“Hard times make strong men, strong men make good times, good times make weak men, and weak men make hard times.”
This is the classic generational problem. Parents work hard to give their children a better life, but they often don't require their children to work hard to give their children a better life.
The generational vision is too short, so the generation that benefits from the inheritance of their parents ends up consuming the benefits instead of investing and stewarding them for the future.
We are in the midst of a cultural decline and it's easy to see the same ingredients at work. We have enjoyed wealth and good times, but we have become consumers focusing on our own enjoyment instead of sacrificing for our children and grandchildren.
In fact, we have actually sacrificed our children for our own self-actualization, most extremely through abortion. We have marginalized the worship of God and discipleship in the church. We have repudiated and deconstructed tradition and parents and authority, rewritten history, and cut our children off from their true cultural inheritance through our education system.
Now we have reached a tipping point where our nation has been taken over by lawless globalists who are the latest version of an empire with an agenda of taking us all into captivity.
Revival history is tied to this cultural cycle. Revivals often break out in seasons of revolution and reformation. Revival brings us back to God, to the truth, to our identity, to virtue, and then to legacy and purpose.
Why are we here? We are here because we are part of a multi-generational mission in which Jesus is creating a family and nation from all the nations of the world. It's bigger than the rise and fall of any nation or empire. It's all that matters for eternity.
We need a revival to recover our spiritual and cultural inheritance in this nation, in our families, in the world. We need a move of God to restore everything that is ours that we have lost or forgotten, and to give us a vision for how to pass this on for generations to come.
- Danny Silk (Highly recommend you check his books and podcast out if you are looking to create a healthy culture in your home and family.)
This is frightening. The fact that we have lived unrepentant and disobedient for ages is why we are here. Believing we are all our own gods is EXACTLY why we see what we see now. The real reduction of human potential is living apart from God without Truth, without Order, without humility.
This whole cycle isn’t meant to be repeated. We’ve just messed it up each time because we have yet to become fully surrendered to the Creator. It can be ended - starting with strong men who quit bowing to their impulses, stand up for the defenseless and quit seeking comfortable, easy lives. And stop believing we are the God of our lives.
Let's unpack this.
Who told you that? Do you honestly believe that the guiding hand wouldn’t have been able to guide us if only we had been more “repentant?” Who exactly did we “disobey?”
Before I begin, I will say I think the bible holds tremendous wisdom within it. If used for the purposes of gaining an appreciation of life, the universe, and everything such appreciation can be extracted from it. The teachings of Jesus especially hold such value.
But let’s go through some history.
The bible was created three centuries after the time attributed to Jesus. It was created by a group that was formed under the direction of Emperor Constantine, a self proclaimed worshiper of the Sun God (known as Lucifer in some cultures, Horus in others, Ba’al in others) who murdered his wife and child. He wanted to unite the disparate Roman Empire under his rule and he felt the best way to do that was by creating a single Religion that united the various beliefs sufficiently that it captured them all.
This unifying Religion included Christian beliefs from numerous sects, Gnostics, Pagans, Druids, even some Judean beliefs. He then created the book, and codified the beliefs into law. Prior to that the belief of Jesus as God (in a unique sense, not as “Jesus is God because we all are a part of God” (AKA the divine spark)) was not widely held. The idea of the Trinity wasn’t even a belief until 60 years after the bible was written and then it was also codified into law, requiring that all the people believe it to be true or face the penalties.
The Nicene Creed is a constant restatement of those beliefs, like a programming. It is also a constant reminder of that Authority that was asserted 400 years after the time attributed to Jesus. It was created by, and has continuous programming by decree of the same Authority, and no one bats an eyelash at the possible fuckery involved there.
The bible itself was formed from a body of earlier works, though it left out the majority of them. Some of the books have had meaningful edits. People often tout the similarities of Isiah between today and the dead sea scroll version and say “See, here is proof of divinity of the bible.” Then they ignore the fact that many other books are not so clearly translated as similarly, nor have they themselves actually performed the translation they tout as "Proof". They ignore the fact that people who disagree with that assessment are called heretics, which is the word that was created to prevent people from questioning Church Authority, just like "conspiracy theory' is used today to keep people from having other thoughts than the official ones. People ignore the fact that most of the books that could have been added to the bible were left out. NO one can agree on who wrote Revelations (i.e. one of the main books that ties it all together and asserts the divinity of the bible), and anyone who thinks it wasn’t John, no matter the evidence is also called a heretic.
The book was written by a true Authoritarian, for the purposes of exerting Complete Authority. It even set him up as a God-Emperor (AKA ruler by divine right). It set the stage for a major part of The Matrix that (obviously) still holds tremendous power today. I suggest perhaps the reason that you would assign your "saving" over to something else is because you were trained to believe that is the only way.
You are a piece of What Is. You are the only ruler of that Part of You That Is. Your life is precious, and it is Yours.
Anyone who tells you differently is selling you something.
Found the Sean Finnegan video on the Trinity (or not) fascinating.
There is a great deal more on the Trinity once you start digging into the history and religions prior to Christianity. It has been a common theme, though only Christianity really tries to sell it as three different Entities all making up the same Entity (which literally zero people have any idea what that even means... Intentional obfuscation?). Others use God + Word + Wisdom (Sophia) (i.e. different ways God communicates and/or graces us), others use Three different Entities working together (or even at odds), or Three different faces of the same Entity, etc. It goes back thousands of years prior to the creation of the Christian Religion (In 325-400 AD).
I found this one fascinating. I am not espousing any of his views, I think he gets a few things probably wrong, but his evidence is compelling, even if his interpretation is debatable.