A Blind Man’s Prelude

To the Divided Kingdom

“What’s with you lately?” I have heard that plenty lately. The seeing straw broke my back and forced me to enter the Great War that has been raging since I was a boy—the War I chose to ignore or just stayed blind to the facts surrounding me.

“He answered and said, A man that is called Jesus made clay and anointed my eyes, and said unto me, Go to the pool of Siloam, and wash: and I went and washed, and I received sight.” He answered and said, “Whether he be a sinner or no, I know not: one thing I know, that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”—John 9:11&25

What’s up with me lately—I was blind, but now I see. When all is said and done, there is no pursuit more worthy than following the truth, wherever it may lead.

As a boy and into my teens, wonder and fantasy fueled my daily existence. Grandpa’s farm gave me all the illusion I could handle. Down the hill, just past the slough and across the gravel road, the boneyard of rusting, unused for years machinery became whatever I decided it to be. I was in a world created by Jim’s imagination. On my way to and from the boneyard, I wondered why the birds perched side by side on the power line. Hundreds of them caring not as I passed by. It compelled me to pick up a rock and pitch it to witness them scatter—my curiosity questions why they don’t crash into one another.

Puberty entered, and I could only see pretty girls and dream of a kid’s romance. Once while climbing up a playground pole repeatedly, I discovered the pleasures of sex. I did not realize it then; I knew climbing that pole long enough made my eyes roll back, and as I began shaking, I fell from it. My brain and penis were best of friends for a long time; rational thinking did not exist, just lust.

 My call to duty noticed changed my prevalent ways. Vietnam was killing Americans, but we will stop the communists, or so the greed and deceit of politicians told us. I was a small-town boy from North Dakota who flung smack dab into the counterculture of hippies and War. Not Vietnam; God saved me from the jungle carnage. I spent my time in California caring for fighter jets on a “Top Gun” Miramar flight line and acting the hippie role off base. My eyes first opened to the deceit of the fat cats in Washington politics at that time. I never entered into the anti-war War either—the War of the Conspiracy Seven, where seven defendants—Rennie Davis, David Dellinger, John Froines, Tom Hayden, Abbie Hoffman, Jerry Rubin, and Lee Weiner—charged by the United States federal government with conspiracy, crossing state lines with intent to incite a riot, and other charges related to anti-Vietnam War and 1960s counterculture protests in Chicago, Illinois, during the 1968 Democratic National Convention. Marijuana, Peyote, Psilocybin, and LSD became my fantasy world.

After the War, I moved back to live on forty acres north of the small town I had lived my entire life. I married, had two kids, and raced just minutes before financial disaster and divorce until I became the dreaded forty-something-old man I said I would never be. Too caught up in staying alive to ponder about the War, the real War that raged around me. All the hit movies used the same ingredients: good overcoming evil, battles to fight, and beauty to rescue. Everyman wants to be a hero. I was in over my head on survival to be a hero. Good and evil battled as I was drowning.

Now an older man of seventy-three who wakes every morning at three. I have plenty of time to witness the War, the spiritual War, and seek the truth. When all is said and done, there is no pursuit more worthy than following the truth, wherever it may lead. I now pursue my origin, meaning, morality, and destiny—I seek the truth. I have entered the War prepared to sacrifice all to share the truth; This is why everyone who has known me says, “What’s with you lately?” I pray this anger I have against the lawless within me is a wave of righteous anger.

Jesus answered, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” – John 14:6

At seventy-three, I realized my time to meet my maker is near. My writing and videos attempt to fill the gap and join the front line in this battle.

Divided Kingdom

“Every kingdom divided against itself will be ruined, and every city or household divided against itself will not stand.” “Or again, how can anyone enter a strong man’s house and carry off his possessions unless he first ties up the strong man? Then he can plunder his house. Matthew 12:25&29

The Roman Empire is considered to have been the most enduring in history. The formal start date of the empire remains the subject of debate. Still, most historians agree that the clock began ticking in 27 BC when the Roman politician Octavian overthrew the Roman Republic to become Emperor Augustus. Although Rome later fell to the Germanic “Barbarians” in AD 476, the ensuing “Eastern Empire” based at Constantinople is widely regarded as a continuation of the original Roman one. It wasn’t until the fall of the city in AD 1453 that the curtain finally came down on the empire, ending a period of dominance across Europe and beyond that had lasted for almost 1,500 years.

 

The US Second Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776. That makes the United States of America an infant of history at 247 years. Great sacrifice and resilience made America stand tall, but cancer is looming, and we let it in. What makes this cancer different is unlike the empires of history, it is a global falling away from our creator—the Great Apostasy of the Bible.

The Great Apostasy

4 Now the Spirit [a]expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, two speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron, 3 forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth. ~ 1 Timothy 4

Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of [b]sin is revealed, the son of perdition, ~ 2 Thessalonians 2

In the beginning, God made man and woman, male and female. Today the imagined list of genders reads like a top twenty on the hit charts. Americans have ravenous cancer; it is called “Moral Decay,” same cancer that ended the Roman, Egyptian, and Persian empires. I thank God daily in my prayers that there is still a remnant of Americans willing to fight for freedom and liberty in courtrooms and in the media. The remnants of the Jesus movement I missed stoned at Miramar Naval Air Station are still pressing for the truth and fully engaged in the spiritual battle for humankind’s soul. New youth has entered the War, the Tucker Carlson, Charlie Kirks, Dave Rubins, the Candice Owens joining the diehards of truth seekers, the Jordan Petersons, Jack Hibbses, Voddie Bauchames, Jim Caviezeles, John Lennoxes, Michael Behes, and Steven Meyeres to seek truth, origins, morals, purpose. Not all are pure and accurate in thought but using: Scripture, Logic, Science, Archeology, History, Astrophysics, Biology, Metaphysics, and Christian thought leaders of the past to assemble the apologetics of God and Christ.

I am not an avid reader; I need time and reread to digest complicated material. I am a visual thinker and rely on the things I can see that speak the truth. I started reading an 800-page book entitled, Evidence That Demands a Verdict. It is a heavy read for me, but two sentences in the forward drew me in: “While a previous generation of Christians had the option to stick their heads in the sand, (Me), and tune out the voice of the skeptics, Christians of today don’t have that luxury. The internet has changed the game. I am called to battle online using the same tools evil uses to corrupt. My calling is to share the good news of Christ and contribute to America’s repentance and return to God. That’s a bold statement for a small-town boy.

I realize the risks to the guns and arrows of critics and dark powers—so be it! I am not going to sit this battle out.

Joel 3:9-16

Proclaim this among the nations:

 Consecrate for War;

    stir up the mighty men.

 Let all the men of War draw near;

    let them come up.

10

Beat your plowshares into swords,

    and your pruning hooks into spears;

    let the weak say, “I am a warrior.”

11

Hasten and come,

    all you surrounding nations,

    and gather yourselves there.

 Bring down your warriors, O Lord.

12

Let the nations stir themselves up

    and come up to the Valley of Jehoshaphat;

 for there, I will sit to judge

    all the surrounding nations.

13

Put in the sickle,

    for the harvest is ripe.

 Go in, tread,

    for the winepress is full.

 The vats overflow,

    for their evil is great.

14

Multitudes, multitudes,

    in the valley of decision!

 For the Day of the Lord is near

    in the valley of decision.

Losing It

by Rush

Some are born to move the world

To live their fantasies

But most of us just dream about

The things we’d like to be

Sadder still to watch it die

Than never to have known it

For you, the blind who once could see

The bell tolls for thee, bell tolls for

For you, the blind who once could see

Bell tolls for thee, bell tolls for thee

 Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world—the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride of life[a]—is not from the Father but is from the world. 17 And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever. 1 John 2:15-17