This podcast is a companion supplement to Chapter 4 of Birth Pangs of the End Times, discussing spiritual topics from this chapter. So, to receive maximum benefit, read chapter 4 first. You can read it free at https://www.thomasnoss.com, or buy the book at https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DR3Q275G
Spiritual lessons from Chapter 4 of Birth Pangs of the End Times
In chapter 4, Katie’s breakfast is interrupted when she’s unexpectedly assigned to be a copilot on her first combat medevac mission. Her pilot’s nickname is Tiedown, and they’ve been called to rescue some wounded Green Berets.
She’s amazed and excited to see how Tiedown does things in the cockpit. She realizes she’s no longer in a training environment. Tiedown doesn’t read from the aircraft’s checklist. He does the Blackhawk’s startup sequence from memory. And forget about making a soft and gentle landing in the landing zone, or LZ.
In the LZ, when she sees her first real casualty, a soldier whose mangled leg was missing below the knee, Tiedown sees her transfixed by the gory stump. He tells her “A Dustoff pilot’s rule number one is ‘Don’t look behind you.’ Some things you’ll see can mess with your head. Focus your attention forward so you can fly them back as quickly and safely as possible.”
The LZ was thought to be safe. Sporadic enemy fire was quickly addressed by their Apache gunship escorts. Then, Katie saw a single enemy stand up with a long tube on his shoulder, a rocket propelled grenade launcher, and it was aimed directly at her. Before anyone could react, the RPG exploded into her helicopter’s cockpit, killing Tiedown in the left pilot seat.
Blasted into unconsciousness, she heard what sounded like a grand piano crashing down from a 10th-story apartment onto a concrete sidewalk—all 88 keys pounding at once.
She felt no pain, and no sensations or awareness of the physical world at all. She didn’t see, hear, or feel anything from that realm. But strangely, she was still completely self-aware.
Am I dead? Is this what it’s like to die?
Most of us have had a similar experience, where we’ve been knocked unconscious, knocked out of the physical world into what people call unconsciousness.
And yet, in that inner realm, there’s another level of consciousness within each of us. It’s a level where we’re actively thinking, and we have a sense of our own identity, but we’re not aware of the physical world around our body. Perhaps it’s the realm we’re in when we dream at night.
Once I had a situation like Katie’s. I was piloting a scout helicopter in Vietnam when my helicopter’s tail rotor hit a tree, making me and my two gunners crash into a brushy hillside. I was knocked unconscious when my head hit the ground. As I was regaining consciousness, but before I could open my eyes, I had thoughts like Katie’s.
Noxious fumes filled the cockpit, bringing me into a semi-conscious state. Choked by the fumes, I couldn’t breathe. I feared being burned alive if the crash caught fire. I was dazed in the wreckage, with my face laying against leaf-litter on the jungle floor. I couldn’t unlatch my seatbelt. In my soul, I resigned myself to die.
But then, from somewhere deeper inside, I felt my spirit say, “No! Do Not accept defeat. Keep trying!” So I did. I found the latch, freed myself, and crawled forward, through the broken windscreen, onto the brushy hillside. I yelled for my gunners, who’d left me for dead, and we climbed up the hill to be rescued by another helicopter and taken to the Long Binh hospital for stitches.
I believe these thoughts, from deeper inside, were from my spirit—that part of each one of us that gives our body its life.
Here’s the relationship between our spirit and soul… In Genesis, when God created Adam he breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and Adam became a living soul. God’s breath became Adam’s spirit, and the combination of spirit and flesh is what creates our soul. Our spirit is not of the physical realm, but our soul is. Our spirit doesn’t need to eat, stay warm, or use our body’s physical senses. These are all soulish functions. Your spirit is your life, your personality, the essence of you. As Jesus hung on the cross, it was when he breathed out his spirit that his body died.
When your body dies, your spirit continues to live, but not in the physical realm.
Where does the spirit live after we die? That depends on whether your spirit is clean or dirty. In our physical existence we’ve all sinned at least once in our life, and that sin permanently defiles our spirit. And our defiled spirit can never enter God’s presence.
The only way to enter God’s presence is to exchange our defiled spirit and receive a clean, undefiled spirit. God made this possible through our repentance and faith in the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus. Faith in his perfect sacrifice and resurrection enables God to give us a portion of Christ’s Holy Spirit. This is what Jesus meant when he told Nicodemus that we must be born again. Then, afterward, as we follow his spirit within us, denying the world, the flesh, and the Devil, we grow in holiness as sons of God. You’ll see this process dramatized in future chapters of Katie’s story.
Seeking Glory and Respect
Katie was eager to get into combat. She wanted to prove herself in battle, like her uncle Andy, who sewed his Vietnam medevac unit’s patch on every new leather flight jacket he ever owned. She wanted to earn the same glory, the same respect, and the same reverence people showed to him in their town.
In fact, she hoped to enjoy even more prestige than her uncle. He was a white male from the lower 48, so his combat exploits were not surprising to anyone in Ketchikan.
In contrast, she was a Klinatok female, an orphan barely 20 years old, and her community had no such expectations for someone like her … especially with her history.
She’d prove Auntie Ella wrong. She’d make her clan and her parents proud of her.
It’s natural for us to want to make our family and community proud of our achievements, and to be respected and honored. But, in the big picture, such a desire is short-sighted. All the people we want to respect us will be dead in 100 years. Katie will earn this world’s acclaim, but she’ll soon learn that worldly glory is both fickle and temporary.
I’d much rather seek eternal glory and respect by following the Spirit of God and perfectly accomplishing his will for my life. If you do this, for all eternity you’ll have glory and respect from God and all the angels and saints in heaven. Jesus himself will say, “Well done, my good and faithful friend.” (Jn 15:15 and Mt 25:23)
Counting the Cost
Katie has a flashback to an outdoor BBQ, when Uncle Andy encouraged her saying, “In life, but especially in combat, you need to be mentally prepared for unexpected threats to your life.” He said, “your natural impulse will be to pull pitch and get the heck out of there.”
The term ‘pull pitch’ is pilot slang. It’s when a pilot pulls up on the collective pitch control of a helicopter. Doing so increases the pitch, or angle, of the rotor blades spinning overhead, making them grab more air, increasing the helicopter’s lift.
Uncle Andy used the example of Peter, when he denied three times that he knew Jesus. The night before, at the Last Supper, Peter boldly claimed that he was willing to die for Jesus. But when confronted unexpectedly by a servant girl, at the end of Mark chapter 14, Peter began to curse and swear, saying “I do not know this man of whom you speak! And immediately the rooster crowed a second time. Then Peter remembered the word that Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice, you will deny Me three times.” And he broke down and wept.
Peter regretted this for the rest of his life. Many link Peter’s three denials with the three times the resurrected Jesus asked Peter, “Do you love me?” in John chapter 21.
In the last 20 years I can think of two cases where I fell into the same trap Peter fell into. In both cases, when I was unexpectedly confronted with a question that would’ve been detrimental to my goals or reputation, I instinctively lied to protect myself. I’ve repented of these moral failures and been forgiven. But they taught me a lesson. The lesson is this:
1. If I don’t do anything wrong, I won’t need to cover anything up.
2. Always speak the truth, even if it’s not complementary to my goals or reputation. The consequences of truth are better than the shame of guilt. Live in the light, don’t hide in darkness.
What is True Success?
Uncle Andy said, “Wealth and rank are the world’s metrics for success. This success is genuine, but it’s temporary, and short-sighted.”
“In the afterlife, billionaires and presidents will have less status than today’s homeless beggars. Remember the parable about the rich man and Lazarus? All worldly success will be burned up. But genuine success is measured by following the truth in every situation.”
He continues, saying, “You’ve got a good and tender heart, Katie, and flying with the Army has been a blessing for both of us. But the Army bureaucracy is part of Satan’s world system, and we’re members of God’s kingdom. These two kingdoms are at war with each other, and none of us can be faithful to both. We all must choose. So, eventually, the world’s bureaucracy will test you to determine your loyalty.”
Walking the Narrow Path
Andy summed up his advice, saying, “Will you compromise the truth and follow their philosophies and dictates, like ninety-nine percent of people do? Or will you walk the narrow path, alone, and follow the truth? When you’re tested, no matter what the cost, I encourage you to follow my two simple rules.” We discussed Andy’s 2 rules in chapter 3’s podcast.
In Matthew chapter 7 Jesus told us to “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the way that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the way that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Only a few will enter through the small gate and walk on the narrow path. In John 14:6 Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”
Since the third century, most churches in the world are compromised, giving us a version of Jesus that’s acceptable to the public, places itself between God and people, and doesn’t require too much change from their followers.
People naturally want to be accepted, to fit in. So, like ancient Israel, churches mix God’s truth with the popular beliefs of the culture around them. A little compromise won’t hurt, they say. We’ve gotta meet people where they are. After all, Jesus ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, didn’t he?
But if you take a gallon of pure spring water and add one drop of raw sewage into it, would you drink it? No, of course not. That’s how God views any amount of pollution within his Body, the living temple of God.
For anyone who thinks their church isn’t compromised, are any of these present?
* Do they promote pagan traditions, such as Halloween, Santa Claus, Easter eggs, lent, or Good Friday?
* Is there a national flag on the podium?
* Is the church incorporated?
* Are truths not spoken for fear of government retribution?
Like ancient Israel, the polluted, worldly organizations we think of as being ‘the church’ will be destroyed in the great tribulation, which I believe is about to begin. There won’t be any Baptists, Catholics, or Orthodox members in heaven. There will only be living stones in God’s heavenly temple, members of the Body of Christ. All our former, carnal distinctions will be forgotten.
But all those disciples who enter through the narrow gate of repentance and faith, who then follow God’s Spirit unto holiness on the narrow path of discipleship, will be glorified and raised to life forever to reign with Jesus in his kingdom.
Am I saying not to attend your local church? No, I’m not. I’m a local church member, contribute financially, and teach Sunday School. I believe God has a few disciples in every Bible-proclaiming church. We can’t fix the institution of the worldly church, but we can make a positive difference in the lives of some of its members.
That’s all for Chapter 4. A lot to think about.
Results from my Kindle eBook’s launch
* I want to thank members of my launch team, who helped my book, Birth Pangs of the End Times, to earn the #1 spot in the Men’s Inspirational Spirituality category on December 27th.
* The launch team members were Cynthia, David, Eugene, Jeanette, Joe, Justine, Lee, Melinda, and Vickie.
* This officially made the book a #1 Best Seller on Amazon. As a result, Amazon approved the book’s new cover with a “#1 Best Seller” badge.
* Next, I’m working diligently on getting the paperback version formatted and released. It will be released before the end of this month.
Until next week, may God’s kingdom come, and his will be done, on earth as in heaven.
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