Archive for the ‘The Ways of the Nations’ Category

The Healing Spa of Asklepios

“The city also had a healing center called the Asklepion, built in honor of Asklepios, the Greek serpent-god. In the first century, this was a cross between a hospital and a health spa, where patients could get everything from a mud bath to a major surgery. Even the emperors came all the way from Rome to be treated here, but this was no ordinary doctor’s visit.

“If you were a terminal patient, you were not allowed to go into the Asklepion,” says Renner. “These Asklepion priests didn’t want anyone hearing that someone had died in the Asklepion.  There was a huge sign just above the official entrance to the Asklepion that said, ‘Death is not permitted here.’ So the only way you were going to get in to begin with is if they knew you were going to live.”

Patients entered through an underground tunnel. Then they drank a sedative, and spent the night in the dormitories of the Asklepion, while non-poisonous snakes crawled around them all night. They were told that the serpent-god Asklepios would speak to them in their dreams and give them a diagnosis.

“It was believed that the snakes carried the healing power of Asklepios,” and if a snake slithered across you while you were sleeping at night, that was a divine sign that healing power was coming to you.”

The next morning, the patients told their “dreams” to the priests, who prescribed their treatments. Finally, the patients made clay sculptures of the body parts that needed healing and offered them to Asklepios.”

Taken from the book, “A Light in the Darkness,” by Rick Renner.

The Christmas Question

What are the roots of the Christmas season? Where did the traditions of Christmas originate? Why do wiccans and other pagans celebrate Christmas? Why does Santa Claus come down the chimney? Who is Krampus? Does God tell Christians to redeem the traditions of the world’s cultures? Is celebrating Christmas a sin for a follower of Messiah? How does someone who is redeemed from a life of sin respond to the love of God?

©119 Ministries

Rebellion and Extinction


While traveling back to the Lower 48 from Alaska, my husband and I heard on the news about a worldwide protest regarding the environment. Children around the US and other countries were excused from school so they could protest becoming extinct. As we passed through a small Canadian town in British Columbia, we saw the remnants of this protest in a little park. High school students were laying on towels sunbathing or sitting on the ground reading books surrounded by a few signs protesting global warming and environmental concerns. Other than that, they were just using the time to skip a day of school.

Just for basic information, the definition of environment is “the surroundings or conditions in which a person, animal, or plant lives or operates.” If these children were really concerned about the environment, they should be walking up and down the highway picking up the trash strewn along its sides. Birds and wild animals ingest the numerous plastic bags, bottles, and even clothing that pollute the roadside eventually killing them. Did they ever enter in the little rest rooms in the park to clean them? This is what I do for my environment pick up other people’s trash and clean pit toilets!

What these children have been taught by a godless generation is they are responsible for the entire natural world and every issue surrounding it. These children have been made to feel as though they have to concern themselves with issues they will never resolve themselves rather than just being taught to take care of their 5 square feet of ‘mother’ earth. What would that day have been like to see all of these school students picking up trash by creeks, rivers, rest areas and roadsides? Oh, there may not be such a day because it flies in the face of the narrative of global warming and the depravity of mankind.

I was raised by god-fearing parents to be a good steward of my world – beginning with my bedroom, the bathroom, the rooms in my house. Stewardship means “the job of supervising or taking care of something, such as an organization or property.” Good stewardship training trickled down into school (my locker), parks (using trash cans), my car (not throwing stuff out the window or allowing it to pile up inside) and ultimately hotels or campgrounds in which our family stayed. I was taught to leave a place better than I found it and trust me, those who say they do that, never do.

We taught our children the same amazing stewardship concept and they have grown to adulthood only to find their peers have no clue about taking out the trash or removing lint from a dryer. Yet it is these same young adults protesting the decaying environment. It’s much easier to sit and pontificate with signs than actually take action. What is that saying? Actions speak louder than words?! Where are their actions?

Recently I learned of an event in London and Germany called the “Extinction Rebellion” ( I don’t know exactly what it is apart from perusing the website and I really don’t care apart from young people spending a lot of money to go to a country to ‘rebel against extinction.’ Young people who struggle every day to pay rent, buy food and maybe even finding a decent job. Why didn’t they put their funds toward trash bags? Why didn’t they put their time into cleaning up around their own homes and towns?

The definition of rebellion is “an act of violent or open resistance to an established government or ruler or the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention.” Who is the established ruler these people are rebelling against? What authority are they trying to resist? Who is controlling them? It would seem the very government and authorities that encourage their rebellion should be the authorities and rulers they rebel against. It really is chaotic.

Extinction means “the state or process of a species, family, or larger group having no living members.’ This is a rather egregious term for ‘saving the planet’ and ‘humanity’ and when these same ‘environmentalists’ probably support the killing of millions of unborn babies contributing to human extinction. Let’s not forget supporting homosexual marriage also contributes to human extinction since two same sex people cannot reproduce without the help of outside heterosexual help.

The root of this global movement is the denial and rejection of the Creator of the Universe. This movement is the epitome of humanism and the idea that man can save himself and even the earth. It is utterly preposterous even though there are those who identify as Christians and support such nonsense. We are made of the dust of the very earth these young people are trying to protect, yet we have no power over it other than dealing with our own sin issue of rebellion against the One who made each of us.

The one controlling this rebellion is non other than haSatan, the god of this world. To not see the ‘extinction rebellion’ as a spiritual battle for the soul of humanity is part of the great deception. It is part of the fear tactic that someday humans are going to destroy this earth. But within the Word of God there is always Truth that disseminates the lies if only it wasn’t part of the resistance to ultimate authority.

“So long as the earth exists, sowing time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night will not cease” (Genesis 8:22).

We are not so powerful to destroy ourselves even though we hear that tale on a daily basis. Yes, there will be a destruction of the heavens and earth and it won’t be caused by humans; it will be the judgment of the Creator of the Universe upon His creation in order to get their attention. It won’t end until every knee bows and confesses that there is a GOD and He has offered a way that is not rebellious through Messiah. Judgement will be doled out by angelic beings and the sounds of trumpets that will make men’s hearts melt. Until that time and those days, children can protest whatever they want while they continue to watch their environment decay or they can be taught about a Creator who desires them to be good stewards of the environment in which they inhabit.



Stop Americanizing Jesus

Okay. Usually I just pass by this crap and let those (LGBT Christians) who believe this stuff, believe it. But today I feel like dealing with this nonsense that gets passed around social media as if it were great wisdom and enlightenment of some sort. It’s not. It’s stupid and it’s wrong on every level. Here goes:

Jesus was NOT Palestinian. The name Palestine was given to the land of Israel by the Romans. Jesus was not Roman. He was not a Philistine from Philistia either. He definitely was Jewish, with Jewish parents, from the Tribe of Judah and Israelite, a Hebrew. His skin color was olive, not black African or white British or red Chinese. He was Mediterranean, Middle Eastern.

He was not anti-colonialism. He was for entering his Kingdom which is not of this world. It’s not for everyone, only a remnant and could therefore be considered ‘a colony.’ He never taught anyone to fight against the Romans who had colonized Israel, even changing its name. He taught his Jewish brothers and sisters to walk the extra mile carrying their armor if they asked. Ultimately, those who become part of his Kingdom are all foreigners in this world. Our citizenship is somewhere else – a heavenly colony that will one day become the ‘new heavens and new earth’ called the New Jerusalem.

He was not anti-cultural unless it is the culture of this dying world and its sin-infested ideas and demands. He fully lived out his life within the context of his culture, which was outlined by the God of Israel and given to His people. For example, he didn’t eat pork which is in everything these days, even eaten by some Jews. He didn’t celebrate Christmas or Easter or worship the sun god on Sunday. He wasn’t gay, transgendered or even confused about binary and pan. He was a Son and was quite content being a son. He kept the Feasts of His Father, was circumcised on the eighth day of his life, redeemed as a firstborn, learned the Torah (Bible), and lived as a Jewish man within the Jewish culture.

He did not teach socialism, but said there would always be poor people. He did not condemn rich people and was buried in a rich man’s tomb. Though he told a parable about giving each man the same wage for different hours worked, this was a parable about the Kingdom of Heaven and not about a socio-economic system in this world. This parable was about how each man and woman enters the Kingdom the same way. The entrance fee is not based on how hard a man works, but on his works for his Father. He looked at the hearts of the men; the men looked at the wage he paid. The wage of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life. If he were dealing with socio-economics, he would have been more of a capitalist because each man will receive a reward for the works he/she has done for the Kingdom. If he works building with gold and precious stones, his works will stand, but if he builds with hay, they will burn.

Yes, he loved all people including tax collectors and prostitutes, but told them to ‘repent’ and turn back to God. His love made them want his ways not their own. He cast demons out of people and set them free from lives of prostitution and even disease. His message never included tolerance of sin and allowing people to live immorally. Why? Because it infects the rest of society. Hence why he healed lepers – so they could return to normal life. He offered hope and a way out of sinful lifestyles. He offered and gave freedom from the distress caused by the sexual sins of the flesh.

Absolutely he respected women because his Father’s teachings and instructions are all about protecting and providing for women and children. He was not for women’s rights and bashing men – white, black or red. He saw men and women as ‘equal’ heirs to the Kingdom. He was not for women’s rights to murder their unborn children – or he would have been murdered himself in the womb. He was not for women’s rights to usurp the roles of men in the world. He loved and respected women FOR their roles in the world as wives and mothers who loved to serve not be served.

Anti-immigrant. I am reminded that he says that not everyone who says “Lord, Lord” will enter the Kingdom, only those who do His Father’s will. There is a difference between being an immigrant and joining a country through its laws vs. being an illegal alien who is kept out. He tells a parable about a man who attends a wedding wearing the wrong clothes and is thrown out of the wedding. For the man wearing the wrong clothes that seemed harsh, but for those who dressed correctly, it was justice. There are ways that seem right to a man, but end in death.

There are gates for entering the New Jerusalem and outside those gates are those who may not enter: “But as for the cowardly, the untrustworthy, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those involved with the occult and with drugs, idol-worshippers, and all liars — their destiny is the lake burning with fire and sulfur, the second death.” It seems that there are those who will suffer and die though they believe all sorts of lies. Christian witches will suffer and die a second death. Idol worshippers and liars will suffer and die a second death. The sexually immoral (LGBTXYZ) will suffer and die a second death. This is what the Bible teaches, if you don’t like it, then don’t pretend to know the Bible. If you don’t like the idea that God wants to transform you into His image, then stop transforming Him into yours!

Of course he wasn’t anti-semitic because he is of the semitic people who descended from Shem. Palestinians ARE anti-semitic and want all Jews/Israelis dead. Again, he wasn’t Palestinian, Roman, or any other nationality. He was Jewish.

As for gay-bashing, he is the visible image of the invisible God and the Word specifically says that homosexual behavior is an abomination to the Creator of men and women. Did he bash? The Scripture never mentions him meeting a gay person, but Sodom and Gomorrah were judged for their ‘behaviors.’ I also know this, had he met a gay couple, he would have told them to ‘repent’ and turn back to God. He would not have baked a cake for their wedding feast!

Fan of Donald Trump? Because he is God in the flesh and the Word of God says that He puts men in leadership for his purposes, I would say that he has a purpose for Donald Trump. Fan? That comes from the word ‘fanatic’ and the only thing he was ‘fanatic’ about was the Kingdom of His Father and those who enter into it. He was ‘fanatic’ about those who are lost and dying because he desired them to know the Truth and be set free so they could live eternally. He wasn’t a supporter of sin, but a redeemer from sin.

While we’re at it, lets just add that the name above all names wasn’t Jesus either – it was Yeshua. So, yes, STOP Americanizing the King of Kings, the Jewish Messiah of Israel. Read. The. Bible. Know. God. Know. Yeshua.



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