When the judgments of the Lord are on the earth, humanity is divided into four categories:
1. Those who don’t know God and don’t know anything about the need for His judgments.
2. Those who may or may not believe in God, and become instruments of His judgment upon the earth.
3. Those who believe in God, but don’t believe they’ve done anything to warrant God’s judgment.
4. Those who believe in God and yield themselves to God through His judgments.

The prophet Isaiah tells us, When the judgments of the Lord are upon the earth, the inhabitants of the earth learn righteousness. (Isaiah 26:9) This means that when the judgments of the Lord are upon us as a people, the pressure that they exert upon our relationships, our social structures and our individual hearts will press us into dialoguing with the Lord so we learn what He values, and what He is calling us to do. To esteem wha the Lord esteems and to be who the Lord is calling us to be – this is what righteous living looks like.

It is only the fourth category of humanity who “learns the ways of the Lord” through the judgments.

THIS, above all else, is the category that we want to be in.

The Consequences of Having No Theology of the Judgments of the Lord

From month to month and crisis to crisis, it has become painfully obvious that our American evangelical family does not believe the judgments of the Lord are upon us. Most of us are in the third category, and not the fourth.

The consequences of this misinterpretation of our circumstances are massive. We, the richest, most free, most self-determined, and mutually affirming Church in the history of humanity, are attempting to navigate “the time of tribulation” (Psalm 27:5) in our own strengths of superior human rhetoric; defensiveness; self-justification; carnal definitions of glory, greatness and power; enlightened concepts of rights and liberties; superior “secret” knowledge etc. Living devoid of a Biblical theology for the judgments of God, the wrath of God, and the fear of the Lord, we are in fact living blind, naked, and impoverished to His ways, and therefore wretched and miserable in relating to Him and others.

This is disastrous. 

Evidence of the disaster is all around us. Increasing hostility between ourselves and the lost. Amplified animosity between individuals and factions within the Body of Christ herself. No consensual “Word” from the Lord. Compounding deceit, delusional narratives and false prophecies. We choose to live in echo-chambers of pretense rather than engage in honest, substantive dialogue with God and each other. And we, the spiritual offspring of those “who turned the world upside down” (Acts 17:6) see little evidence of victory over darkness, illness and unrighteousness in our own culture.

The most alarming outcome from having no paradigm for the judgments of the Lord is that regardless of how vividly the Lord bids us to “seek His Face” (Psalm 27:8), we insist (often without guise of pretense) we are operating just fine without a.) humbling ourselves, b.) “inquiring in His temple” (Psalm 27:4), and c.) allowing the Spirit of God to bring us to life-giving repentance. Consequently we operate without a baseline posture of contrition and faith-filled meekness toward our God, and each other.

Beloved. We will gain no ground for His Kingdom from this posture. Neither do we sufficiently prepare the Body of Christ for His glorious return.

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JSB • November 24, 2022

WHY DOES GOD WARN HIS PEOPLE AGAINST EMBRACING CONSPIRACY THEORIES?

From COVID’s nefarious development, 
to motivations for racial sensitivity, 
to masks and vaccines, 
to rigged elections etc., 
conspiracy theories are 
corrupting authentic, grace-filled, Spirit-filled lives in God, 
short-circuiting the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit,
demeaning the depth of His reaching, redemptive mercy, 
AND defaming the character of God Himself.

I believe far too little is being said about the dangerous spirit that is attached to the hydra of conspiracy theories that currently plague our evangelical fellowship.

Conspiracy theories are not new. They exist in every culture, and in every generation. 

The European Journal of Social Psychology defines a conspiracy theory this way: “An explanatory belief about a group of actors that collude in secret to reach malevolent goals – usually prejudiced against a specified sub-group within the culture.” (EJSP, 2007)

Over the last 3 years, conspiracy theories have exploded in our American culture. This is one of the ways that we can know that the judgments of the Lord have fallen upon us as a people. 

Furthermore, as the time of our Lord’s return draws near, conspiracy theories will only become more popular – and tempting to embrace. (Luke 17:23; Matthew 24:23-25; 2 Timothy 3:1-9; 4:4)

The Word of God explicitly admonishes disciples of Jesus to have nothing to do with these fables, myths and speculations. (1 Timothy 1:4; 4:7; Titus 1:14)

The intense social pressures caused by the judgments of the Lord actually stimulate the development of conspiracy theories. The conspiracy theories offer individuals an alarming narrative that encourages them to rise up and maintain control of their destabilized culture – usually in the form of protest or hostility. 

At the same time, and most importantly, the conspiracy story-lines also effectively provide a people-group with an excuse to NOT humble themselves before the Lord Who is bidding them to address heart-issues that are out of line with Jesus’ Kingdom.

This is the reason why the prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel, unanimously denounce conspiracy theories. They are counter-narratives that encourage the people to walk independent of the wholesale claim that the Lord has upon their lives.

“Do not walk in the way of the people, and do not say, ‘A conspiracy,’ concerning all that this people call a conspiracy, nor be afraid of their threats, nor be troubled. The Lord of hosts, Him you shall hallow; let Him be your fear, and let Him be your dread. He will be for you, as a sanctuary.” (Isaiah 8:11-14)
(See also Jeremiah 11:9 and Ezekiel 22:25)

Here are 6 tell-tale signs of a Conspiracy Theory:

The unsettling truth is, EVERY SINGLE ONE of these marks distinguish conspiracy theories that are currently circulating within our American Evangelical family in 2022.

O beloved, these imaginations are far far below our glorious calling!

“If then you were raised with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ is, sitting at the right hand of God. Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Colossians 3:1-2)

“Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy; let your mind dwell on these things.” (Philippians 4:8)

“See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:15-16)

“(Let us be) obedient in all things… lest Satan take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.” (2 Corinthians 2:9, 11)

“Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. Therefore do not be partakers with them. For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth), finding out what is acceptable to the Lord… And walk in love, as Christ also has loved us and given Himself for us…” (Ephesians 5:6-10, 2)

6 GOOD QUESTIONS FOLLOWERS OF JESUS NEED TO ASK ABOUT A CONSPIRACY THEORY:

1. WHICH of our ENEMIES is specifically perpetrating this evil? How is the Holy Spirit calling me/us to think about, pray for, and love this enemy?

2. Before God, WHAT REAL EVIDENCE do I/we have that this CHARGE is warranted? Is the evidence great enough to overcome our Holy God’s many warnings against MALICE, HATRED and UNFORGIVENESS?

3. Is this report stirring me to more bitterness and MALICIOUS ACCUSATION than thanksgiving and MERCY-FILLED INTERCESSION?

4. How might the pursuit of this narrative be DRAWING US AWAY from our primary zeal and pursuit of EXALTING the glory of JESUS? How is JESUS being MAGNIFIED through the sharing of this narrative?

5. Is this REPORT calling the Body of Christ to HUMILITY and REPENTANCE before God Who allowed the evil to be perpetrated against us, or is it deterring us from crying out to the Lord in our crisis? Where do we see/experience the Body of Christ responding to this crisis by coming to the threshing floor of the Lord?

6. How is this REPORT stimulating me, and the Body of Christ to BEAR OUR CROSS in meekness, compassion and incarnational redemption for the sake of the gospel? Can I imagine JESUS spending this much energy spreading this report?

FINAL NOTE: One of the chief considerations for a believer in the time of trouble is to guard him/herself from the many temptations to feast from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, rather than cultivate love-filled faith in the Lord and His protection and mercy. If we have more zeal for “inside information about evil” than we do zeal to seek “revelation and exaltation of the glory of our King” our spirits are out-of-whack.

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JSB • November 22, 2022

“And when you see your ‘enemy’ a long way off, do as My Father I would do. Wait at the door with a basin and a towel. When he comes in, wash his feet the way I would. If you have no water, use tears of tenderness at the reconciliation that I have affected. Feed your brother. Eat with your brother. Clothe your brother. Soothe the wounds of your brother. Recognize how miserable he is. Enter into the mutual wretchedness of having been estranged from deep love.”

“Your culture has taught you to ‘love your friend and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do much good to those who hate you, and pray for those who show you spite and even persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven.” (Matthew 5:43-45)

“THIS is the way you break a curse. This is the way you break the curse that is upon YOU.” – Jesus

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JSB • November 18, 2022

• Our family and nation has no greater need in this hour than for us to lay aside our 1000 reasons why we SHOULDN’T DO THIS and selflessly bear this dynamic as our daily cross…

• “Therefore be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matthew 5:38)

• Crazy thought for the day: Could THIS be one of the chief outcomes that the Lord had in mind as He’s brought us into intensified judgment??? “For when Your judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness (the way the King would act).“ (Isaiah 26:9)

• Apply this where you will… The “battles” and “culture war” we’re fighting will not be won in the flesh. The strongholds won’t come down until we embrace the conviction that leads us to be in the valley of weeping on behalf of the ones who are estranged from the Father. When the Lord turns hearts they will need to find “family” who aren’t shaming them, but are filled with foot-washing love, humility, contrition, repentance in the fear of the Lord. Unless we incarnate this spirit of holy hospitality we only succeed in further brandishing the curse, and offering prodigals no home of reconciliation, and no joy in returning. (Isaiah 51:10)

• This is the prayer of those who wait for the redeemed in the valley of Baca: “9 Awake, awake, put on strength, O arm of the Lord! Awake as in the ancient days, in the generations of old. Are You not the arm that cut Rahab apart, and wounded the serpent? 10 Are You not the One who dried up the sea, the waters of the great deep; that made the depths of the sea a road for the redeemed to cross over? 11 So the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with singing, with everlasting joy on their heads. They shall obtain joy and gladness; sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” (Isaiah 51:9-11)

• O, that we would BE a habitation where “the evil” could come in and be redeemed.

• Forgive us, Father! We’ve not represented Your heart. We have not acted as “Your sons”. We’ve been – I’VE BEEN – the “older brother” – again and again and again and…

• Paul tells us in Romans 12:21, “Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”
Honest question: Where in our communities/culture do we see evil being overcome by good???

If neither we evangelicals, nor the MAGA, nor the deep-state, nor the socialists, nor the anarchists are willing to employ Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, what hope do we have of seeing ANY evil overcome by good???

TRUTH BE TOLD, if we were going to be honest and strict, Biblical literalists NONE of US would EVER have anything to do with ANY of us! Hahaha. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, ³ unloving, unforgiving, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, despisers of good, ⁴ traitors, headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, ⁵ having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with these ones! (1 Timothy 3:2-5)

Anyone who has been reading my posts over the last several months knows I believe there isn’t a more important pastoral concern for the body of Christ to be responding to right now than the parallel between our own cultural issues and the heart-issues that existed in Israel and Judah just prior to their exile to Babylon.

We’re in the hour of Ezekiel. No distinction.

The fact of the matter is, during the period of Ezekiel, Jeremiah, Joel etc. THE SINGLE TOPIC that we hear the Lord addressing – THE ONE ISSUE that He considers worthy of passing down to the succeeding generations, is the dynamic of His peoples’ adultery, and infidelity to Him and His ways, and their refusal to respond to His voice through the prophets.

We don’t find records in these scriptures of how the people of God were to celebrate the feasts, build their families, walk in unity, or overtake their enemies – literally EVERYTHING written to the covenant people during the pre-exilic period addressed their egregious departure from their faithfulness to God Himself – over and over and over again… In the prophets the Lord is putting the full-court-press on His people in order to purge the deceitful narratives, the conspiracies, the false-hopes, and every other thing that’s keeping them from returning to Him in humility, contrition and repentance.

Yesterday morning in our prayer room we sang two of Keith Green’s songs, “My Eyes Are Dry” and “Create In Me A Clean Heart O God”… We began to weep over the thought that these corporate heart cries have become SO foreign to the spirit of the body of Christ in this hour. Where do we hear the high-profile “prophets” leading the people of God in the songs of the threshing floor???

We don’t. 

This single dissimilarity between the nationalist prophets of today and the dung-hill prophets of God’s choosing should be an alarm for EVERY SINGLE HONEST STUDENT of the BIBLE. 

If we DO hear the alarm, I pray it troubles us to ask the Holy Spirit three questions:
a.) Holy Spirit show me how my lens on reality IS BEING DISTORTED by the fact that I am a part of the wealthiest, most free, most-self-indulgent, most mutually affirming “people of God” in the history of the earth.

b.) Holy Spirit show me how I, like the people of Judah, am “refusing You – the One Who IS speaking“. (Hebrews 12:25) Truth-be-told, history shows no record of Judah ever responding to the thorough, corporate repentance that the Lord called for in Joel 2. 

c.) Holy Spirit, direct me into a radical lifestyle where Your (Psalm 139:24) analysis has daily access to every part of my heart.

Beloved. The transition we’re about to undergo isn’t like the one in Jeremiah’s day. This transition isn’t simply going to move us from one geographical location to another. Both heaven and earth are in the process of moving from one age to the next!! The universal nature (both micro and macro) of the transition that is upon us can barely be comprehended! 

I want – no, I NEED the order of heaven, and the ways of our King whole-heartedly fixed and celebrated in my heart, now – today!

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JSB • October 22, 2022

The Church in our nation (my tribe) has been under a season of intensified judgment from the Lord. a.) I hope this isn’t news to you. b.) This is a good thing. It’s not something irregular, or something we should be alarmed about. What should concern us is when we (for any number of reasons) believe that God does not and will not bring us under His judgment. 

There are 5 Biblical reasons why the Lord brings a people under His judgment. This is a major reason we wrote our book, “Seek My Face” a year ago. All of these reasons are designed to produce first commandment love for God in the human heart.

When a people refuse to respond to the Lord’s judgments in humility, contrition, and repentance five other things happen in our lives, and in our world:

1. We do not grow in increased first-commandment love for Jesus. The judgments are meant to produce dialogue. And dialogue produces intimacy and increased love and adoration for Jesus and the ways of His heart. When we do not give ourselves to His judgments (the things He wants to have conversation with us about) our love for Him is stunted and stalls.

2. Sin and unrighteousness goes unchecked and actually proliferates in our lives and relationships. The curse around us (in our lives and in our world) compounds. A pound of sin never sits quietly in the corner. Sin will always corrupt and grow unless checked. Evil begets evil. Unrighteousness begets unrighteousness. The old saying: “There is no honor among thieves” depicts the fact that those who give themselves to sin will, as a natural result, have more sin visited upon them. If we could see it clearly, we’d understand that this is a basic law of physics – as real as gravity – and more weighty than time. It’s only by the mercy of God that sin and the curse of sin doesn’t exponentially envelope us and consume all 7.5 billion of us on planet earth. This causal result has massive implications for the Church on nine different levels; from our pursuit of devotion to God, to how we serve others, to our experience of unity in the body.

3. We fail to grow in Christ-likeness. Our manifestation of Christ in and through us grows dim – it does not grow more vibrant. Apart from humbling ourselves, taking up our cross and obeying the Father, we have no means by which to cultivate true, authentic and Spirit-empowered Christ-like wisdom, character and supernatural power.

4. Our unsaved world does not receive a witness of how to respond to the holy and loving Lord of all the earth. When the judgments of the Lord are on the earth, the inhabitants don’t have a ready-paradigm and example that informs them about how to respond to this God that they have not known. This is the chief reason why the Lord brings His judgments to His household first… (See 1 Peter 4:17-18)

5. The Lord WILL visit us with increased pressure to have “must-have” and vital conversations about our patterns of thinking, and the ways of our hearts. He does this because He’s committed to us living in vibrant, and righteous love. He also does this because He’s promised a “like-minded” Bride (See Philippians 2 and 1 John 3) to His Son at the end of the age. 

To be blunt, this means that if we don’t respond to Him with humble, contrite conversation, He will up the ante. He will place more and more intense pressure upon us, in terms of greater social upheaval, trouble and natural calamity, in order to get us to stop trusting in our own way, and our own thinking, and get us to entertain the idea of coming to Him in our “inability”. Under this construct many eventually turn Him for help simply because we have lost our capacity to control our circumstances.

Ultimately, should we continue to rebuff the Lord’s judgments, He will give us over to delusion and the forces of unrighteousness that by nature would consume us anyway. The ultimate end of this state is to come deluded to THE DAY of judgment and have no awareness that your soul was so lost, and you were so detached from the heart of Jesus. (We don’t wanna be the guys in Matthew 7:23 and Matthew 25:44)

Consequently, I can say with great confidence: increased trouble and pressure is coming. It’ll come upon us – in our generation. It will come because the Father loves us and is committed to us – and to the promise that He’s made to His Son. This isn’t rocket science. This isn’t even being prophetic. It’s simply knowing God; know the record and intent of His Word, and doing the math.

Today is a very good day to cultivate that needed lifestyle conversation with the Lord; to humble ourselves, to embrace the spirit of contrition, and to repent into all that Biblical repentance entails. It would do us well for the fear of the Lord and our heart’s desire for increased first-commandment love to constrain us in this.

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JSB • September 15, 2022

I’m pretty sure I’ve never felt our world groan more than I do than in this hour. 

When you pause, you feel the atmospheric pressure. I don’t need to list the cracks in our culture and where we experience the weariness of humanity. There’s a heaviness on the earth that tells us something needs to break. Systems; the created order; morality; our own fragile frames; even religion all grind with disturbance. You don’t have to be a believer to feel the tyranny of compounding darkness and hopelessness. It weighs on the soul like a wet, wool blanket.

“There are many who say, ‘Who will show us any good?'” (Psalm 4:6)

As I walk through my community, I hear a low hum of desire for “good” that’s become smothered with disbelief and despair. In some it feels like the hope for “good” has been completely extinguished. “Whatever ‘good’ we hope for is only a mirage. It won’t be enough to fill the ache, the chasm, the vacuum inside.” 

And so we groan. 

Our communities, our nation, and the planet is “troubled”.

I’m intentionally using this word because “trouble” is doing what our righteous God designed it to do. It’s causing human hearts to groan. And, because we’ve been entrusted with the stewardship of creation, it also causes everything around us to groan.

What are we groaning for?

Peace. True peace. Not as the world gives. Not as the world has been giving us. Nor the kind of peace we’ve been demanding the world give us. We crave a substantive peace. A sense of order. A sense of immovable truth. A sense of love and being loved. A sense of understandable purpose and meaning.

Again. You don’t have to be a Christian to feel this. You just need to have a heartbeat. And if we listen deeply to the hearts beating around us… that’s… the… groan… we… hear.

We’re groaning for a tangible peace that won’t be exposed as fraudulent or insufficient. All 7.5 billion of us.

There’s only One Source for that kind of peace.
“He Himself is our peace.” (Ephesians 2:14)

But it’s His will that there be many many (billions) of witnesses to that peace.
“Blessed are the peace-bringers…” (Matthew 5:9)
Who are they?
“They’re called the sons of God.” (Matthew 5:9)
The ones “all creation groans” for.

In this hour of mounting trouble, the Spirit is raising up daughters and sons of God who will give themselves to “Letting the peace of Christ rule in (their) hearts.” (Colossians 1:15) and know how to help bring Him and His peace to groaning hearts.

“Letting the peace of Christ rule in our hearts” is job one. (And as a prayer-guy, I can say, this will only be found in corporate prayer… where day-by-day we give the Spirit access to the conversations that are brewing in our hearts.) As we learn to let the peace of Jesus reign within us, the Holy Spirit will equip with the power to do job two: to speak words of eternal assurance; healing; reconciliation; life; destiny and glory under the perfect reign of the Prince of all peace.

“27 Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid. 28 You have heard Me say to you, ‘I am going away and coming back to you.’” (John 14:27-28)

I’m groaning for His peace to be manifest within me, and my world.

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JSB • August 19, 2022