In 1980 I went to a four day seminar that featured several of my favorite speakers, and one speaker that I had never heard of before. His name was Joseph and he had been a pastor in Soviet Romania. He pastored a very large church that was growing rapidly. The communist government ordered him to stop preaching and to stop meeting as a church, but he refused. The police would arrest him and torture him for hours. They would pull out his finger nails, burn him, shock him with high voltage electricity, beat him, and then he would go back and preach some more. They would arrest him again and increase the severity of the torture and when released he would go out and preach Christ on the steps of the police station. Finally the government had enough and told him they were going to kill him. When they said this he shared at the seminar, that he got very excited and thanked them because they would give him his greatest victory, being martyred for Jesus for preaching the Gospel. He went on to explain that those who are martyred for their faith get the greatest reward at the “Judgment Seat of Christ”, and are closer to Jesus for all eternity than others. His excitement over his impending death totally confused and unnerved the authorities who went back into a room to meet and talk about what to do with this person that they couldn’t control. They came out and declared that they weren’t going to give him his greatest victory, but instead they were going to kick him out of the country. I was glad for that punishment because I got to hear him speak as a result of his coming to the United States, which changed my life dramatically. I remember being absolutely mesmerized by Pastor Joseph as he spoke, thinking as I listened to him, this guy has something I can only dream about. He has absolutely zero fear of dying or of anything else, and therefore was totally free. I remember that after the first day I sat as close to the front as I could because I wanted to be close to him hoping that some of his spirit would infect me. I have been thinking about Pastor Joseph lately wondering what he would be doing in these days if he were pastoring my church.

Today I canceled our 2000 mile bicycle trip. There were just too many obstacles, mostly there were too many campgrounds closed. Riding a bicycle on a long trip requires that you ride between 50 and 80 miles each day, and with so many closed campgrounds it was impossible to find a place to camp about half of the nights. I rearranged the route about a hundred times trying to figure out how to make it work. I found every open campground in Oregon, California, Nevada, Idaho, and Washington and tried to connect the dots in a variety of ways, and finally at 4:00 pm in a fit of frustration I deleted everything on my computer that had anything to do with bicycle trips.

On my drive home this evening from the church after “Men’s Prayer”, I thought, well, at least I still have the salmon fishing trip to Alaska in July to look forward to. At dinner tonight Tim called and said he was cancelling the Alaska Salmon fishing trip because of lack of interest and all the hassles of trying to work with all the changing fishing rules caused by the fear of the coronavirus. Oh, great! I guess I will take my grandkids fishing more, and golf more this summer.

Managing disappointments is a skill that every person ought to have mastered by the time they are 20 years old. Life is full of disappointments and if you don’t have the mental discipline to rise above them you will become a perpetual Eeyore that no one enjoys being around.

For every disappointment there is a least one equal, if not greater positive event to see and focus on. If a person consciously works at looking for them and choosing to think about them after awhile your brain does it automatically and the transfer from the disappointment to the new positive becomes almost seamless.

It is going to be a good summer!

Our house is over 100 years old, and the main source of heat is our wood stove, so we burn a lot of wood each year. It is one of my summer projects every year to get enough wood to keep everyone warm for 8 months. My favorite part is when the grandkids come over and help me split and stack it all. One of the character traits that my Dad taught me well was diligence, and Patty and I had it as a major goal of our parenting of our kids, and it is so awesome to see that character trait being strongly instilled in my grandkids at an early age.

The thing about the character trait of diligence is, it isn’t just about physical work, but it is also about the desire to accomplish something significant with our life and time. Those who have a very strong level of diligence not only want to do something meaningful with their life, they want to accomplish a lot, they want to accomplish more, and more, and more. The most beautiful thing about a deeply embedded character trait of diligence is that accomplishment brings such joy.

Diligence moves into a much higher level when Colossians 3:23-24 becomes reality in our life,
“Whatever you do, do your work heartily, as for the Lord rather than for men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance. It is the Lord Christ whom you serve.”

There were 22 guys at Odell Lake this weekend camping, fishing, and hanging out. We ate really good, fished a lot and had wonderful fellowship. A major source of joy in my life is having a good time with friends.

I regularly, almost daily, ponder, meditate on, and visualize what heaven is going to be like. God created us to give Him joy for all eternity, and a major source of joy for Him is seeing us full of joy. This earth isn’t the primary place and time He is giving us joy, heaven is, but He gives us little hints and peeks of what it will be like when we get there. This weekend was just such a peek, a blessed time of joy.

I am memorizing the book of Philippians in the New Testament and this week I finished chapter 3. The last 2 verses in the chapter says, “For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself.

Only those who are legitimate followers of Jesus Christ in this life on this earth are citizens of heaven.

I use the word magic or magical occasionally, but I am not using it in a “Harry Potter” kind of way. My personal, made up definition is, “impossible to explain”. So, I often say, “fishing is magical”. When I go fishing I get this amazing peace, contentment, and joy that is impossible to explain to myself or to others the “how” or the “why” of it, it is just magic. The government may be becoming dictatorial and corrupt beyond belief, the economy may be tanking, possibly worse than the “Great Depression”, and half the population around me may die of a pandemic (not my opinion, but that of the hyper- exaggerating media), but if I can go fishing, life is good.

I am leaving in a few hours for Odell Lake pulling my 20 foot pontoon boat, and I am going to spend the next 4 days fishing for Kokanee. There will also be 20 guys from JBC fishing with me and camping together. My favorite form of fellowship with other men is fishing or hunting, you know, there is something magical about the camaraderie that happens, really!

Where we will be camping there is very limited cell service so I won’t be writing a blog until Tuesday, I will be to busy fishing anyway.

The Bible has several lists of requirements for a pastor or an Elder of a church. The lists are fairly extensive, and every time I read through them I cringe as I think about my own life. A short portion of one of those lists of requirements is in 1 Timothy 3:3

“not pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable,”

My Dad was in the Navy for 20 plus years, having joined prior to World War II. He retired when I was 12 years old in 1960, and from my birth until he retired we moved about 20 times. The Navy housing we usually stayed in was called “temporary housing” because it was for the families of sailors who would be there just a few months before they moved to the next port that their ship pulled into. The housing was packed tightly together, usually with a play ground in the center where lots of kids congregated. Because of my name I always got teased by the resident bully and his gang of friends minutes after our first visit to the playground, which would always result in a good fight. My brothers Cliff and Matt and I stuck pretty close together, so when any one of us got into a fight the other two would jump right in. The three of us took on the best the playground gangs could offer, and we whipped them all. One of the things that happened with the many moves and the many, many fights was that I got to enjoying the experience of the anticipation of the upcoming battle and the victory. After Dad retired and we bought our first farm and settled down I never got into another fight, at least physically. But I have gotten into lots of fights verbally and relationally. As I was thinking about some things I was planning on doing to resist the control of government over my life and the life of our church, I thought to myself, I sure enjoy a good fight, especially when I am sure I am right. I thought to myself, “that is probably the definition of pugnacious”.

What does that passage say, “The Lord’s servant must not be pugnacious, but gentle, peaceable”. Darn, being pugnacious sounds so much more fun.

I want to accomplish as much as possible with my life as I can. The Apostle Paul said that his preference was to “depart and be with the Lord, for that would be very much better”, but then he continued on by adding, “yet to remain on in the flesh will mean fruitful labor”. I don’t think that if given the choice by God I would stick around on this earth any longer, but He didn’t ask my opinion, and I am still here so I will do as much as I can. Part of the struggle presently is that my energy level seems to be waning a bit. I exercise faithfully, eat good foods, no sugar, get enough sleep, and talk to myself positively. So my new challenge is to learn how to pace myself throughout the day, and not overloading myself on any given day, but that is easier said than done for sure. I am leaving on 2000 mile bicycle trip on June 1st so I will need to keep my energy up each day for about 70 miles. One of the interesting observations that I have made about myself is that the constant irritation that I have been feeling towards the government, and the media lately with this shutdown and all the “stuff” that goes with it has increased my weariness by a factor of 10. I started up an old discipline of keeping track of how much time I spend reading the news and watching you tube testimonies by doctors and others on how stupid this whole thing is. It is so easy to get addicted to reading and watching all that crap, but my desire to not be so tired all the time will motivate me, I hope, we will see. Once I am on my bicycle trip I will be limited and the increased exercise seems to give me a major boost in my level of self-control as well.

My theology and what I have taught and preached for the last 40 years is that the church will be raptured out of this world before the Tribulation starts. Many have debated this view with me over the years, but I am convinced that my view is correct.

But let’s pretend I am wrong, there are many very smart people who believe we will go through the Tribulation. Let’s also pretend that January 1, 2021 is the beginning. The fourth event that occurs after the start of the Tribulation is a world wide pandemic along with war, famine and wild beasts that kills one-fourth of all the people on the earth. I wonder what we will do, how we will act, think, and talk. I wonder how much fear we will have? The very next event to occur called the fifth seal described in Revelation 6:9 is that there will be much martyrdom for us who believe and follow Jesus, ”When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw underneath the altar the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God, and because of the testimony which they had maintained;” And then the next thing that is said is that there is great fear in every person’s heart.

Revelation 6:15-17 Then the kings of the earth and the great men and the commanders and the rich and the strong and every slave and free man hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains; and they said to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to stand?”

How will I be acting, talking, thinking, and reacting to the events happening around me if I am there, how about you. Why would God leave me here in those days? There is only one reason that I can think of, and that is that we would he a witness for Jesus to those who are so filled with fear.

Tonight I read through the book of Revelation four times in a row, in order to get the full picture of what those days coming, probably very soon, will be like. When I got to the end of the fourth time reading the book I thought to myself, ”So how are you going to do Duke if you are here in those days?”

There is a number of views on the book of Revelation and the book of Daniel on how the last days play out. My view is based on the “literal grammatical-historical method of interpretation.” The Tribulation is seven years long and it consists of about 20 successive severe trials that consist of plaques, famines, wars, intense heat, darkness and on the list goes. The purpose of this seven years of judgment on the earth is God’s last resort of getting people to turn and follow Him. Many do, but most do not, but shake their first in his face and declare that they will not have God rule over them. I also believe that all true believers and followers of Jesus will be raptured right before the tribulation starts.

Revelation 3:10, ”Because you have kept the word of My perseverance, I also will keep you from the hour of testing, that hour which is about to come upon the whole world, to test those who dwell on the earth.”

1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord.

The Tribulation begins when an individual rises to power and becomes a world wide president. He is able to pull off a major ceasefire and treaty between Israel and the rest of the world which earns him this great power. The treaty signing is the official beginning of the worst nightmare the world has ever seen or will see. The middle of the seven years is the beginning of the great tribulation where all the tribulations increase in magnitude exponentially. The beginning of the great tribulation is marked by this world wide president breaking his own treaty and declaring himself, to be God. At this point he institutes a number of methods to control people and keep them from rebelling. We are seeing some of those being very close to those suggested by our very own governor of Oregon, Late Brown.

A couple of principles; this whole thing, the entire 7 years is orchastrated by the devil, but only as God allows, He is sovereign. We are living in a time that very well could be the ushering in of the tribulation period. If it is there is nothing we can do but enjoy the ride and anticipate the sound of the trumpet that marks our accent into heaven. It could be any day now, live your life with purpose, to grow and to bear much fruit.

During these times I change and fix what I can and live faithfully and responsibly, but I don’t fret about what I can’t control, change, or make better. God is in charge, He is good, and He loves me.

Here is a story that a missionary friend told me a number of years ago. Right after the Soviet Union fell there was a season where missionaries could go into Russian and other former Soviet block countries very freely. He and several others started taking in thousands of Bibles and handing them out to whoever would take them. They ended up in a small town in Siberia where there was a single church and handed out a Bible to everyone. They were so excited to get them and have their very own Bible. My friend went back a year later to visit and to see how the church was doing, and to his surprise everyone gave the Bible’s that they had received back to them. Their explanation for why they did this was very interesting. Before the missionaries came the little church had one Bible and everyone would gather together to read it and study it. After they each received their own, they tended to stay home and read and study on their own. It wasn’t very long before they all noticed that they were loosing their zeal for the Lord and we’re becoming lukewarm. It took awhile but they soon came to the conclusion that their lack of fellowship with each other was having a very negative influence in their relationship with God, so they gave the Bibles back. The missionaries tried to convince them to keep the Bibles and still be faithful to meet together, but they chose not to trust in their lack of self-control to-do that.

Gathering together is a necessary discipline of the Christian life, and and was obviously the key to the early chirch’s strength.

Acts 2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.

Acts 2:44 And all those who had believed were together and had all things in common;

Acts 2:46-47 Day by day continuing with one mind in the temple, and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord was adding to their number day by day those who were being saved.

Tuesday morning I was praying and I thought ”Pentecost Sunday” is the May 31st, that would be a great day to get back to gathering together as a church again. That is the day that the church was born, the day that Holy Spirit came. Today a pastor friend sent me the Link to this video and after watching it I got so excited, and thought I want to be part of this!

Go to youtube and type in ”It’s time for churches to open their doors again” by Pastor Jack Hibbs.