Which Thou Sowest

From Inglewood to South Central, Fred K C Price carved a path of Biblical practice compassion that Jesus called “True Religion.”  On Friday, February 12th, 2021, Fred succumbed to illness due to Corona Virus 2019 infection. At 89 he was still practicing the role of pastor, teacher, and overseer for a burgeoning denomination centered on Biblical obedience and personal growth. He will be missed.

Not withstanding and even because of the humble submission to authority evidenced in events surrounding his son Fred Jr. in 2017–the ministry remains a bastion of Bible centered Faith an Practice. While only God can see the future, and every act of freewill steers the course of life and ministry, the Legacy of Crenshaw Chrisitian Center remains in good hands and a jewel in the crown of the late Fred Senior.

We extend our love and prayerful support to the family and to Fred Jr in particular. As a wise man once said, “Black lives do matter…[you] have one.” Cherish it and remember it rests in the hands of a loving God with the will and power to carry you through. Stay the course because, you are loved.

And as believers we remain confident that we have not seen the last of Fred K C Price, but will meet him in the air at the muster of the saints.

And The Prayer of Freud Will Make You Sick

Our father who art in Vienna, Oedipal be thy name. . .

This is not only facetious, it’s at very least offensive. And yet, this prayer is the heart of faith and service in a vast majority of Christian and catholic churches if they were to be brutally honest. Psychologists and psychiatrists have intimidated and insinuated until most believers have come to the conclusion that churches save the soul and psychologists teach people to save their own minds. If that doesn’t work, then psychiatrists use drugs or various forms of coercion to retrain and thereby save your mind.

This has become such an accepted approach that ministers of the gospel quote from self help gurus and cite the textbooks of behavioral psychologists. And the church is convinced that some detant Continue reading “And The Prayer of Freud Will Make You Sick”

Oblivious to Pronouns

In the western world we talk a great deal of Rights. Individual Human Rights are foundational to the US Constitution which calls on God as underwriter for them. In all the talk of rights, liberty, license, and freedom the meaning gets lost and we start to lose the forest for the trees. Ironically, inherent in the the term liberty is the state of liberation and you can’t be liberated without having once been bound. In each of these terms there is a similar link to a binary state, a juxtaposition of polar opposites.

The state of holding or exercising a right is righteousness, and that is a term that many in the secular world shy away from. It’s natural they should given the alternate is unrighteousness and there is a specific moral, ethical, and religious component to these concepts. What is a right? Continue reading “Oblivious to Pronouns”

Cantonese Saturday Night? Just Stop!

כור את־יום השבת לקדשו׃ Or as it is said in the King James version, “Remember the Sabbath and keep it holy.” This phrase has shaped and lead to many of the deepest divisions and conflicts within the umbrella of Judaeo-Christian or as the Muslims say Bookish people. Even the Muslims themselves, as well as the Druze and Samaritans are affected. Remember the Sabbath. Keep it holy. These simple words weigh on people more than the injunctions against blasphemy or murder. But have any of the parties to this debate actually parsed the words well enough to form such divisive and rigid doctrines?

This is a command in two parts. The first seems plain enough. Remember the Sabbath, Shabbat, Shabbas to the Ashkenazi (Kenites?) among us, seems to be a reminder to honor and practice the Sabbath. That’s Saturday on the English calendar, right? Simple enough. But how do we practice it?

But wait. Most Christians tell us that the Sabbath is Sunday. Sunday? Saturday? Which is it? Continue reading “Cantonese Saturday Night? Just Stop!”

Blessed Bloody Barbecue

I always find it ironic when one of the Ashkenazi repeat the mantra of doubt, “The Christian Bible isn’t my Bible.” There is a lot of of finagling on the part of Jewish teachers to arrive at that conclusion, which is then taken to heart by the uninformed congregant and repeated with the eye-watering fervor of a child wishing for a precious toy. I can certainly empathize with this position. Having argued with certain individuals who use fallacy and polemic to twist scripture so that it says whatever currently suits them, I know what it feels like to argue a known obvious truth with someone who simply changes the meaning to suit their conclusions. It’s like wrestling atop a pile of sand draining through a hopper. The domain of the topic can completely shift from one clause to the next, in a single statement by a deceitful polemicist. Continue reading “Blessed Bloody Barbecue”

Christians are Weirdos in Relationship to God

Christian living is a complicated subject largely because it is a matter of interpolation. Jesus and to a degree the apostle Paul–a.k.a. Saul l’Tarsi–are role models, mentors to be imitated. We have their sermons and narratives to draw on to see how they lived and what doctrines and principals are to be applied. However, we are forced to then interpolate those principals and doctrines to our present day circumstances and then using sound interpretation apply the commands and instructions of scripture to our lives. It’s pretty complicated if you break it down and focus on every little step. If you are trying to accomplish it on your own it just doesn’t work. Likewise if you are completely uninvolved, believing that Grace is a big magic wand that frees you from responsibility to exert any effort in achieving the goal of be shaped in the form of Christ, you’ve failed before you begin.

To complicate things further, there are several distinct heresies, Continue reading “Christians are Weirdos in Relationship to God”

Lambs dip while hogs wallow. 2 Pet 2:14

In the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and in view of his appearing and his kingdom, I solemnly urge you: proclaim the message; be persistent whether the time is favorable or unfavorable; convince, rebuke, and encourage, with the utmost patience in teaching. For the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but having itching ears, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander away to myths. 2TI 4:1 (bbe)

Never before has this been more true nor more confused and destructive. Television streams a constant barrage of every false and demonic doctrine packaged and presented with all the finesse of only a video studio can achieve, marketing lies and deception along with charms and keepsakes and vacations at amusement parks. People can have any flavor of false prophet or even build a personalized religion by sampling these media giants like a hungry child at an open buffet. There plates are full but when they eventually must regurgitate the tasty but malnutritious bounty, they ultimately go hungry and cannot reproduce. Being unfruitful (love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, humility, etc.) they will ultimately be pruned from the vine and cast into the fire.

Strong language, I know, but not undue. Recently I was channel surfing and landed for a moment on a prophet of Lucre and Mammon who was trying to excuse his ministry, which is generally comprised of assuring rich oil merchants that their money is proof of God’s favoritism and their sinful lives are merely an inconvenience. It is serendipitous that the man is named for the god he preaches.

On this particular day he was prophesying from Galatians, a much misinterpreted book because taken out of context several verses are so filled with hyperbole’ that the meaning is lost, until you read the following passage which corrects the course and intention of the passage. Mr. Money had the Scripture saying that since, Jesus death was to bring about relationship and, since human’s ultimately fail in obeying the law on their own, the law is valueless except as a contrast with the life of license to live without conscience, which he assures us is the meaning of grace. Now I know from other of his broadcasts that he does teach that God’s Standard of Holiness is a necessity in the Christian life. But in the moment, confused by the unintelligible babble of the so called amplified Bible, he over stated Paul’s indictment against legalism and Judaizing of the Church, with a license to be free of the Law as a School Teacher to show us what a Holy God disapproves in the life of his children. Like so many others he misunderstood Paul.

As peter said:

These are fountains without water, and mists before a driving storm; for whom the eternal night is kept in store. For with high-sounding false words, making use of the attraction of unclean desires of the flesh, they get into their power those newly made free from those who are living in error; Saying that they will be free, while they themselves are the servants of destruction; because whatever gets the better of a man makes a servant of him. For if, after they have got free from the unclean things of the world through the knowledge of the Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, they are again taken in the net and overcome, their last condition is worse than their first. For it would have been better for them to have had no knowledge of the way of righteousness, than to go back again from the holy law which was given to them, after having knowledge of it. They are an example of that true saying, The dog has gone back to the food it had put out, and the pig which had been washed to its rolling in the dirty earth. 2PE 2:17-22 (bbe)

Mr. Money’ take on Galatians would necessitate a discrepancy, that Peter’s Gospel and Faith are at odds with Paul’s in effect a different religion. God changed his mind. Instead, we live by faith and that means we know that our sins were forgiven on the cross, even the ones we’ll commit after salvation and therefore we are never accountable as long as we believe. Well God might be displeased; it might hurt our relationship–but he’s patient so it’s all good, all the time.

But let’s look at what Galatians really says. At the heart of Paul’s thesis he makes the following statement:

Being conscious that a man does not get righteousness by the works of the law, but through faith in Jesus Christ, we had faith in Christ Jesus, so that we might get righteousness by faith in Christ, and not by the works of the law: because by the works of the law will no flesh get righteousness. But if, while we were desiring to get righteousness through Christ, we ourselves were seen to be sinners, is Christ a servant of sin? In no way! For if I put up again those things which I gave to destruction, I am seen to be a wrongdoer. For I, through the law, have become dead to the law, so that I might be living to God. I have been put to death on the cross with Christ; still I am living; no longer I, but Christ is living in me; and that life which I now am living in the flesh I am living by faith, the faith of the Son of God, who in love for me, gave himself up for me. GAL 2:16-20 (bbe)

“So that we might get righteousness by faith. . .” Some would have you believe this means that the righteousness gained by faith is not a works righteousness because if you ever do right, then you are being legalistic. But Paul asks, rhetorically, “Is Christ a servant of sin?” The answer is a resounding no. Christ was sinless, this is the very basis of his substitutionary death on the Cross. The whole point is our identification with Christ on the Cross is the death of our carnal nature and slavery to living in sin. “I have been put to death on the cross with Christ. . .and that life which I am now living in the flesh I am living by faith. . .” Our human life is crucified and the spirit empowers us to live a holy life, not by ignoring sin and legislating it away. How more legalistic can one be, than a pardon without a transformation. The guilty murderer pardoned of his crime and all future crime to commit murder again and again without remorse and without punishment? Is this what the God in Christ bore the suffering and humiliation of the cross for? Of a certainty it is not! Instead Christ died that, living through us, replacing our broken, human spirit with a new inspiration of God’s breath, we could be made new like Adam before the fall, free to live sinless by letting Christ live through us and kill each sinful habit and trait one by one, perfecting us in his grace. This is the grace unto salvation the Victory in Jesus. It is the power to trust and to obey, for it is obedience not offerings of money, land, goods, produce or even blood, that pleases God.

Imagine, for a moment, you are a parent. You love your child with the whole of your being. That child goes off to school in the morning and comes home that night with a shapeless limp of clay, malformed and sickly, glazed so poorly the bubbles have burst exposing cavities that go down to the ceramic beneath. Your child holds this miserable creation out to you and with a fearful smile and shameful eyes says, “here mommy”; “here daddy–.” There’s a pause then, “I made this for you!” And a tiny glimmer of hope lights in the back of childish eyes that are all to well aware of the inadequacy of the offering. Do you reject the pot; dash it against the wall and try to teach the child how to make better pottery?

In the same way, “Our heavenly father rejects neither our offerings, nor our works.” Instead he blesses them and sets them in a prominent place, so he can say, “My child made that for me!” With all the pride of a daddy showing that first pot, or Christmas tie, or photo of a gangly teen with pimples and greasy hair.

The cross is adoption, but grace is the growing. Eventually you will make fine pottery or master works of what ever craft you choose, because the Christ living in you will live through you growing ever more righteous. Take the burden of your sin to God, one thing at a time and shed it. Let him crucify it dead and never to be remembered by him or by you and thereby committed again. As Peter says don’t return to your wallow and be destroyed, worse off than before, because there is no remaining means of salvation for you.

Fire Retardent

Recently I was confronted by a man who made an Apology, in the debate sense, for insuring that people in his congregation seek a shallower experience of God presence in his services. Clearly the man is in error to the point of rebellion, but it called to mind the fact that there is an increasing trend, in the wake of heretical extremism, to dampen down the strange fire and excess. This man’s error is to avoid strange and wild practices by insuring that the presence of God was given so little freedom to move on his people that no fire would occur.

For the uninitiated, Fire is a metaphor for the intense emotional and physiological responses that can occur when a believer encounters the incorporeal presence of the Holy Spirit, first hand. If you think back to that “warm fuzzy” you got the first time you had a crush on someone, and filter out the sexual response entirely, that is essentially what the prophet referred to as “having fire shut up” in his bones. This is normative for those who have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, as well as those who are receptive but fail to take the next step, and if there is a reliable initial evidence other than the fruit of the spirit I’d like to argue for this.

That said this man (I can’t in good conscience call him a pastor) is clearly not baptized in the Holy Spirit, the Ruakh Elohim, that filled the prophets of the Old Covenant and flowed out of the prophet of the New. No Godly man, filled with the Spirit and in right relationship with God, would ever seek to curb the activity of the Spirit. What this man said was, “here we have order and you can practice your gift at home alone.” Such an egregious challenge to the authority of God’s spirit is unconscionable. Yet, in the wake of counterfeit revivals such as Brownsville Texas, Orlando Florida, Toronto Canada and Broken Arrow Oklahoma–there is an increasing trend, even in the bastions of orthodox Christian faith, to suppress the will of God and the relationship with his people, to avoid the embarrassment of such sacrilege as Barking, Laughing on Command, and selling artifacts imbued with “prayer”.

I can empathize with this man’s stated motive, while not agreeing with the solution, one that clearly indicates his lack of faith and suggests that his motives may be far less sincere. But the insurance against such excesses is simple and effective. Every congregation must be led by a board of deacons and elders who are themselves so on fire as well as genuine, that they can discern in the Spirit when something is not Godly and genuine, and curtail it as it begins. Every church must be led by a Pastor or Rector who is Baptized in the Holy Ghost and clearly gifted not with teaching or administration, but with prophecy and discernment of spirits.

Churches were never meant to be so large that the members do not know one another intimately. Heresy and excess are born in the shadows produced by impersonal mega church congregations and small groups, where small misinterpretations of scripture by uncalled leaders grow unchecked into heretical dogmas. Ministry leaders have ceased to be Pastors with the intimacy of knowing each member and sharing each member’s struggles and knowing their rate of growth and learning, to being showmen and entertainers with crowds who follow them while starving for lack of real personal ministry. They’ve farmed this out to others and there is no connection between the pastor who will be held accountable and the members who suffer for lack of personal attention.

Another solution that has arisen is to have each prophet submit or deliver his prophecy to the pastor for evaluation, before delivering it cold and on queue, when the pastor has chosen to make room for it between the announcements and the last song. Imagine telling Jesus, “now tell us what are you going to say to those Sadducees? hmmm. Dogs is a bit strong, they may think you are calling them male prostitutes– How about deeply mistaken brothers. Doesn’t that sound like what God is really saying? Now about this word thieves–”

The key to insuring good order is to submit more fully and genuinely to God. God is not the author of confusion. He uses foolish things to stump the wise, but have a little faith! The Holy Spirit is a gentle spirit and gentleman. He’ll never create confusion, no matter how the congregation babbles while praying in tongues. The only insurance the church has against false prophets, on the order of A A Alan, Cyril of Alexandria, Joseph Smith and Elen G White, is the presence of the Holy Spirit. You have to ask yourself who really benefits from quenching the fire, and silencing the gifted members. Shouldn’t we all seek the baptism so that there will be more who are qualified to discern to the false and counterfeit fire, the false prophet, the deceiver?

From the voice of many counselors is wisdom. This is the defense against strange fire insuring that the whole congregation is baptized in the Spirit and sensing his presence, not relying on emotions and human reason to decide what feels right, insures that the strange and the anti-Christ will be evident. Seek the spirit and find a church where the pastor isn’t too important to have coffee with you, and is filled with the spirit with the evidence of prayer in tongues, gift of prophecy, and spiritual fruit such as humility.

Be a part of God’s solution!

Fred

{Insert Cute Title Here}

Trying new software for musings. Musings go back to a day before I had discovered the dreaded blog, and I never had the will to automate the process of updating. I edited each musing as a separate file and then cut and pasted the content of the formatted text into a web editor. This produced adequate results and I was satisfied. Recently I’ve been exposed to several blogs and have found the packaged blog software to be impressive, so I’m hanging up the ol html editor and moving up to a wysiwyg plugin on a SQL driven blog portal. I think I’m going to like it here. Lord willing and the rapture delays, I’ll be adding new musings this year. Lord bless you all.

Fred

Apocalypse Now

One of the most hotly debated topics of Christian faith is the interpretation of apocalyptic prophecies, in particular the Revelation of John. Ironically, those groups who are most inclined to denigrate the prophecy are quickest to refer to John as The Revelator. The confusion abounds and the ignorant revel in expounding wild or pagan interpretations or denying the authenticity and authority of the prophecy.

Whatever your personal views and perspectives on apocalypse, there are certain points that are undeniably clear: A peace maker called Anti-Messiah or Anti Christ, A unified totalitarian world government and commercial system, and the persecution of Bible believers Christian and Jew alike at the hands of the new world order.

Anti Christ and his mark are nearly inseparable and the source of the most confusion for readers and interpreters. What we know is that he will be a peacemaker, a diplomat and leader who forges alliances between disparate groups who have warred for generations. Rather than a figure of Godly authority and the establishment of a harmonious future, this peacemaker, by the venality of compromise, will spread ungodliness and a pure satanic Dominion.

Associated with this figure, is an even more cloudy foretelling, the Mark of the Beast and

it’s attendant context. People love to focus on the riddle, “Let him who considers himself wise consider … the number of his name is 600, three twenties and six.” Today you commonly see those who have voluntarily allied themselves with Satan, or those who foolishly consider the Bible and it’s faiths to be superstition, tattooing themselves with 666. Many municipalities have ordinances making it illegal to use 666 as an address, while others ignore it or even as in 666 West 57’th street, NY, NY allow a business to acquire it and use it for commercial purposes. That particular business made great sums of money from music that was dedicated as hymns and odes to Satan and his messengers. Again this was from a crass mercantilism that denied the reality of Satan while using his name and message to sell merchandise.

On the other side of the same coin you have “prophecy hounds” who capitalize on John’s revelation with books designed to titillate or frighten readers with the coming Dominion of Stan followed wrath of God and destruction of the world. Comic books and novels present a heterodox interpretation complete with second chances, thrilling escapes and easy martyrdom.

In this cloud of pagan confusion, atheistic folly and greed, the real message of the prophecy has been lost. Let me just admonish you, if you get “left behind” by all means avoid the mark, don’t confess the world religion, and try to face the torture with the dignity necessary to die in a state of grace. But don’t count on that being possible. If you are left behind, it’s because you weren’t in a right relationship with God and the Ruach Elohim, the Holy Spirit will be withdrawn in that time. You’ll be doing it under your own steam. Don’t count on being able to endure. Don’t allow yourself to be left behind. Live like it’s happening tomorrow and get your life right with God. Now!

That said I’d like to clear some of the confusion. When the various perspectives and interpretations are cleared aside and the distinctives of given denominations and faiths are factored out, we are left with three main elements regarding the Mark of the Beast. One it is the number of his name. Two it is the means by which commerce can occur on a global basis. Three accepting the Mark and the global economy that it opens up will insure that you cannot be rescued or allied with the Messiah –Anointed Rescuer of God– and you will spend eternity live, conscious and imprisoned in a prison constructed for the celestial beings known colloquially as Satan and his Angels. This is the “second death.”

Knowing these three essentials the specifics that are touted by various teachers are irrelevant. We know it’s the number of “his” name, so it is incumbent on us to thwart and oppose all efforts at any consolidated identification system which uses numbers rather than an individual’s name and person. The more fragmented and disorganized the ID systems in place the less like that we were warned of. Figuratively throw some shoes in the works, it is your Christian duty and for our Jewish cousins yours as well. When has a global conqueror, even a “benign” one using commerce and diplomacy, ever missed his chance at killing the Chosen of God? Lawsuits, protest, fasting and prayer – these are your duty soldier. Do them.

Secondly, the globalization of the economy is a thing of evil. Resist. Without a global economy, the antichrist cannot consolidate his power and authority. Armies will never conquer the globe, but currency and trade will. Protectionism; balkinization; diverse, independent economies are the absolute necessity — not only to enforce democratic ideals but to delay the advent of Antichrist. The longer he can be delayed the more souls can be reached and the longer before the totalitarian nightmare republic he will establish.

Lastly resist trends toward globalization, and the elimination of physical, and diverse currencies because without the unified (most likely electronic) currency of the global economy he cannot begin to consolidate power. Do not accept any system that links all your accounts to a single ID, do not accept any system that allows the use of electronic ID in place of your physical, original signature. Do not accept the elimination of physical currency or the use of biometrics and smart chips to make transactions.

Let the Holy Spirit lead you and do not give in to pressure to be apolitical. The word of God tells us that we wrestle, not against “flesh and blood” but against “nations and spirits”. Get up! Stand up and fight for your Christ! This is the religious duty you were sealed for when you were converted.