Pastor John:

The studies in Job have been wonderful. I feel I have been transported back in time to learn about him. Here are a few points from Job 3:

1.  How Job held fast to God through all his infirmities was only part of the story.  I loved Timothy 3:12: “All who are willing to live Godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution.”

2.  Also, I was reminded that in this world, evil sometimes wins.  We need to know and be reminded of that in our walk through this life.  Whew!

3.  Another big one for me was Job’s patience, in waiting for God to speak!   One should not make any judgment about someone or a situation until God speaks.  (I have been guilty of that.)  Wait on the Lord.  That was another good reminder!  All of the ones who tried to get Job to admit he had done something wrong, and he remained steadfast, waiting on God.

I am looking forward to our next Job reading.  Thank you for our food and your time you have put into this!  You make Job “come alive” (as you have made the Bible stories come alive before). 

Diane K.

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John,

I feel like I understand Job and his friends a whole lot better after last night.  And how in the world did Job endure the way he did, and with such wisdom and love of God, without the holy Ghost?  My, what excuse do we have, especially considering what you said at the end, the Lord has given and he hasn’t taken away (yet)… blessed be the name of the Lord!

What a story. Looking forward to what’s next.
Vince

Hey Pastor John,

I know we’re just getting started on Job but it has already blessed me so much!  Two things that I went to bed thinking on after last night:

1. Getting to know who Job really was, not only to go through all that he did, but also to have such confidence in God and who God made him to be.  Makes me love him even more.

2. I’ve always thought Job’s friends were condemning him out of hatred or maybe jealousy.  To learn, to take it in, that their heart truly was in the right place and what they were saying was right and out of love, but their timing was off, they didn’t wait for God.  That is a wonderfully huge lesson.  It puts each scene in a different perspective when reading this story.  It makes these conversations hurt even more to realize these accusations came from people who really loved Job and Job really loved them.  When someone you love hurts your heart, that wound goes much deeper and hurts much more.  It takes God to get through it.

I love what you teach us!  These are not just stories, but these things really did happen, and we are getting to know our brothers and sisters.  It makes each one of their testimonies mean so much more to me. 

Just think, we have over 30 more chapters!  Looking forward to our time together again! 

Michelle

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Oh my! Thank you, Pastor John. I am really enjoying Job, and I am understanding more and more. I love how you put it that Job was waiting on God for an answer and how his comforters were not.  They thought they knew what was going on with him. It goes back to what we have been learning: we don’t know anything until Jesus shows up, then we know. That’s what we wait for. 

I also marvel at Job. He knew himself, and he knew God. He never wavered from that fact.  It came across last night in his complaint to God how he went back and forth in his mind “why”, but the end conclusion was always… I will rejoice, O Lord, in you. . .  no matter what.
Amy B. 

John,

The Job study last night was very good. I went away with a better understanding of why Job’s friends spoke to Job as they did.  They really were sincere in their effort to help Job, but as you said, because they had not heard from God, their speech was ineffective. 

Another point that stood out to me was Job’s determination to wait until he had heard from God.  He refused to accept his friends’ accusations, knowing that they had not heard from God either. 

I liked what you said about Job knowing God and His voice well enough to know God had not spoken to him.  That is good. 

It’s hard to imagine how many accusing spirits he had to deal with, even in his own mind. 

Thank you, John, for all your time and effort you have put into this study.  There are many valuable lessons we can benefit from. 

I’m already looking forward to the next section. 

Tom

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Last night’s Job #3 teaching was so good and rich!  It feels like you have us right there with Job and his friends, hearing and feeling FOR THE FIRST TIME EXACTLY how God saw and heard it.  It’s even better than what we have felt in translating Job!  I love who Jesus has made you, and how you are dishing out this wonderful rich food to us!  It is rich and sobering.  It feels like every part of me was “tweaked” last night, and I love it.   My, what a feast!  Thank you!

Donna N

Pastor John,

The “pearl” from preacher Clark that was posted a few days ago was sobering, regarding being balanced enough in the Lord so that there’s no difference between your needs and your wants.

Here in this bizarre city of Las Vegas, I’m fascinated (and vexed) by the attraction that people have for embracing extravagance, excess, and sin on so many levels.  Everything here is designed to provoke the “wow” factor.  Technology has made it so that everywhere your eyes glance, there’s media and advertisements and videos, most of them displaying ostentatious indulgence.  And everyone takes it in stride, as if it’s normal and harmless.  The city is a vast and bustling playground for those who are seeking to have “fun”.   Not everything here is sinful, in and of itself, but I’d presume that most who indulge have sinful intentions and habits.

The seduction of gambling isn’t the only enticement (the enormous rooms with game tables and slot machines are overwhelming).  Everything else is intentionally designed to lure all of the five senses as well.  Absurdly fancy food, expensive dining and drinking, high fashion attire, diverse and perverse entertainments, and palatial architecture and decor to tantalize the eyes and amaze our spirits.  What is it that drives human beings to “desire” these things without considering whether they actually “need” them?

It’s all about the deceptive “wow” factor.

In the midst of observing all of this, standing in the lobby of the hotel, I’m smitten by the “wow factor” of God.  Grateful for and humbled by the gift of knowing God—and loving God— so thoroughly that all of these distractions are “of none effect”, as it is written.  My spirit is not phased nor attracted to any of these indulgences.  It almost makes me want to cry out loud and shout to all the passersby, “There is something REAL and TRUE that can bring you joy, peace and contentment!”… It’s something they’re all looking for, but their carnal minds are grasping for it in all the wrong venues.  Nothing in this world can satisfy us, because it’s all temporal… temporary…ultimately unsatisfying.

I am blessed, blessed, blessed to be satisfied by the living holy spirit of God, and content in that.  None of these temptations have any pull on my heart, and there’s such a relaxed satisfaction in that.  That, too, is fascinating to me…to realize how much I’ve been changed from my former self.

All it took was a touch from Jesus!   Nearly 30 years ago, he put in my heart and my mind a desire to put aside sin and step away from the clandestine behavior that had become so familiar to me.  He convicted me, and drew me with an intense curiosity to be born anew, and relinquish the attractions that had held me in bondage for most of my life.

To be clear, I never cared for the things Las Vegas had to offer even when I was a sinner, with the exception of an occasional theatrical entertainment.  It’s a godless, artificial place, and I always felt that, in my spirit.  God protected me from its deceptive allure.  Now, it’s safe to visit, as an observer, unmoved by anything it presents; clean and holy in my spirit…and genuinely happy.

I’m asking God for more balance in my life so that my wants and my needs are the same, with nothing excessive or impure competing for my attention.  Gary’s advice to the young people yesterday in the meeting can be effectively applied to us all: devote more time to knowing our wonderful God, while we are able!

We owe Him everything for what He’s given to us.

Brad

I believe madness and insanity was one of the things God promised His Old Testament people if they forsook Him and His law (Dt. 28:28).  For New Testament believers, this means forsaking the holy Ghost, which they have done.  I think the world is just getting the trickle-down effect… There’s no light for them from God’s people if there is no holy Ghost leading.

Gary

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I agree, Gary.

Paul could see the bleak future that lay ahead for God’s dear people when they began to reject him and the astonishing gospel Jesus revealed to him (cf. 2Tim. 1:15; 3:1–8).  When John foresaw the curse with which God would curse His New Testament people, the religious system of Christianity, he said “I marveled with great wonder” (Rev. 18:6b).  And it is an astonishing thing to behold, so astonishing, in fact, that it cannot be believed without help from God.

May God continue to help us!

Pastor John

Good Morning John,

I was thinking on the good things we felt this weekend, and your teaching on Christianity, that removed another weight from us in the Spirit.  It’s another instance of learning, and relearning something, because we need it, i.e., that Christianity was not ever of God… I guess there were still fragments left in us that still feels something about it must be OK, because Jesus’ name is connected.  I hope we get this truth all the way in us!  The holy Ghost can!

One thing I saw that touched me too, was Leah’s little movie of Hope being blessed by the Spirit during the singing and praying time on Sunday.  What a blessing that was to see her yield to the holy Ghost. Like Keith was talking about – overcoming the flesh to go with the “pull of the Spirit”.  Hope blessed me by doing that.  Just by yielding… it was so beautiful to me.  We do more good by going with the Spirit than we ever know, more than we knew possible, and more than we feel “qualified” for.  Yielding takes no special qualifications, and no special talents.  All it takes is being a living sacrifice. We can all do that.   Like you said, “what does being shy have to do with anything.” 🙂  We who have the holy Ghost can deal out something of value to God’s family by that surrender to God.  That’s all it takes – we get to feel what we want to feel, and then go with it.  And doing that is sure to bless somebody!

Gary

Good morning,

I’ve never been much into politics, but anyone can see and feel this world going mad and insanity is taking over.  It can be a burden sometimes, but reading this response to Brads email*: “The cultural madness we see now is all a setup, to make people welcome the Beast, who will be a law-and-order guy.”  Somehow I felt comfort in being reminded that, yes this world is really full of madness and insanity but God is in control of everything.  

Feeling very thankful for the truth we’ve been taught.  There is such safety in it.  Don’t get burdened by the world, just trust Jesus.

Michelle

* See post: Current Christian Activists: Brad, August 21, 2023

Pastor John,

Allison and I were blessed beyond expression watching Saturday and Sunday meetings (while in our Las Vegas hotel). Your new discoveries about Christianity are refreshing (and harrowing). 

I began writing this email BEFORE your Saturday teaching, while in flight. Now it is more relevant!  

As I browse through YouTube, all too frequently, I’ve noticed an intriguing trend:  Many of the new outspoken “conservatives” who are rallying for a return to Judeo-Christian morality (and sanity) in our culture are Catholics.  I found that to be curious.  

Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, and Candace Owens are the front-runners, along with two articulate Jews—Ben Shapiro and the eloquent and wise Dennis Prager.  Tucker Carlson, too, could be on that list, as an Episcopalian, whose own personal Bible study has reignited his enthusiasm for his faith (May God help him to find JESUS and not rejoin himself to Christianity.) 

I find it interesting that the ones who are most actively leading the charge against cultural hypocrisy, political duplicity, and bankrupt morality happen to be Catholics.  None of them know the real Jesus, as they presume.  None of them have the holy ghost, as far as I know.  Yet they are actively voicing their perspectives to expose the evils in society, often mocking their opponents (sometimes with same sarcasm they resent in their opponents). 

Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised.  Religious people are beginning to take a stand against the influence of the onslaught of the current madness.  But, aren’t Catholics part of the same problem?  After all, they would persecute God’s people too, just like the secular culture does.  Conservative religious Catholics could censor our spiritual activities just as easily as the Left is censoring (cancelling) the freedom of speech of their opponents on the Right.  While it might be gratifying to see them making reasonable arguments for truth and sanity and justice, freedom, and a return to decent morality, that “great whore” is still very much a part of the world.  I don’t trust it/them.  It’s like what you have said before: it could be just as dangerous for conservatives to be in power, as it is for the leftists to be in power, politically, that is—dangerous for US.

Thankfully, we can give it all up to Jesus, and use our weapon of prayer to influence God’s ear, and not be moved by or take sides with the seemingly hopeful activism of the religious conservatives, even though we might agree with their viewpoints on several issues.  This world is NOT holy.  And those without the Spirit of God are not holy; whether liberal or conservative; articulate or moronic; white or black; Jew or Gentile; religious or atheist; etc. et. al. 

We wouldn’t be comfortable in a theocracy if it were Catholics that were ruling over us.  I would wager that even those who are right-leaning Catholics would still inflict harm on holy children of God if we didn’t bow to their god.  (And we know who their Lord actually is.)  Cruel persecution of children of God has happened in the past, and history tends to repeat itself when power corrupts men’s minds, whether or not they wave a banner for “truth.”. . it is seldom God’s truth. 

Isn’t it fascinating that those who proudly affirm their affiliation with what you call “the Roman empire in drag” (Christianity), fighting against the evils of our culture, are themselves adherents to an evil institution, without even realizing it?

Brad

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Yes, Brad it is.  The cultural madness we see now is all a setup, to make people welcome the Beast, who will be a law-and-order guy.  The world will love him, but Jesus is saving us from being seduced into socio-political action.  The answer, and the ONLY answer, for the whole world, conservatives and liberals alike, is the holy Spirit that Jesus purchased for fallen man with his blood.  We do not honor his sacrifice by resorting to earthly kinds of warfare.

If it is true that “he who takes up the sword shall die by the sword”, then it is also true that he who takes up a gun, or a rock, or the ballot box, or a political action committee shall die by those things.  They are all earthly weapons, and the weapons of our warfare are spiritual – but mighty, to the pulling down of strongholds, vain imaginations, and anything else that exalts itself again the way of Christ.

Whoever walks in the Spirit and resists the pressures of carnally minded men to do something their way, is mighty in God’s sight – and in the sight of every person who knows Him, though they be few.

Pastor John

Pastor John,

I feel so blessed to not only be able to feel the feelings today but also to understand and let it sink into my soul!  It was the icing on the cake from last night’s message.  I loved Uncle Gary’s part about putting your heart and time into things of God.   It made me feel good inside knowing that’s exactly what I’ve been doing with music, trying to learn the digital part of it for recording, and just getting to know software and what I need to know to be able to put physical things digitally.  And to know that in my heart that the reason is to help bless Gods people in any way I can and do what God wants me to do.

I feel like I missed out on something by not playing for years, from 16 to now, but I don’t wanna miss what God has for me now or what I can do to do my part and bless someone when I can.  Gonna take advantage on what God is doing.

-Jacob