positive" message.

This temptation to dilute the gospel has produced a new recipe for a trendy sermon. We start with some great motivational speaking ("Your past does not define your future!"), add a few quarts of cheap grace ("Don't focus on your sin!"), pour in some prosperity gospel ("Run to this altar and grab your financial breakthrough!"), flavor it with some trendy pop psychology ("It's all about you!") and you end up with a goopy mess of pabulum that not even a baby Christian could survive on.

I've often wondered how the apostle Paul would view our weak-kneed American gospel. Just before he was martyred, Paul gave his spiritual son Timothy clear instructions on how to keep his message on track. He said, "Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction" (2 Tim. 4:2, NASB).

We've rewritten Paul's words today. Our rule is, "Preach what the people want to hear! Avoid controversy! Stroke, soothe and pacify the people so they will come back next week!" Is it any wonder this low-protein spiritual diet has produced an anemic church?

Paul's preaching in the first century was unquestionably confrontational. He didn't hold back from addressing sin, nor was he afraid to call sin what it is. Paul knew a spineless Christianity would produce spineless Christians. He told Timothy that biblical preaching would require three brave verbs:

Reprove. The Greek word here, elegcho, means "to convict, admonish or expose" or "to show one his fault." The word can also mean "to scold" or "to reprimand." Anyone who has ever been on the receiving end of a mother's discipline knows that reproof can be the purest form of love.

Rebuke. The word epitimao means "to admonish strongly" or "to charge strictly." The English definition means "to express sharp, stern disapproval." And the origin of the word means "to beat or strike." I'm not talking here about a preacher who beats people with the Bible. Screaming at people is not biblical rebuke. But when was the last time you felt the Holy Spirit strike you in your conscience during a sermon because the preacher was truthful?

Exhort. This is the gentlest of the three words. Parakaleo can be used to mean "to comfort" or "to call alongside." It's the same root word used to describe the Holy Spirit, who is our Comforter. True biblical preaching not only exposes sin and warns us of its consequences, but it calls us to reach out to God for help to overcome our weakness. When we challenge sin, we must point people to deliverance and healing. Biblical preaching is never condemning—it provides hope!

Paul was also not afraid to name sins. I recently did a survey of all of Paul's epistles to see how he addressed sexual immorality. I discovered that he confronted sexual sin head-on in 10 of his 13 epistles. He boldly called out adultery, fornication, sensuality and homosexuality in a culture that was saturated in hedonism.

After exhorting the Thessalonians to practice abstinence, he rebuked them sternly by saying that anyone who opposes God's laws about sex "is not rejecting man but the God who gives His Holy Spirit to you" (1 Thess. 4:8b). Those are forceful words. They need to be repeated in our pulpits today.

Paul wasn't trying to win any popularity contests, and his comments about sex would get him blacklisted if he tried to buy airtime today. Yet when he penned those tough words, he was speaking from God's heart—with love—under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to all of us.

It's time for us to grow a backbone. Let's get rid of weak Christianity, spineless preachers and jellyfish morals. Let's preach the message of the Bible instead of a neutered version. Let's not only point out sin but also point people to the only hope they have of overcoming it—our strong Savior, whose death on the cross was the ultimate confrontation of sin.

J. Lee Grady was editor of Charisma for 11 years before he launched into full-time ministry in 2010. Today he directs The Mordecai Project, a Christian charitable organization that is taking the healing of Jesus to women and girls who suffer abuse and cultural oppression. Author of several books including 10 Lies the Church Tells Women, he has just released his newest book, Set My Heart on Fire, from Charisma House. You can follow him on Twitter at @LeeGrady or go to his website, themordecaiproject.org.

'Outrageous!' Disturbing New Video Game Allows Players to Simulate Rape, Murder of Women

CBNNEWS.COM

A graphic and violent new computer video game that lets players simulate the rape and murder of women is coming under fire.

The developer of "Rape Day" describes it as "a game where you can rape and murder during a zombie apocalypse."

"Rape Day is a visual novel where you control the choices of a sociopath during a zombie apocalypse," reads a statement on the game's website. "You can verbally harass, kill people, and rape women as you choose to progress the story."

The game, which contains graphic depictions of sexual violence, allows players to click on outcomes to violent scenarios, which are illustrated with characters rendered in 3D.

The game's creator calls it "fantasy" stating: "Every good fantasy is a power fantasy. Even if it's some odd-ball story about gaining the acceptance of the loss of control, it's still a form of power."

But many call the game evil and "outrageous."

"To think that people under the age of 18 are able to access this is just plain wrong," Debbie Tohill, executive director of New Zealand advocacy group Rape Prevention Education told Newshub.

"Making a game out of rape is never ok - it's outrageous, and it totally negates the impact that sexual violence has on its victims," she added.

Many online are also speaking out against the game.

"What sick mind plays a video game where the objective is to rape women," tweeted Logan Andrew.

The game is currently being reviewed by the popular online gaming platform Steam. If it passes, it will be available to purchase and play worldwide.

Meanwhile, a game called "Active Shooter" was set for release after the Parkland shooting last summer for its depiction of a school shooting. It was pulled before it was released.

Change.org says Rape Day is going to belittle rape and violence towards women and is urging people to sign a petition to get it banned.

BREAKING UPDATE: Pope Francis Stripped of Power w/ Kevin Annett