Early in September 2011, while fasting and praying for the national prayer retreat of The Preacher scheduled for later that month, the word of the Lord came to me, “Pray against the Spirit of Sudan.”
The Preacher's Diary
ANGELS DON’T OPEN EVERY DOOR
1. The Mortal Door that God Would not Open
No matter the angels that accompany you, they won’t open every door. Some doors, weaker as they might seem, may only be opened my mortal will rather than by divine might. When Peter was imprisoned by bloody Herod, to be killed after Passover, the angel of God effortlessly opened the very fortified consecutive iron gates that that wicked king in alliance with Hell had raised against Apostle Peter.
A GIFT FROM YOUR FOE
Charity is not in the character of Satan. No apple is as free as it seems in the garden where the Serpent speaks. When Satan makes you a concession (which is not a retreat from a victory inflicted), be careful to never think that you’ve got a Christmas gift. Charity is not in the nature of that wily foe.
The Preacher
June 5, 2022.
The Weapon of Words
God’s Wrong Grammar
Occasionally, one comes upon a Bible verse with an awkwardness as if the writer must have made a mistake. One such verse to me was Genesis 11:6. As a young Christian in school, I felt grammatically uncomfortable each time I read that verse: “And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language.…” How could “the people,” a plural subject, take a singular verb “is” instead of “are”? Could God speak such wrong English, I wondered? Or maybe the transcribers of the Bible didn’t know enough English, I concluded. I was, however, careful not to think that too loud for fear of committing an unpardonable sin. I was to accept much later that the expression was an emphasis on how strongly those rebels of Babel had become united, losing their distinct pluralities into a strong and seamless oneness. I ceased to bother my young school brain with that Middle English of King James.
SHOULD WE CALL ANYONE “MAN OF GOD”?
- He Spoke in my Ears
Sometime ago, while I waited to take the podium and speak at a Christian meeting, the master of ceremonies began one of those elaborate introductions and designated the upcoming speaker as a “man of God.” Almost at once, an acquittance by my side whispered into my ears, “the man of the great God.” He meant to correct them in my ears. They probably had been too carnal and vainglorious in their spiritual protocols. They probably were nearly blasphemously promoting mere mortals when they should meekly have been upraising the mighty God.
SHOULD THE RIGHTEOUS GO TO WAR?
It seems to have been my strange lot lately, to be confronted with troubling insights into scriptures, especially passages that, to all appearance, are a contradiction either to themselves or to long-held religious ideals. One of them, Revelation 19:11-13:
Plus GOD minus STONE = …
Can you Drive?
Many years ago, I was walking down the street when I met a brother whose car had stubbornly refused to continue the journey with him. He had been trying all he could to tease it into a start by touching its tender knobs and intestinal wires, his hands greased with frustration. He was glad as I walked up to him. He asked me to take the driver’s seat as he tried one more time to rouse the reluctant engine back to life. I sat in the car, turned on the engine, and it revved into a merry start. The brother was relieved at last and came in to resume his trip, but the engine died as soon as he took over from me. He tried to start the car again, but the engine would not respond to his many pleas. He got out and requested me to I get back into the driver’s seat while he returned to resume his mechanical communications with the adamant engine.
LOCKDOWNS DIDN’T START TODAY
Now the gates of Jericho were tightly shut because the people were afraid of the Israelites. No one was allowed to go out or in (Joshua 6:1, New Living Translation)
MOSES MY SERVANT IS DEAD…
If any man ever was a servant of the Lord, it was Moses. Like no other in his days, he spoke with God “face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend” (Exodus 33:11). He climbed up into God’s smoky presence and was not consumed by the fiery site that scared others miles away.
NUGGETS FROM THE PARABLE OF THE PRODIGAL SON
The New Testament parable of the Prodigal Son provides insights into the process and principles of forgiveness, or of securing forgiveness. In that parable, a junior son demands his inheritance from the father, and promptly goes off to a very distant land where he wastes everything in debauchery. Sometime later, the hammer of hardship forces his eyes open. He realises his trespass and takes steps to make amends in the frittered relationship with his father.
