The Road Hosea 6:5: "Therefore have I hewed them by the prophets; I have slain them by the words of my mouth: and thy judgments are as the light that goeth forth."
“They went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden by the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia. When they had come opposite Mysia, they attempted to go into Bithynia, but the Spirit of Jesus did not allow them; so, passing by Mysia, they went down to Troas. During the night Paul had a vision: there stood a man of Macedonia pleading with him and saying, ‘Come over to Macedonia and help us.’ When he had seen the vision, we immediately tried to cross over to Macedonia, being convinced that God had called us to proclaim the good news to them.” (Acts chapter 16, verses 6-10)
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The above excerpt from The Acts of the Apostles spoke of events during Paul’s second mission. Paul wanted to spread the Gospel, the Good News of Jesus Christ, and he thought he knew how best to do it. His plan was to travel west towards Asia, drawn probably by the thriving city Ephesus. But we are told that everywhere he tries to go he is blocked by the Spirit of Jesus. Eventually Paul ends up in Troas, on the northwestern coast of Asia. There he hears the call of God in a vision to go to Macedonia. This time things go much more smoothly. Paul and his companions end up in Philippi, one of the leading cities in Macedonia. Here his mission is wildly successful he meets a woman named Lydia who is an important woman of high social standing the fact that her name and her city of origin are known tells us this. Paul preaches the Gospel to her and her household, and the response is amazing. She and the rest of her house are baptized, and she offers to have Paul and his companions stay with her. At the beginning of his journey, Paul was following his own plan, but he did not get very far. He was blocked at every turn.
How often in our own lives do we feel, often passionately, that what we are doing is the very thing that we are meant to be doing, and yet everywhere we turn we meet opposition? It is at these times that we must stop to reflect. It could be in a relationship that we think should be working out perfectly, and yet somehow isn’t turning out in a way we would expect. It could be in the choice of a major what was your favorite subject in High School becomes a horror in University.
Life is never easy, and not every point of opposition is caused because we’re not travelling the path that God would like us to travel. But by stopping to take the time to reflect, pray, and open our eyes and ears, we can help God help us to make the best choices for our lives. But we have to be willing to put in the effort to pray and keep alert for the ways that God might be communicating with us. When Paul stopped to listen, he heard God’s call to Macedonia, where the power of the Gospel crossed social and religious barriers to convert an entire household. Imagine what could happen in our own lives if we stopped and listened to what God is trying to tell us about our own lives!
“But if thou scoffest at hearing of hell and believest not that fire, remember Sodom. For we have seen, surely we have seen, even in this present life, a semblance of hell. For since many would utterly disbelieve the things to come after the resurrection, hearing now of an unquenchable fire, God brings them to a right mind by things present. For such is the burning of Sodom, and that conflagration!…
“Consider how great is that sin, to have forced hell to appear even before its time!… For that rain was unwonted, for the intercourse was contrary to nature, and it deluged the land, since lust had done so with their souls. Wherefore also the rain was the opposite of the customary rain. Now not only did it fail to stir up the womb of the earth to the production of fruits, but made it even useless for the reception of seed. For such was also the intercourse of the men, making a body of this sort more worthless than the very land of Sodom. And what is there more detestable than a man who hath pandered himself, or what more execrable?”
“Just as those who are deprived of light cannot walk straight, so also those who do not behold the ray of the Holy Scriptures must necessarily sin, since they walk in the deepest darkness.”
–St. John Chrysostom, Conversations on the Epistle to the Romans
The Dutch farmers are inspired by the Holy Ghost and by the Canadian truck drivers. The Canadian truck drivers are Canadian heroes, American heroes and Dutch heroes. God bless the Dutch farmers and the Canadian truck drivers.
Colonel Douglas MacGregor in a recent interview with Judge Napolitano, “Once you move past Europe, particularly western Europe and north America, the rest of the world is largely aligning with Russia.”
Below is a slightly older interview with Colonel Douglas MacGregor, this one on the YouTube channel “Interesting Things,” but one that is still worth watching.
At around the 24:00 mark in this video, the narrator says that Ukraine will not recover its eastern regions of Donetsk and Luhansk; Russia and Syria are recognizing the People’s Republic of Eastern Ukraine:
II Chronicles 20:22-24: “And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were come against Judah; and they were smitten. For the children of Ammon and Moab stood up against the inhabitants of mount Seir, utterly to slay and destroy them: and when they had made an end of the inhabitants of Seir, every one helped to destroy another. And when Judah came toward the watch tower in the wilderness, they looked unto the multitude, and, behold, they were dead bodies fallen to the earth, and none escaped.”
“Do not dare to interpret the Gospels and the other books of the Holy Scriptures on your own. The scriptures were uttered by holy prophets and apostles, uttered not arbitrarily but according to the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. How utterly mad, then, to interpret it arbitrarily!”
[…]
“For him who loves his fallen soul, for him who does not want to deny himself, the Gospel is shut. He reads only words, but the Word of life and the Spirit remain for him under an opaque veil.
“When the Lord was on this earth with His most-holy body, many saw Him and yet saw Him not. What profit does a man receive when he sees only with the eyes of his flesh, which he shares with the beasts, but sees nothing with the eyes of his soul—his mind and heart? And today, many read the Gospels daily but at the same time never read it at all; they know it not at all.”
[…]
“The mind that has yet to be purified by repentance, still wanders in the darkness of the fall, and is not enlightened and led by the Holy Spirit. The man who dares to reason about God with his own sickly mind and from the darkness of his own pride, always falls into error.”
“God gives His communion to all who love Him. Communion with God is life and light and sweetness with all the good things that He has. But those who of their own will forsake him he rewards with separation from Him, which they themselves have chosen. As separation from light is darkness, so also alienation from God is deprivation of all good things which He has. But the good things of God are eternal and without end, so that the loss of them is eternal and without end. Thus sinners shall be the cause of their own torments, just as the blind do not see the light, although it is shining on them.”
“Early in life I have noticed that no event is ever correctly reported in a newspaper, but in Spain, for the first time, I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as heroes of imaginary victories; and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that never happened. I saw, in fact, history being written not in terms of what happened but of what ought to have happened according to various ‘party lines.’”
–George Orwell, speaking regarding Spanish Civil War propaganda
“…it is presumptuous ridicule of God if someone thinks that only the person who desires great wealth chooses mammon. Alas, the person who insists on having a penny without God, wants to have a penny all for himself. He thereby chooses mammon. A penny is enough, the choice is made, he has chosen mammon; that it is little makes not the slightest difference. The love of God is hatred of the world and love of the world hatred of God.”
“When a man receives something Divine, in his heart he rejoices; but when he receives something diabolic, he is disturbed. The Christian heart, when it has received something Divine, does not demand anything else in order to convince it that this is precisely from the Lord; but by that very effect it is convinced that this is heavenly, for it senses within itself spiritual fruits: love, joy, peace, and the rest (cf. Gal. 5:22).”
–St. Seraphim of Sarov, Little Russian Philokalia
Galatians 5:22-25: “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, Meekness, temperance: against such there is no law. And they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with the affections and lusts. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit.”
The Road 