Response Take 3

First Comment: 

(These are actually two comments, but I do believe they are from the same individual, and so I’ve pasted them together, so I could answer them both. If they were not from the same individual, I sincerely apologize for the misread. It was not intentional, but as I said, they are in the same vein, and they bring up some good, and worthwhile points we ought to discuss more fully.) 

Could you please reconcile these two statements: 
from this post - "Never once did I intimate or suggest that I would withhold, or otherwise not share anything that I was commanded to share."
and, from the vision of The House That Stood - "I have not released a dream or a vision in two years, and if not for the specific instruction 'tell them' I would have been hesitant in releasing this dream as well. As I explained in a recent radio interview, the reason why I have not released any visions or dreams is because many within the household of faith have become, for lack of a better term, prophecy junkies. At every gathering, at every meetings, there is always the inevitable 'what's the Lord been showing you lately', as though He hasn't shown us enough, or as though His word is not clear enough. I specifically asked permission of God to withhold what He was showing me for a season, and have single-mindedly focused on preaching Christ, and Him crucified wherever I was asked to preach, because our safety, our shelter, and our protection is in Christ Jesus our Lord, Savior and King."
It sounds as if you have asked God to either stop gifting you with these revelations, or to make them for yourself only as you do not wish to reveal them. If this is true, I find it very sad, and a great loss to the Body of Christ. But perhaps the explanation is, that "season" was the 2 years in which you did not release anything, and that "season" is now over. I hope so. 
To your credit, you have not shied away from the topic of persecution and the American church not being exempt. What would be extremely helpful and timely now would be 2 things: practical advice on how to prepare for this, since your family lived through it - and by this I mean things like Wurmbrand wrote about, such as thinking and planning in advance how to maintain an underground church; and - how to prepare ourselves psychologically and spiritually. By this I mean, there are probably Christians in the middle east who, while having their heads sawed off with a dull knife, were thinking - but Lord - You said your angels would bear us up in their hands lest we cast our foot against a stone. You said only with our eyes would we behold the reward of the wicked. You said not to fear. You said if we made you our refuge, no evil would befall us. You said not a hair of our heads would perish. There are other Christians, along with many non-Christians, women and girls taken captive as sex slaves and are suffering so acutely that they have smuggled out messages to the Americans asking to bomb them and put them out of their agony. Is suicide EVER forgivable, in such extreme circumstances as this? There are accounts both in the bible and in modern times of famine so severe that parents butcher and eat their own children, and of people cannibalizing each other. When one has gone mad from hunger, how are these things judged? We are facing some incredibly tough times with tough dilemmas. To me, sincerely repenting of my sins and shortcomings on a daily basis, and trying to walk as honestly and faithfully with God as I can, is easy compared to trying not to fear when I am about to be burned alive, or worse. How DOES one get through times like that? - because they are coming. 

P.S. to my previous comment about severe persecution. Most of us know the verses about it, that all who strive to live Godly in Christ will suffer it; and that the servant is no better than the master; and that the world will hate us. We know the facts of reality, not only what is happening even now in other parts of the world, but that all but one of the apostles died horrible deaths, and that on one day it was God's will to send an angel to physically break shackles and open gates to let Peter out of prison, and on another day, to stand by and let him be martyred. 
What I am asking for help with, is how can we get our minds around these seeming contradictions? If we are not prone to psychological compartmentalization - and by that I mean, able to accept that today one verse is true but not the other, and tomorrow, the opposite - how do we reconcile these things so that our faith can be solid? Are the verses of protection meant for the next life - once in heaven, the enemy cannot touch us? That would make sense, yet those verses of protection and safety are constantly used in reference to this world. Perhaps that is misapplication. I know there have been millions of martyrs and there will be more. Someday I hope to understand that. For now, all I can do is wonder why, since our suffering and our blood saves no one. 

My Response: 

As far as reconciling the two comments, when I wrote, "Never once did I intimate or suggest that I would withhold, or otherwise not share anything that I was commanded to share", it was in reference to the initial post which started this entire discussion.

Have there been moments where I’ve asked God to release me? Yes, there have, and I know to some that sounds anathema, but unless you limp a mile in someone’s shoes, you don’t know what they go through.

God does hold us to account, God does correct us in His grace and love, God does test us frequently, and oftentimes painfully, and having worked with a man who served until his final breath, I know that these tests, these trials, the ongoing battle to remain humble and not allow the enemy any inroads is a lifelong endeavor. Believe me when I tell you it takes its toll, it gets tiresome, and sometimes, when you look back on your life and realize that for the better part of a quarter of a century you’ve been preaching a message that for the most part was either mocked, ridiculed, or went wholly unheard, it gets disheartening.

All I am is human. All my grandfather was, was human. I’m sorry to dispel the myth, but if there is anything worthwhile in me it is not due to my lineage, my heritage, or something I did in and of myself that pushed me to the front of the line. It is all God, His choosing His will, and if I’d had any input or say in the matter, like Moses, I would have pointed out why I am not well suited for the task.

These men and women that to this day suffer, and bleed and die for the cause of Christ, they’re not braver or better built than you or I, they’ve just made peace with the truth that to die is gain and to live is Christ. In a nutshell, that’s what will carry us through it all, but I will endeavor to go a bit deeper into this topic, because I know many believers have a difficult time reconciling certain passages in scripture, especially when it comes to suffering.

On the one hand, we are comforted by the promise that we will be kept and protected, on the other hand we are told we will suffer persecution, and to our minds it doesn’t compute.

The first thing we must do is differentiate between persecution, and suffering the wrath of God together with the world.

The promises of God to His children, the promise of being kept, sheltered, and protected, have to do with the wrath which He will pour out upon the godless.

I do not believe for a second that we will suffer the wrath of God as the world will, I do believe wholeheartedly that in those times we will see the miracles of God, we will see supernatural provision, we will see supernatural protection, and we will see supernatural guidance.

This is why we do not fear. This is why we have hope. This is why we have joy, and peace, and can still retain our sanity knowing what we know is about to descend upon the earth.

How will God provide for me and my family? I have not a clue, but I know He will. I know I will not have to resort to cannibalism, or any of the other hellish things men resort to when they are mad with hunger, because my God is able to keep me, and He promised that He would.

We have enough examples in the Bible wherein God provided supernaturally, protected supernaturally, and kept supernaturally. It’s still the same God, with the same power, and if we don’t believe that He can do for us what He did for those of old, then the issue lies with us, and not with the promises of God.

With that having been said, we were never promised we would be spared persecution.

Why do you think the martyrs of old would go to their deaths singing songs of praise to God? Knowing they would shortly be savaged by wild beasts, or set ablaze after being dipped in tar, or crucified, or beheaded, or stoned, or a hundred other different things, what made them do what they did?

Simply put, they knew of the reward that awaited them. They knew that a martyr’s death received a martyr’s crown, and a martyr’s reward. Not all are called to be martyrs, but if one is so called, they will be given the strength to bring glory to God, even in their final hours.

We all owe a death sooner or later; it is dying well that’s hard for many folks.

Our singular desire is that by our life or by our death we bring glory to God. How does my martyrdom glorify God? I am not Him, therefore I do not yet know, but I am at peace in the knowledge that He does, and if this is the path He chooses for me, then I will walk it joyfully.

Men make much of this present life, even though it is but a breath compared to the life to come.

I know I have not answered all your questions or concerns, how can I possibly, but I do hope I’ve shed a bit more light on the subject, especially the difference between suffering the wrath of God, and suffering persecution as a faithful bondservant of Christ.

Second Comment:

Thank you for posting such a thorough and sincere response. I agree that it seems unreasonable to continually speak forth a supernaturally given message of coming events decades beforehand. However, my brother Dumitru Duduman no longer walks this earth and those given messages are precisely why he’s known in American homes. He is not known in America because he emphasized John 3:16. He is known to me and people around the world because he obeyed God and spoke what he was given to speak and did what he was commanded to do. That’s why there exists the public ministry to which you’re chairman, because of a man who threw out reasoning and obeyed God with what he was given to say and do.
I’ve often recalled your dream in 2003 when the angel declared: “It is not for you to judge the success the message has in the hearts of others. You were called to be a servant, serve.” Daniel 12:9 is fundamental for the true last generation: “Go your way, Daniel, for the words are closed up and sealed till the time of the end.” There are words the last generation is to expect to be opened and unsealed at the time of the end in the fulfillment of God’s plans and purposes. Jesus said in Matthew 24:14, “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations, and then the end will come.” We have got to obey God no matter what we may consider most important. My friend and brother, perhaps you should re-read Revelation 11 as to what the two witnesses will be doing. It won’t be “Jesus loves you and so do I.” No. God’s wrath is coming and there is no fear in lovers of truth. 

My Response: 

My brother, we can speak of the love of God without diminishing or taking away from the severity of God. We can speak of the grace of God, without diminishing, or taking away from the justice of God.

I was writing in regards to Christmas, or in regards to the celebrating of the birth of Christ. Within that context, it was love that compelled God to send Him, and it was love that compelled Him to walk up the hill, stretch out His arms, and die upon the tree.

A one dimensional God, whether that dimension is all love, all wrath, all grace, or all judgment is dangerous, because we serve a multi-dimensional God, whose love compelled Him to send Jesus, but whose justice compels Him to judge the rebellious and disobedient.

Third Comment:

Michael, I agree with you. If God has a message for your to share, you will share it. If there is a lack of a prophetic message to proclaim, why not edify people with a biblical message? I'm the fellow that met you in Iowa two years ago, that enthusiastically informed you about the Blood Moon Eclipse Theory. Have you reconsidered my words, or do you still feel that God doesn't send those types of signs in the skies?  

 I am the Peter to your Paul. Although I cannot claim the title of fisherman, I can claim the title of simple, and for me some things are just hard to understand. Never discounted, just could not claim understanding when I did not possess it. 

2 Peter 3:14-16, "Therefore, beloved, looking forward to these things, be diligent to be found by Him in peace, without spot and blameless; and account that the longsuffering of our Lord is salvation - and also our beloved brother Paul, according to the wisdom given to him, has written you, as also in all his epistles, speaking in them of these things, in which are some things hard to understand, which those who are untaught and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do also the rest of the scriptures."

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr. 

Response Take 2

First Comment:

I read your response to comments and I don’t understand how someone like you can say ‘Once the message is delivered, however, my task is done’. Just this morning I was reading Joshua 1:5 ‘No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life; as I was with Moses, so I will be with you.’ That doesn’t sound like he handed the Law to his generation and then said ‘I did what I was supposed to do.’ I’m going to love you by saying you are wrong in this and need to return to serving with what you were given, not just posting teachings that have nothing to do with messages you were supernaturally given. 

My Response: 

I’ve known men who have made careers from one or two messages they received, rehashing them endlessly, over and over again, trying to make them fit into every timeline, and pointing to themselves every time anything happened anywhere in the world.

If I have a dream, or receive something new, I am faithful in sharing it, because, as you said, the calling is a lifelong one.

Never once did I intimate or suggest that I would withhold, or otherwise not share anything that I was commanded to share. What I do have an issue with is constantly rehashing, and rewriting about the same thing over and over again, trying to somehow keep my name or myself in the limelight.

With the wonders of the internet, every message that was given is available on the Hand of Help website, where people can read it freely, and even disseminate the messages if they agree not to alter them in any form or fashion.

As such, there is no need for me to come on here and perpetually repeat the same thing over and over again.
With that being said, and I know this will open up another can of worms altogether but I have no choice in the matter, it is far more important for men to know how to enter in, serve God, live righteousness, and walk in the authority of the Holy Spirit, than it is for them to know of any one prophecy, or any one individual who was given a revelation.

This is why I continue to post teachings, this is why I continue to post studies, and this is why I continue to preach the gospel. If the enemy can silence the truth, if the enemy can cause men to stop preaching the risen Christ, the need for holiness, the importance of repentance, and the authority of the believer, than we can know every single thing that will occur until the Lord’s return and it still won’t do us any good.

Ever since I was a young man I’ve believed that the reason my grandfather was given the prophecy for America, and the reason God continues to give us glimpses of what the future holds, is so that when these things occur we will also believe the rest of what God said, namely that He will protect His beloved, that He will be their strong tower, that they have nothing to fear, and that they should be at peace.

If anyone claiming to be a prophet or a man of God does their utmost to constantly keep you in suspense and afraid, robbing you of your peace and your joy, then they are not of God, no matter how much they would like you to believe otherwise.

God said these things were coming, we see them on the horizon, but we must be at peace knowing that He also said that not one hair on your head will perish. 

Second Comment: 

I'm not understanding your blogging through the Hand of Help ministry. Is this a blog just for your personal ministry or do you represent Hand of Help ministry in your blogging? The reason I ask is that when I read your recent blogs and comments people have left, I'm left confused. I read the book Through The Fire Without Burning and the dreams and visions you personally have received on the Hand of Help website, but you write like you want people to not think about that at all. If you have a special calling, why write like those things are simply in the past? From everything I've read in the dreams and visions, you certainly have a special message. This just doesn't seem right. 

My Response:

 I am the chairman of Hand of Help ministries, but the blog is my own personal ministry. Hand of Help chooses to carry my blog on their website, and although I can try to obfuscate with legaleze, I can say with near certainty that my opinions do reflect the opinions of Hand of Help, because my opinions are Biblically based, and scriptural.

I take no issue with people thinking about the prophecies that have been received by our ministry. Especially given the times we are living in, if one has read, or heard of the words my grandfather or myself have been given, you can’t help but think about them.  I do however have a problem when people begin to substitute them in lieu of the Gospel. This is, and always has been my issue, as it was my grandfather’s issue before me, because the message at its heart was not about the judgment or destruction of America, but God’s ability to keep and protect those who would walk in repentance and holiness.

If not for the blessed assurance that God will be with those who are His, what would have been the point in revealing what is about to take place some thirty years ago? If not for the time men have been granted to repent and walk uprightly before their Lord, what would have been the point of being told what would occur?

Knowledge of a thing just for the sake of it, especially when it comes to spiritual matters is pointless, and God does not do pointless things. If He warns, it is to stir to repentance, to give time to prepare, or to ensure His children that if He knew the end from the beginning He also had you in mind through it all.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

The Heart of The Matter

I get the feeling sometimes we just like to pick fights. As such, we look for reasons to be offended, we look for contrarian positions, we scratch and scratch until the itch becomes a wound, and when it begins to fester we scratch some more, because there is a disquiet about us that we can’t quite put our finger on. This disquiet is growing more pronounced with each passing day. If you are at all aware of the spiritual climate around you, you will know I speak truth.

Many in today’s hyper speed society have lost the ability to still themselves. They’ve abandoned reason in lieu of self-importance and as such cling to their position, even if it is tangential, obscure, and even irrelevant in the great scheme of things.

I’ve been privy to wars of words between individuals who claim to be brothers in the Lord going on for the better part of a decade, because they could not agree on the exact day that Jesus was born. Mind you, it was not whether or not Jesus is Lord, or whether He was born of a virgin, or whether He was born in a manger, but the specificity of the date…when.

The more time passed, the more heated the arguments became, until accusations of heresy were flung back and forth, as though accusing someone of heresy was comparable to accusing someone of under tipping when dining out.

And so, since opinions vary, and arguments tend to get heated, I will simply offer the following as greeting, something that no one calling themselves a servant of God can dispute, or take umbrage with:

John 3:16-18, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world through Him might be saved. He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.”

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Fervent Love Part 3

I realize in this dog eat dog world it is an easy thing to gloss over certain passages in God’s Word that don’t quite fit into our ‘crucify everyone who isn’t part of my denomination’ narrative, but Peter more than hints at the fact that one of the clear and true signs of having been born again of incorruptible seed is sincere, fervent love of the brethren with a pure heart.

“Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever.”

This passage in first Peter, as well as some other within the Word is largely the reason I have a visceral aversion toward anyone who makes it their ministry to tear down, destroy, and brand as heretical anyone not agreement with their dogma to the fullest.

If you are teaching something not in harmony with the Word of God, I will be the first to call you on it, but I will call you on the content of your teaching, and not make it about you personally. There is something inherently wrong with someone who gleefully sets about dismantling another’s life and attacking them, their families, and anything else they could think of with fervor and not an ounce of remorse.

One of the ways by which I know I am obeying the truth through the Spirit, is that I have sincere love of the brethren, and do so fervently and with a pure heart. How can I possibly stand before the Word, and see myself as having been in the right as I set about besmirching the reputation of someone who is long dead and has no way of defending themselves?

If anyone, perchance happens to turn the magnifying glass upon the individual who is maniacally tearing down everyone they possibly can, well then they are all of a sudden being persecuted, and judged, and it’s just not fair.

If you go down the road of playing judge, jury, and executioner of your fellow brethren, don’t whine when your turn comes, and when it is realized by one and all that the skeletons in your closet are real, and not imagined as those you manufactured for others were.

The love we must possess for our brethren isn’t just any kind of love, it must be both fervent and sincere, as we realize we are journeying toward the same destination, and have the same goal in mind.

If you pursue truth and righteousness, live repentance, and submit yourself to the authority of Christ in every area of your life, then you are my brother, you are my sister, regardless of what denomination you happen to belong to.

Has your soul been purified in obeying the truth through the Spirit? Were you born again not of corruptible seed but incorruptible? Then I can’t help but love you, sincerely and fervently, and in that love desire the very best for you and your walk.

Because in our day and age men prefer their sin over pretty much anything else, we’ve reinterpreted the word love to mean complete and total acceptance, approval, tolerance and agreement with whatever else the other person chooses to do. Rather than acknowledge the reality that out of love we tell another when they are headed in the wrong direction, far from truth, far from light, and far from God, we are called judgmental, and summarily instructed to search for the beam in our own eye.

Now it may seem to some that I’m beating up on the church, but let’s face it, we deserve to be beaten on. Once again, the problem stems from the teachings we’ve allowed to flow from our pulpits like so much toxic sludge, wherein the selfsame leaders who were themselves living in sin began to teach that we ought not to judge, because they knew they would have been the first for whom the bells would have tolled.

In order to protect their position and still cling to their sin, men in positions of leadership compromised the Word of God itself, and began to teach a fraudulent gospel to the masses. From there, it was only a matter of time before they deepened in their perversion and predilections, until you see some standing behind pulpits declaring that there’s no such thing as sin, and whatever it is you want to do, as long as you’re comfortable doing it, do it with gusto and abandon because God’s distracted by some other thing.

It’s like the old adage about everyone not paying their taxes, since the government can’t arrest everyone. If we all don’t obey God and submit to His authority can He keep all of us out of heaven? In this case, unlike the governments of the world, yes, God can!

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Response

Once again, unintentionally and through not a shadow of forethought that my words would possibly do so, I’ve opened up a can of worms with the previous installment of the teaching on 1 Peter.

Since I believe that to a certain degree I was misunderstood in what I was trying to put forth, I will, in this post, include the comments I’ve received, the selfsame ones I am referring to, and then respond to them in kind.

 First Comment:

Brother, it's hard to grasp your statement that ends with 'so what?'. What about the angel's admonishment last year in the dream where you saw blood dripping from the US flag?

He said "for a vessel to fulfill its task, substance must be poured into it, then that SAME substance must be poured out. If it is never poured out, it will overflow being of use to no one...When a vessel is chosen it is an honor...be faithful in completing your task and share WHAT IS GIVEN YOU without delay."

How can your blog remain honorable with such disrespect to God's plans and purposes for YOU? I can't take your place, because God didn't give me what He gave you. It should be simple: If God only wanted you to speak in general terms you would have NEVER had one dream or vision with an angel personally telling and showing you anything that pertains to a mass of people you don't know. 

My Response:

I do not take lightly the calling to which I have been called, and I have been faithful in delivering every message I’ve been given as it was given, without attempt to water down, dilute, or whitewash the difficult ones. Once the message is delivered, however, my task is done, and it would be unseemly of me to trumpet my involvement in the message itself, even attempting to overshadow the message by constantly attempting to highlight the messenger.

Anyone willing to do an ounce of due diligence will soon back track the message to its source and see who delivered it first, if this is their desire or inclination, but I don’t have to promote myself, or point it out incessantly.

To me, continually telling anyone and everyone that it was our ministry who said something first is a distasteful sort of self-promotion that I’m just not comfortable engaging in and that I believe becomes detrimental to the overall message.

As I said, if someone wants to know who said what and when, there are ways of finding it out, without me beating my chest, and pointing to it.

What matters, what is of import, is the message, and not the messenger.

Like it or not, messengers come and go, some go to their reward, others are not given a fresh word, others still fall by the wayside being beguiled by the spoils of this present world, but God will always have His chosen vessels through whim He will deliver the necessary word.

I cannot think of myself as indispensable. I am a servant, a slave; an expendable tool in the hands of the Master, who must submit to the Master’s in order to remain in the Master’s service.

I am not the apple of God’s eye, I do not consider myself on even footing with Christ, I am a soul plucked from the depths of darkness and brought into the wondrous light of His grace, through no merit of my own.

Second Comment:

I will remain anonymous, because apparently you think it entirely unimportant as to WHO said something with your "Do I get a cookie?" comment. I wonder, would the New Testament be so accepted if no one knew any of the authors? What if the author of ALL of the New Testament epistles were anonymous? What if ALL of the Gospel accounts were anonymous? There are people today who would not hesitate to be in your position of receiving genuine visitations through dreams and otherwise, not to stand in their own name but to proclaim what they were given to proclaim. But you? You have the audacity to proclaim to all who hear, "Me? I am no one, and the messages given to me supernaturally are a burden and really not special." 

My Response:  

Again, I have no issue with stating that yes, I was given a certain message, and that I delivered it. It is the constant beating of the ‘me’ drum that I have a problem with. I don’t sign anything I write ‘anonymous’ I sign my name to everything, because in this way I am responsible and accountable for the words I’ve written and the messages I’ve delivered.

However, I’ve known men who have made careers, and have banked serious coin by assigning themselves titles such as ‘prophets’ and with the title came also the expectation of being treated in a different manner than any other brother or sister in Christ.

I’m sorry if it offends, but the thought of being treated differently, or seeing myself as somehow superior for having been chosen for a specific task is something I cannot abide.

I am no one, He is all, and try as I might I never did find myself saying that the messages are a burden and really not special. It’s the messenger that isn’t special. The messages, well they’re coming to pass before our very eyes.  

Third Comment: 

To me obedience is born out of Christ formed in us, Heb5.8. It is through our ongoing love relationship with Him.

Dear bro in Christ, just for accuracy sake, both Abraham and Moses had countered, negotiated, INTERCEDED, etc. with God over commands God gave them. 

My Response: 

Abraham and Moses did negotiate, counter, and intercede, when it had to do with other individuals, or when God said He would do a certain thing. They never attempted to negotiate when given a specific task, or commanded to do a specific thing.

God commanded Abraham to take Isaac and offer him, and Abraham did not contend, or attempt to change God’s mind. He followed through with what God commanded until the angel of the Lord stopped Him.

Moses did not obey in full what the Lord commanded him to do, and for this he was not granted to enter the Promised Land.

There is a marked difference between God commanding us as individuals, and God proclaiming some event concerning which we can pray and intercede.

I was referring to the former rather than the latter, such as when God gives you a command, you ought to do what He commands without delay or attempt at negotiation. Hope that clears it up.  

And with this small intermission, we will soon continue our journey into 1 Peter, and see what other hornet’s nests we might inadvertently upturn. May God bless and keep you in all your ways.

Fervent Love Part 2

So what is obedience? Yes, I know, basic. Evidently, given the spiritual climate of this present generation basic is what we need to get back to, reiterate, reinforce, and reacquaint ourselves with.

At first glance it seems we’ve all become some sort of pseudo-mystics and faux-prophets who are a step away from reading tea leaves and cat entrails, making pronouncements about the future of mankind willy-nilly, because a black-footed ferret only blew mucus out of one of its nostrils and not both on the third day of December, which coincides with some other day that was celebrated by a Inuit tribe six hundred years ago.

We have abandoned simplicity, we have abandoned basic Christianity, and as such we are become a mockery and a reason for derision.

Speak of obedience and men will either yawn, or attempt to stifle a yawn depending on their upbringing, but speak of planetary alignments and pole shifts, and magnetic discombobulations, and they’re all ears.

I’ve been rebuked by people I know for not incessantly trumpeting what our ministry has been given regarding these last days, and how what is happening now mirrors it quite literally, because ‘people should know you said it first’, and my only response is, ‘so what?’

Do I get a cookie? Does our ministry get a gold star? Do we get to jump the line at the local buffet because we were first to speak of the things that are currently happening in America and throughout the world?

The children of God ought to have enough discernment to know the authentic from the counterfeit, the newly minted prophets who merely regurgitate what they saw on the evening news from the ones to whom God truly spoke long ago, far enough in advance wherein when the words were uttered, men laughed and mocked.

God speaks so His children have the blessed assurance that He is in control, He knows the end from the beginning, and He will by no means leave His beloved to wallow in ignorance. What was spoken was spoken, we are seeing it come to pass, but the overshadowing message, the one that we must continue to trumpet and hammer home, is that of living out one’s salvation, walking in obedience, and pursuing closeness with God, that we might be sheltered and kept during the coming days, and more importantly be welcomed into His eternal kingdom. 

If you don’t have the basics down, if you are not pursuing obedience of truth in the Spirit, then all this other tertiary knowledge is utterly useless. For some it is even dangerous, because they come to believe that by retaining this mystical knowledge they have somehow found a way of bypassing the need for repentance, obedience, and fervent love.

So, back to basics we go. What is obedience?

Simply put, obedience is the quality or state of being obedient. To be obedient, is to comply, conform, submit, or subordinate oneself to another’s authority, in this case, the authority in question being truth. Since Christ identified Himself as truth, it is not a stretch to then therefore put forth the notion, that by submitting ourselves to Christ through the Spirit, are souls are purified and we have been born again of incorruptible seed.

For the life of me I could not find anywhere in the Bible where God would rather we dialogue, or negotiate, than obey Him.

Yet, here we are being told time and again that what God really wants is a dialogue with us. Here we are being told time and again, that God is willing to meet us somewhere in the blurry middle, where we don’t exactly do as He commands, but we don’t get our way the whole way either.

‘Neither party gets 100% of what they want, but they can both live with the compromise.’

I fear God cannot live with the compromise, He will not live with the compromise, nor is He beholden to live with the compromise. God is God, but we think so little of His wondrous person nowadays, that saying He is evokes no emotion, no fear, no trembling of the soul as it ought.

And so, rather than the simplicity of obedience throughout our sojourning here on earth, we have grown comfortable with what amounts to joint custody of our eternal souls, where in God gets them on Sundays, Christmas, Easter, and a few other days here and there, and the devil has them the rest of the time.

Sadly, even in these instances, wherein we think joint custody is accepted practice, the devil seems to have possession an inordinately more amount of time than does God, but that’s a different matter altogether.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Fervent Love Part 1

1 Peter 1:22-25, “Since you have purified your souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren, love one another fervently with a pure heart, having been born again, not of corruptible seed but incorruptible, through the word of God which lives and abides forever, because ‘all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of the grass. The grass withers, and its flower falls away, but the word of the Lord endures forever.’ Now this is the word which by the gospel was preached to you.’”

Peter begins these three verses with an educated assumption based on the individuals to whom he was writing. He presupposes that those who would be reading his words had already purified their souls in obeying the truth through the Spirit in sincere love of the brethren.

Long before we can delve into the discussion of fervent love, what it is, why we ought to possess it, and who it ought to be focused upon, we must determine whether or not our souls have been purified in obeying the truth through the Spirit.

If this has not occurred, if this purification has not taken place, then discussion of the latter things will prove pointless, and will only end up frustrating us to no end, for without having had our souls purified by obeying truth, it is impossible to grasp the meaning of fervent love, and what it is to have been born again of incorruptible seed.

The problem with dumbing down the gospel is that certain things just can’t be dumbed down. We have oversimplified the process, hoping to attract more souls, but in so doing we have nullified the process altogether because the primary ingredients, those things required to make one’s soul regenerate, and an individual born again, have been removed.

The first step on this journey is always the submitting of oneself to the truth. We come humbly before the throne of God, we ask forgiveness with repentance and sincerity, then in having truth revealed to us, we obey it through the Spirit, without attempting to alter it, twist it, or otherwise make it something it is not.

The modern day spiritual person loves the idea of fellowship with God, but loathes the notion of obedience to the truth. They want to do what they want to do, and still enjoy intimacy with the Creator, even though the Word clearly tells us this is an impossible thing.

It is in obeying the truth through the Spirit that we purify our souls, not in signing up to a particular denomination, sitting under a certain individual’s teaching, or uttering some inane mantra upon waking from our slumber every morning.

Obedience of truth is a prerequisite, and knowing this, Peter assumed that those to whom he was writing were already far enough along wherein their souls had been purified in obeying the truth through the Spirit.

Obedience is not a one-off endeavor. We don’t obey truth once, and then go about our merry lives nevermore giving it another moment’s thought. Obedience is an ongoing practice, something we endeavor to, and aspire to, and strive for every single day of our lives, for we know that in obedience of truth we discover the key to the purification of our souls and being reborn of incorruptible seed.

We read the words of Jesus concerning the end times, essentially prophesying that the love of many will wax cold and that brother will turn against brother, and as little as a handful of years ago we could not see how this could be. Well, the picture is becoming clearer, the love of many is no more than cold ash, animosity toward one’s fellow man is at an all-time high, and at the heart of it all is the absence of obedience to the truth.

When first we stray from truth, we begin a journey toward the heart of darkness that only repentance and obedience can subvert.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Yet Still Among The Living

I’m not dead…obviously. Nor have I absconded, fled, or otherwise abandoned my post in lieu of what is to come. I am still very much alive, but I’ve had to pay down some bills, and I did so the only way I know how, by working.

Unless you were born with a silver spoon, or platinum rattle, you know what I’m talking about, and hopefully can sympathize.

There really isn’t much to say, to be honest. Everything is playing out before our very eyes, and I catch myself wondering if, when they do the post mortem on this nation, cause of death will be suicide, hubris, or stupidity.

It’s sad what’s happening, and it will get sadder. Of this I am certain.

I’ve been getting tons of e-mails asking of this is what my grandfather saw back in 1984, about an internal revolution started by the communists in the middle of the country, and I will say to you what I said last night on a radio show, they picked the wrong martyr to anchor a revolution on, but eventually the right one will come along.

What we ought to take away from what’s been happening in recent weeks is the speed with which civil order and the illusion of safety we’ve fashioned for ourselves can be utterly demolished. If nothing else, that should be of grave concern indeed.

In a few days I will be traveling back to Romania with my wife and our daughter, and things will be a bit less hectic. As such, unless something unexpected happens, I will resume the study on 1 Peter sometime next week.

Just a friendly word of advice for those who as yet do not have children but plan on having them, sleep now, as much as you can, as often as you can, as deeply as you can, because sleep will be a long forgotten memory once the little one decides it’s play time in the middle of the night for two straight weeks.

Many of us have been talking about the end as though it will never get here, and now that it’s on the horizon the sheer reality of it just takes your breath away.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Our Hope and Our Faith Part 3

“He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world”

I’ve contemplated these ten words for the longest time. They’ve been with me ever since I first read them many, many years ago, and they are a source of much comfort in my life.

Within these ten words we see clearly that God did not scramble, He didn’t send Jesus on a whim to try and save face because His creation went off the rails, the coming of the Son, His being raised from the dead, and being given glory was all foreordained before the foundation of the world.

That sort of throws a wrench into the whole ‘God’s just as surprised as you or I about what’s happening in the world’ mentality that a certain segment of the church has embraced, seeing as before the foundation of the world the coming of the Christ was foreordained.

My faith and my hope are in God through Christ because I know that He knows the end from the beginning, and has seen to my protection, my safety, and my provision, long before there was need of these things.

I do not fear for tomorrow, nor do I fear for today, because the God who foreordained the coming of the Christ from the foundation of the world also promised that not a hair from my head would fall without Him making note of it.

Because we have faith in what Jesus did on the cross, because we believe God raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, we also have hope. It is not a false hope, it is not a vain hope, it is a hope rooted in the reality of who Jesus is, and the love God manifested for mankind in the person of the Christ.

If our hope and faith are not through Christ in God, then they are vain, and void of substance. Being positive, having self-esteem, or having some quirky mantra you tell yourself in the mirror every morning, all these things are illusions of hope that implode upon gentle prodding. They are the means the world employs to keep trudging along, and not fall into despair altogether, and sadly in recent years much of the church has been employing the selfsame means.

Why would I need anything more to get me through the day when I retain the knowledge of God through Christ? Why would I need a band aid, a distraction, a diversion, or even medication to get me through the day when I know that my redeemer lives, and that I will live with Him?

Is it possible that those who claim to know Christ yet live lives of quiet desperation, utterly joyless and absent of peace don’t really know Him at all?

Christ transforms us. Our faith in Christ gives us hope, it gives us peace, it gives us joy, it tethers us to the Kingdom and allows us to see the plan of God for our lives even when in the present we endure hardships and tribulations.

There is nothing in the world that compares with the freedom we have when we possess true faith and hope in God through Christ, and it is something that the world cannot take away, that persecution cannot take away, that lack, need, or hardship cannot take away, but that we often times willingly abandon for the promise of faux liberty to pursue the lusts of the flesh, that never truly materializes as we had hoped.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Our Hope and Our Faith Part 2

While the enemy is doing his utmost to minimize Jesus, not to be outdone, by and large the spiritual leaders of the day, regardless of denominational affiliation, are themselves busy tearing down the household of faith brick by brick. One of the most useful and effective tools these men have in their arsenal as pertains to their pursuit of making the house of God wholly unrecognizable, is the notion of cultural relevancy.

Think back on it, and you will be surprised how many times you’ve heard preachers insist that the church has to be culturally relevant in order to reach the world.

If it were not so tragic, the notion of cultural relevancy would be downright funny. It is absurd on its face to think that in order to pull someone out of the muck you must first do a summersault into the muck, and backstroke alongside those in the mire in order to relate, and be relevant in their worldview.

Maybe it’s my translation of the Bible, perhaps I missed it somewhere along the way, but having read the gospels pretty regularly for the last quarter of a century or so, I have yet to find any passage wherein Jesus insisted we must be culturally relevant.

He didn’t say, ‘go into all the world and be culturally relevant,’ He said, ‘go and preach the Gospel!’

The problem with cultural relevance is that culture is always trying to push the envelope. The culture of yesteryear is not the culture of today, and sadly, the culture of tomorrow will look very little like the present culture. A small stud in the ear becomes a gauge (if you haven’t seen these things they are downright scary, it’s where people actually stretch out their ear skin until it just flaps there) then two gauges, a nose ring, an eyebrow ring, tattoo sleeves, face tattoos, branding, cutting, and whatever else culture seems as hip, and relevant. I’m waiting for the first guy just to peel off his face like a grape, and see the trend take off like gangbusters.

Pretty soon, unless you’re a transgender taking the pulpit in full drag, while having a lesbian parishioner carrying your gender neutral child whom you plan on naming Quince, well, you’re just an old fuddy-duddy who refuses to change with the times, and embrace the new culture.

I’ve been keeping track of the culturally relevant churches throughout this once great nation, and one thing is demonstrably undeniable: the more culturally relevant a church becomes, the less spiritually relevant it is!

In the end what we end up doing is offering the same kind of worldliness as the world offers, only at a 10% cost of one’s yearly income. If there is no difference between the house of God and the children of darkness except that I perpetually sow seeds in the hopes of reaping a financial harvest, why not cut out the middle man and just buy lotto tickets with that money?

While we’re on the topic, we give because our hearts compel us to give, we give because we want to meet a need, or feed a hungry individual, or clothe a naked one, or care for an orphan, or help spread the gospel, but not because Jesus will send me a check for 1000% of my invested capital at the end of first quarter.

Jesus didn’t die so that we would be culturally relevant. Jesus died that through Him and His shed blood we might be saved, believe in God, and have our faith and hope anchored in Him.

So what’s the point of today’s post? The point is a simple one. If you are in a church striving to be more culturally relevant than scripturally sound, you are wasting your time and your energy, and sooner rather than later the things that will become accepted practice within its walls will make your gag reflex kick in like nobody’s business.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

Our Hope and Our Faith Part 1

1 Peter 1:20-21, “He indeed was foreordained before the foundation of the world, but was manifest in these last times for you who through Him believe in God who raised Him from the dead and gave Him glory, so that your faith and hope are in God.”

For all of this century and the better part of last century there has been an unabashed, enthusiastic, and merciless assault on the Christ, the singularity of Him, the nature of Him, the uniqueness of Him, and the divinity of Him.

From without and from within the church, wherever you turn nowadays there is someone somewhere eager to besmirch the name Jesus, to minimize His importance in our redemption, to lower Him to nothing more than a nice guy who said quaint things that made a lot of sense, but nowhere near the only begotten Son of God through whom we come to believe and have life everlasting.

Men today are no longer servants of Christ, they are spiritual people, with spiritual awareness, and spiritual sensitivity, who are open to the possibility of there being many paths to God, and even to their being many gods in what we, as open minded global citizens, have come to term Zion, paradise, heaven, Valhalla, Nirvana, Arcadia, Elysium, bliss, or the Promised Land, depending on your flavor of spirituality and the doctrine you’ve formulated all by your lonesome regarding the afterlife.

Each god gets a patch of real estate wherein they entertain their most loyal of servants, and rather than hold true to the Biblical edict that there is but one God and one heaven, we’re teaching people that it’s more like the United States of Paradise than one singular place.

If the devil is fighting this hard at trying to accomplish something for so long, in this case minimizing the need for Jesus, our first and most important questions must be, why?

The devil is not your friend. He is not trying to expand your thinking, he is not trying to make you a better individual, nor is he attempting to make you more tolerant and all-embracing for your spiritual betterment. So why is he trying so hard to do away with Jesus?

Because he knows the truth of what Peter asserts, a truth much of the church seems to have chosen to ignore, the very true reality that it is through Christ that we come to believe in God.

Without Jesus, there is no path to God. Without Jesus, there is no way, there is no truth, and subsequently there is no life.  

The enemy has one purpose, and that is to keep as many of God’s creation out of the place Jesus went to prepare for those who believe. He will do all that is in his power to do, he will lie, cajole, misrepresent, obfuscate, omit, and pull every underhanded trick you could possibly imagine and twice as many that you likely couldn’t, to derail you from the path, and compromise you in some manner or fashion.

To believe that the enemy is giving advice to Christians out of the goodness of his heart and because he is such a magnanimous fellow, is as funny and simultaneously impossible as one political party giving sage advice to the other as to how they could better win elections.

People who shoot themselves in the foot are not long for this world, and the enemy’s been around long enough to know better.

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.

The Time of Our Sojourning Here Part 5

We’ve become averse to talking about difficult topics. We’ve grown averse to broaching and delving into difficult things, taking a page out of the world’s book and just glossing over them or pretending they do not exist. The more we pretend the worse things get, the worse things get the more callous we become, until a ‘pastor’ giving aids to the parishioners he slept with is half a story at best, and the fact that he refuses to step down from the pulpit is treated with uttermost indifference.

It is downright scary how quickly we’ve descended into the mire and how few in the church voice any opposition to it. The sheep are told to know their place, the leadership appropriates powers and indulgences they have no business appropriating, and we hobble along as anything of virtue, anything noble, anything good and wholesome gets dismantled piece by piece by the godless among us.

‘But it’s okay, it really is, we’re on track to meet the budget this year, and break ground on the new building which will outshine the old one, and have a nice shiny cross on its roof that can be seen from space.’

Perhaps somewhere on a subconscious level, many have realized their messages lack power, substance, Christ, repentance, holiness, the cross, and self-denial, and as such have no power to transform anyone. It is because of this inescapable reality that they need the projects, and the events, and the distractions just to keep people placated and distracted from the reality that theirs is a hollow spirituality.

We wander aimlessly about, comforting each other with the tired adage of ‘well get them next time’, or ‘we may have lost the battle but not yet the war.’ But why? Why are we losing battle after battle, why is the darkness never impeded and the light always sacrificed? Why do we make concessions, and give up ground, why do we keep making our arguments only halfheartedly, and why is there always some apologist in the church who is ready to stand up for sin and insist that we must understand it and learn to live with it?

It is likely I’ve said this before because it’s true, but it bears repeating, it is because much of what we call the church today is itself compromised that we are so timid and fainthearted in our defense of truth.

Confronting sin in the church is a difficult thing. Confronting sin in the leadership of the church is an all the more difficult thing, and this is why much of the time it is the world that exposes the dereliction of church leadership rather than the church body exposing it.

What does this have to do with anything? Well, it goes back to the genesis, to the root cause of why the church is in the sad shape that it’s in, and among the many reasons is the absence of the fear of the Lord.

When we fear the opinion or even backlash of the world more than we fear God Himself, when we try to accommodate the darkness rather than defend the light, then we are become a detriment to the household of faith, and an unfaithful servant to our Master.   

With love in Christ,
Michael Boldea Jr.