C.S. Lewis wrote this article 72 years ago about the obsession with the atomic bomb that people of his day had, and I have modified it a bit to fit our day.

In one way we think a great deal too much of the COVID “How are we to live with the threat of COVID?” “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the COVID, and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
We need to pull ourselves together. If we are all going to be killed by COVID let that virus find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about viruses. COVID may make our bodies sick, but it need not dominate our minds.

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During the seven year Tribulation period there will be two men who are given the assignment by God to be witnesses for Him. It is during the last 3 1/2 years when all believers who attempt to witness will be martyred by having their heads cut off so God gives them extraordinary powers to resist any who would try and silence them. Their powers are amazing and sound like a super heroes movie. I was thinking that if I had that kind of power I would go to Washington DC and witness and clean up that place.

Revelation 11:3-6
And I will grant authority to my two witnesses, and they will prophesy for twelve hundred and sixty days, clothed in sackcloth.” These are the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth. And if anyone wants to harm them, fire flows out of their mouth and devours their enemies; so if anyone wants to harm them, he must be killed in this way. These have the power to shut up the sky, so that rain will not fall during the days of their prophesying; and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to strike the earth with every plague, as often as they desire.

But I don’t have that power but I do have power. Acts 1:8 also makes a promise to us, “but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be My witnesses both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and even to the remotest part of the earth.”

The power we have now is that God will provide opportunities, open doors, divine appointments, but I tend to not look for them because I get so distracted by life and miss them. God will give me the wisdom to say the right words at the right time, but I have to open my mouth. And God will give me the boldness to open my mouth, but I need to be following Him as His disciple so He can make me a fisher of men.

Occasionally I need to remind myself why I do what I do, to focus on my one main motive in life, and that is to know the Lord Jesus more and more. As the Apostle Paul said in the book of Philippians, “I consider everything in life to be garbage in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.” So, all of my spiritual disciplines are part of my effort to seek the Lord with all of my heart, claiming the promise that if I seek Him I will find Him.

This week I have been getting up at 4:30 am and going to the church to pray with others in our church. I have been praying about 6 hours each day, and along with that I am fasting for the five days of our prayer event. As a result of less sleep and no food I get weary, and have to do some serious self-talk to stay faithful to the goal that I have set for this week. The key thing to keep myself motivated is to remind myself that my motive is to know Jesus more, not just to be self-controlled.

While I am sitting in the prayer room listening to others pray and agreeing with them, I am memorizing scripture, writing down on paper the gist of the prayers that others are praying, I am also writing down thoughts that come to my mind, and doing some reflective thinking about my relationship with the Lord.

The disciplines are designed to focus and to train my mind and heart to keep Jesus first place in my life. A motto of my life is “I don’t grow close to Jesus by trying harder, but by training better, and I grow spiritually a little bit at a time by staying faithful to my training routine and rhythm.

It has been a good week of prayer and I have grown as a result.

Jesus fasted for forty days. Moses fasted Forty days and followed that up with another 40 day fast. Elijah fasted for forty days. Dee Duke is going to fast for 5 days! Yeh! Seems kind of pathetic, my 5 days, but you have to start somewhere. I am doing it in conjunction with our five days of prayer going on right now. There are a number of benefits to fasting, but the one that interests me the most is that when I fast in conjunction with my praying, my praying becomes more powerful and useful to God. God is sovereign over all, but in the midst of His sovereignty we have been given responsibility and authority to do something that matters, and prayer does make a difference, God does work in response to our prayers.

Psalms 106:23 Therefore God said that He would destroy them, had not Moses His chosen one stood in the breach before Him, to turn away His wrath from destroying them.

There are so many people who use God’s sovereignty as an excuse for doing nothing.

The devil is a very real being. He is powerful and can cause a lot chaos and pain as demonstrated in the book of Job. He isn’t omnipresent, he can only be in one place at a time, but I imagine he travels pretty fast. I doubt that he has ever seen me, he spends his time on people of power and sends his demons to work on me. The Kingdom of darkness has a goal, and methods to accomplish their goal. The goal is to control the world under one world leader, and usurp Christ’s rulership over the world. One of the key methods is to gain as much control over individual people as possible.

2 Timothy 2:26 that they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil, having been held captive by him to do his will.

There never has been a time when the whole world was doing a shutdown at the same time to the extent that it is being done now, nor has there ever been a time when the whole world were all wearing masks, or supposed to be, because someone said that it would save your life or the life of a loved one. The entire world has bought into the same view of the pandemic to such an extent that contrary opinions of espoused views are very effectively blackballed. The world is more “one” now concerning Covid than it ever has been since man’s attempt to build the Tower of Babel.

The only way to explain the “unity” of the world on this COVID thing is to recognize that it is controlled by the kingdom of darkness.

So far in 2020 there have been about 1,000 deaths credited to Covid with many reports claiming Covid was the culprit when in fact it was not. There have been about 900 suicides in Oregon in 2020. So let’s just say that they are tied for the cause of death in Oregon in 2020. How many people know that? Not many. Why? Because it isn’t hyped as COVID is because it doesn’t fit the agenda the way COVID does.

The fact is the world is perfectly set up right now for the antichrist to come to power. I hope he does because that means I am out of here.

Today started our Five Days of Prayer. We have prayer for 10 hours each day Monday through Friday, praying from 5 to 10 o’clock, morning and night. The first day is done, and I soon will be asleep getting ready for the tomorrow.

Today was an awesome experience of praying with others in our church family. The fellowship between people who are praying together is amazing. There isn’t much that has the power to bind people together as praying together does.

Most of the time that I am sitting in the prayer room with others I am writing in my yellow legal pad. I write a summary statement of the prayers of those who pray out loud. I write my own prayers that I often will pray when I pray out loud. And I am also listening to what is going on in my head as I also listen to the prayers being lifted up by others one after the other for hours. I write down any thought that I think might be from God as He would steer me to pray for what He really wants to do through us. I listen best when I am taking notes of what I hear. I don’t think there is an environment that results in more thoughts of mine that I am sure are from God, then during a corporate prayer time. It is a great training time for me to learn to listen to God and to get better at discerning which of the zillion thoughts going on in my head is from God.

Gravity is a physical law of God. If you violate that law and jump out of an airplane without a parachute at 15,000 feet you will die, even if you are a really nice person. Life is full of these laws of God, and if you discover what they are and govern your life by them you will be successful in life. There are agricultural laws and if you discover those and follow them you will grow a wonderful garden. There are financial laws that if followed results in financial prosperity. There are relational laws, marriage laws, parenting laws, leadership laws, and fishing laws. All of life is cause and affect, plant one corn seed, you get one corn plant, that is just the way it is. Many of the laws of life are in the Bible and there are many that are not, you discover them as you seek for wisdom in various areas of life. There are some fairly consequential laws in the Bible that most seem oblivious to and violate without a thought to the consequences. A major one is in Genesis 12:2-3 where God is talking to Abraham about the nation of Israel.

And I will make you a great nation,
And I will bless you,
And make your name great;
And so you shall be a blessing;
And I will bless those who bless you,
And the one who curses you I will curse.
And in you all the families of the earth will be blessed.”

I personally take this law seriously and pray for the prosperity of Israel every time I pray for our own nation and our leadership which is almost every week.

Galatians 6:7
Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap.

You blatantly violate the laws of God, and you will pay the price, whether it is dying from falling for thousands of feet or growing rotten tomatoes. I wonder what the consequences are for speaking against the nation of Israel. As we get closer to the end times keep your eyes on Israel and how the various countries in the world treat her. That will be a big tip off to what is coming next.

Systematically memorizing Bible verses and meditating on them is the most powerful of Spiritual disciplines.

Let me explain that statement a word at a time.

Discipline: Our flesh hates to memorize the Bible, the devil for sure doesn’t want us to do that which would totally handcuff him from working in our life, and the world’s opinion of the Bible is half a step below Estops Fables. Besides that it takes major effort and concentration to memorize anything, let alone the Bible. Very few Christians memorize a verse a week and review them so as not to lose any that they have already memorized. Those who do memorize at least one verse every week have to exert great discipline to make it happen.

Powerful: During our lifetime what we want is to grow in our character to be as much like Jesus as is possible so when we get to heaven we will be like Him, and be able to enjoy Him and He us for all eternity because we are alike. Nothing facilitates growth in our character and spirit as much as meditating on memorized scripture, nothing.

Systematically: What helps us successfully accomplish something as difficult as memorizing the Bible is to have a plan and a system that we stick to until it becomes a habit. Start with a goal such as memorizing 50 verses for the year, and to review them regularly so that they are never forgotten. There are several lists of the most important 100 verses to memorize or the most important 500 verses or even the most important 1000 verses. A 20 year goal of memorizing 1000 key verses in the Bible and review each one at least monthly is a totally achievable goal that would transform anybodies life.

I presently have 600 verses memorized, and I review 100 of those verses each day so that I get all 600 reviewed each week. It takes me about 30 minutes each day to do that. In terms of results, that is about the most profitable 30 minutes of my day. I am convinced that the character and spiritual growth is tremendously impacted, but also the strength of my mind is also greatly enhanced. As I get older I want my mind to stay sharp and strong, and exercising it the way I do each day for 30 minutes I am sure does more for my mind than my 60 minutes on my stationary bike does for my physical body.

Today was one of those days that was just plain fun, relaxing, and renewing. I slept in a bit, Patty brought me coffee in bed, and I did my Bible reading propped up in bed. Then I went out and built a fire in my shop where the 1969 mustang is that I am restoring with my grandson Isaac. He showed up and we worked on it until 4:00 pm. We got a lot done on it and I came in and ordered a new floor pan and a couple of other sheet medal parts that were pretty rusty. It should be in good shape when we get those parts welded on. I didn’t read any news about COVID, shutdowns, election fraud, Kate Brown, or Joe Biden today. Patty announced that she is cooking me a steak tonight for dinner and I am planning on watching the Mandalorian and baby Yoda on TV with my grandson Courage tonight. I think I will sit in my hot tub for 30 minutes before I go to bed tonight, right after I ride my stationary bike for an hour at the same time watching some podcasts by some good preachers on prophecy. Wow, doesn’t get much better than that.

The last 10 months have been very frustrating trying to Pastor a church in the midst of shutdowns, freezes, restrictions, masks, spooky people, irritated people, and opinionated people. Dealing with all the information that seems to change hourly, and trying to figure out what is true and what is false. Trying to figure out what is the right thing to do. Trying to figure out how to maintain unity and a loving environment when there is such extremes in opinions and both sides think the other side are either stupid sheep or murders. Living and ministering with this heightened pressure has been exhausting, and I have found myself praying, “come on, Lord! Fix this thing, PLEASE!”

Tonight I listened to a missionary speak who ministers in a country where they meet as a church “underground,” where if they get caught meeting together they will go to prison, where secret agents will sneak into their services and pretend to be one of them and becomes a mole who informs on them to the police.

As I listened I realized that this person was struggling to minister far beyond what I was experiencing. The missionary didn’t seem depressed or exhausted by what was going on, in fact they seemed rather positive, excited to be able to serve.

As I continued to listen as they finished giving their report I felt duly chastised by the Lord for my wimpy attitude of late.