Where will I return my misgiven motions Quell and subside the quivering vigour The inevitable thrust That swells inside And drives me off the edge The bleeding ill that breeds me on mercy Ruthless and sinister Obsessive beyond my reach
Metamorphosis Release me from fury Metamorphosis Transforming energy
Will I tread on broken glass And undisguised Set atrocities aside Scrape the surface Clean from abominations With a single word Conquer wrath
Disposed to the evils that haunt me in sleep They shake the break of dawn Careless and free And spear me down Relentlessly Smitten with burns They pierce my mind They all own their own place in darkness Light as they may seem as day
Scrape the surface Clean from abominations Let go the calamities And respond to the streams of emotion
–Extol, “Scrape the Surface”–
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The men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust for one another, men with men committing what is shameful, and receiving in themselves the penalty of their error which was due. –Romans 1:27 (NKJV)–
Thus saith the Lord, Let not the wise man glory in his wisdom, neither let the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches. –Jeremiah 9:23 (KJV)–
When I experienced a small level of success with my home-based business in 2020-2023, and was writing Biblical Economics, I felt right proud of myself. But because I didn’t have people to hold me accountable, I became greatly inflated with a sense of arrogance, and was quite sure about my money-making ideas. Poverty alleviation, or learning the methods of it, had been on my heart since about high school. Even before I was born again around the year 2000, I was always bothered by the sight of homeless people. Why are they like that? How can I help them? And so, I came to hold respect for ministries like the Salvation Army and the Catholic counterpart of it, the St. Vincent de Paul Society. The reasons are various, but one of the reasons I didn’t pursue a STEM career was the secular humanism, materialism, and anti-supernatural attitudes associated with it. I knew that STEM could produce $80,000 a year and land me in a fine suburb: I knew this before I went off to college. I could have transferred to the NC State engineering program and really got off to a solid money-making career at the age of 23, with $80k to $100k in mechanical engineering. But I didn’t like math; and as I hinted, there’s several reasons why I chose to walk away from that and pursue theology, even if it meant not serving in a certain lukewarm Pentecostal denomination. There was a Scriptural deficit in my life by the time I entered college; and I had to make up for it. I wanted to make the most of my time there by catching up on the Bible and absolute truth about God and the world; and so I spent a lot of time in the college library, not just for homework, but for personal, spiritual, and theological development. I graduated in 2008 and worked minimum wage jobs for about ten years.
Then my attitude changed and I finally hit something close to the $80k mark in 2022. Not only that, but I had done so from my own bedroom. I was just so excited about it! I had to tell the world! So I started the Biblical Economics Podcast, initially for me, just to keep track of my thinking process, so I would retain what I learned. But in the process of doing this, I BECAME OVERLY SURE OF MYSELF. So sure in fact, that I never took the time to get a business website built; nor did I take the time to learn about paid advertising. My tiny little moment of success had blinded my eyes through pride, kind of like staring into the sun, or going out to look at a bunch of white concrete on a summer day. I couldn’t see clearly, there was too much glare, and I didn’t have the sunglasses of humility on. There was more light than my eyes could take in. I had become so sure, so confident of what I had learned and accomplished, that I couldn’t see this massive blind spot. Then it happened…March 2023. The COVID crisis was over; and people were leaving remote work in droves, as most businesses went back to normal, requiring their employees to go back to the old office model so they could be closely supervised by Big Brother. My reliance on GMass, a cold emailing program, was over as well. Gmail had just created an A.I. program that made cold emailing impossible, as it would shut down your G-Suite account in a matter of days! Goodbye leads, prospects, interviews, and 1099 clients. Goodbye home-based business. I’m going back to work under a boss again in a W-2 job.
Business success is deceitful; as Jesus said it, there’s a deceitfulness to riches (Mark 4:19). They can be here today trumpeting your success with over $10,000 in your savings account, and then through an unexpected marketing conundrum, lead to the equivalent of a stock dropping after a rally. Crash! Kaboom! Business, success, independence, Field of Dreams…OVER AND DEAD. You’re going back to work pal, just like everybody else. “Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before a fall” (Proverbs 16:18). That’s not to say we can’t learn lessons from going through an experience of financial success and subsequent financial failure. We can! But with Christ, we’ll also have to learn about pride, humility, faith, and the providence of God. “The way of fools seems right to them, but the wise listen to advice” (Proverbs 12:15). That’s what I should’ve done in 2022. It could have saved me three years of financial suffering. But I was too distracted by the pride of my little success, as Richard Baxter said so long ago: “The foolish heart of man is apt to swell upon the accession of so poor a matter as wealth: and men think they are got above their neighbours, and more honour and obeysance is their due, if they be but richer.”
Jeff Doles, Miracles and Manifestations of the Holy Spirit In the History of the Church, ch. 7. John Knox and the Scottish Reformation preachers were all into dream interpretation and the gift of foretelling prophecy. Knox regularly received a list for divine healing prayer during the Sunday service.
P. C. Nelson, Bible Doctrines (Gospel Publishing House, 1948), ch. 8.
Harold Horton, The Gifts of the Spirit (Gospel Publishing House, 1934).
John Sherrill, They Speak With Other Tongues (Chosen Books, 2018).
CBN, “Joan Fitzgerald: In the Authority of His Name.” In 2005, Joan prayed for a woman named Leslie in North Church in Carrollton, Texas. Leslie suffered from rheumatoid arthritis. In 2005, Joan says Leslie’s knees deteriorated so far that both needed to be replaced. In a wheelchair, Leslie was unable to bear her own weight. Joan asked Leslie to stand up on her own in the name of Jesus. When Leslie got out of the chair, the congregation held their breath. Then she began to walk, then run and then dance. The room went wild…Joan prayed for a man named Mike who was confined to a wheelchair after suffering a severe neck and spinal cord injury. His hands and feet had grown severely twisted and he was in constant pain. Then Joan prayed for Mike and anointed him with oil. His feet untwisted, he stood, kicked the wheelchair behind him and began to walk. Today he is totally healed and living a blessed life.
Charles Spurgeon, “The Resurrection of Our Lord Jesus.” This proves the futility of all opposition to Christ. The learned are going to destroy the Christian religion. Already, according to their boastings, it has pretty nearly come to an end. The pulpit is effete, it cannot command public attention. We stand up and preach to empty decently benches! Nothing remains for us but to die decently, so they insinuate. And what then? When our Lord was dead, when the clay-cold corpse lay, watched by the Roman soldiery, and with a seal upon the enclosing stone, was not the cause in mortal jeopardy? But how fared it? Did it die out? Every disciple that Jesus had made forsook him, and fled, was not Christianity then destroyed? Nay, that very day our Lord won a victory which shook the gates of hell, and caused the universe to stand astonished. Matters are not worse with him at this hour! His affairs are not in a sadder condition to-day than then. Nay, see him to-day and judge. On his head are many crowns, and at his feet the hosts of angels bow! Jesus is the master of legions to-day, while the Caesars have passed away!
4 Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact, sin is lawlessness. 5 But you know that he appeared so that he might take away our sins. And in him is no sin. 6 No one who lives in him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen him or known him. 7 Dear children, do not let anyone lead you astray. The one who does what is right is righteous, just as he is righteous. 8 The one who does what is sinful is of the devil, because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 9 No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God’s seed remains in them; they cannot go on sinning, because they have been born of God. –1 John 3:4-9 (NIV)–
I do not claim that I have already succeeded or have already become perfect. I keep striving to win the prize for which Christ Jesus has already won me to himself…So I run straight toward the goal in order to win the prize, which is God’s call through Christ Jesus to the life above. –Philippians 3:12, 14 (GNT)–
We miss the mark telling people who are morally good, and very excellent many of them, that Jesus Christ came into the world to make bad men good. He did not. That’s a fringe benefit. The first argument God has with a man is not that he’s bad, it’s that he is dead in trespasses and sin. And Christianity is the only Gospel in the world, the only message in the world, where a man’s God comes and lives inside of him. –Leonard Ravenhill–
5 And ye know that he was manifested to take away our sins; and in him is no sin. 6 Whosoever abideth in him sinneth not: whosoever sinneth hath not seen him, neither known him. 7 Little children, let no man deceive you: he that doeth righteousness is righteous, even as he is righteous. 8 He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil. 9 Whosoever is born of God doth not COMMIT SIN; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin, because he is born of God. –1 John 3:5-9 (KJV)–
19 For out of the heart proceed EVIL THOUGHTS, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies: 20 These are the things which defile a man: but to eat with unwashen hands defileth not a man. –Matthew 15:19-20 (KJV)–
12 NOT AS THOUGH I HAD ALREADY ATTAINED, EITHER WERE ALREADY PERFECT: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. 13 Brethren, I count not myself to have apprehended: but this one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, 14 I PRESS TOWARD THE MARK FOR THE PRIZE of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. –Philippians 3:12-14 (KJV)–
Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfil the lust of the flesh. –Galatians 5:16 (KJV)–
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John Bunyan, Pilgrim’s Progress In Today’s English (Moody, 1964).
John Wesley, A Plain Account of Christian Perfection (Beacon Hill Press, 1966).
Dr. French Arrington, Christian Doctrine, vol. 2 (Pathway Press, 1993), pp. 243-244.
Adam Clarke, Christian Theology (Schmul, 1967), chs. 12, 30.
WesleyGospel Ministries 