REVELATION 13:17

¹⁷ And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the num­ber of his name.

They have already start­ed the nar­ra­tive. Doctors, Journalists, Media-types, politi­cians, .….….We will nev­er get back to nor­mal.
What does that mean?
They argue, that as it was after September 11^th, 2001, when peo­ple were afraid to sit beside cer­tain oth­er Americans on air­planes, or in restau­rants because they were afraid they may have a bomb, peo­ple may want to see that peo­ple are not car­ry­ing the COVID-19 virus when the nation begins the process of claw­ing its way out of this pandemic.

WHAT DOES THAT MEAN?

Well, sim­ply put peo­ple may decide they want to see med­ical records that the per­son sit­ting next to them is not a car­ri­er of the virus.
In South Korea restau­rants are already test­ing cus­tomers to see if they have a fever before they allow them entry.
Religious groups are warn­ing that the next step will be that Government will be forc­ing Americans to accept vac­cines which great­ly com­pro­mis­es their right to pri­va­cy.
As influ­en­tial opin­ion lead­ers like Bill Gates con­tin­ue to push the idea of test­ing every­one and ulti­mate­ly inputting a dig­i­tal tat­too into those already test­ed, some reli­gious groups are point­ing to those sug­ges­tions as one and the same as the Biblical proph­esy in the book of REVELATION 13:17, ¹⁷And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the num­ber of his name.

Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci.
“The United States might nev­er get entire­ly back to where it was before the nov­el coro­n­avirus out­break, espe­cial­ly with­out a vac­cine”.
Well, there you have it. damned if you do damn if you don’t.
Now that the 11-time Grammy win­ner is on the mend, how­ev­er, Babyface announced that the vir­tu­al bat­tle is back on.

“I would like to offi­cial­ly accept the invi­ta­tion from the leg­endary Swizz Beatz & Timbaland to par­tic­i­pate with my lit­tle broth­er, Teddy Riley in what I’d like to call a Celebration of Black Music Excellence in – Teddy vs. Babyface,” his let­ter con­tin­ued. “Teddy!!! Let’s show them what Hip Hop/R&B music real­ly means to the world!”
The music bat­tle is now sched­uled for April 18 at 6 p.m. PST/​9 p.m. EST.
Babyface’s face­off with Riley has music fans sali­vat­ing for what’s expect­ed to be a mas­sive dis­play of R&B mega-hits, and it comes after oth­er wor­thy matchups includ­ing Swizz Beatz ver­sus Timbaland and singer Né-Yo ver­sus Johntá Austin, among others.

EVERYTHING TOWARD GOD’S PURPOSE!

Jeremiah 29 V11.
For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope.

Events of today, as have events through­out mankind’s his­to­ry, are all geared toward the ful­fill­ment of God’s divine word.
Believers in God Almighty the cre­ator of all things, there­fore, can­not live in fear when we see these things hap­pen­ing. We do not need to engage in the fear that rules the rest of the world, because we know that these are the things his world told us would hap­pen before he returns.
Lest we for­get, our world today has no love for the Lord God Almighty. Those who dare speak his name are ridiculed, mocked and laughed at, in this peri­od of pan­dem­ic they ask “where is your God in all of this”? Why are your church­es shut­tered?
In the very same breadth they, berate the church lead­ers who dare to open the doors of their church­es in order to wor­ship the Lord God.
So this tells us that no mat­ter what the body of Christ does, they will be demo­nized and mocked by the world.
Their crit­i­cisms have noth­ing to do with any­thing the body of Christ has done wrong. It is all about their hatred of God.

In the days of Noah, the world was des­per­ate­ly wicked, the Bible said in Matthew 24:37 – 39 ³⁷ But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the com­ing of the Son of man be.
³⁸ For as in the days that were before the flood they were eat­ing and drink­ing, mar­ry­ing and giv­ing in mar­riage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark.
39 And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away, so shall also the com­ing of the Son of man be.
This time will be dif­fer­ent though, the lord God has promised that he will not destroy the earth with water but that he will cleanse the earth with fire.
Genesis 9 v 11, I estab­lish my covenant with you, that nev­er again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of the flood, and nev­er again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.”

Whatever the ori­gin of this pan­dem­ic, it is impor­tant to under­stand that it will be used as a means to fur­ther erode the rights of cit­i­zens world­wide.
The Globalists are intent on a sys­tem of one world order. One world Government run by the glob­al Satanists.
What bet­ter way to get peo­ple to allow the gov­ern­ment to force them into their homes than through fear of being infect­ed with a dead­ly virus?
What bet­ter way to get peo­ple to give the gov­ern­ment the go-ahead to give them a vac­cine to save them from poten­tial death?
And in the prece­dent of gov­ern­ment in not allow­ing a cri­sis to go unex­ploit­ed, what bet­ter time to implant their nanochips into your babies and into your bod­ies under the guise that they are doing so to track your progress or to ensure that you already got their vac­cine?
The inter­est­ing thing at the moment, is that peo­ple are lit­er­al­ly beg­ging to be locked into their homes.
People are lit­er­al­ly beg­ging to be test­ed, and yes many are beg­ging to receive a vac­cine, even though there isn’t a vac­cine ready to treat COVID-19.

Revelation 13: vs 16 – 18 ¹⁶And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their fore­heads: ¹⁷And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the num­ber of his name. ¹⁸Here is wis­dom. Let him that hath under­stand­ing count the num­ber of the beast: for it is the num­ber of a man; and his num­ber is Six hun­dred three­score and six.

It is easy to see how those who come as if they are sav­iors help­ing the cause are the ones who are at the tip of the spear in mov­ing this world into this one world order.
Ask your­selves this ques­tion, “what exact­ly is Bill Gate’s inter­est in this”?
People open your eyes .….……
As glob­al mar­kets begin to fail as a process of eco­nom­ic inac­tiv­i­ty, look for the push fora new glob­al cur­ren­cy. Look for them to tell you that you need to have their vac­cine.
Look for them to tell you that in order for you to be allowed to func­tion they will need to implant a dig­i­tal tat­too into your body.

In an (NYTIMES) arti­cle titled (The Apocalypse as an ‘Unveiling’: What Religion Teaches Us About the End Times) pub­lished April 2^nd, 2020, Elizabeth Dias wrote: Not only is there a plague, but hun­dreds of bil­lions of locusts are swarm­ing East Africa. Wildfires have rav­aged Australia, killing an untold num­ber of ani­mals. A recent earth­quake in Utah even shook the Salt Lake Temple to the top of its icon­ic spire, caus­ing the gold­en trum­pet to fall from the angel Moroni’s right hand.
For some, noth­ing will be con­vinc­ing enough to con­vince them that we are indeed liv­ing in times that the Bible talked about through divine prophe­cy
For the rest of us, Matthew 24:32
Now learn this les­son from the fig tree: As soon as its branch­es become ten­der and sprout leaves, you know that sum­mer is near.
Revelation 3:20
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If any­one hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in and dine with him, and he with me.

Crises like the COVID-19 gives us all the oppor­tu­ni­ty to demon­strate to our fel­low man the human­i­ty with­in us.
This is cer­tain­ly not a time for tak­ing, it is a time for giv­ing, it is in all of us to look deep with­in our­selves and find the spir­it of God in us, not just to find him with­in us but to act upon his qui­et voice. Some refer to it as con­science, me, I call it the voice of the holy spir­it.
It does not mat­ter if you are the­ist, agnos­tic or even an athe­ist, there is a cer­tain joy that comes from giv­ing.
Whether we give tan­gi­ble things at this time, or we give of our time it is cru­cial­ly impor­tant that we look out for each oth­er in what­ev­er we do..

It is under­stand­able that you may say, “but how can I do what you are ask­ing when the author­i­ties are say­ing we should all engage in social dis­tanc­ing”?
Scripture com­mands in Roman 13:1 Let every per­son be sub­ject to the gov­ern­ing author­i­ties. For there is no author­i­ty except God, and those that exist have been insti­tut­ed by God.
There is no mutu­al exclu­siv­i­ty between obey­ing the com­mands of earth­ly author­i­ties and doing what Yeshua com­man­deth, both are doable at the same time.
Civil author­i­ties say stay at home as best as you can, but peo­ple are allowed to go to the super­mar­ket, to the phar­ma­cy, to get gas for their cars, to pick up food from restau­rants and so on.
We can take the time to drop off some food for an elder­ly per­son in need of food. We can find out if an elder­ly wid­ow­er or wid­ow is able to get their med­ica­tion?
We can ask if they have food, or if they have an errand they would like us to run for them.
Of equal impor­tance, we may give them a few dol­lars, just a few extra dol­lars to peo­ple who are on fixed incomes are extreme­ly impor­tant to them.

Matthew 25:35 For I was hun­gry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you wel­comed me.
James 2:14 – 18 What good is it, my broth­ers, if some­one says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a broth­er or sis­ter is poor­ly clothed and lack­ing in dai­ly food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” with­out giv­ing them the things need­ed for the body, what good is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But some­one will say, “You have faith and I have worked.” Show me your faith apart from your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
Proverbs 28:27 Whoever gives to the poor will not want, but he who hides his eyes will get many a curse.
1 John 3: 17 – 18 But if any­one has the world’s goods and sees his broth­er in need, yet clos­es his heart against him, how does God’s love abide in him? Little chil­dren, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth.
Let us remem­ber at this time that the church is not in any build­ing, it is in our hearts.
In times of cri­sis, the inter­est of God’s work is not served by dress­ing up and going to wor­ship in a build­ing, it is demon­strat­ing to the unsaved what God is all about.
He is calm in a time of uncer­tain­ty, a refuge in a time of tur­moil, a port in a storm.
People see the work of God in what we do not in what we say.

As broth­ers and sis­ters, cousins aunts and uncles, moth­ers and fathers, friends and neigh­bors we have a duty to look out for each oth­er. To look after each oth­er.
As Christians, we have a high­er call­ing, a greater duty, not just to preach how much we care, not just to preach how much God cares, but to let our light shine so that the unsaved may see how much we care, just how much God cares, through our actions.
They must see God in us in times of tur­moil, but they can also see the fraud in us.
The forces of dark­ness are busy at work, telling you that you should look at what the church­es are doing.
They are telling you that the church is silent in this your hour of need. They are telling you that the church was always a fraud. That all they care about is tak­ing mon­ey from you.
They are telling you that this is a sem­i­nal moment for you to walk away from the con­cept of God for­ev­er.
That is what the ene­my wants you to believe, it is what the ene­my wants you to do.
Sadly, some of us with­in the body of Christ is doing exact­ly what they are accus­ing us of doing.
Matthew 5: 14 – 16 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill can­not be hid­den. Nor do peo­ple light a lamp and put it under a bas­ket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before oth­ers, so that they may see your good works and give glo­ry to your Father who is in heav­en.
Someone joked that the great­est prob­lem for Christianity is Christians. If we think about it a lit­tle bit, it does make sense.
Us Christians are judge­men­tal, greedy, rapa­cious, self ‑right­eous, preachy, holi­er-than-though, and we do every­thing we should­n’t do.
We do every­thing except the things Yeshua says we should do, vis­it the sick, look after the wid­ow, vis­it the incar­cer­at­ed, look out for the poor.
This too shall pass.

Amidst the scare and the tur­moil of every­day liv­ing, today I decid­ed to walk through some of the woods sur­round­ing our home with my Dog Bud.
In the height of tur­moil, let us step back and enjoy what God has already done, not just what we would like him to do.

In the midst of the tur­moil there is much beau­ty if we take the time to see it.

Bud enjoyed not been on a leash or locked inside.

We do not need to pan­ic, when chal­lenge comes, what we need is to look to God.

I love walk­ing these woods.

Even in the dead of win­ter there is beau­ty if you care to look 

Thanks to the Beulah Baptist Church, My Pastor the Reverend Dr. Jesse Voyd Bottoms. The Social Action Committee mem­bers who work tire­less­ly to iden­ti­fy grass­roots indi­vid­u­als in our com­mu­ni­ty and across Counties who are work­ing to make life bet­ter for everyone.

Servant Leader, Deborah Reeves Duncan.
Vice ser­vant leader, C Dianne Ruffin.
Deaconess Marilyn Ashe, Secretary.
Michelle Tillery, Secretary.
Mark Baker.
Deaconess Doris Brown.
Veronica Groucher Campbell.
Gayle Cromartie.
Cheryl Pender.
Mary Spriggs.
Rosania Squire

(2019 )HONOREES
Michael Beckles
Deirdra Jen Brown
Ronald G Greene
D’Andre Little
Elder William Richardson

I am not exact­ly why some peo­ple feel the need to refer to “woke” black peo­ple who have come to the real­iza­tion that we are the true Israelites, God’s cho­sen people.

Follow this sto­ry here: https://​www​.vox​.com/​i​d​e​n​t​i​t​i​e​s​/​2​0​1​9​/​1​/​2​2​/​1​8​1​9​3​3​5​2​/​b​l​a​c​k​-​h​e​b​r​e​w​-​i​s​r​a​e​l​i​t​e​s​-​c​o​v​i​n​g​t​o​n​-​c​a​t​h​o​l​i​c​-​p​h​i​l​l​i​p​s​-​m​a​g​a​?​f​b​c​l​i​d​=​I​w​A​R​2​0​j​L​n​n​G​-​z​U​m​m​p​7​7​u​h​_​l​z​K​M​y​m​G​U​0​N​4​T​D​4​9​P​l​-​d​L​D​Z​S​Q​j​h​W​4​6​c​y​x​-​b​g​I​lR8

There is much to be said about the dis­par­i­ty between African-American and White Evangelicals and their response to Donald Trump.
Persons pay­ing atten­tion can prat­tle off a litany of these dis­par­i­ties between the two groups.
We under­stand that Franklin Graham’s views dif­fer from that of his father the late Reverend Billy Graham, at least in public.

We also under­stand that Pat Robertson’s hypocrisy is astound­ing as it relates to Barack and Michelle Obama and Donald Trump. In instance, after instance, there is more than ample evi­dence that even in the sup­posed body of Christ Race is a sig­nif­i­cant factor.
The sim­ple fact is that all of the dis­par­i­ties come down to one word “Race”.

At the risk of pil­ing on, I have to ask whether or not the main­stream media is doing this nation a tremen­dous dis­ser­vice by high­light­ing cer­tain Members of the Black Clergy in the age of Trump.

The chal­lenge for mem­bers of the African-American com­mu­ni­ty is how to dis­as­so­ci­ate itself from apos­tates like Mark Burns and Darrel Scott. This at a time when the media con­tin­ue to give these heretics a plat­form to speak on behalf of a sys­tem and an occu­pant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue whose val­ues are anti­thet­i­cal to their values.

Asked by MSNBC’s Alex Witt, about Donald Trump’s alleged infi­deli­ties and dal­liances, the head of Samaritan’s Purse and son of renowned tel­e­van­ge­list Billy Graham, Franklyn Graham said the following.

“He said he didn’t say it,” Graham said. “I don’t think any of those sen­a­tors if he did use that lan­guage, have heard that word for the first time. I’m sure that’s a word they’ve used before, I think there’s a lit­tle hypocrisy here.”
“We have a busi­ness­man who is a pres­i­dent, not a politi­cian, but a busi­ness­man,” Graham said. “We should all be grate­ful that he’s brought his knowl­edge to Washington and he’s help­ing to turn this econ­o­my around.”

For the record Donald Trump the sup­posed busi­ness­man filed for chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy a stag­ger­ing six (6) times and backed up by PolitiFact.May esti­mates have cir­cu­lat­ed which stat­ed that Trump had filed for chap­ter 11 bank­rupt­cy pro­tec­tion a total of four (4) times which con­flicts with Politifact’s find­ing of six.
Questioned, Trump told Washington Post reporters that he count­ed the first three bank­rupt­cies as just one.

“Reverend, you just told me that this coun­try has a sin prob­lem and I know you’ve no doubt heard that the pres­i­dent is accused of hav­ing his lawyer pay $130,000 to a for­mer porn star alleged­ly for her silence about his sex­u­al encounter while he’s mar­ried,” Witt said. “The pre­vi­ous alle­ga­tions as well, that access “Access Hollywood” tape, does that chal­lenge your faith in the president?”

“Does the pres­i­dent have a sin prob­lem?” Witt asked. “I can promise you he is not President Perfect,” Graham shot back.
“But, sir, can you under­stand how there are those that are cry­ing hypocrisy? When for exam­ple, the New York Daily Newsedi­to­r­i­al on Thursday accus­es some Christian lead­ers, like Gary Bauer who sup­ports the pres­i­dent for being hyp­ocrites, for say­ing absolute­ly noth­ing about the Stormy Daniels mat­ter,” Witt said. “When peo­ple cry there are hyp­ocrites there with­in the evan­gel­i­cal com­mu­ni­ty, can you under­stand that criticism?”

“Well, first of all, President Trump I don’t think has admit­ted to hav­ing an affair with this per­son and so, this is just a news sto­ry, I don’t know if it’s accu­rate.”
“Now did he have an affair with this woman? I have no clue, but I believe that 70 years of age, the pres­i­dent is a much dif­fer­ent per­son today than he was four years ago, five years ago, ten years ago or what­ev­er and we just have to give the man the ben­e­fit of the doubt,” Graham con­tin­ued. “He said he didn’t do it, so okay, let’s say he didn’t do it.”
“I don’t think it’s hyp­o­crit­i­cal because he’s a flawed man, for me to try to sup­port him and help him and pray for him,” Graham said. “I’m a flawed per­son. and I would hate for peo­ple to see all the bag­gage I have in my life, but the fact is that God has for­giv­en me and I’ve asked for his for­give­ness, and I think the pres­i­dent has, too.”

Well, there you have it no mat­ter what the charge is against you if you deny it you are absolved from cul­pa­bil­i­ty and respon­si­bil­i­ty accord­ing to the Gospel of Franklyn Graham.
About then President Barack Obama in 2012 Franklyn Graham said he believes President Barack Obama may or may not be Christian while express­ing his belief that GOP pres­i­den­tial hope­ful Rick Santorum’s moral stances show him to be a “man of faith.”

Many peo­ple have been aghast at the bla­tant hypocrisy of not just Republican Politicians but at the Evangelical move­ment which has ignored the divorces, accu­sa­tions of infi­deli­ty and sex­u­al abuse charges lev­eled against him and the con­fir­ma­tion of those abuse from his own mouth, on that Hollywood extra bus.
Many jux­ta­pose his behav­ior and the mul­ti­plic­i­ty of hor­ri­ble things which comes out of his mouth dai­ly against the alle­ga­tions of infi­deli­ty lev­eled against President Bill Clinton in the 90’s and they come away con­vinced that the white Evangelical move­ment is at best filled with hypocrites.

Their treat­ment of President Barack Obama and his fam­i­ly, despite the gra­cious­ness and class with which the Obama’s con­duct­ed them­selves, could only be char­ac­ter­ized as bla­tant­ly and dis­gust­ing­ly igno­rant and racist.

However not every white Evangelical feels that Trump should be giv­en a free pass.
Andy Crouch, exec­u­tive edi­tor of Christianity Today, an evan­gel­i­cal mag­a­zine found­ed by Billy Graham, wrote “Enthusiasm for a can­di­date like Trump gives our neigh­bors ample rea­son to doubt that we believe Jesus is Lord.”” “They see that some of us are so self-inter­est­ed and so self-pro­tec­tive, that we will ally our­selves with some­one who vio­lates all that is sacred to us — in hope, almost cer­tain­ly a vain hope giv­en his men­dac­i­ty and record of betray­al, that his rule will save us.”

Don’t won­der about the fact that young col­lege edu­cat­ed peo­ple are not fol­low­ing in the foot­steps of their par­ents in adher­ing to Religious teachings.
When the words of those who set them­selves up as anoint­ed voic­es for the word of God, yet what drips from their lips are lies, racist and hyp­o­crit­i­cal dog­ma the edu­cat­ed and dis­cern­ing can see straight through them.

A Virginia pas­tor, his wife and a friend of theirs are all being accused of defraud­ing their Alexandria con­gre­ga­tion out of more than $1 mil­lion, Fox 5 DC reports.

According to the report, Terry Wayne Millender, who serves as pas­tor for Victorious Life Church in Alexandria; his wife, Brenda; and a friend, Grenetta Wells, who is also affil­i­at­ed with the church, were all recent­ly indict­ed by a fed­er­al grand jury on charges of con­spir­a­cy to com­mit wire fraud and mon­ey-laun­der­ing conspiracy.

The trio alleged­ly under­lined their business’s Christian mis­sion and promised guar­an­teed rates of return. Some investors gave sums rang­ing from $40,000 to $400,000, author­i­ties say.

However, instead of using the mon­ey for its intend­ed mis­sion, the Millenders and Wells alleged­ly con­duct­ed risky trad­ing on the for­eign-exchange cur­ren­cy mar­ket and also helped fund the pur­chase of a lav­ish $1.75 mil­lion res­i­dence for the Millenders and oth­er per­son­al expens­es for the defendants.

When parish­ioners began to ques­tion when they would get their mon­ey back, the defen­dants blamed delays on the 2008 finan­cial cri­sis, author­i­ties say.

“It didn’t real­ly come as a shock — it was more of a sigh of relief,” Eric Brown, a for­mer church mem­ber, told Fox 5 DC. According to the news sta­tion, Brown’s fam­i­ly was one of those who invest­ed in the alleged fraud scheme, although they are not a part of the fed­er­al case.

“I asked him like, ‘Hey, that’s a nice car,’” Brown told the sta­tion regard­ing one con­ver­sa­tion he said he had with Terry Millender. “He said, ‘Yeah, $100,000 car. If you save up your mon­ey, God’s going to bless you.’ Come to find out now, it was actu­al­ly part of our money.”

Both Terry Millender and Grenetta Wells were held with­out bond until anoth­er hear­ing set for Wednesday. Brenda Millender was released after the ini­tial hear­ing. Read more @ https://​www​.wash​ing​ton​post​.com/​l​o​c​a​l​/​p​u​b​l​i​c​-​s​a​f​e​t​y​/​p​a​s​t​o​r​-​a​n​d​-​w​i​f​e​-​f​o​u​n​d​-​g​u​i​l​t​y​-​i​n​-​d​e​f​r​a​u​d​i​n​g​-​o​f​-​f​r​i​e​n​d​s​-​f​l​o​c​k​-​o​f​-​m​i​l​l​i​o​n​s​-​o​f​-​d​o​l​l​a​r​s​/​2​0​1​7​/​1​2​/​1​9​/​2​9​a​e​2​4​e​4​-​e​4​1​0​-​1​1​e​7​-​8​3​3​f​-​1​5​5​0​3​1​5​5​8​f​f​4​_​s​t​o​r​y​.​h​t​m​l​?​u​t​m​_​t​e​r​m​=​.​4​4​9​b​a​c​1​e​4​f7e

(#1 in a series.)

I take the lib­er­ty to write on issues I deem top­i­cal at any giv­en time, issues which in my hum­ble opin­ion affect peo­ple’s lives on a dai­ly basis.
I do so with the sole inten­tion of effect­ing change and if at all pos­si­ble mak­ing this world a bet­ter place.
Having had the audac­i­ty of tak­ing it upon myself to have an opin­ion on issues of the day has def­i­nite­ly had its highs and lows.
Nevertheless, like ham­mer­ing away at sold rock each blow brings the per­son wield­ing the ham­mer one step clos­er to his desired goal.
I write because I see direc­tions those in pow­er take and I know they will only lead to fail­ure and destruc­tion, gen­er­al­ly at the tremen­dous loss of blood and treasure.

Someone asked me some time ago why I write?
I told him why as I stat­ed above, yet I felt the ques­tion was curi­ous, does one ask a Rapper why he raps, an actor why he acts, a singer why he sings?
One does not have to be a great rap­per, actor, singer, or painter to pur­sue his cho­sen pas­sion. Does one have to give an account­ing why he choos­es writ­ing as a com­mu­ni­ca­tion vehi­cle over say dance-hall reggae?
Writing is no dif­fer­ent. Many Artistes nev­er lived to see the acclaim their work gar­nered and that’s okay, as long as some­one’s life is enhanced by that work.

On the instances in which I dare to offer an opin­ion on issues whether its reli­gion, race, pol­i­tics or the rule of law or what­ev­er, I find that read­ers are the least inter­est­ed in the issue of religion.
Yet despite this, the issue of reli­gion touch­es our lives in ways we some­times do not con­sid­er, and have larg­er and far­ther reach­ing con­se­quences on our lives than any oth­er subject.
For exam­ple, Donald Trump’s recent deci­sion to uni­lat­er­al­ly declare Jerusalem the cap­i­tal of the Israeli state to sat­is­fy cer­tain local pres­sures and to appease Benjamin Netanyahu will have far-reach­ing con­se­quences, not just for the peo­ple liv­ing in that region but col­lat­er­al­ly for the entire world.
Yet there is pre­cious lit­tle if any dia­logue on this far-reach­ing and con­se­quen­tial deci­sion which Presidents of both polit­i­cal par­ties have avoid­ed step­ping into.

BIBLICAL PROPHECY SEEM TO BE COMING TO PASS EVEN AS WE MISS EVENTS WHICH BEAR OUT THOSE PROPHECIES

One does not have to be a Bible-thump­ing ide­o­logue to agree that much of what is writ­ten in the Scriptures seem to be hap­pen­ing in front of our eyes today. The Apostle Paul speak­ing to the Thessalonians (2) Thessalonians 2:1 – 3 Now, brethren, con­cern­ing the com­ing of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gath­er­ing togeth­er to Him, we ask you, ² not to be soon shak­en in mind or trou­bled, either by spir­it or by word or by let­ter, as if from us, as though the day of Christ^[a] had come. ³ Let no one deceive you by any means; for that Day will not come unless the falling away comes first, and the man of sin^[b] is revealed, the son of perdition.

Recent events have cer­tain­ly seemed to be plac­ing the Christian Church in dis­re­pute. Here in the United States, many are look­ing at the Evangelical move­ment with increased sus­pi­cion and trepidation.
How they ask, can a move­ment which pur­ports to rep­re­sent the divine God be a move­ment which dis­crim­i­nates against oth­ers on the basis of race, sex­u­al ori­en­ta­tion, reli­gious beliefs etc?
They argue cor­rect­ly, that Jesus taught the con­cept of lov­ing all peo­ple even when we dis­agree with them. In fact James 4:12 teach­es There is only one Lawgiver and Judge, the One who is able to save and to destroy; but who are you who judge your neighbor?
Joel 3:12 Let the nations be aroused And come up to the val­ley of Jehoshaphat, For there I will sit to judge All the sur­round­ing nations.

According to the (Pewresearch​.org), Perhaps the most strik­ing trend in American reli­gion in recent years has been the grow­ing per­cent­age of adults who do not iden­ti­fy with a reli­gious group. And the vast major­i­ty of these reli­gious “nones” (78%) say they were raised as a mem­ber of a par­tic­u­lar reli­gion before shed­ding their reli­gious iden­ti­ty in adulthood.
Several of the respon­dents in the Pew research poll think reli­gion is too much like a busi­ness and oth­ers men­tion cler­gy sex­u­al abuse scan­dals as rea­sons for their stance.
This is not unique to the United States, not only are Christians among young peo­ple not adher­ing to the faiths of their fathers, reli­gious per­se­cu­tion forms a size­able part of the rea­son peo­ple are shun­ning the faith.
According to the (guardian​.com) The per­se­cu­tion of Christians is at a lev­el we’ve not seen for many, many years and the main impact is the migra­tion of Christian peo­ple. There are huge swaths of the world which are now expe­ri­enc­ing a very sharp decline in the num­ber of Christians.”
Forced falling away is falling away nonethe­less, or is it?

Perhaps most con­se­quen­tial to the con­ver­sa­tion is the fact that these are young peo­ple who were raised as mem­bers of dif­fer­ent reli­gious faiths, not just Christianity are now turn­ing their backs on the faiths they pre­vi­ous­ly held.
Is this the falling away of which the Bible speaks, are we there yet?
Like every­one else Christians are enti­tled to their polit­i­cal beliefs, church­es of var­i­ous faiths are ripe and pli­ant insti­tu­tions to be manip­u­lat­ed for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es, evan­gel­i­cal con­gre­ga­tions are no exceptions.
Let us be rea­son­able it takes some degree of faith to believe whole­heart­ed­ly in some­one you have nev­er seen and a thing you can­not prove.
sway­ing con­gre­ga­tions, how­ev­er, depends on whether you are able to con­vince the Pastors of those con­gre­ga­tions about the valid­i­ty of your cause, or make some offer which makes it worth­while for him.

The tragedy inher­ent in those deals is that there is pre­cious lit­tle in it for the con­gre­gants. The Pastors gen­er­al­ly do well when­ev­er they attach them­selves to cam­paigns even if mon­ey nev­er changes hands.
The press and expo­sure they receive ele­vate them with­in their com­mu­ni­ties and that gen­er­al­ly trans­lates into more mon­ey for them usu­al­ly as they become more sought after to speak to dif­fer­ent congregations.
It’s a kind of I wash your back you wash mine which has pre­cious lit­tle to do with the inter­est of their con­gre­ga­tions much less the fur­ther­ance of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Sadly for many, they are manip­u­lat­ed on the basis of race, come Sunday morn­ing the church­es across America are some of the most seg­re­gat­ed places where peo­ple gather.
How could peo­ple who claim to wor­ship the same God be unwill­ing to coex­ist as broth­ers and sis­ters, chil­dren of that same God you ask?
Despite this major dis­crep­an­cy, some church lead­ers are will­ing to sell their flock for a mere pho­to-op, despite know­ing that the cause to which they are sell­ing them is anti­thet­i­cal to their very existence.

This Article is one in a series of sev­er­al which will be writ­ten on this subject.
Read like and share.…

Donald Trump will rec­og­nize Jerusalem as the cap­i­tal of Israel on Wednesday and direct the State Department to begin the process to move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials said.

The deci­sion, which is already being cheered by the President’s sup­port­ers and the Israeli gov­ern­ment, is expect­ed to roil the region, with U.S. Arab allies warn­ing Trump on Tuesday that it will under­mine region­al sta­bil­i­ty and stymie the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Trump will sign a waiv­er delay­ing the embassy move for anoth­er six months to com­ply with the law, as senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials said it will take years for the move to be completed.

The Trump admin­is­tra­tion on Tuesday cast the move, which Trump will announce Wednesday at 1 p.m. ET, as a “recog­ni­tion of real­i­ty” that Jerusalem has long been the seat of the Israeli gov­ern­ment. Officials stressed that the deci­sion would have no impact on the bound­aries of future Israeli and Palestinian states as nego­ti­at­ed under a final sta­tus agreement.

Senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cials brief­ing reporters Tuesday evening reject­ed sug­ges­tions that the deci­sion would hurt the peace process, but offered no argu­ments to sug­gest the move would advance the peace process or U.S. inter­ests in the region.

Instead, the offi­cials said keep­ing the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv — despite leg­is­la­tion call­ing for a move to Jerusalem — had not advanced peace in more than two decades.

“It seems clear now that the phys­i­cal loca­tion of the American embassy is not mate­r­i­al to a peace deal. It’s not an imped­i­ment to peace and it’s not a facil­i­ta­tor to peace,” one senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial said. “After hav­ing tried this for 22 years, an acknowl­edg­ment of real­i­ty seems like an impor­tant thing.”

Another senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial said Trump “came to the judg­ment that this was both the right time and the right step to take specif­i­cal­ly with respect to his hopes that a peace can be achieved,” but offered no fur­ther specifics.

The offi­cials said Trump would reaf­firm that he is pre­pared to sup­port a two-state solu­tion to the Israeli-Palestinian con­flict if both sides can agree to such a deal.

Despite the announce­ment, a senior admin­is­tra­tion offi­cial said Tuesday Trump’s recog­ni­tion of Jerusalem as Israel’s cap­i­tal would not change the US pol­i­cy oppos­ing Israeli con­struc­tion of set­tle­ments in East Jerusalem.

Ahead of his announce­ment, Trump spoke Tuesday to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, Egypt’s Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, Saudi Arabia’s King Salman and Jordan’s King Abdullah, prompt­ing state­ments from each leader’s coun­try oppos­ing the plan, warn­ing that it will under­mine region­al sta­bil­i­ty and scut­tle any hopes of peace for the fore­see­able future.

Palestinian lead­ers have already called for three “days of rage” in protest and the State Department issued a trav­el warn­ing about the West Bank and Jerusalem’s Old City.

Trump also spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has long lob­bied for the embassy to move to Jerusalem.

The President is expect­ed to make a pub­lic announce­ment Wednesday declar­ing his deci­sion to rec­og­nize Jerusalem as the cap­i­tal of Israel and his intent to move the US embassy from Tel Aviv, diplo­mat­ic offi­cials and a per­son famil­iar with the plans tell CNN. Trump is also expect­ed to sign a waiv­er delay­ing the embassy move for six months, cit­ing the logis­ti­cal chal­lenges of mov­ing U.S. personnel.

The move is roil­ing U.S. allies because it bucks inter­na­tion­al norms and has the poten­tial to desta­bi­lize the region. Recognizing Jerusalem as the Israeli cap­i­tal could upend efforts led by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to revive Mideast peace talks; could spark region­al protests that might put U.S. mil­i­tary and diplo­mat­ic per­son­nel at risk; and could hand a pro­pa­gan­da weapon to mil­i­tant groups and Iran, ana­lysts say.

Reaction was swift, with Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Qatar crit­i­ciz­ing the antic­i­pat­ed deci­sion and urg­ing the admin­is­tra­tion to reconsider.

The European Union for­eign pol­i­cy chief, Federica Mogherini, used a press appear­ance with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to make EU dis­plea­sure clear. Any action that could under­mine an even­tu­al peace agree­ment between Israelis and Palestinians “must absolute­ly be avoid­ed,” Mogherini said.

On Monday, French President Emmanuel Macron stressed in a phone call with Trump the long-held inter­na­tion­al posi­tion that the sta­tus of Jerusalem should be resolved through peace nego­ti­a­tions between Israelis and Palestinians, “and par­tic­u­lar­ly those relat­ing to the estab­lish­ment of two states, Israel and Palestine, liv­ing side by side in peace and secu­ri­ty with Jerusalem as their cap­i­tal,” France’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

The admin­is­tra­tion itself braced for blow­back. State Department secu­ri­ty ser­vices were told to pre­pare for unrest at mis­sions over­seas and the Pentagon repo­si­tioned troops who usu­al­ly pro­tect embassies to be clos­er to coun­tries where protests may break out.

White House press sec­re­tary Sarah Sanders said the deci­sion was the result of a “very thought­ful inter-agency process,” but peo­ple famil­iar with the White House delib­er­a­tions por­tray it as being dri­ven by Trump’s domes­tic polit­i­cal concerns.

The President is increas­ing­ly wor­ried about los­ing his polit­i­cal base and insists that he must be seen as ful­fill­ing cam­paign promis­es on Israel, part of an effort he’s tak­en in the past few weeks to gal­va­nize con­ser­v­a­tive sup­port, accord­ing to a per­son famil­iar with the White House deliberations.

The same source also stat­ed that the President sees the Jerusalem issue as key to pla­cat­ing con­cerns among his core sup­port­ers that he’s going soft on his cam­paign positions.

Previous US pres­i­dents promised to move the embassy and then set that pledge aside due to region­al con­cerns and Jerusalem’s con­test­ed sta­tus between Israelis and Palestinians, both of whom claim the holy city as their capital.

Under the Jerusalem Embassy Act of 1995, the US embassy must be moved to Jerusalem or the State Department faces the penal­ty of los­ing half its appro­pri­at­ed funds for the acqui­si­tion and main­te­nance of build­ings abroad. Every six months, how­ev­er, pres­i­dents can sign a waiv­er to avoid these penal­ties on nation­al secu­ri­ty grounds.

The resis­tance from allies report­ed­ly led to some debate with­in the White House over how to bal­ance the move with the recog­ni­tion of Palestinian claims to Jerusalem, accord­ing to sources with knowl­edge of the situation.

In the mean­time, the President’s per­son­al polit­i­cal con­cerns aren’t like­ly to sway for­eign allies that could be direct­ly affect­ed by any fall­out from the decision.

“I haven’t heard any­one artic­u­late a sin­gle nation­al secu­ri­ty inter­est as to why now,” said Hussein Ibish, a senior res­i­dent schol­ar at the Arab Gulf States Institute. “It hasn’t been done. Everybody knows why it hasn’t been done. It’s a bad idea and it remains a bad idea.”

And while Jerusalem func­tions as the de fac­to Israeli cap­i­tal, David Makovsky, direc­tor of the Project on the Middle East Peace Process at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said an announce­ment will kill any chances of a peace deal.

“There is a his­toric jus­tice in it, in that every pres­i­dent, Democratic or Republican, speaks in the Knesset,” said Makovsky, refer­ring to the Israeli par­lia­ment. “U.S. busi­ness­men rou­tine­ly do busi­ness with Israelis in their cap­i­tal. That’s been the real­i­ty since 1949, but if you say you rec­og­nize an undi­vid­ed cap­i­tal, you’ve pre-empt­ed peace negotiations.”

Shibley Telhami, a pro­fes­sor at the University of Maryland, said an announce­ment would serve as pro­pa­gan­da fod­der for extrem­ists. “It plays into the hands of every con­ceiv­able Islamic mil­i­tant group. It plays into the hands of Iran,” Telhami said, mak­ing it hard­er for Gulf coun­tries that might share secu­ri­ty goals with Israel to open­ly coöper­ate. “It makes the sit­u­a­tion of each one of those gov­ern­ments tougher, let alone what it does to American troops sta­tioned in the region.” http://​ktla​.com/​2​0​1​7​/​1​2​/​0​5​/​t​r​u​m​p​-​t​o​-​r​e​c​o​g​n​i​z​e​-​j​e​r​u​s​a​l​e​m​-​a​s​-​i​s​r​a​e​l​s​-​c​a​p​i​t​a​l​-​d​i​r​e​c​t​-​s​t​a​t​e​-​d​e​p​a​r​t​m​e​n​t​-​t​o​-​m​o​v​e​-​u​-​s​-​e​m​b​a​s​sy/

If there is a God who cre­at­ed the Universe and all that’s in it, regard­less of what we per­ceive him to be, and if he is omnipo­tent, then we must con­clude he knows our hearts and what we are about to do before we do the things we do.

Daniel 4:35 “All the inhab­i­tants of the earth are account­ed as noth­ing, But He does accord­ing to His will in the host of heav­en And among the inhab­i­tants of the earth; And no one can ward off His hand Or say to Him, ‘What have You done?

The Church has a duty and a respon­si­bil­i­ty to be set apart from the world, in the world but not of the world.
What that means is that the body of Christ, all of us who have accept­ed his yoke should have lives reflec­tive of Jesus Christ. Our lives will nev­er be per­fect but as chil­dren of the high­est God, we must strive to walk as Jesus Christ did.

Galatians 5:16 – 17 But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not car­ry out the desire of the flesh.
The urge to have appeal in today’s world has influ­enced parts of the body of Christ Jesus to make deci­sions which are anti­thet­i­cal to what Jesus and the scrip­tures com­mand­ed us to do.
The need to be hip, not out­dat­ed, rel­e­vant, has brought things into our places of wor­ship and into our lives which ought not to be there.
We have no author­i­ty to change the unchang­ing word of God to please any­one. We were not com­mand­ed to change or water down God’s word in order to have more appeal to prospec­tive converts.
The writ­ten Word of God reveals His will and its eter­nal truth. Even though writ­ten by sin-cor­rupt­ed man, it was authored by the Holy Spirit (2 Pet. 1:20, 21). Thus attempts to find dif­fer­ences between God’s will and His writ­ten Word are foolish.

Not through books which seeks to explain the Bible, not through adopt­ing things and fads, not through the process of san­i­tiz­ing pagan cus­toms and then pre­tend­ing they are not the very same customs.
God knows our hearts, the Holy Spirit is in our hearts, it is that lit­tle voice which nudges us to do the right thing.
So there is real­ly no san­i­tiz­ing things we know are sin­ful and then pre­tend­ing that we are doing them or cel­e­brat­ing cus­toms we know we should­n’t be celebrating.

Halloween’s ori­gins date back to the ancient Celtic fes­ti­val of Samhain (pro­nounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom, and north­ern France, cel­e­brat­ed their new year on November 1. In addi­tion to caus­ing trou­ble and dam­ag­ing crops, Celts thought that the pres­ence of the oth­er­world­ly spir­its made it eas­i­er for the Druids or Celtic priests, to make pre­dic­tions about the future. 
To com­mem­o­rate the event, Druids built huge sacred bon­fires, where the peo­ple gath­ered to burn crops and ani­mals as sac­ri­fices to the Celtic deities. During the cel­e­bra­tion, the Celts wore cos­tumes, typ­i­cal­ly con­sist­ing of ani­mal heads and skins, and attempt­ed to tell each other’s for­tunes. http://​www​.his​to​ry​.com/​t​o​p​i​c​s​/​h​a​l​l​o​w​e​e​n​/​h​i​s​t​o​r​y​-​o​f​-​h​a​l​l​o​w​een

1 John 2:15

Don’t love the world or any­thing in the world. If any­one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.
If you know in your heart that some­thing is wrong and not of God no amount of wash­ing it, san­i­tiz­ing it and repack­ag­ing it will make it Godly.
We have a duty to eschew pagan cus­toms, not cleanse them then pre­tend they are harm­less, or that we only engage in them because we want to make the chil­dren happy.
We have a duty to do the exact oppo­site which is to train up our chil­dren in the way they should go so that when they are old they may not depart from it.
Proverbs 22: 6 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.

The final­i­ty of los­ing a loved one can have dev­as­tat­ing effects on one’s psy­che, men­tal and phys­i­cal health and [even on one’s faith]. The love derived from fam­i­ly and friends are crit­i­cal espe­cial­ly in the ear­ly days of los­ing a loved one.
That this kind of sep­a­ra­tion can be sim­ply shrugged off is eas­i­er said than done. Folks tell me you have to move on, they mean well, if only los­ing a part of you was as easy as sim­ply [mov­ing on though.
The abil­i­ty to sim­ply grieve with­out the added bur­den of plan­ning and orga­niz­ing a funer­al is a big help so fam­i­ly and friends are cru­cial in times of bereavement.

Shock, dis­be­lief, anger, frus­tra­tion, feel­ing vic­tim­ized, are only a few of the emo­tions which sur­vivors go through. I lost all four of my grand­par­ents with­in the space of only a few years, I also lost oth­er fam­i­ly mem­bers in recent times which pained me immensely.
I was to find out in 2014 that every­thing I have ever been through, two life-sav­ing surg­eries a tumul­tuous child­hood and every­thing in between would be child’s play com­pared to the pass­ing of my son.

Yes, I have three more, I also under­stand that that ques­tion comes with the great­est of love and con­cern that maybe just maybe I have more chil­dren to fill the void.
Only that they don’t, they can’t.
Friends tell me Job got every­thing he lost even his chil­dren after the Lord gave per­mis­sion to the Devil to go after him.
But did Job receive every­thing back?
Did he get the chil­dren he lost or did he have more children?

As par­ents, we love each of our chil­dren dif­fer­ent­ly, not less, not more, differently.
And so speak­ing for myself as a par­ent I can attest to the dif­fer­ent char­ac­ter­is­tics of all my chil­dren, how those char­ac­ter­is­tics shape my love for them and even how I coun­sel them to live their lives based on those indi­vid­ual char­ac­ter­is­tics and char­ac­ter traits.
One of the things I con­stant­ly hov­ered over Kodi about was what I per­ceived to be his non­cha­lance to things and places I per­ceive to be poten­tial­ly dangerous.

He would always laugh and tell me “Dad you wor­ry too much.” Despite my son’s dis­missal, my father­ly intu­ition was proven cor­rect not because he did any­thing wrong but my worst fear, the fear of los­ing him was realized.
Job 3:25 For the thing which I great­ly feared has come upon me, and that which I was afraid of has come unto me.

Life for me will nev­er be the same.
Life for the rest of my fam­i­ly will nev­er be the same.
Of course not, Kodi was the life of the par­ty, “what you all gonna do when I’m gone” he would ask as he laughed, “I’m the one who hold­ing the fam­i­ly togeth­er”.
We had no idea!

People describe the way they feel about los­ing loved ones, chil­dren, even.
Somehow it does not feel that way to me. Based on their talks I’m sup­posed to be heal­ing but I’m not.
It feels sur­re­al, I feel vic­tim­ized, I feel like the Universe has ganged up on me, my emo­tions are still as raw as the day my son left.

I have this weird feel­ing that “yes I know you have lost your child but I hurt more than you, I am more vic­tim­ized that you are.”
I also know that is not real­i­ty but that is how I feel, that is how deeply I hurt.
My old­est son is grown and on his own now, I know Mike hurt for his broth­er much like I do.
Aj and John are away too, in col­lege like Kodi were, this morn­ing John sent me this message.

[“ Hey Pop, just want­ed to let you know that I’m think­ing about you right now.It’s a hard day for all of us but I know that it’s espe­cial­ly painful for you. I don’t have any idea what you go through on a day to day basis but I admire you for con­tin­u­ing to be you. Thank you for being a great father and hus­band. I wish we could all be togeth­er today but unfor­tu­nate­ly, we can’t. I love you so much though​.Talk to you soon.”

If you still won­der why I love my chil­dren so much then.….……
I cried and cried and then I cried some more.

Whatever one’s views on homo­sex­u­al­i­ty we must address the sin­gu­lar and unde­ni­able fact that this is an alter­na­tive lifestyle which does not enhance the con­tin­u­ance of life.
Nevertheless, this lifestyle has been part of human exis­tence for thou­sands of years as the Bible speaks quite elo­quent­ly and unam­bigu­ous­ly on the subject.

Over the decades, at least in my short life­time, the issue of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty has become increas­ing­ly top­i­cal and has been framed with­in the con­text of indi­vid­ual rights, as against morality.
As the debate of this issue rages it is hard to see how those who argue the issue from a moral per­spec­tive win this debate going forward.

It was a bril­liant stroke of genius on the part of the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty to align the move­ment with the ever­p­re­sent and con­tin­u­ing debate sur­round­ing Human Rights par­tic­u­lar­ly in the United States of America.
In all of this noise, no com­mu­ni­ty has been more hyp­o­crit­i­cal than the sup­posed body of Christ, or what is more com­mon­ly known as the faith community.
The estab­lished church has demon­strat­ed that it is quite will­ing to become an Apostate in order to keep the mon­ey com­ing in even as it strug­gles to fill the pews on Sundays.

In sit­u­a­tions like these, I always ask myself what would Jesus do . The word of God is clear, Jesus taught that in seek­ing to pull up the weeds we may also uproot the wheat also. Matthew 13: vs 30. “Let both grow togeth­er until the har­vest. At the prop­er time, I will tell the har­vesters, “First col­lect the weeds and tie them in bun­dles to be burned; then gath­er the wheat into my barn”.

Jesus used this illus­tra­tion to answer a ques­tion about how we should con­duct our­selves until his return.
That is how I per­son­al­ly view the issue of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty, if it is not of Christ then it is of the Devil. Therefore if I have the need to tell my broth­er or sis­ter about the dan­ger of Hell’s fire I am duty bound to warn about homo­sex­u­al­i­ty as I would about mur­der, for­ni­ca­tion, adul­tery, steal­ing, cov­etous­ness and all oth­er sins.

Jesus com­man­deth us to love ye one anoth­er John 13: Vs 34. “A new com­mand­ment I give you: Love one anoth​er​.As I have loved you, so also you must love one anoth­er”.
It is not up to us to dic­tate in the name of the lord as Christians how any­one lives, it is up to us to preach and teach morality.
Jesus would preach a ser­mon get in a boat and go to the oth­er side of the riv­er or he would leave the peo­ple to digest what they heard while he moved on to a dif­fer­ent town.
He nev­er hung around to beat any­one over the head with the good news of sal­va­tion. As Christians, we must rec­og­nize that the word of God is not a tool with which we blud­geon oth­ers over the head, it is up to us to tell oth­ers of the good news of Jesus Christ.

Those who sup­pose to rep­re­sent Christ here on earth have a duty as with any sin to preach/​teach the truth of the Bible and do not become a word unto themselves.
God’s word is sacro­sanct, it is unchang­ing and may not be explained away by man. More than any­thing the Apostates who con­tin­ue to use Gods words to get along and fill offer­ing plates will have much to account for on that day of reckoning.

Whether one agrees with Jamaica’s anti-sodomy laws or not is a legit­i­mate sub­ject of debate.
What is not up for debate is what the Bible says on the sub­ject of Homosexuality as it does on all sins.
Jesus com­mand­ed his Apostles to go out into all the world and preach the Gospel. In so doing all except one, was myrtered for preach­ing the gospel.

What pass­es for the Church today seem to be noth­ing more than apos­tates will­ing to bring the name of Jesus Christ into dis­re­pute, Homosexual acts with lit­tle boys, adul­tery with parish­ioners wives and hus­bands, get­ting rich from poor peo­ple’s faith and a pletho­ra of oth­er craven and rapa­cious actions have caused many young peo­ple today to look at the church with disdain.

So it came as no sur­prise that many of those who walk about the mar­ket­place in long robes would con­tin­ue to deceive the peo­ple as they did while Jesus walked the earth. Luke 20: Vs 46 – 47. “Beware of the scribes. They like to walk around in long robes, and they love the greet­ings in the mar­ket­places, the chief seats in the syn­a­gogues, and the places of hon­or at ban­quets. 47They defraud wid­ows of their hous­es, and for a show make lengthy prayers. These men will receive greater con­dem­na­tion.”

THE LIARS AND APOSTATES WHO WOULD LEAD THE FLOCK ASTRAY

Archbishop of the WI says Bible does not support anti-sodomy laws !!!

At a forum orga­nized by local and inter­na­tion­al inter­est groups, at The University of the West Indies (UWI) Regional Headquarters in Mona Saint Andrew Jamaica. Keynote speak­er Rev Dr John Holder, arch­bish­op of the West Indies, argued that the Bible does not sup­port sodomy laws, which are relics of British coloni­sa­tion, and that the text can­not be used for “homo bash­ing”, as all the ref­er­ences to homo­sex­u­al­i­ty in the Bible “are sparse” and were used in spe­cif­ic con­texts. “It is not there in Leviticus, in Romans, even in Timothy… The text can­not be twist­ed in that way,” he said, argu­ing that if it is accept­ed that con­text deter­mines inter­pre­ta­tion, then the con­text in which the few scrip­tures that refer to homo­sex­u­al­i­ty were used, can­not be ignored.

Dr. Holder fur­ther main­tained that the strong anti-gay sen­ti­ments that still exist in the Caribbean have more to do with cul­ture than moral­i­ty. He stressed that strong­ly root­ed in the Caribbean psy­che is the impor­tance of pro­cre­ation. “The reluc­tance of the for­mer colonies to aban­don sodomy laws may more be a cul­tur­al thing rather than a legal one, or even a moral one or reli­gious one,” he said.(jamaicaob​serv​er​.com)

What Bishop Holder did in one fell swoop was to sup­plant the scrip­ture with his learned view, effec­tive­ly mak­ing him­self not God-like but a God, in whose words doc­tri­nal prin­ci­ples are authen­ti­cat­ed and validated.

By seek­ing to nul­li­fy whats actu­al­ly writ­ten in the Bible cre­at­ing his own doc­trine instead, Dr. Holder com­plete­ly ignores or rather may be igno­rant of oth­er char­ac­ter­is­tics which dri­ve the intense abhor­rence of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty in Jamaica and indeed the broad­er Caribbean.

There is much infor­ma­tion with­in the pub­lic space which sug­gests that the anger with which Jamaicans view Homosexual behav­ior may have much more to do with his­to­ry rather than reli­gion in many cases.

The prac­tice referred to as Buck-Breaking is well known as a means by which white plan­ta­tion own­ers raped enslaved males who showed signs of unwill­ing­ness to bow to their will.
The issue of bru­tal rapes vis­it­ed upon enslaved females is well doc­u­ment­ed, not so the vicious­ness of the brutish and demon­ic cru­el­ty and degra­da­tion of homo­sex­u­al sodom­iz­ing of many of our forefathers.

Even if some­how the good­ly cler­gy­man could stretch the realms of cred­i­bil­i­ty and con­vince us that the Bible is not to be believed and even as he pro­fess­es to be a preach­er of the good word it is impos­si­ble that he would con­vince us that we should accept that lifestyle based on its his­to­ry of vio­lence and degra­da­tion of our people.

The issue of homo­sex­u­al­i­ty may very well be viewed from the per­spec­tive of human rights and as such, no one should ever attempt to dic­tate what some­one else does in their own homes.

Nevertheless it is impor­tant to under­stand that even though one have a right to do what he or she wants, does not make it moral in the sight of God or accept­able to others.

We all have to share this plan­et, we should learn to live togeth­er regard­less of our dif­fer­ences, racial, reli­gious, sex­u­al or otherwise.

Attempting to change the writ­ten word of God is a under­hand­ed way of going about it. Those who call them­selves preach­ers of the Gospel does tremen­dous harm to the body of Christ when they chose to ele­vate them­selves above his word.
“And if any man shall take away from the words of the book of this prophe­cy, God shall take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city, and from the things which are writ­ten in this book.” (Rev. 22:18 – 19.)