Life's Inanities and Ironies

We live in a day when many so-called Christians chase after the latest fads, the biggest platforms, and the softest messages. Yet the preserved Word of God—the King James Bible—pulls no punches. It shows us the raw truth about one of the greatest judges in Israel’s history: Gideon. The man who destroyed Baal’s altar, who routed the Midianite horde with only three hundred men, and who once trembled at the winepress, fell prey to three subtle but deadly temptations in his final days. These are not the temptations of a fearful youth. These are the senior temptations that come after victory—after the applause, after the battle is won. Fundamental Christians, take heed. The devil never retires; he simply upgrades his tactics. The Biblical Record (Judges 8:22-35, KJV) “And the men of Israel said unto Gideon, Rule thou over us, both thou, and thy son, and thy son’s son also: for thou hast delivered us from the hand of Midian. And Gideon said unto them, I will not rule over you, neither shall ...

In the closing verses of Hebrews 5, the Holy Spirit rebuked the sluggish believers for remaining on spiritual milk when they should have been feasting on solid food. The very next paragraph launches the remedy: **Hebrews 6:1-3** (ESV): > “Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, and of instruction about washings, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. And this we will do if God permits.” The call is urgent and forward-looking. The writer does not say, “Stay where you are and feel better about it.” He says, **“Let us go on.”** Maturity is not automatic; it is a deliberate, Spirit-empowered advance into the deeper truths of Christ. The Elementary Foundation (What We Leave Behind) The six “elementary doctrines” listed are not bad—they are the ABCs of the faith: 1. Repentance from dead works   2. Faith toward God ...

We live in a culture that celebrates perpetual adolescence—where staying “young at heart” often means refusing to grow up. Sadly, this same spirit has crept into the church. Many of us who proudly identify as conservative, Bible-believing Christians have mistaken familiarity with doctrine for actual spiritual maturity. We attend church faithfully, defend the inerrancy of Scripture, and stand firm on moral issues, yet the author of Hebrews would look at much of our spiritual diet and say the same thing he said to the first-century Jewish believers: “About this we have much to say, and it is hard to explain, since you have become dull of hearing. For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the basic principles of the oracles of God. You need milk, not solid food, for everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by...

 We live in days when victory is quickly followed by division. The world, the flesh, and the devil never rest—and neither does human nature. Right after the miraculous deliverance in Judges 7, where God used Gideon and his 300 men to rout 135,000 Midianites with trumpets, pitchers, and lamps, the ugly realities of pride, politics, and the need for persistence exploded onto the scene. If you are a fundamentalist Christian who still holds the King James Bible as the preserved, infallible, God-breathed Word, this passage in Judges 8:1-21 is not just ancient history. It is a mirror held up to the church in 2026. Let the Holy Ghost speak through the plain text of Scripture as we walk through it together. The Pride of Ephraim (Judges 8:1-3) The battle was won. The enemy was scattered. But instead of praising God, the men of Ephraim turned on Gideon with sharp words: “Why hast thou served us thus, that thou calledst us not, when thou wentest to fight with the Midianites? And they did chid...

We live in a world that screams for bigger numbers, better strategies, and more impressive resources. Yet the King James Bible—the only preserved, inerrant Word of God—tells us a different story. Sometimes the Lord deliberately takes away what the world says we need so that He alone receives the glory. That truth shines brightly in one of the most thrilling accounts in the Old Testament: the story of Gideon and his 300 warriors in Judges chapter 7. If you are a fundamentalist Christian who still believes every word of Scripture literally, this passage is not ancient history—it is a living blueprint for victorious Christian living today. Let’s open our King James Bibles to Judges 7:1-23 and let the Holy Ghost speak to our hearts. The Setup: An Impossible Situation The Midianites had invaded Israel like a plague of locusts—135,000 fighting men strong, camped in the valley of Jezreel. Gideon had rallied 32,000 Israelite men at the spring of Harod. By every human calculation, they were sti...

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.   In a world that rushes past sorrow or offers empty platitudes, the Bible stands as our sure foundation. Many of us have received that devastating call, seen the empty chair, or held the hand of a spouse, child, parent, or dear friend as they slipped into eternity. The pain is raw and real. Yet Scripture does not shame our tears—it sanctifies them. This homily draws straight from the King James Version to show how faithful Christians grieve the loss of a loved one: honestly, hopefully, and with our eyes fixed on the risen Christ. The Bible shows us that **grief is normal and even godly**. Our Lord Himself “wept” at the tomb of Lazarus (John 11:35). The Son of God, who knew resurrection was coming, still felt the full weight of human loss. King David poured out his anguish in the Psalms: “My soul is full of troubles, and my life draweth nigh unto the grave” (Psalm 88:3). When his infant son died, Dav...

  *Real stories from believers who held fast and saw God move after years of waiting* The Scriptures we explored in this blog are not ancient relics—they are living truth for today. God still calls His people to persistent prayer, patient endurance, and unwavering faith. Here are three powerful modern testimonies from fellow saints who waited long for answers to prayer. Their stories echo Abraham’s twenty-five years, Joseph’s thirteen, and the persistent widow’s cry. They prove: **delay is never denial when the sovereign God is at work.**  1. Sixteen Years—and Over 5,000 Prayers—for an Atheist Father’s Salvation Karen began praying nightly at age sixteen after she and her twin sister trusted Christ at a revival. Her father, Gene, an outspoken atheist who had told her as a child, “People think there’s a God, but there’s not,” had largely disappeared from her life. Yet Karen persisted. For sixteen long years she cried out to the Lord, often inserting her father’s name into Scrip...

If you have walked with the Lord for any length of time, you know this trial well. You poured out your heart in prayer—for healing, for a prodigal child, for financial deliverance, for the salvation of a loved one, for direction in a dark valley—only to hear… silence. Not for weeks. Not for months. For years. Sometimes decades. The enemy whispers, “God doesn’t care. He has forgotten you.” The world mocks your faith. Yet the Bible, from Genesis to Revelation, gives one clear, unchanging answer: **long waiting is not divine neglect—it is divine design.** God’s people have always waited. And in that waiting, He forges faith that cannot be shaken. The Patriarchs: Twenty-Five Years of Waiting on a Promise Abraham was seventy-five when God promised him a son who would become a great nation (Genesis 12:4). Twenty-five years passed—through famine, doubt, and the tragic mistake of Hagar—before Isaac was born when Abraham was one hundred years old. Scripture records: “And so, after he had patien...

 In a world that measures worth by perfection, social status, or a spotless past, the Bible stands as a glorious counter-testimony. Our God is not ashamed to use the broken, the fallen, and the backslidden. He chooses “the foolish things of the world to confound the wise… and base things… and things which are despised” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28). And time after time, He has done this most strikingly through women and girls—those the culture often overlooked or condemned. If you are a woman carrying the weight of past sin, a backslider who has wandered far from the fold, or a young girl wondering whether God could ever use someone “like you,” this post is for you. The same sovereign grace that reached Rahab, Tamar, Bathsheba, Gomer, the Samaritan woman, Mary Magdalene, and the little maid is still available today. Rahab the Harlot: From Jericho’s Shame to the Messiah’s Line Rahab lived in Jericho, a city marked for destruction. Her house sat on the wall, and her profession was prostitu...

If the Call of Gideon (Judges 6:11–24) shows us how God chooses the weak and fearful to do His work, the fleece test reveals something even more tender: **how God patiently deals with our lingering doubts**. Right after the Angel of the Lord declared him a “mighty man of valor,” built the altar “The Lord Is Peace,” and gave Gideon his first assignment, the new leader still wrestled with fear. The Midianite hordes were still camped in the valley. The odds were still impossible. So Gideon turned to the Lord with a bold, honest request that has puzzled and encouraged believers for centuries. Here is the text (ESV): > 36 Then Gideon said to God, “If you will save Israel by my hand as you have said, 37 behold, I am laying a fleece of wool on the threshing floor. If there is dew on the fleece alone, and it is dry on all the ground, then I shall know that you will save Israel by my hand, as you have said.” 38 And it was so. When he rose early the next morning and squeezed the fleece, he wr...

"Throw down the altar of Baal that thy father hath, and cut down the grove that is by it." — Judges 6:25 Before Gideon could ever lead an army against the Midianites, God had a work to do *within* Gideon’s own household. We often want the public victory without the private purging, but the "Cultivation of Gideon" teaches us that God’s champions are grown in the soil of uncompromising obedience and the destruction of idols.   The Mandate of Separation In Judges 6:25-32, the Lord’s first command to Gideon was not to strike the enemy, but to strike the sin in his own family. Gideon’s father had an altar to Baal and an Asherah pole—symbols of a compromised nation that had forgotten the Law of Moses. True cultivation begins with **separation**. You cannot build an altar to the Most High God until you have dismantled the altars of the world. Fundamental to the Christian walk is the understanding that God will not share His glory with another. If there is a "grove...

We live in days that feel eerily like the days of Gideon. Moral confusion, cultural pressure, family struggles, and open hostility toward biblical truth surround us. Many conservative Christians look at the headlines and quietly ask the same question Gideon voiced: “If the Lord is with us, why then has all this happened to us?” (Judges 6:13). Yet the story in Judges 6:11–24 does not leave us in despair. It shows how the God of the Bible calls and equips His people—not because we are strong, but precisely because we are weak. The scene opens in crisis. Israel is starving under Midianite oppression. Gideon is threshing wheat—not on an open floor, but hidden inside a winepress, terrified the enemy will spot him and steal what little he has. Then the Angel of the Lord appears and speaks the most shocking words in the chapter:   “The Lord is with you, O mighty man of valor.” (v. 12) Gideon is cowering in fear, the youngest son of a weak family in the weakest clan of Manasseh. Yet G...

In an age of cultural decay, moral relativism, and spiritual lukewarmness, far too many who claim the name of Christ have quietly lowered the bar. We want God’s blessings without God’s demands. We want the label “Christian” without the cost of the cross. We want tolerance from the world while compromising with it.   The Holy Spirit confronts this dangerous mindset head-on in Judges 6:1-10. This passage is no dusty Old Testament footnote—it is a mirror held up to the Church in 2026. The title of this post is **“The High Cost of Low Living.”** Let us open our Bibles and hear the Word of the Lord: > “The people of Israel did what was evil in the sight of the Lord, and the Lord gave them into the hand of Midian seven years. And the hand of Midian overpowered Israel, and because of Midian the people of Israel made for themselves the dens that are in the mountains and the caves and the strongholds. For whenever the Israelites planted crops, the Midianites and the Amalekites and t...

In the Gospels, a dedicated group of women followed Jesus, supported His ministry, stood by Him at the cross, and witnessed the resurrection. They were true disciples—transformed by Christ, serving faithfully, and proclaiming the Good News. Yet among them, Mary Magdalene stands out with a unique testimony that beautifully illustrates the Ministry of the Resurrection we explored in the homily and blog post. All these women were radically changed by Jesus. None remained as they were before they met Him. But their backgrounds, roles, and experiences differ in ways that highlight the personal, purposeful nature of Christ’s transforming work. Mary Magdalene: From Total Bondage to First Witness   As Mark 16:9 reminds us, Jesus cast out *seven demons* from her—the number symbolizing complete deliverance from the worst kind of darkness. Her past was one of total ruin: tormented, isolated, and without hope. After her healing, she became one of the most visible and devoted followers. She tra...

Based directly on Mark 16:9-14, we can reverently speculate on the profound transformation of Mary Magdalene. The Scripture itself gives us only a few powerful details, but those details paint a picture of radical, complete change that echoes the very heart of the Ministry of the Resurrection. Before Christ: Utter Brokenness and Demonic Bondage The text tells us plainly that Jesus had “cast out seven demons” from Mary Magdalene (Mark 16:9; see also Luke 8:2). In first-century Jewish understanding, seven was the number of completeness—so this was not partial oppression. It was total possession. We can imagine a woman whose life had been completely shattered: tormented day and night, isolated from family and community, possibly viewed as dangerous or cursed. She had no dignity, no hope, and no future. The demons had stolen her mind, her peace, and her identity. She was, humanly speaking, beyond repair. The Moment of Deliverance: A Sovereign Encounter Then Jesus stepped in. The same Lord ...

In a time that grows darker by the day—where cultural chaos, moral confusion, and spiritual apathy threaten to erode even the strongest foundations of faith—the resurrection of Jesus Christ stands as our unshakable anchor. It is not merely a historical event tucked away in the pages of Scripture. It is a living, active *ministry* that continues to this very moment.   The title of this post comes straight from the closing verses of Mark’s Gospel. Far from being an afterthought, Mark 16:9-14 reveals the heart of how the risen Lord operates among His people. Let’s open our Bibles together and hear the Word of the Lord: > “Now when he rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, from whom he had cast out seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him, as they mourned and wept. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it. After these things he appeared in another form to two of them, as t...