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I hadn’t planned on doing two Cephas Hour podcasts within days of each other. Indeed, I had started writing a post wholly removed from the podcast’s normal realm. The post focused on what I believe is coming in light of recent events such as the Chinese spy balloons, namely a perfect storm. Yet, as I started writing, it was pressed on me to turn it into a podcast.

The podcast’s music is all by The Choir. I can’t urge you strongly enough to visit their website store and Bandcamp page, supporting their artistry and ministry by buying some music. It is more worth it than I can say.

You can listen to the podcast, which contains a lengthy playlist of pure quality Choir music, at its website.

Back in the days of yore when awards shows at least occasionally recognized actual talent, veteran Christian alternative rock band The Choir won a Dove Award (the gospel equivalent of a Grammy) for their album “Free Flying Soul.” Among its numerous ferociously innovative tracks was one called “The Chicken,” which was the song you just heard.

Before getting into this spoken segment, please note that I prefer avoiding political discussion on this podcast because that is not its purpose. The main emphasis of this show is encouraging people to walk more closely with Christ and encourage people to actively support the outstanding artists whose music I play. That said, I ask for your indulgence while I dip into politics, at least a bit.

Lyrically, “The Chicken” is as far from lollipop dreams in a cotton candy sky saccharine mush as it gets.

I could tell you there is no troll in the valley,
No tricky ghoul behind the trees.
Yeah, I could tell you there is no molester in the alley to take a lead pipe to your knee.

But you won’t believe it ’cause it ain’t true.
You won’t believe it ’cause it ain’t true.
Rivers flowing through your precious body blue trickle crimson when the chicken claws you.

I could assure you you could not be swallowed by the ground since we’ve moved away from L.A.
And I could tell you no child of Jesus will ever be found under rubble somewhere today.

But you won’t believe it ’cause it ain’t true.
You won’t believe it ’cause it ain’t true.
Rivers flowing through your precious body blue trickle crimson when the chicken claws you.

Yes, I could swear it.
I will not betray another friend.
I’ve found true love and I’ve lost an eye.
And I might promise never to hurt you again, cross my heart, hope to die.

You won’t believe it ’cause it ain’t true.
Rivers flowing through your precious body blue trickle crimson when the chicken claws you …

The song forcibly comes to mind when surveying the news. As I record this show on February 4th, 2023, we have Chinese spy balloons allowed to drift unfettered across the United States’ entirety before being shot down. Democrats are dancing in city streets atop citizens’ corpses they failed to protect from one another. That is when they’re not preoccupied with crying jags in Congress over being punished for their misdeeds. Our government is in unimaginable debt, yet no one can trace where the trillions of dollars spent are going. Our President is a senile creeper forever spitting into the wind and growing angry when it hits him in the face. We fight a proxy war with Russia while the aforementioned Chinese prepare for direct war. There is a storm coming, and it threatens to be perfect.

These are troubled days. Society splinters into madness, perpetual children convinced they are human biology’s masters by fantasizing they are what they are not. This generation’s watchword isn’t peace. It’s self-delusion and vicious rebellion over the notion that humanity should humble itself individually and collectively before God and that humanity itself is not God.

The world says it seeks love. Yet when and where there is love, the world runs away.

The coming storm will not consist of Mother Gaia rising up from the oceans to wreak havoc upon humanity, led by Greta Thunberg in her best Mera outfit. No, the coming storm will be a deadly force unleashed by a foreign power cognizant enough to know it is dying yet arrogant enough to believe that if it somehow takes everyone else with it, it will turn out all right. It won’t.

I’ve seen a lot of online mocking lately by those lampooning believers who still adhere to the belief that the end times are near and it is well within possibility’s realm that not only will there be a rapture, it may well take place in our expected lifetime. Whether this comes to pass or not, I do not know. I know it is beyond vital for all of us who believe to be aware of what’s happening in our world. To be so is to become immediately evangelically energized. There are many reasons why the time could be short. Even if not, as we go through life, out of the love Jesus showed us on the cross, we must love others by preaching, teaching, and living Christ crucified and risen.

It is vital to be unafraid. Fear is a natural reaction to this present world, a world of governmental overreach at home and tyrannical demagoguery abroad. Yet we have a reason not to fear. God is neither silent nor indifferent to our plight, individually or collectively. He is far more patient than any of us, which is a good thing when we remember how patient He has been with each of us during times when the world eagerly casts us aside.

So be calm. The coming perfect storm will be brutal. But it can not defeat us. Our God is almighty. No one, and nothing, on this earth comes close. In this, we can and should rejoice.