Producers of programming  for the major cable networks, like The History Channel, Discovery, and National Geographic air documentaries from time to time that are usually titled something like “The Perfect Storm.” The documentaries look at the several large storms in the northeast United States in 1991 that coalesced off the coast of New England in the Atlantic and swept on shore as one massive blow. The video shows then-President George Herbert Walker Bush’s home in Kennebunkport, Maine, being assaulted by the turbulent Atlantic.

The “perfect storm” was raging along the northeastern U.S. coast at the same time the Bush administration was involved in negotiating Israel’s future in Spain. Here we are, almost two decades later, and another Bush administration is  in the middle of Israel’s business, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice trying to get Israel to divide its land and the city of Jerusalem in order to create a Palestinian state along side the Jewish state. It seems another perfect storm is coalescing while this American interference in God’s plan is taking place. It is a storm that is part geophysical, part socioeconomic, and totally spiritual, in the view of many of us who analyze eschatological matters.

The Israel Miracle
Many see as a miracle Israel’s being back as a nation-state with its own language. Hebrew was once thought lost to the Jewish people as a common language following the last diaspora around 135 A.D., when the Roman emperor Hadrian put down the Jewish insurrection and scattered the Jewish people. Yet it is again Israel’s national language, just as foretold for the time near Christ’s return.

America has been at the forefront of Israel’s birth into modernity. There can be no doubt, upon looking into the history of Israel’s coming back into its God-given land, that the U.S. has been first the midwife at its birth, then its protector–in human terms—assuring its right to exist among the nations of the world.

America in God’s Plan
If I may again do a mini-commercial for my book coming out with Harvest House Publishers in February of 2009, titled The American Apocalypse: Is the United States in Prophecy? I must say that while preparing the manuscript my research brought home to me the stunning proof of America’s God-ordained destiny. No one can explain to any degree of satisfaction why America isn’t mentioned by name in the Bible. There are many speculations and postulations, but the answer to the question about whether the United States is mentioned in Bible prophecy continues to elude. The answer will have to await the unfolding of history. However, modern Israel is living proof that America was established for God’s great purposes. Those are:

1) the capability to preach the gospel message to the whole world; and

2) to bring Israel to birth on May 14, 1948, then to act as its protector as the Jewish state stood on its feet, as prophesied in Ezekiel, chapter 37.

America is living testimony to the absolute truth of God’s faithfulness to fulfill His prophetic Word. America is the most materially and spiritually blessed nations ever to exist. God’s promise to Abraham in Genesis 12:3 is thus 100 percent validated: “I will bless those who bless thee, and curse those who curse thee.”

The United States has been the recipient of the first part of that promise. Israel’s satanically driven enemies have been recipients of the second part of that promise, and lie strewn in abject desolation along the dark corridors of history.

The proof of America’s coming to birth with a foreordained destiny, planned by the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,  leaps from recent history in fashion that is thunderous. The United States has blessed Israel, and the result has been that this nation has brought mankind from the dark recesses of the past to the brightness invented by its illuminated genius. Since the time Benjamin Franklin was shocked by lightning while he experimented with a kite and a key, thus, I am convinced, infusing the soon-to-be founding father with special ideas directly from the finger of God, this nation has electrified –literally—the whole world.

America’s Failure
The flip side of America’s comportment as of late, however, is as frightening as its brilliant inventiveness and contribution to modern man has been electrifying.

This country, so key to bringing fulfillment of end-times prophecy into focus in human, earthly terms, by helping put Israel at stage center on the global scene, at present  is now key to setting in motion the time of tribulation–the last seven years of human history preceding Christ’s second advent. The “Roadmap to Peace,” the brain-child for the most part of geopolitical strategists in America and the European Union, is pushing forward the, perhaps, predecessor to what God calls “the covenant made with death and hell.”

As a result, God’s perfect prophetic storm of forewarning of wrath is blowing across this nation. Wrath and judgment could be just around the corner of the next crisis.

Perfect Prophetic Storm Has Arrived
The perfect prophetic storm is upon this last-time generation. To understand the darkly serious truth of America’s tinkering in the matter of forcing Israel to make human peace with its enemies, we must delve heavily into the relevant prophetic Scriptures. We begin by seeing that peace arrangement prophesied by the prophet Daniel: “And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for himself: and the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city and the sanctuary; and the end thereof shall be with a flood, and unto the end of the war desolations are determined.

And he shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and for the  overspreading of abominations he shall make it desolate, even until the consummation, and that determined shall be poured upon the desolate” (Dan. 9: 26-27).

Results of False Peace-Making
The great prophet Isaiah foretold the ramifications upon Israel, and by extension, the entire world:

“Wherefore hear the word of the LORD, ye scornful men, that rule this people which is in Jerusalem. Because ye have said, We have made a covenant with death, and with hell are we at agreement; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, it shall not come unto us: for we have made lies our refuge, and under falsehood have we hid ourselves:

Therefore thus saith the Lord GOD, Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation: he that believeth shall not make haste.

Judgment also will I lay to the line, and righteousness to the plummet: and the hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place.

And your covenant with death shall be disannulled, and your agreement with hell shall not stand; when the overflowing scourge shall pass through, then ye shall be trodden down by it” (Isa. 28:14-18).

Unprecedented Trouble
Jesus himself prophesied Israel’s great trouble, which was previously given by Jeremiah the prophet as recorded in Jeremiah 30:7. Jesus forewarned the following:

“When ye therefore shall see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, stand in the holy place, (whoso readeth, let him understand:) Then let them which be in Judaea flee into the mountains:

Let him which is on the housetop not come down to take any thing out of his house: Neither let him which is in the field return back to take his clothes.

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! But pray ye that your flight be not in the winter, neither on the sabbath day: For then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no, nor ever shall be” (Matt. 24: 15-21).
Jesus foretold that there is coming the worst time in human history, and that time will be during the seven years immediately preceding His second advent–when He literally returns to the planet to put an end to Armageddon, then set up His millennial throne atop Zion at Jerusalem. Keep in mind that this time is after the holocaust of the Nazi regime and Adolf Hitler. The “prince that shall come” –Antichrist—will perpetrate horrors upon the Jews far worse than the Fuehrer perpetrated!

God’s Forewarning
The question is this: Seeing as how the Lord of heaven always gave warning of pending judgments of the past, is it not logical that He would give even more pronounced forewarning in the times leading up to the era of His wrath and judgment, which Jesus, who is God himself, said will be the worst time of all human history? And, this brings us to the subject of this essay, “the perfect prophetic storm.”

To repeat the earlier assessment of what is going on in the world today –the strange, volatile times in which we of this generation find ourselves: It seems another perfect storm is coalescing while America’s interference in God’s plan for Israel is taking place. It is a storm that is part geophysical, part socioeconomic, and, to those of us who view Bible prophecy as literal, totally spiritual in the many fronts pulsing from its center.

Rampaging Nature
Nature on the rampage over the past several years coincides closely with America’s and the Quartet’s (U.S., E.U., U.N., and Russia) attempts to force the making of a Palestinian nation upon land that is Israel’s by divine right. The geophysical upheavals have been on the increase in intensity while America gets more deeply involved in formulating a peace agreement between Israel and her neighbors.

The “Roadmap to Peace” has metamorphosed into a process that now demands that Israel give up not only land she has won with each succeeding attack from her enemies, but that Israel divide Jerusalem, allowing the new Palestinian state, when instituted, to make eastern Jerusalem its capital.

As I’ve written before, the action is the same as poking the Almighty in the apple of His omnipotent eye. The action will not stand. I believe we are seeing not God’s judgment and wrath at this point, but His solemn warning of things to come. The perfect storm is thus brewing. It has been doing so for several years.

Hurricane Katrina boiled to the surface on August 23, 2005, just off the Horn of Africa, became a 175-mph hurricane on August 28 in the Gulf of Mexico, and slammed into New Orleans and coastlines surrounding that city. The storm claimed a total of 1,836 confirmed dead, with 705 missing. It was the most costly hurricane to date, at $8.96 billion.

At the time it was announced that Jerusalem was on the table for division, thus to allow the Palestinians to build a capital there, California’s northern coast exploded in fires from more than 1,000 lightning strikes, an unheard of occurrence in that area of the state. The fires raged south and westward, requiring billions of dollars to attempt containment.

Floods gushed through America’s heartland at the same time, claiming lives and huge portions of land, much of the prime farmland made useless by the flooding. The plains, Mississippi Valley, and much of the Ohio Valley and other areas of middle America suffered with tornado outbreaks that puts the year 2008 on track to be a record year for twisters.

Hurricane Gustav, followed on its heels by Hurricane Ike, brought further devastation, affecting petroleum supplies and uprooting people by the thousands.

The southeast United States suffered by droughts, in some regions several years long.

Global Economic Storm
While the American secretary of state continues to travel to Israel and other places, twisting the arms of Israeli leadership to divide Jerusalem and otherwise give land for peace, the perfect prophetic storm continues to coalesce in matters involving  the national and, by extension, the global economic markets.

Corporate giants once thought invincible against the blasts of deadly economic storms are in the headlines today. Todd Strandberg correctly assessed the extreme measures being taken to try to prevent the financial part of the perfect prophetic storm’s effects from wreaking  total economic collapse.

Todd wrote:

“September 2008 will easily go down as the darkest month in U.S. financial history. We have never seen so many large financial institutions falter in such a short period of time:

1. Mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were taken over by the U.S. government.

2. Lehman Brothers Holdings succumbed to the subprime mortgage crisis. It is the biggest bankruptcy filing in history.

3. Merrill Lynch was saved from bankruptcy by a shot-gun merger with Bank of America.

4. The world’s largest Insurer American International Group was saved from certain collapse by a $85 billion federal loan…” (Todd Strandberg, raptureready.com, Nearing Midnight, Monday Sept. 22, 2008).

Tribulation Tempest Approaches
The perfect prophetic storm rages as likely precursor to the truly cataclysmic tempests that will come upon a wicked, rebellious world ripe for judgment. Jesus Christ is the only shelter to be found from that coming time of unprecedented turbulence upon Planet Earth.

The Lord promised those who accept His offer of salvation to be removed from that horrendous time (Revelation 3:10).

He said the following: “Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also” (Jn. 14:1-3).

It should not surprise that this fallen world, whose ruler is the prince of the power of the air and the father of lies, perfectly resembles characteristics found in the prophecy given for the end time: “For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but after their own lusts shall they heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears; And they shall turn away their ears from the truth, and shall be turned unto fables” (2 Tim. 4:3-4).

End-Time Seduction/Deception
Paul the apostle foretold a time, when Christ’s second coming approaches, that people who claim to be followers of Jesus will no longer seek to understand or follow true doctrine. They will ignore rules given by God to tell them how their creator and Lord wants them to live. As a matter of fact, Paul prophesied that these people will be seduced into believing fables–fairy tales—rather than truth. We can certainly see that happening today, in a general sense. That is, the general population of much of the western world, at least, prefers fable to God’s truth from His love letter to mankind, the Bible.

Consider the “Harry Potter” books and movies. We received reports, upon each release of the books, that the lines of people waiting to buy the latest releases wrapped, in some cases, around entire city blocks. The hunger for occult-type entertainment far surpassed any desire to appropriate Christian or even wholesome secular fare in literature and other entertainment/informational material.

It is true that religious publishing enjoyed great interest/popularity in the “Left Behind” series of novels, and the self-help, “inspirational” books such as The Prayer of Jabez, The Purpose-Driven Church, and The Purpose-Driven Life. And Mel Gibson’s movie. “The Passion of the Christ,” surprised the Hollywood moguls in box office draw numbers. However, these religious offerings were modest compared to the worldwide frenzy over the “Harry Potter” books and films. Preference for Fables

This sort of love for things of the world has, of course, been true throughout the ages. But, Paul’s prophecy foretells a time when such preference for fables from the dark side will rage within God’s own family–believers in Jesus Christ. The inhabitants of earth demonstrably seek magical formulas, potions, and curses/spells from the dark side, rather than spiritual truth from the heavenly realm. To be sure, the “Harry Potter” novels/movies have captured the hearts and minds of huge numbers of believers. But, the most troubling “turning to fables” are the “strange doctrines” Christians are following today –false teachings against which the writer of Hebrews warned in Hebrews 13:9.

We can find programs devoted to these sort of fables every day and night on the TV cable channels across America, and on satellite channels across the world. The false teachers –some of these themselves true believers who have been seduced by the siren song of promised riches—lead their audiences toward the deadly shores of luciferian inward-turning lust for the wealth of this fallen world. The siren songs to which the false teachers/preachers turn the eyes and ears of their followers, in actuality, aren’t that different from the seduction offered by the purveyors of pure occultism. Just as those wizard makers of the occult sort appeal to the lust of their audiences, promising influence, power, and the achievement of whatever one wants if they seek other-worldly powers, the pied pipers of the name-it-and-claim-it crowd in religious circles promise God-guaranteed powers, wealth, and influence if they will but look inward to their god-likeness. After all, they proclaim, we are made in the image of god.

Bad Spiritual Medicine
These “god-makers” can come cloaked in the most fundamentally sound Biblical teaching. I have no doubt that many, perhaps most, of these teachers and preachers really believe what they teach and preach. They consider themselves validated, because, indeed, they are shining examples of the considerable wealth their ministries have provided for them personally.

They promise, ”give your money to God, and He will give it back a hundredfold.” And they use Scripture to back up this claim to heavenly riches. Where the rub becomes abrasive is when they fail to give the whole prescription found in God’s words on the matter of prosperity. These fablers use Scripture passages like a wizard might use a magic wand. They mesmerize their audiences with the glitter of their words and the show business tinsel that hypnotizes. They appeal to the lusts and greeds, for the most part leaving out God’s truth that their Lord wants His people to use His promises for outward turning, not for self-aggrandizement and wealth accumulation. The fablers give Scriptures like the following: ”Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (Jn. 14:12-14)

Jesus Our Slave?
All the prosperity purveyors will reveal in their sleight-of-hand presentations are the words: “And, If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.” Jesus has just obligated himself to do whatever God’s children ask of Him. The one requirement is that they ask it in His name. He has just promised that the child of God who asks in His name will receive whatever the child wants from the Lord. Moreover, Jesus just promised they will do even greater works than Jesus Himself did while here in the flesh.

Really? My question, then, is: Why are the hospitals still full? Why are mortuaries busy each and every day, if the Lord promised the children of God will have perfect health, do magic, and, most of all, be full of material prosperity?

A Rather Spooky Fable
An illustration of a story I heard is in order. It was “taught” as part of a prosperity-type message (a thing that is taught continually on this particular channel). The preacher/teacher is head of a regional TV Christian network, as well as pastor of one of the largest churches in the city where it is located. I have to say one thing before retelling the story I heard him relate on two separate occasions: this man can and does preach and teach the Gospel very accurately. He even is a strong adherent to the Pre-Trib view of the rapture of the church. That is what makes his turning to fables so astounding.

I first heard him tell it in the 1992-1993 time frame. I know it was then, because I lost my father to cancer in October of 1992. So, the subjects of healing and death were heavily on my mind. The TV preacher was speaking on the Scripture above, or one similar, telling those of us watching/listening that whatever we said in Jesus’ name, we could do. We could have prosperity, perfect health, and even raise the dead. He told of an experience a friend told him about –a person with absolute integrity, of course. The friend told him that a man he knew (the story-teller’s friend) had died. The people were at the funeral home for visitation. The TV pastor told how the friend related to him that a pastor they both knew walked into the funeral home viewing room. The man took a look at the coffin and the corpse it held. The pastor then announced to all of the people that the man was not supposed to be dead. The pastor reached in the coffin and pulled the dead person from the casket. He then sat the corpse up against a wall.

The pastor said, “In the name of Jesus, I say stand and walk!”

The corpse, according to the TV preacher, slumped over.

The pastor, undeterred, sat the body against the wall again. He repeated the command. The body slumped again.

The pastor repeated the procedure, this time shouting with increased vigor for the man to stand and walk.

The TV pastor said that his friend told him the corpse –still embalmed, one is left to suppose– stood from his slumped position and walked from the room. There was no further information on where the corpse went, or what were the ramifications to the walking dead man’s family, friends, or society in general.

This was absolutely told as the truth, not as a joke.

I heard the same TV pastor retell the story at least 10 years later. Who could forget such a tale, coming from a well-respected TV minister? He used this and other stories as proof that his parishioners can be healthy, wealthy, and wise, if they will just have faith and open their bank accounts to fund God’s work. This was not a urban legend that required debunking by checking snopes.com. This was told by a Christian pastor who has a regional and satellite outreach of millions of viewers.

The World Scoffs–With Good Reason
When pastors of the Christian faith unabashedly engage in such fables, is it any wonder an on-looking world sees them telling about a man –who was also God—dying on a Roman cross to save them from their sin, then arising to life as just more myth-making?

Non-believers are quick to embrace stories of ghosts, goblins, witches, warlocks, and wizards. They will readily suspend disbelief to accept these lies from the pit of the nether regions. But, the world of lost people, all yearning –whether realizing it or not– to fill the God-shaped void in their souls, turn in disgust –and rightfully so—from what their fallen senses correctly perceive as lies of a much more egregious nature.

Turning to fables is taking place today with a gusto that surely indicates it is the time of Paul’s 2 Timothy chapter 4 prophecy. The world of lost people is reaching for occultic spiritual allurements, pushed in that direction to some extent by “Christian” ministries who are themselves putting forward the false teaching that God is obligated to make you healthy, wealthy and wise–if you will send the fable-makers your money.

God Doesn’t Need Help by Magicians
I’ve heard the same accusations many times when expressing my objections to the false teaching involved in the prosperity gospel so rampant today. Those who believe the “have faith in your faith –speak it into being” theology of selfism say that we who point out their false teaching and preaching are “putting God in a box.” By that, they mean we are limiting the Lord’s ability to perform miracles in today’s world.

No. That is not what we are doing. We believe that our Lord is not only not in a box; He made the box, owns the box, and needs not one of His human creations to perform His miracles. He did use his servants in apostolic times and before to perform miracles–always to perpetuate and put forth the Gospel in a mighty way.

If God performs miracles today in the same way, for example, He used Samson to slay 1,000 philistines with the jawbone of an ass, or used the apostles Peter and Paul to raise people from the dead, where is the credible documentation of the present-day miracles? Where is the legitimate, verifiable evidence?

In Jesus’ day and in the apostles’ day, thousands witnessed the miracles recorded in God’s Word –and even in some history antiquities. Today, there is not one such verifiable miracle. There are people who claim to see stigmata, or a statue crying here and there, or a picture of Jesus on a piece of toast. There are claims by the miracle-claiming TV ministries that there are healings of every sort, through their gifted hands. There are emotional stories, claims, and exultations over miraculous doings from around the world. But, not one piece of verifiable proof has been forthcoming.

As a matter of fact, one television network did a documentary investigation into the most famous of the TV healing ministries –Benny Hinn—and upon follow-up in seeking out those who were “healed” by Mr. Hinn laying on hands, or whatever, not one case proved legitimate. Not one!

Again, if these miracles were being done today, as they were performed by the apostles during their time, the hospitals would be empty and the morgues would have to shut down. Especially, the miracle workers, seems to me, would never die, nor would their followers, who believed, through their super-duper faith, in their miracles.

These pseudo- miracles and wonders of today are manifestations of Paul’s 2 Timothy prophecy. They are turning to fables and away from sound doctrine. Does God perform miracles today? Yes! Absolutely! Does He perform them through men giving performances? No! Absolutely not!

The argument from the magician miracle workers and their followers is that they are done through the “gift” to prove Jesus saves. No. Jesus said that a wicked and adulterous generation seeks after signs. The only sign of proof that the Lord Jesus was and is who He said He is, is God’s Word, who IS Jesus. His Word tells the gospel message –the Holy Spirit draws the individual who is lost, most often using the words of men to point to God’s Word. That men, women and children are saved–now THAT’s the miracle!

Truth About Jesus’ Wonderful Name
What, then, is the truth about Jesus’ words, about giving His followers the desires of their hearts, if they ask anything in His name? Indeed, the Lord did not speak in fables, but only in absolute truth. He did promise, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do…”

First, and foremost, the totality of God’s Word must be considered, when thinking on something that seemingly just doesn’t ring true. By that, I mean that we can look around us today and know with absolute certainty that the dead are not being raised, and the terminally ill are dying. More to the point in the matter of name-it-and-claim-it “theology,” the vast majority of those who believe they can be materially wealthy if they have enough faith are far from wealthy. In fact they are poorer than ever because they have sent their hard-earned money to the fable-makers, who indeed are wealthy!

Accidents and bad things happen even to great Christian men, and women, and even to little children, still in their innocence, so far as the age of accountability is concerned. Therefore, when Jesus says that He will grant us anything in His name, and today’s “miracle” workers” are not producing even one verifiable “miracle,” there is a serious disconnect –Jesus’ promises, from the contemporary “miracle workers’” inability to get things done through their miracle-and-wonders ministry efforts.

And, what about the worried but faithful Christian mother and father who pray with all their hearts, in Jesus’ Holy Name, that their terribly sick baby live, only to have the baby taken from them by death? Has Jesus reneged on His Promise: “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do…”? Again, to find truth, we must look at the matter at hand in its scriptural context, not just take a single phrase, sentence, or even several paragraphs, and invent a doctrine out of whole cloth, and say it is from God’s Holy Word.

In the case of the name-it-and-claim-it prosperity/miracle-working doctrines of these days that are filled with fables, for brevity’s sake, we will look at a specific statement by Jesus that sums and encapsulates the entire context of the matters involved: “But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you” (Matt 6:33).

The Lord had just spent time explaining how God takes care of even things of nature. That God’s children should be anxious for nothing. God knows how to take care of His creation, especially His creation called man. God will, Jesus said, provide all things necessary for journeying through this life. Nowhere in this great principle does Jesus say He promises great material wealth, freedom from health problems, or miracle cures of an ecstatic nature, through some miracle healer. God will add to the lives of all people who seek first His kingdom and righteousness, the necessities to sustain life, for as long as He decides to grant life, which is a thing, at any rate, predetermined –by Him. (Jesus holds the key to death and hell, the Scripture says.)

God’s Word says elsewhere that there is a time to be born, to love, to laugh, to cry, and to die. Our job is to seek first His kingdom and His righteousness. This is what brings His blessings. They include the basic necessities until we die, when we honor those requirements. What, then, are God’s “kingdom” and “righteousness”? This gets to the heart of what Jesus promises in saying, “And whatsoever ye shall ask in my name, that will I do…”

God’s entire economy for humankind is built upon seeking to save out of fallen mankind a people to be His family for all eternity. He is presently redeeming those who accept the once-and-for-all sacrifice Christ made on the cross for the sins of the human race. It is only through Jesus Christ that God the Father sees anyone as reconciled to himself, thus worthy to enter the heavenly realm at the rapture, or at death.

His kingdom, then, is heaven. All creation is His, because He made everything. But, Scripture indicates that for a time He awaits taking full control of this fallen planet. But, take control He will!

The great drama written by Him through His omniscience must run its course. But there is no doubt about who stands victorious in the last act: “And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever” (Rev. 11:15).

God’s kingdom is where He will rule and reign forever. His righteousness is Jesus Christ, God’s only begotten Son –the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

When God’s children pray in the Holy Name of Jesus Christ, that child is indeed promised the desires of his or her heart. But, praying in Jesus’ name means you are submitting to His will and turning your own wants over to Him. You are saying, “You know what is best, Lord.” Like when Jesus surrendered to becoming that sin sacrifice on the cross, you are –if you truly pray in the name of your Lord—saying, “not my will, but thine be done.”

Asking for things in the name of God’s Son means that we want Him to rule and reign in our lives. We seek no self-aggrandizement. We seek only to lift the name of Christ before a lost and dying world. By asking in the name of Jesus, we are asking that He make our desires come into conformance with His desires. Any other view of God’s dealing with His children is pure fable –fiction of the most deceptive sort. To leave this profound truth out of sermons or lessons as they are preached and taught, replacing the truth with fables that God wants to bless by giving us the desires of our own thoughts, and all one has to do is have faith that He will bless, is a horrendous lie to perpetrate upon vulnerable children of God who already struggle mightily to overcome the lusts with which they are confronted by the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The prescription to avoid turning to fables during this treacherous end-time era is to first look upward, then turn outward, not inward. At every point in life, seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness.