As we age, we experience more physical challenges. That’s the way life goes in this fallen world. 

While it’s tempting and understandable to grow angry or frustrated at the limitations placed on us by age, it’s also an opportunity to show others—especially younger generations—the power of God’s grace through the way we respond to these challenges.

One of the hardest things for us to do is trusting God in the middle of physical, financial, or emotional trouble.

Remember, our Good Shepherd is always there. Sometimes, we just need to sit quietly, read His Word, and listen for His voice.

In the midst of despair, it’s understandable that we question whether God hears us. But the story of Hagar, the servant of Abraham and Sarah, reminds us that we are never alone.

Pagans in the ancient world tried to appease their deceased ancestors, including through ritual “meals” to feed them in the afterlife.

Those “ancestors” were actually demons, which Jews, the apostles, and the early church (and even the pagan Greeks and Romans) believed were the spirits of the demigods destroyed in a long-ago flood—in other words, the Nephilim who died in the Flood of Noah.

Thanks to archaeologists in Israel, we can see megalithic monuments erected by ancient cults of the dead. And thanks to the Bible, we can see how Jesus reversed the ancient ritual of feeding the ancestors at the Last Supper, which we remember every time we celebrate the Lord’s Supper.

This also gives new meaning to the 23rd Psalm, where David describes our Good Shepherd preparing a table for us in the presence of our enemies! He wasn’t talking about physical adversaries—remember, we don’t wrestle human opponents, but against principalities, powers, and cosmic rulers over this present darkness.

A story from Georgia reminds us of how we are always protected by our Good Shepherd.

In December 2022, a 20-month-old Great Pyrenees named Casper defended his flock against a late-night attack by 13 coyotes. Casper charged into the middle of the pack and in a fight that lasted half an hour, Casper killed several coyotes and scattered the rest.

But Casper wasn’t done.

He jumped the fence and chased down several more coyotes and sent them to their eternal reward. But when Casper didn’t return home the next day, his owners feared the worst. Neighbors joined the search for the heroic dog and discovered more dead coyotes in the woods.

Two days later, Casper showed up in the pen with the sheep. He required multiple surgeries to close wounds on his neck and back, and his tail had to be amputated as well.

The point is this: Even while Casper was missing and his owners thought he was gone, leaving their sheep unprotected, the four-legged hero was protecting his flock—the way our Good Shepherd is always protecting us even when we feel lost and alone.

Remember: You are never alone.

Sharon’s niece, Sarah Sachleben, was recently diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer, and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah. 

ALL OF us have known grief—even our Savior.

When we grieve for a brother or sister who’s been called home by the Lord, we need to recognize that the sadness we feel is for ourselves, because those who are now with Him wouldn’t come back to this world if they could. That may be why Jesus wept for Lazarus. He knew that he was bringing his beloved friend back to a world of pain and sorrow.

So, when we say goodbye to a loved one who knew Jesus Christ as Lord, remember—it’s just for a little while. Meanwhile, rejoice! They are in the presence of our King!

Sharon’s niece, Sarah Sachleben, was recently diagnosed with stage 4 bowel cancer, and the medical bills are piling up. If you are led to help, please go to GilbertHouse.org/hopeforsarah. 

We note with sadness the passing of Lynette Hill, a lovely and courageous woman who’d become a friend to many of us in the SkyWatchTV family.

She has graduated and has no doubt heard, “Well done, my good and faithful servant.” But she serves as a reminder to make the most of each day for our King, as none of us knows when He will call us home.

SkyWatchTV’s Joe Horn recorded a thoughtful and moving farewell to Lynette. See it here: https://bit.ly/3DRbliS

THE STORY of an infamous murder in Victorian London reminds us of Paul’s warning to Timothy of godlessness in the end times.

For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people. (2 Tim. 3:2–5, ESV)

In the 19th century, Darwinian evolution and the occult teachings of Helena Blavatsky, founder of Theosophy, formed competing worldviews based on the notion that humanity was either evolving into a higher life form or devolving from a race that lived during a golden age. Paul took neither view, but warned Timothy that a rise in godlessness would emerge in the last days. But as Jesus told the disciples on the Mount of Olives, when we see such things, look up because redemption draws near.

AN ODD STORY recorded by Jerome about a 4th-century monk from Egypt, Anthony the Great, raises an interesting question: Are there demons that want to be saved?

According to the story, Anthony traveled into the desert looking for Paulus, the first hermit. After some travel, Anthony encountered a centaur and asked him where to find the servant of God. The centaur pointed and then ran off. Anthony decided to travel in that direction and soon came across another fantastic creature “with hooked snout, horned forehead, and extremities like goats’ feet.”

After praying for protection, the creature offered him “the fruit of the palm-trees to support him on his journey,” and then said this:

“I am a mortal being and one of those inhabitants of the desert whom the Gentiles deluded by various forms of error worship under the names of Fauns, Satyrs, and Incubi. I am sent to represent my tribe. We pray you in our behalf to entreat the favour of your Lord and ours, who, we have learned, came once to save the world, and ‘whose sound has gone forth into all the earth.’”

Is this story plausible? As much as we’d like to think so, we think not. Demons, such as the goat-demon described in this story (and like Pan in our last episode), are the spirits of the giant Nephilim destroyed in the Flood.

Salvation was promised to humans. It’s not likely that satyrs (goat-demons, the se’irim of the Old Testament) would ask for the means by which they could be saved.

JESUS CHALLENGED the goat-demon Pan right in front of the gates of Hell!

What’s more, our friend Dr. Judd Burton (BurtonBeyond.net) believes Jesus timed his trip to Caesarea Philippi and the Grotto of Pan to coincide with Lupercalia, a religious festival devoted to Pan and his Roman equivalent Faunus.

This festival fell on February 15, right in the middle of the nine-day celebration called Paternalia, devoted to the spirits of deceased ancestors—spirits that were, in fact, demons, the spirits of the giant Nephilim destroyed in the Flood.

Then Jesus climbed “a very high mountain,” which could only have been Mount Hermon (the only “very high mountain” near Caesarea Philippi), for the Transfiguration, essentially declaring his divinity on the Canaanite equivalent of Mount Olympus—the “mount of assembly” for the gods of Israel’s pagan neighbors.