The Blog
Shipwrecked Faith from a Shipwrecked Church
Future Conflict in the Pacific
Over the past six months, China has increasingly sent large numbers of its People’s Liberation Army (PLA) tactical military aircraft into the air defense identification zone of Taiwan. Many of these incursions appear to be training events for large strike packages, which include nuclear-capable heavy bombers, sophisticated 4th and 5th generation strike-fighters, air superiority fighters and electronic warfare aircraft.
Recently, China has included aerial refueling of these strike packages with its newest indigenously-produced Y-20 aerial refueling aircraft. To many China watchers, these training events appear to be rehearsals for an attack on Taiwan. In response, Taiwan has increased arms purchases from the U.S. and has begun training with U.S. Marine and special operations forces for defense against an amphibious assault by China.

Tyranny is Coming… Ready or Not
The following is from the Tucker Carlson show that aired on Wednesday, December 1, 2021. I would strongly urge you to invest a sixth of an hour and watch this segment. What Tucker predicts will soon happen… unless somebody does something.
Could that somebody be you? I sure hope so.
Because we’re running out of time.

Week 2, Day 1: Nothing Can Separate You From the Love of God
Daily Emails to my Church (sent out the night before):
Dear Church,
As I shared with you on Sunday, this week we will look at five Scriptures that reveal the heart of the Father and His love for us. Since many struggle with their guilt and shame over sin and often have a difficult time believing God truly loves them, these truths from His Word should help our faith grow as we strive to live like Him.
The first of these five truths is this: There is nothing you can do, or have done, or will do, that will separate you from the love of God. Or, to put it another way, God wants you to know you are secure in His love. Period.
Let that sink in for a moment. All your past sins and failures, all your current disappointments and broken vows, and all the promises you made to Him today that you won’t keep tomorrow, everything you’ve ever done, or are doing, or will do to break His heart— God still loves you.
Consider the following for tomorrow:

Week 1, Day 1: If Any of You Lacks Wisdom… and Who Doesn’t?
Daily Emails to my Church (sent out the night before):
Dear Church,
It was great worshipping with you this Lord’s Day. And I hope you are ready for an exciting week.
The verses we are going to be using to grow our faith this week are as follows:
Monday – James 1:5-8
Tuesday – 1 Corinthians 10:31
Wednesday – Matthew 6:33
Thursday – Matthew 6:14-15
Friday – Romans 12:18-19
Here is tomorrow’s verse:
If any of you lacks wisdom, (then) let him ask of God, (promise) who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him. But (condition) let him ask in faith, (meaning) with no doubting, (why) for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. For (result) let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; (why) he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways – James 1:5-8.

Experiencing Daily Fellowship with God
In striving for the Higher Christian Life, we often find great encouragement in the writings of those who experienced what we are trying to understand and appropriate in our own lives. One of these great men is Andrew Murray (1828-1917). If you have any familiarity with the saints of the last century, Andrew Murray would be listed among others like Charles Spurgeon, Oswald Chambers, Dwight Moody, and Charles Finney. He was a spiritual giant and preached the Higher Christian Life message from his pulpit and pen while ministering in South Africa. Many of His books are and remain, classics.
Andrew Murray published over 240 books and tracts in his life. Most of them are still in print today. Some of the most important are:
• Abide in Christ
• Absolute Surrender
• Holy in Christ
• Humility: The Beauty of Holiness
• The Deeper Christian Life
• The School of Obedience
• The Spiritual Life
• With Christ in the School of Prayer
• And many others.
The reason I am sharing this bit of his bio with you is that in his writings, Andrew Murray clearly laid out for his readers the steps to experiencing God in a fuller sense, or as it was called back then, the Higher Christian Life. One of his books, The Deeper Christian Life, begins with a chapter that reveals the great importance of daily fellowship with our Lord and how fellowship is the key to worship (and the Higher Christian Life). I thought it would be beneficial to each of us to read and meditate on his words.

The Prayer of Full Surrender
The following is a message given by Dr. Walter L. Wilson (1881-1969) at the Canadian Keswick Conference about his experience with the Higher Christian Life. This message was reprinted in the October 1936 issue of “The Evangelical Christian” and also in the tract, “The Secret of Soul Winning.” The name of the article is “Whose Body is Yours?” and provides a wonderful glimpse into the process the Spirit took Dr. Wilson to discover the Higher Christian Life and his prayer of full surrender.
Enjoy and be blessed and encouraged in your own search for the Higher Christian life.
“And I will pray the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may abide with you forever— the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees Him nor knows Him; but you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.”
John 14:16-17
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.
Romans 12:1
Because there exists in these days a great desire in the heart for, and a confusion in the mind concerning the Spirit-filled life, or the path of consecration, it may help to clear this matter if I tell you of my own experience with the Lord, the Spirit.
It was my privilege to be raised among a group of believers who were quite orthodox in their teaching, and quite earnest in studying the Word. It was among these that I first trusted the Lord Jesus in December 1896. He saved me and changed my life. Immediately the Word of God became my constant companion. I loved it, studied it, preached it, and gave away tracts in large quantities. No apparent success followed my labors, and much energy produced little fruit. This failure disturbed me greatly, but I assured myself and was assured by others that we were not to look for results but only to be busy at seed sowing.

After DC, Where Do We Go From Here?
The following is from Samuel Culpeper with Forward Observer. I believe this accurately sums up what happened, and didn’t happen, today in DC and what we can expect in the days to come. Read and be informed. And be prepared. Then ask yourself, where do we go from here?
Austin, Texas
06 January 2021
I’m writing a quick note this afternoon following today’s protest in Washington D.C. and breach of the Capitol building. I have three initial thoughts on this and other events that occurred today.
1. Back in November I wrote that, presuming a Biden victory, the Right would assume the mantle of political resistance and proto-insurgent activity. A Biden administration, after all, will be toeing or crossing red lines on the Second Amendment, religious liberty and the First Amendment, taxes, and a host of other Obama-era policies that riled conservatives enough to form a national protest movement. I surmised that after a summer of violent attacks, riots, and destruction by the Left, conservatives may be feeling some leeway in how they protest. After all, we were told for most of last year that riots are just the voice of the unheard. At a minimum, the grassroots conservative protest movement we saw from 2009 to 2016 is coming back under a third Obama administration, and today is the first notch in that belt. Low-intensity conflict will continue.

30 Ways to Improve Your Home Security Today
A recent video by Reality Survival shows at least 30 ways you can improve the security of your home as we see lawlessness increase nationwide. These are good steps to take and I would encourage you to consider each one. They are summarized as follows:
1. Set up more lights around your property so it looks like more people are at home.
2. Set up motion detection lights that will flick on when someone walks on your driveway.
3. Set up infrared driveway alarms to let you know if somebody is on the property.
4. Eliminate trees or shrubs that could provide unseen entry into your property.
5. Plant nasty thorny shrubs up close to the windows and entry points of your home.
6. Clear the shrubs and bushes away from your front door so burglars can’t hide by your entry points.
7. Use a good concealment device to hide your spare key well away from your doors.
8. Leave a vehicle parked out on your front driveway when you are away from your home, which makes it look like somebody is home.
9. Make sure your remote control garage door opener is stored out of sight in your vehicle.
10. Have security cameras covering the main entry points into the home.
11. Put an alarm company sign out front.
12. Get a good outside watchdog.
13. Get an inside dog (even a small yappy dog can keep some criminals at bay).
14. Placed deadbolts on all exterior doors.
15. Place deadbolts that lock on your garage.
To see the rest of these 30 security tips, click the Read More button below.

Should You Get the COVID-19 Vaccine?
The world is spinning, staggering, and struggling from the Chinese coronavirus now called COVID-19 to conceal the fact that it came from China. The jury is still out whether it was manmade or natural and whether it was released accidentally or used by the Chinese Communist Party as germ warfare. As of today, there have been more than 12 million confirmed COVID-19 cases in the U.S. and more than 260,000 deaths.
However, many of the deaths are suspect since gunshot deaths, heart attacks, etc., were classified as COVID-19. Hospitals are paid much more if deaths are COVID deaths. As always, follow the money. It would be helpful (and honest) if any health official speaking to the media, be required to inform the public if that official holds any relevant patents or any stock in any relevant drug or vaccine company.
It is not commonly known that 56 individual patents were discovered to be owned or shared by one or more members of committees within the Centers for Disease Control. However, I don’t think the CDC sells masks— yet.
There has been much controversy as to whether masks are useful or useless against COVID; however, a Danish study, released November 18, suggests “face masks did not significantly protect wearers from the coronavirus compared to those without masks.” The study, published in the Annals of Internal Medicine, may determine and terminate the mask debate.
The issue is bigger than whether a mask helps protect from COVID or not: does any entity of government have the authority to require masks? The “experts” have been all over the map about this. Moreover, the worldwide lockdowns have been one of the most contentious, challenged, combative, and caustic decisions government officials have made. The charge is made that Socialists in the U.S. government want to destroy the present system to build upon its ashes a utopian society.
Whether true or not, the lockdowns have destroyed most of America’s restaurants and almost crippled travel-related businesses. That is true globally. It seems the cure is worse than the curse by destroying society.
President Trump pushed and bribed health officials and pharmaceutical companies to accelerate efforts to develop a vaccine that would be given freely to Americans. Many billions of tax dollars were spent to accomplish that purpose. We are told that two vaccines are about ready, and both are 95% effective. Another one will be ready in January.
Let me remind you that we have been given medical assurances regarding other diseases with some massive medical failures such as the thalidomide scandal in the 1950s, the HIV-tainted blood scandal in Japan in the 1980s, the swine flu in 2009, and others. WebMD admitted the flu vaccine for the 2018–2019 season was only 29 percent effective and the vaccine for the 2014-15 flu season was only 19% effective.
But you can trust the COVID vaccine. Right?

Faith Must Be Tested
As a church we’ve been studying about faith, especially trying to answer the question, How do we learn to live by faith? And if you remember, last Sunday we talked about learning how to trust God in all His promises. But there are other ways whereby our faith can grow. One of them is by having our faith tested.
As Augustine once said, “Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.” Couldn’t agree more.
I realized that our church now is under some trials and tribulations. It seems Covid-19 has infected almost every family in our church and it appears it may be another week or so before things can get back to normal. So what I wanted to do is send you just a bit of daily encouragement by following up with what we talked about the last Sunday we were together.
And our text is going to be found in 1 Peter 1:3-9. So let’s jump right in.
Peter is speaking about joy and rejoicing in the midst of trials and tribulations. His words tell us much about faith and the reason for the bad things that God allows to happen to His children.
1 Peter 1:3-9 – Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His abundant mercy has begotten us again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away, reserved in heaven for you, who are kept by the power of God through faith for salvation ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while, if need be, you have been grieved by various trials, (why) that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory,
Untested faith is just a pipe dream. It’s something that we do, something we accept, something that we say. But once faith is tested it becomes alive to us as something we can rely on and grow as the Lord brings even more circumstances into our life in order to test our faith. Our faith must be tested to grow.