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Dream Word – CONSIDER

Joshua 4:4-7 Then Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the children of Israel, one man from every tribe; and Joshua said to them: "Cross over before the ark of the Lord your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, that this may be a sign among you when your children ask in time to come, saying, 'What do these stones mean to you?' Then you shall answer them that the waters of the Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the Lord; when it crossed over the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. And these stones shall be for a memorial to the children of Israel forever." NKJV

There is little that is more enduring than rock. Indeed, in my homeland, the famous Stonehenge and many other dancing rock circles still remain as intriguing testimonies to ancient communities long since wiped from the face of the earth. Yet, still, whilst they have long since gone, the testimony of these speaking rocks remains for there is little that is more enduring than rock.

My suspicion is, that God delights in rock more than He delights in any other non-sentient part of His creation. The fixed, protective immovability of rock is at the very least, that which He desires most for us, and in us. Yet, I think there may be also a secret and metaphysical side to rocks yet to be fully comprehended by us, for what other singing-sentinels stand so firm in the bearing of their living water-spewing testimonials than rocks? Yes, a rock followed Israel in the wilderness, and that rock was Christ. Yes, a rock was struck in the wilderness, and it spewed out its waters. Yes, Jesus said that if the children were to cease their praising of Him, that the very rocks would chorus out their praise as a response of the entrance of the king into His capital city on earth. Yes, there is little more enduring than rock, and there is a whole lot more to rock, I believe, than at the moment, we are aware of.

In any event, God wants us to remember, and as in so much of the Old Testament, for us to begin to ‘bookend’ the chapters of His redemptive story with rock-altars and rock-piles! In our text for tonight, it is from the middle of a presently dried up Jordan river, that twelve burly tribal representatives obey the command of God and remove the smooth stones from the middle of the river to dry Canaan land, to then stand as a generational testimony to what God has done for the Israelites. Yet tonight, it is not this rock pile which I am focused upon, but rather the ‘Joshua rock pile’ that is listed in verse nine:

And the children of Israel did so, just as Joshua commanded, and took up twelve stones from the midst of the Jordan, as the Lord had spoken to Joshua, according to the number of the tribes of the children of Israel, and carried them over with them to the place where they lodged, and laid them down there. Then Joshua set up twelve stones in the midst of the Jordan, in the place where the feet of the priests who bore the ark of the covenant stood; and they are there to this day. Joshua 4:8-9 NKJV

Now, maybe Joshua was following some other unrecorded explicit command of God right here in verse nine, or maybe Joshua did this off his own bat? Who knows? Still, tonight underneath the rolling Jordan, lay twelve, now very smooth stones, all huddled together in the wet and fishy darkness. Here is a hidden rock pile, an unseen testimony, yet a testimony known by one, and all who have been redeemed. Yes, the visible pile, up from the banks of Jordan, speaks of another pile of unseen rocks, brought from the wilderness maybe but now long since hidden, covered, all smoothed out, a long, long time ago. Well, so what? Well, how about considering these two brief points:

First, I wonder if occasionally, when Jordan sha

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 Dream Word – BECOME

James 3:11,12 Does a spring send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs? Thus no spring yields both saltwater and fresh. NKJV

At the time of my writing, I believe that Britain still currently holds the abysmal record of producing the worst serial killer ever to the stalk the earth. That Doctor of Death, Harold Shipman, was convicted for the murder of hundreds of his patients. No one really knows that actual number.

Before the horror of Harold, it was the ferocity of the serial killer, Fred West, that haunted people’s dreams and turned them into nightmares. Fred West and his wife Rose confessed to killing thirty people, and the remains of many of them were found to be an integral part of the structure of where they lived, at 25 Cromwell Street. This house has long since been demolished and every brick has been crushed and every piece of the timber has been burnt.

However, it is not 25 Cromwell Street that bothers me tonight, but rather it is 27 Cromwell Street, even the building next door, which was, and still is at the time of my writing, a Seventh Day Adventist Church, still offering 'Sunday School and Divine worship on the Sabbath.'.These services both are and were then at the time of the murders, held right next door to this house of death, I mean just feet from these grotesque happenings. Twice on the Sabbath and no doubt midweek as well, they would lift their faces to God Most-High, in prayer for themselves, in prayer for their missionaries, in prayer for their communities, and I have no doubt, in prayer for their neighbours, even the people who lived next door to them. Yessiree, whilst the brutal raping and murdering was being carried out next door, just feet away, prayer and worship were being offered to God. Just feet away. Imagine that. 

As God looked down from heaven, He saw in the same screenshot, both the hands of these worshippers lifted high in praise and supplication, and no doubt the pleading hands of women being brutally raped, mistreated, begging for their life before being murdered, and then hacked to death and hidden just feet away from the all the prayers and praise. God saw the living and the loving wanting to be anointed for service and sacrifice, whilst next door He saw the blood in the basement and the bodies in the walled-up chimney, the screams of those murdered now settled silently in ready-mix concrete. One community of life and light pleading for mercy and another community of darkness and death, screaming for justice, and both just feet from one another. All this happened down a simple street in England, down our street, down my street, down your street. Now tell me, a week before Halloween, how haunting is that!

Dare I say, dare I suggest, that in a similar manner, we Christians all, draw near to God, and so often it with our lips full of praise whilst our hearts, like the sinking Titanic, are ripped and pierced below the waterline. Some chambers of our sorry ship are playing ‘Nearer my God to thee,’ whilst other chambers, just nearby, are full of laughter and hope, still others, behind the water-tight doors, are already full of death and drowned bodies. Still, other chambers are sealed with murders, unforgiveness, vengeance, bitterness, greed, foul and pestilent thoughts and all this, all this, in the same body, just feet from one another, inches, millimeters, seconds, all drawing near to God at the same time. Imagine that.

In the same terrible screenshot, God looks at every happening on the surface of our earth and sees it all in the same awful blood-red technicolour picture. In the same awful screenshot, God takes in every event in our world that has happened, that is happening and that will happen, in both space and time, all at the same time. Ima

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🎼 Where Music Meets Myth - Fiction, song, and folklore collide. - Each book is laced with:🎶 Original music,📓 Hidden journals & personal letters,📚 Companion fanbooks, 🔎 Easter eggs, crossovers, and spiritual insights

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 Dream Word – COST

2 Samuel 24:24,25 Then the king said to Araunah, "No, but I will surely buy it from you for a price; nor will I offer burnt offerings to the Lord my God with that which costs me nothing." So David bought the threshing floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver. NKJV

Now, an examination of the Old Testament use of the received tithe, that fictitious ten percent the church is always so focused upon (it was, in fact, so much more than ten percent,) reveals that it was used essentially in three major areas, that is, for the support of personnel, for the purchase and upkeep of premises and eventually for the financing of various people-keeping, and money-spinning programs. Local churches of today and I suppose every Christian para-church organization uses the larger percentage of its collected finances for exactly the same 'three P’s' in the same old pod. Personel, Premies, and Programs.

Now do not get wrong here, I like premises and I like some programs, and I do believe that the workman is worthy of his hire, though very often, many Pastors are just not as worthy as much as we pay them, and more often than not, a few Pastors are worthy of so much more. Yes, the workman is worthy of his hire, and premises should be warm inviting, safe and attractive, though not necessarily plushy, lushy and cushy, and correctly funded programs are not only justifiers of our existence, but they sometimes, I say sometimes, they might actually do some good. 

O.K. so now we are clear on that, let me say six things tonight in closing:

First, in this age of the local church, ten percent of giving is far too much for some people, it really is! Giving ten percent of nothing, when you have less than nothing coming in and more than nothing going out is just stupidity. Either that or faith. I hope it’s faith, because that alone will please God, and that alone will unite your family in the cost of such sacrificial giving.

Second, that ten percent is just not enough for some people. Ten percent of ‘loadsamoney’ is an accounting line item that your accountant uses to ensure tax relief at the end of the fiscal year. There is no sacrifice here. No really, there is no sacrifice here. Ten percent is just not enough for some people, you need to be giving more.

Third, note that tithing, though a Biblical principle is not a New Testament practice. The practice of the New Testament is the hilariously happy, and regular giving of that which we have decided upon in our hearts before God. It might be a whole lot less than ten percent, and then again, it might be a whole lot more. It may vary from gift to gift and even giver to giver, and that’s O.K.

Fourth, that if you have committed to regular giving to the 'three P’s'  of a local church, that is, if you have committed to regular giving to premises, personnel, and programs, that is, to those three P's in that oh so pesky pod, then GIVE, and GIVE and GIVE regularly! Other people are relying on your regular committed giving.

Fifth, please note that there is another principle to be applied to giving that precedes the hilarity of the task. Giving that honors God, giving that incites belief, giving that is astonishing, and giving that will be utilized by the receiver in the most holiest and astute of ways, really must be giving that is sacrificial. Giving that can most easily have the largess of hilarity affixed to it, is giving that has cost you something, and is used for righteous and holy people or causes. There is a triple prefix here, that this (1) giving must cost you something, (2) it must be giving joyfully, and (3) it must be giving to righteous hoy people and causes.  

Lastly, a confession. It’s a double-edged confession really, in that on the cutting edge I tell you that I have given my all to God.

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🎼 Where Music Meets Myth - Fiction, song, and folklore collide. - Each book is laced with:🎶 Original music,📓 Hidden journals & personal letters,📚 Companion fanbooks, 🔎 Easter eggs, crossovers, and spiritual insights

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Dream Word – REAL

Luke 3:7,8 Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by Him, "Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? NKJV

I might have said this before, but like it or not, intended or not, the Paul Newman film classic, ‘Cool Hand Luke’ is a veritable mine of Christian Metaphor.

Taking note of the crucifixion-like posturing of the character 'Luke' following his eating of fifty eggs, to all the crosses at the end of the film, I never the less especially like the fact that the character of Luke, is assigned the prison number of '37. 'Of course, Luke 3:7 is our text for tonight and speaks to hypocrites regarding ‘fleeing the wrath to come!” And what are hypocrites, except those folk who are essentially never really true to themselves? And no, I am not talking about taking pride in being your very own special little creation, I am talking about you being God's creation. There is a BIG difference here, for one is a matter of discovering thankfulness and the other is a matter of pride. 

In any event, the film of ‘Cool Hand Luke,’ is, on the positive side, the story of a misfit and a rebellious one at that. It is the story of a man who will not give up being who is, and in being who he is, he brings hope, inspiration, and happiness to the rest of the motley chain gang he is in prison with. These, in turn, begin to feed on both him and his exploits. Like Cool-Hand Luke Jackson, Jesus, in simply being who He was, most certainly clashed with those in authority and in the same way, that clash also most certainly brought life to others! There are many Christ-like comparisons to that fact in the film, but for tonight, I have found three things in the movie, and in my own life that proves that being your authentic self, does bring life and light and hope to others.

First, please note that God has put certain people on this planet, who no matter how hard you or they try, just will not fit the standard mold of things, in any shape or form! These circus folk, shall I call them, these rebels, who are too often without a cause, need to be celebrated for who they are and guided in the planning for what they shall become. Unfortunately, and so very often, all of society’s social misfits, seem to be kept hidden in the attic, or way back in the research and development area of businesses that benefit from their seeming eccentricities, but are nevertheless embarrassed by their 'exploits.' Yes, in one way or another, this circus crowd is always hidden away because of their seemingly weird, wacky and eccentric ways. Yet, given the right kind of encouragement and direction, these shooting stars can shine brighter and longer than anyone ever imagined, shooting across the sky of which they long to streak. I tell you to embrace such circus folk with happiness and laughter, for even though they might be firecrackers, they will light up your life and light up your world! God made them and their individuality needs to be seen as a gift and not a curse. God help the Laodicean church. whose local expression simply manufactures clones from within, and copies each other from without. I have been in every city in the UK, and in far too many of Laodicean churches and if one word sums up the whole sorry lot, it is the word,  'boring.'

Second, know that all of us are cramped in some way by our sin-sick societies. All of us are crippled by unnecessary rules and may I say, most of the sick, restricted, stunted, stayed and stifled people I have ever met are those which have been brought up in or brought into the church of the living God! Like it or not, that is the truth. Yes, the church of the 'Lord of Life' is often more guilty of the control of, and perpetuation of death, rather than the giving of life! The church needs to learn to release the uniqueness of the individual wi

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🎵 The Ballad Dodecet™  - Twelve Stories. One Epic Song. - 🔥 Step Into the Ballad Universe - Where twelve stories ignite a cosmos.

🌍 A World Across Six Nations- From the mist-shrouded Highlands of Scotland to the deep hollers of Appalachia, the Ballad Dodecet spans: Scotland, England, Ireland-Northern Ireland,  Wales, -North America. Each volume taps into centuries of folklore, faith, and frontier resilience—binding together diverse cultures and long-whispered legends into one unforgettable tapestry of story and song.

🎼 Where Music Meets Myth - Fiction, song, and folklore collide. - Each book is laced with:🎶 Original music,📓 Hidden journals & personal letters,📚 Companion fanbooks, 🔎 Easter eggs, crossovers, and spiritual insights

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Dream Word – CONNECT

Luke 3:7,8 Then he said to the multitudes that came out to be baptized by him, "Brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? NKJV

Like it, or not, intended, or not, released in 1967, the Paul Newman film classic, ‘Cool Hand Luke,’ is a veritable mine of Christian Metaphor.

In 2007, Donn Pearce, the writer of both the novel and the majestic screenplay for this film, was still living and writing near where I lived at that time, which was in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Leaving home aged only fifteen, meant that the author’s personal life is a rich source of story for the film. For example, Pearce lied about his age when joining the army in 1944, and he went absent without leave because he was a rebel against unnecessary rules, and spent time in the stockade before the intervention of his mother, who finally informed the army of his true age. Thrown out of the army, Pearce then joined the merchant navy, traveling the world, only to be imprisoned in France for the black-market counterfeiting of money! Escaping then from the outside prison detail, he fraudulently made his way back to America where he took up a new career in burglary. Later, aged just twenty, he was caught and incarcerated for safe-cracking, from which he had to serve two full years in the Florida State Department of correction chain gangs. At the very least, this young man experienced more of the bad life in those eight years than many men would dare to or expect to experience in their full and strong, hopefully, eighty years. Pearce, having previously given up writing, as a much older man, circumstances of need had now made him take up his pen once more. In those intervening years, however, before returning to writing,  he had an office where I used to live in Dania Beach, from which he arrested run anyone from runaway killers from the Carolinas to StoreFront Preachers who moonlighted in the drug trade. (I am sure that some of the latter are still operating in that same trade, in Broward County today, yes,  even as I write this Night Whisper.)

I tell you all this because Don Pearce is not a financially successful author. At the time of my writing, he was struggling to take care of his ailing wife and to find extra money for medical bills. I suspect he most certainly felt like Sysiphus of old, bound to an eternity of frustration in forever rolling a rock uphill and never reaching the top. Indeed, Ben Alsup, writing in Esquire magazine from an interview with Pearce in 2005, records Don Pearce telling him one very particular story. It went like this, 

“A man, beaten and bleeding, is crawling after a gun. Every time he comes near to laying hands on the gun, another man kicks it up the road a little farther, keeping it always just out of reach. The kicker holds a gun of his own. And the crawler knows, should he ever succeed in reaching the gun he's after, that the kicker will shoot him dead. The kicker knows this as well. Still, they travel up the road. The crawler crawls, and the kicker kicks, and the road, it never ends.”

Friends, under this present sun, for everyone there dawns the realization of the seeming futility which lies in the circle of life. At some point, we all feel that there is a seeming pointlessness to all our journeying. If that outrages some of you, then you are either too young or too insulated to know the truth of it. The former condition of being too young is excusable and will pass with time, the latter, however, is a chosen state of lunacy, and it seems that the church is full of such lunatic people.

I will qualify that last statement, but for tonight, I say to you three most important things :

First, enjoy your journey, enjoy the day, the night, the peace, the fight, the hot still days and the windborne kite. Enjo

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🎵 The Ballad Dodecet™  - Twelve Stories. One Epic Song. - 🔥 Step Into the Ballad Universe - Where twelve stories ignite a cosmos.

🌍 A World Across Six Nations- From the mist-shrouded Highlands of Scotland to the deep hollers of Appalachia, the Ballad Dodecet spans: Scotland, England, Ireland-Northern Ireland,  Wales, -North America. Each volume taps into centuries of folklore, faith, and frontier resilience—binding together diverse cultures and long-whispered legends into one unforgettable tapestry of story and song.

🎼 Where Music Meets Myth - Fiction, song, and folklore collide. - Each book is laced with:🎶 Original music,📓 Hidden journals & personal letters,📚 Companion fanbooks, 🔎 Easter eggs, crossovers, and spiritual insights

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Acts 9:36-37 At Joppa there was a certain disciple named Tabitha, which is translated Dorcas. This woman was full of good works and charitable deeds which she did. NKJV.

And she died.

The death of Dorcas, the old Christian Gazelle, had a profound impact upon the community in which she lived. So much so, that the Saints decided that they would go and fetch an apostle to see what could be done! Peter and his entourage later arrive and enter the room of the deathbed scene, only to find it packed with people, all ‘a-weeping and a-wailing,’ and each one probably clutching their garment and saying, “Look! She made this for me. Sat up all night she did, God bless ‘er,” And maybe another, with one hand on Peter's shoulder and the other carrying a cloak, well cared for and neatly draped across her arm, saying, “Look. She went without food for a week to buy me this, then tailored the cloth to fit my old round shoulders.”  Followed undoubtedly by another, and yet another, all full of testimonies, and all clothed and warm, each one pointing and praising, all weeping and watching just what Peter might do for them. So, Peter raises Dorcas from the dead and presents her to them alive. It seems that her most necessary of serving and sewing days were apparently still not over. Now, I don’t know if Dorcas was happy about this turn of events, but all who loved her and had benefited from her full life of good deeds toward them for the glory of God, well, I am sure that they were ecstatic!

My mother died two years before I became a Christian. Whilst serving in HMS Collingwood down in Portsmouth, that old, great trading sea-port,  I was given the number of a Brigadier in the Salvation Army, a retired old woman whom I had never met. I rang the number, introduced myself, and was immediately told, “Ah yes, I met your mum before she died and led her to the Lord. Don’t worry, she’s with Jesus now.” I tell you, that  I was stunned! How did this happen, and how had I not known about it? The old woman that had given me the number to call was my former next-door neighbour during all my adolescent years. A grand old gal called Olive Hinchcliffe, a former tambourine basher herself, a Captain I think? 

My old mum was a hard worker, but bless her heart, she couldn’t sew for toffee, so it was this lady who lived next door to us who had for years, sewn up the holes in my trousers, altered the leg-length on my school uniforms, bought me white shirts to wear for school and the most amazing textbooks to take with me to school at the beginning of each new term. For years she had prayed for us, and for me especially, and for years had drip, drip, drip watered the parched and hard-heart of my old mum's soul. When my mother's sponge-like nicotine filled lungs had eventually provided a comfortable bed for lung cancer to spread itself and lie upon,  the hardness of her heart had been so softened over the years by Olive's good works, that it was easy for her to introduce her Brigadier friend to my mother’s own deathbed scene.  Look now, for Olive Hinchcliffe had never shared the Gospel with me or my mother, but her good works and prayers brought my mum and me both into the Kingdom of the Saviour that she loved most dearly, and honoured most profoundly. Of course, the Gospel was preached, but it was Olive by her good works who had made a way for its entrance.

In Joppa, that other old, and great trading seaport,  another old woman, FULL of good works had drip, drip, drip watered the hearts of many people in the city. When Peter arrived and raised Dorcas from the dead and shared the source of such power with such parched hearts now most thoroughly moistened by the good works of Dorcas, then the rain of God was absorbed and life sprang anew, the tale of which, was carried far and wide with every sa

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🎵 The Ballad Dodecet™  - Twelve Stories. One Epic Song. - 🔥 Step Into the Ballad Universe - Where twelve stories ignite a cosmos.

🌍 A World Across Six Nations- From the mist-shrouded Highlands of Scotland to the deep hollers of Appalachia, the Ballad Dodecet spans: Scotland, England, Ireland-Northern Ireland,  Wales, -North America. Each volume taps into centuries of folklore, faith, and frontier resilience—binding together diverse cultures and long-whispered legends into one unforgettable tapestry of story and song.

🎼 Where Music Meets Myth - Fiction, song, and folklore collide. - Each book is laced with:🎶 Original music,📓 Hidden journals & personal letters,📚 Companion fanbooks, 🔎 Easter eggs, crossovers, and spiritual insights

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Dream Word – SEE

Ruth 2:2-4 Naomi said to her, "Go ahead, my daughter." So she went out and began to glean in the fields behind the harvesters. As it turned out, she found herself working in a field belonging to Boaz, who was from the clan of Elimelech. Just then, Boaz arrived from Bethlehem and greeted the harvesters, "The Lord be with you!" NIV

I love the Old Testament Book of Ruth and the verses in our text for tonight, are probably my favourites from the whole of the book. Of course, being a lover of God’s deeps, I like these verses in particular, because of the two great whales that break the surface of the crashing waves of poverty and spout their presence abroad for all the world to see. Do you see them?  For oh, friends, in these quiet portent times of the coming judgment of God, we surely must see them, else all our hope is lost.

The scene is set for us in the book of Ruth, when the pleasant Naomi has returned in marred bitterness to her former country,  to her home time of Bethlehem, her clan, and her former neighbours.  Just ten years previously Naomi had left there with her husband and two sons for Moab. She did so because there was no bread in Bethlehem, yes, there was no bread in ‘the house of bread,’ and at that time, neither was there singing in Judah, indeed, music had left ‘the land of praise,’ and so Naomi and he family left it.

In those ten years away from her homeland, she lost her husband and two sons to tragic deaths but had gained two lovely but very needy daughters in law, one of whom, despite her best efforts, could not be shaken from her dead apron-strings and therefore, Naomi had to drag Ruth back to Bethlehem, to want, to ridicule, to gossip and to incessant questioning.

It has been rightly said that 'God planted a garden and that man created the cities, but that the devil made the small town!' Here then, back in the goldfish bowl of Bethlehem, all Naomi’s poverty and despondency, all of her bitter declarations of 'the hand of the Lord going out against her,' could be seen and heard by everyone, and oh the gossip my friends, and oh the looks, and oh the condemnation, and oh the accusation, oh the intense intrigue and the consistent and close observation of this beautiful foreigner called Ruth. My goodness friends, if it wasn’t for the whales of God’s presence, if it wasn’t for the warm mammals of Gods providence, if it wasn’t for these two giants of His goodness breaking the surface of those poverty polluted deeps, and those troubled waters of want, then all in the story would be nothing but bleak despondency. Thank God then for the whales! Do you see them yet? For oh, my friends, in these quiet portent times of the coming judgment of God, we surely must see them, else all our hope is lost.

This story has a good ending though. Ruth the Moabitess, shall be loved by Boaz, in whom is great strength, courage, and, of course, cash! Yes, Naomi shall, at last, be blessed, she shall be well taken care of and children shall bounce upon her knee, and from this foreign exchange, there shall eventually come David the King and even Christ the Saviour! Though, at this point in the story, the only testimony to God’s greatness and overwhelming and coming goodness, are the whales. Do you see them yet? For oh, friends, in these quiet portent times of the coming judgment of God, we surely must see them, else all our hope is lost.

Those two whales are called “As it turned out,” and ‘Just then.” An even bigger one of these giants, seen mostly spouting amongst the covers of the New Testament is called, “But God!” That’s a special one though because it can only be seen with the eyes of faith. This particular pair, however, called “As it turned out,” and ‘Just then,” can be se

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Dream Word – SEE

Ezekiel 8:17,18 And He said to me, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial thing to the house of Judah to commit the abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. Therefore I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry in My ears with a loud voice, I will not hear them." NKJV

This time of year, this time of leaf changing, this time of chemical release from dying vegetation always leaves me allergically congested. Subsequently, my nose runs a little, just a little, and my sinus’s slowly drain down the back of my throat, trickling tickly-ness into the area and producing a rasping and repetitive cough and a constant clearing of the throat. It is annoying and all the throat-clearing makes it sound like I am about to say something very, very important! However, all I say is “Excuse me,” to those around me and living on the edge of such expectorant expectancy, which as we all know, can be so very tiring.

Even so, our text for tonight is about to say something very important, but the exact meaning of that little phrase, ‘put the branch to their nose,’ is widely misunderstood amongst the Biblical commentators. In any event, friends, whatever the phrase actually means is really an irrelevance, for the focus of the text is not so much on the supposed heinous practice itself, but rather the response from God toward it. So, whatever this nasal insult was, it became such a grievous and gross offense, even such a putrid and offensive stench to God's bitter and outraged heart, that it perniciously provoked Him to both an astonishing and outraged anger! Yes, this secret sinning, this ‘putting the branch to the nose,’ this indulgence in idolatrous and outrageous obscenity, caused such a ‘Divine Nasal Drip’ that God coughed Himself into such a fuming fury such that He phlegmed out Isreal from His Holy and congested lungs! We should worry, for if anything describes the Western World today, it is that our thoughts, words, and deeds are nothing but wild, idolatrous and outrageous obscenities.

Make no mistake about it, the outcome of such a Divine coughing-fury did result in the dire, and dreadful decimation, dissolution and desolation of Israel. Indeed, if God had not chosen to save Himself a remnant of those who both sighed and cried at the loathsome state that their nation had gotten itself into, then the apple of God’s eye would surely have lain forever rotting upon the sodden soil. This Nasal offense was the very last straw.

Tonight I have to tell you that I have seen the secret sins of God's leaders, and His so-called prophets of today. Indeed, I have seen the secret sins of God’s people today. I have seen the present indifference of God in their lives, in our lives, in the life of the church at large; it is so bad that it could lead me to conclude that God is not watching, indeed,  and that His very indifference to their 'putting the branch to the nose.' is so telling, that in fact, it might indicate there is no God in heaven at all! Even so, if I have seen the secret sin, then make no mistake that GOD HAS SEEN IT TOO, and His current silence toward it is nothing but the darkest of portents concerning  His coming coughing-action. 

Look! God sees! Look at our Western lands! See the famine, see the disease of man and beast, see the fear, see the war, see the tear. Hear the vines now long since dead, crackle in the fire. Hear the other nations and the foreign cultures, now among us, all sucking the marrow from the dry bones left on our ground. See the violation of God's law, look at the rape of His love, be astonished, yes, be ASTONISHED at the idols of pride now moved from the secret chambers of s

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🌍 A World Across Six Nations- From the mist-shrouded Highlands of Scotland to the deep hollers of Appalachia, the Ballad Dodecet spans: Scotland, England, Ireland-Northern Ireland,  Wales, -North America. Each volume taps into centuries of folklore, faith, and frontier resilience—binding together diverse cultures and long-whispered legends into one unforgettable tapestry of story and song.

🎼 Where Music Meets Myth - Fiction, song, and folklore collide. - Each book is laced with:🎶 Original music,📓 Hidden journals & personal letters,📚 Companion fanbooks, 🔎 Easter eggs, crossovers, and spiritual insights

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Dream Word – CONSIDER
Psalms 8:3-4 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him? NKJV.

Ever and always, the Scriptures present the angelic creation as occupying higher realms, as being higher beings possessing higher powers, indeed, in every respect their capacities, in each and every way, are so much higher than we mere humans that it makes them more awesome and richer than humanity could ever possibly attain to. Even so, C.S. Lewis, whilst acknowledging our currently confused and glass darkened senses, gives thanks for such present human befuddlement, such 'witchery of the senses,' as he calls it, and then most majestically lays out for us a golden thought that tonight we mere humans might consider. Will you listen:

Far richer they! I know senses’ witchery
Guards us, like air, from heavens too big to see;
Imminent death to man that barb’d sublimity
And dazzling edge of beauty unsheathed would be.
Yet here. Within this tiny, charm’d interior,
This parlour of the brain, their Maker shares
With living men some secrets in a privacy
Forever ours, not theirs.

(from the Poem – ‘On Being Human’ - C.S. Lewis )

Now friends, though we have cruelly rejected truth and thus have forgotten who we were intended to be, the angels know of both our design and our direction. Yes, they are well aware of both our fall and of our coming exaltation. I might conjecture then that this 'chatter of the ages,' a long time ago now, eventually spread to one-third of them like cancerous jealousy and caused them to fall and plummet, down to the depths beneath, in all-consuming and envious desperation? Even so, what we the redeemed of Christ are now, and what we shall soon, so very soon become, are for the good angels of the good God, things which they ever and always, both desire and delight to look into, for they understand, that the secrets of redemption which have been planted by the Holy Spirit, like loving seeds in the dead ground of a poor man’s soul, shall at the adoption, even the redemption of our bodies, lead to another Genesis, the like of which is only told of in the longing cries of a groaning creation, presently, all gone wrong.

I wonder if we each have a personal and private inner sanctuary, even in our hearts which is he very dwelling place of the Most-High, a secret place of private audiences with our Father, where we laugh at wondrous love and together sing away our cares, and unwrap His silver secrets in a privacy of a 'charm'd interior' that is only forever ours, and which could be described as a  redeemed and human privacy that can never be inhabited by the angels? I wonder........

Listen: Of this salvation, the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you, searching what, or what manner of time, the Spirit of Christ who was in them was indicating when He testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow. To them it was revealed that not to themselves, but to us they were ministering the things which now have been reported to you through those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven --- things which angels desire to look into. (1 Peter 1:10-12)

Pray:- Father, Abba, Dad, do please deliver me from despicable distractions of every sort, maybe just for a little bit, even just for an hour a day, that we together may walk and might  look deep into Your magnificent midnight, whilst You help me take the wrapping off all the singing and silver secrets of the skies, which tell to me and only to the redeemed of humanity, of the glories yet to come, the glories of that other Genesis. Amen a

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🎵 The Ballad Dodecet™  - Twelve Stories. One Epic Song. - 🔥 Step Into the Ballad Universe - Where twelve stories ignite a cosmos.

🌍 A World Across Six Nations- From the mist-shrouded Highlands of Scotland to the deep hollers of Appalachia, the Ballad Dodecet spans: Scotland, England, Ireland-Northern Ireland,  Wales, -North America. Each volume taps into centuries of folklore, faith, and frontier resilience—binding together diverse cultures and long-whispered legends into one unforgettable tapestry of story and song.

🎼 Where Music Meets Myth - Fiction, song, and folklore collide. - Each book is laced with:🎶 Original music,📓 Hidden journals & personal letters,📚 Companion fanbooks, 🔎 Easter eggs, crossovers, and spiritual insights

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 Dream Word – HAPPY

Ephesians 5:19 …..speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord….NKJV

Many evenings, my wife and I take an hour’s walk together. It is always good to walk in the Kentucky countryside, past all the entrances to the 'hollers' where the blacktop ends, and up amongst the brush and on the green hillsides, which are sometimes speckled with light blue cornflowers, or sometimes freckled with the rich, red leaves of disrobing hardwood trees getting ready to go to sleep for winter in the pumpkin orange of the that Kentucky earth’s, chubby, child-like cheeks, all full of falls-fatness at winter's beckoning bedtime. Here, you can see the cold, angle-ironed markers, still stuck upright in the 'dark and bloody ground.' These property markers might be in the right legal place, but they are completely out of place amongst this singing beauty, standing rusty and uncamouflaged amongst the fantastic foliage, sometimes flagged with pink fluorescent plastic ribbons, but all shouting out the various property lines of a people proud to own a piece of American pie. Yup, personal real estate is especially important in Kentucky. The rusted poles of old angle-iron might be more permanent than the old wooden staves previously used in history to mark out land, but still, they are rather unsightly.

My hometown, over a thousand years ago, was once an Anglo-Saxon settlement in the center of a meadow which they called a ‘Lea.’ Records show that some sixty acres of this ‘Lea’-land' had already been marked off by wooden staves and designated for a new town area. After the battle of Hastings in 1066, William the Conqueror gave this same area of  'Stave-Lea,' (Staveley as it is now known) as a victory present to one his warriors. The Normans had finally arrived in my hometown.

The family of that warrior, ‘Ascuit Musard,’ held Staveley for generations until the death of Nicholas Musard, a Roman Catholic priest, who, because he could not legally leave his land to his bastard children, (no change there then in a thousand years,) had his property dispersed among his sisters, one of whom married ‘Anker De Frechville, Baron of Crich.’ Now, the Frechville’s really left their mark on Staveley in the form of the old and well haunted Hagge farm, The Manor house, The Rectory and of course, a Chantry, some parts of which date back to the thirteenth century, well before the ownership and sponsorship of the Frechville family.

A Chantry is a private chapel, where a priest sang or chanted psalms for the soul of the founder. The religious rich have always had their spiritual insurance policies, paying those they believed to have the ear of God to intercede with singing on their behalf while they just got on with the sinning. A Chantry was such a place, a place of paid private prayer, a place of praise, and of supplication for the person who had enough money in his wallet to make it so. Even so,  I tell you tonight, that I like the idea of a Chantry. I like the idea of a private place of singing psalms and chanting some choice songs of the spirit.

Today in his devotional ‘My Utmost for His Highest,’ Oswald Chambers, from a speech to Theological students says, “It is not the practical activities that are the strength of this Bible Training College – it’s entire strength lies in the fact that here you are immersed in the truths of God to soak in them before Him. You have no idea of where or how God is going to engineer your future circumstances and no knowledge of what stress and strain is going to be placed on you either at home or abroad. And if you waste your time in overactivity, instead of being immersed in the great fundamental truths of God’s redemption, then you will snap when the stress and strain do come.”   How true and friends and I am

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🎵 The Ballad Dodecet™  - Twelve Stories. One Epic Song. - 🔥 Step Into the Ballad Universe - Where twelve stories ignite a cosmos.

🌍 A World Across Six Nations- From the mist-shrouded Highlands of Scotland to the deep hollers of Appalachia, the Ballad Dodecet spans: Scotland, England, Ireland-Northern Ireland,  Wales, -North America. Each volume taps into centuries of folklore, faith, and frontier resilience—binding together diverse cultures and long-whispered legends into one unforgettable tapestry of story and song.

🎼 Where Music Meets Myth - Fiction, song, and folklore collide. - Each book is laced with:🎶 Original music,📓 Hidden journals & personal letters,📚 Companion fanbooks, 🔎 Easter eggs, crossovers, and spiritual insights

Welcome to a living, breathing world—ready to read, hear, and explore.

🎧 ▶ LISTEN LIVE – WLMP 660 AM- HTTPS://WWW. KINGDOM.ROCKS
 Tune in to We Love Mountain Praise for exclusive ballad broadcasts, story-backed songs, devotionals, and behind-the-scenes revelations.

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