How To Tell A Traitor (video sermon)

John Prepared Jesus

 Everyone who has any Bible knowledge knows that John is the Old Testament fulfillment of the prophecy of the return of the prophet Elijah. In fact, he’s the last old testament prophet.

Malachi 4:5-6- Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the LORD: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse.

Matthew 17:10-13- And his disciples asked him, saying, Why then say the scribes that Elias must first come? And Jesus answered and said unto them, Elias truly shall first come, and restore all things. But I say unto you, That Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them. Then the disciples understood that he spake unto them of John the Baptist.

Matthew 11:13- For all the prophets and the law prophesied until John.

But, he’s more than just a prophet. John baptized Jesus. And the more we ponder that, the more I realize how heavy it actually is.

John 1:6-7- There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. The same came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all men through him might believe.

At first glance, it may seem so simple or even random. John was there. Jesus came. Jesus got baptized.

John 1:26,27,29,32-34 - John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: but there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; He it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon him. And I knew him not: but he that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God.

But when you slow down and look closer, you'll realize, this wasn’t random at all. John the Baptist wasn’t just some wild preacher who showed up in the wilderness. Luke tells us that he came from a priestly family. 

Luke 1:5-6- There was in the days of Herod, the king of Judaea, a certain priest named Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elisabeth. And they were both righteous before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blameless. 

Luke 1:8,11-17- And it came to pass, that while he executed the priest's office before God in the order of his course, And there appeared unto him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And when Zacharias saw him, he was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said unto him, Fear not, Zacharias: for thy prayer is heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John. And thou shalt have joy and gladness; and many shall rejoice at his birth. For he shall be great in the sight of the Lord, and shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother's womb. And many of the children of Israel shall he turn to the Lord their God. And he shall go before him in the spirit and power of Elias, to turn the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the disobedient to the wisdom of the just; to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.

His father, Zechariah, belonged to the line of priests. That means John grew up hearing stories

about the temple, sacrifices, cleansing, and how people were prepared to come before God.
This was his world as he was growing up.

So when John stood in the Jordan River, he wasn't standing there as a novice. He carries with him generations of priestly preparation.

Luke 3:3-6- And he came into all the country about Jordan, preaching the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins; As it is written in the book of the words of Esaias the prophet, saying, The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill shall be brought low; and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways shall be made smooth; And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.

John is both a prophet and a priest. He came not wearing priestly robes, but camel’s hair. He was not standing at the altar, but in knee-deep in water. He wasn't offering animal sacrifices, but rather calling people to repent. He’s doing priestly work, but outside the temple. And perhaps, that’s the point. Something greater than the temple is about to show up.

Mark 1:6-11- And John was clothed with camel's hair, and with a girdle of a skin about his loins; and he did eat locusts and wild honey; And preached, saying, There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose. I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost. And it came to pass in those days, that Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee, and was baptized of John in Jordan. And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him: And there came a voice from heaven, saying, Thou art my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

Priests didn’t just offer sacrifices. They check them first. The lamb had to be clean. I should contain no defects. It was to be set apart for that specific purpose and then declared acceptable.

So when John sees Jesus walking toward him and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God, whic taketh away the sin of the world,"  that's not just a descriptive title. That’s priestly language.

John doesn’t call Jesus a teacher. He doesn’t call Him a prophet. He calls Him the Lamb. And then, he baptized Him.

Now we have to see that this isn’t Jesus confessing sin. Jesus had none. This moment is rather about identification. Preparation. It’s like John, a priest by birth, is publicly pointing out the true sacrifice, the final one.

John 3:27,28,30,33,36- John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven. Ye yourselves bear me witness, that I said, I am not the Christ, but that I am sent before him. He must increase, but I must decrease. He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal that God is true. He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the wrath of God abideth on him.

The same man who prepared people through the baptism of repentance now prepares the One who will truly cleanse them.

I Peter 1:18-19- Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot: 

In the Old Testament, whenever there was a ceremonial service, water always came first. Priests washed before serving in the temple. Objects were cleansed before being used. Preparation always came before sacrifice.

John’s baptism fits that pattern so beautifully.

Matthew 3:13-17- Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and comest thou to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness. Then he suffered him. And Jesus, when he was baptized, went up straightway out of the water: and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and lighting upon him: And lo a voice from heaven, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.

When Jesus came up from the water, the heavens opened, the Spirit descended, and the Father spoke. The Lamb had been revealed. His ministry can now begin.

But what I really admire about John is that he never tries to hold onto the moment. He knows his role. “He must increase, but I must decrease.” That’s not insecurity; that’s faithfulness.

John, as the priest, prepares the way. John, as the prophet, points to the Messiah. Then John steps aside. 

His greatness wasn’t in how long he preached or how many followers he had. It was in how clearly he prepared the way, and how willingly he gave the spotlight to Jesus.

John baptized Jesus.- a priest prepared the Lamb. And the Lamb willingly stepped into the water. From there, the story keeps moving, toward a hill outside Jerusalem, where water would no longer be enough, and blood would finally be poured out. And because of this sacrifice, we have a New Testament!

Hebrews 7:24,27- But this man, because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood. Who needeth not daily, as those high priests, to offer up sacrifice, first for his own sins, and then for the people's: for this he did once, when he offered up himself.

Hebrews 9:11-12,24- But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation.

What John began in the Jordan​ River Jesus finished at the cross.

Colossians 2:14-15- Blotting out the handwriting of ordinances that was against us, which was contrary to us, and took it out of the way, nailing it to his cross; And having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it.

Colossians 1:14- In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:

Psalms 32:1- Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.

​Romans 4:23-25- Now it was not written for his sake alone, that it was imputed to him; But for us also, to whom it shall be imputed, if we believe on him that raised up Jesus our Lord from the dead; Who was delivered for our offences, and was raised again for our justification.

Jesus died to not only redeem our souls from hell (the penalty that is meted out to those who sin) but also to justify us before God. Those who accept His sacrifice on the cross as payment for their sin will stand before God just as if they had never sinned.

The Mark Of The Beast

 

Bible prophecy was never given to create fear or confusion, but to reveal God’s order, timing, and purposes. When Scripture speaks about the Mark of the Beast, it places it within a specific prophetic period and connects it to worship, allegiance, and judgment — not to the present Church Age.

Revelation 13 shows that the Mark is introduced after the midpoint of the Tribulation, once the Antichrist is openly revealed, his image is established, and worship of that image is demanded. Only after these events does Scripture describe restrictions on buying and selling.

“And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads:” (Revelation 13:15–16, KJV)

This sequence matters. The Mark is not vague, gradual, or hidden. It is public, enforced, and unmistakably connected to allegiance. It's almost as if the mark is the effect and the worship of the Beast is the cause; you can't have the one without the other.

THE HEART OF THE ISSUE: WORSHIP, NOT TECHNOLOGY

Scripture consistently emphasizes that God looks at who or what is worshiped. In the Tribulation, the world is divided by a single question: Who will you give your allegiance to?

“And they worshipped the dragon which gave power unto the beast: and they worshipped the beast, saying, Who is like unto the beast? who is able to make war with him?.” (Revelation 13:4, KJV)

"And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people, Saying with a loud voice, Fear God, and give glory to him; for the hour of his judgment is come: and worship him that made heaven, and earth, and the sea, and the fountains of waters." (Revelation 14:6-7)

There are two choices laid out before humanity during this time- worship the Beast and live under God's wrath OR worship Jesus Christ and be prepared to lose your life.

Receiving the Mark is not merely participation in an economic system. It is submission to the authority of the Beast and rejection of God’s truth. Technology may serve as a tool, but the act itself is spiritual allegiance.

WHY THE MARK CANNOT BE RECEIVED ACCIDENTALLY

The Bible never presents the Mark as something taken unknowingly. Revelation 14 makes the order unmistakable- they worship and receive.

“And the third angel followed them, saying with a loud voice, If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead, or in his hand, The same shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is poured out without mixture into the cup of his indignation; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: And the smoke of their torment ascendeth up for ever and ever: and they have no rest day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name.” (Revelation 14:9-11 KJV)

Worship comes first. The Mark follows. The choice is made to swear allegiance to the Beast and then the mark is given. This removes fear-based claims that people today could accidentally receive the Mark through medicine, identification systems, or modern technology. Scripture does not support that idea.

THE CHURCH AND GOD’S WRATH

It is crucial to rightly divide here.

The Mark of the Beast is directly tied to God’s wrath, not merely persecution. But Scripture also clearly states:

“For God hath not appointed us to wrath, but to obtain salvation by our Lord Jesus Christ,” (1 Thessalonians 5:9, KJV)

The Church is not present for the outpouring of God's wrath described in these verses in Revelation. The word "church" doesn't even show up in the book after Revelation chapter 3! The warnings about the Mark are recorded so that God’s prophetic program is understood — not to suggest the Church will experience it.

WHY THIS MESSAGE STILL MATTERS TODAY

Although the Mark is future, the present moment is a time of grace. Prophecy points forward, but salvation is offered now. Avoiding a future judgment does not save anyone. Only the gospel does.

“Moreover, brethren, I declare unto you the gospel which I preached unto you, which also ye have received, and wherein ye stand; By which also ye are saved, if ye keep in memory what I preached unto you, unless ye have believed in vain. For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures:” (1 Corinthians 15:1–4  KJV)

This chapter begins with the gospel and ends with the rapture!

"Behold, I shew you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet shall sound, and the dead shall be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. So when this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ." (I Corinthians 15:51-57)

Eternal life is received by believing in Jesus Christ and His finished work — not by fear, not by reform, and not by religious association.

FINAL THOUGHT

Prophecy is meant to bring clarity, not panic.
The Mark of the Beast belongs to a future time.
Grace belongs to now.

Believe the gospel while it is freely offered. If millions of people have just vanished all around the world, then you are already in the Tribulation and this devotional applies to you. If that hasn't happened yet, then you still have time!

- Jovelyn Begaso

What Do I Do Now That I Am Saved? (video sermon)

The Founding Father And Deism

 I found this post online, and I thought it had some really good points to it. The title of the poster is under the name Templar Mind.

You've heard it a thousand times. You may have even sat in a university lecture hall, with fluorescent lights humming overhead, while a professor in a tweed jacket dismantled your heritage.

He told you the Founding Fathers were enlightened Deists. He told you they didn’t believe in miracles, didn’t care about the divinity of Christ, and viewed the Creator as a distant “Clockmaker” who wound up the universe and then went on vacation.

You've heard that these men built a secular machine designed to keep God out of the gears. It's the favorite bedtime story of the radical left. It soothes them.

It convinces them that the United States was always intended to be a godless vacuum where the only moral authority is the state.

It's a lazy way to view history, perpetuated by men who are terrified of a God who acts. Sure, they always point to Thomas Jefferson taking a razor to the Gospels or Benjamin Franklin’s youthful indiscretions.

But they stop reading there because the rest of the story destroys their narrative. Jefferson, even while editing the Gospels, could not escape the God who governs.

He still wrote into the Declaration of Independence that men are “endowed by their Creator” with unalienable rights and closed the document with an appeal to “the protection of divine Providence.”

Franklin, who called himself a “thorough deist” in his autobiography, later admitted he found deism “not very useful” and spent his final years quoting Scripture to a room full of statesmen.

The full arc of their lives undermines the secularist case more than any cherry-picked passage. The men who forged this nation did not believe in an absentee landlord.

They believed in Providence. They believed in a God who fights, who judges, and who intervenes in the mud and blood of human history.

George Washington was not a man of many words, he was a man of action. When he took the oath of office on April 30, 1789, In his First Inaugural Address, he offered what he called his “fervent supplications to that Almighty Being who rules over the Universe, who presides in the Councils of Nations.”

He declared that “No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the invisible hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States.”

A Deist doesn't pray for help because a Deist believes no one is listening. Washington prayed constantly. He credited the survival of the Continental Army not to strategic brilliance, but to the direct action of God.

In a private letter to Brigadier General Thomas Nelson on August 20, 1778, Washington wrote: “The hand of Providence has been so conspicuous in all this, that he must be worse than an infidel that lacks faith, and more than wicked that has not gratitude enough to acknowledge his obligations.

That's from a private letter. No audience to impress. No political calculation. Washington is calling anyone who denies divine intervention in the American Revolution “worse than an infidel.”

Then you have Benjamin Franklin. The secularists love him. He is their patron saint of skepticism. Yet, look at the man in the heat of the Constitutional Convention of 1787.

The delegates were at each other’s throats. The union was crumbling before it even began. After five weeks of deadlock, tempers had fractured along the fault line of state representation.

Franklin at eighty-one, the oldest man in the room, stood up. He didn’t appeal to reason. He didn’t appeal to the Enlightenment.

He said, “I have lived, Sir, a long time, and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth...that God governs in the affairs of men. And if a sparrow cannot fall to the ground without His notice, is it probable that an empire can rise without His aid?”

He quoted Psalm 127: “Except the Lord build the House they labour in vain that build it.” And then he moved that the Convention open each day with prayer, imploring “the assistance of Heaven.”

The motion didn't pass. Alexander Hamilton reportedly objected that calling for prayer might signal desperation. The Convention had no funds to pay clergy. But the procedural failure is irrelevant.

What matters is what Franklin actually believed and said aloud to the men who were building this nation.

This was an old man, staring at the end of his life, telling a room of ambitious politicians that they were fools if they thought they could build without God’s help.

John Adams wasn't at the Constitutional Convention. He was serving as the American Minister to Great Britain in London while the delegates debated in Philadelphia.

But he understood the document they produced better than most of the men who signed it, because he understood its fatal weakness.

Eleven years after the Convention, in October 1798, President Adams wrote to the officers of the Massachusetts Militia. He looked at the Constitution they were all sworn to defend and laid bare its vulnerability:

“Because We have no Government armed with Power capable of contending with human Passions unbridled by morality and Religion. Avarice, Ambition, Revenge or Gallantry, would break the strongest Cords of our Constitution as a Whale goes through a Net. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Adams understood human nature. He knew that without the fear of God...a specific, terrifying, and active God. liberty turns into license, and license turns into tyranny.

The secular historian tries to tell you that “religious” just meant “generally nice.” It didn’t.

Adams was explicit that the laws of the republic were “emanations of the Divine mind,” that the moral order was grounded in the Creator.

He meant, people who understood they would answer to a Judgment Seat higher than the Supreme Court.

Washington, the general, says religion and morality are “indispensable supports” of political prosperity.

Franklin, the philosopher, says God governs in the affairs of men.

Adams, the lawyer, says the Constitution is a net that only holds moral and religious fish, everything else tears right through.

Three different men, three different temperaments, three different vocations, and the same conclusion:

without God, the experiment fails.

The Founders understood that rights do not come from the King, and they do not come from the parchment of the Constitution.

They come from the Creator. This aligns with the reality of the Imago Dei. We are made in His image, and therefore we possess a dignity that the state cannot grant and cannot take away.

The Fathers of the Church understood this long before Philadelphia.

St. John Chrysostom, in his homilies on Romans, taught that civil authority is ordained by God and that rulers are ministers of divine justice...not autonomous agents of their own will.

St. Basil the Great insisted that those who govern bear a heavier judgment precisely because their authority is borrowed from above.

The American Founders, whether they knew it or not, were working within a framework the Church had articulated for over a thousand years: that legitimate authority flows downward from God, not upward from the consent of the governed alone.

But we must check our own hearts. The “City on a Hill” is the Church, not the United States of America.

America is a beneficiary of Christian truth, but it is not the source of it. We fall into a dangerous trap if we idolize the nation. As it is written, “Put not your trust in princes, nor in the son of man, in whom there is no help” (Psalm 146:3).

If we make America an idol, we lose the very faith that made America possible. Jesus is the King of Kings, not just the President of Presidents.

We defend the heritage of this nation because it provided a cradle for the faith, but we must not confuse the cradle with the Savior.

True patriotism is the sober recognition that our freedom is a fragile gift, maintained only by the grace of God and the virtue of the people.

Penny's Cookbook

I post a lot of my favorite recipes on here. I have, however, composed a cookbook through Create My Cookbook that you can order should you want to get all of my most loved recipes.

Follow this link to view and order.

I do not get a commission from this. The books are rather expensive to purchase because they are printed as they are ordered.

There is also an ebook version should you wish to get these recipes as an electronic version, and this is the cheapest option.

Count the Cost (song)