THE GREAT COMMISSION PART TWO

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Since Jesus gave His Great Commission many nations have been taken over and ruled by Christians with God’s Law and for His glory. When God told one man, Moses, to free His people from Egypt, the most powerful empire in the world, and set up a new nation with His Law, that must have seemed impossible (Ex. 3:10-12).

For Moses to be successful, God promised him only one thing – “I will be with you.” For us to be successful today, Jesus promised us the same one thing – “I am with you.” This is the only mandate Jesus gave us where He said, “I am with you.” Now the impossible becomes possible, actually inevitable… if we believe and obey like Moses did:

By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them” Hebrews 11:33

The word “go”, in the Great Commission is in the continuous tense – “go and keep on going.” Jesus made clear He’s commanding this for every generation – “even to the end of the ages.”

Historically we see the Apostles eventually going to the four corners of the earth. Ethiopia and Armenia were some of the earliest nations to became Christian nations – ruled by Christian civil leaders and ruled under God’s Law. In time the whole Roman Empire, through Constantine the Great, threw out pagan law and replaced it with God’s Law. Previously persecuted Elders/Bishops became Constantine’s continual advisors and teachers – teaching God’s Law to Constantine, as Jesus commanded. 

When the United States was founded, most Americans were Christians, even those who did not fully embrace the Christian worldview. This was definitely true of all political leaders.

The United States became strong and also had oceans on each side protecting it. As a result, for the first time in world history, for generations Christian leaders in American no longer felt they needed to concern themselves with politics or civil leaders that might persecute them. Therefore, most spiritual leaders totally neglected applying the Bible for political leaders or civil government. But in the latter part of the 20th century, Christians in American for the first time began to see the consequences of their biblical civil neglect – reaping a growing number of anti-biblical laws. Also media, political leaders and educational institutions began targeting Christians..

After generations of God’s biblical civil mandate being ignored, most Christians today are Scripturally clueless of this. But I would ask, is Satan more powerful than God? Satan’s missionaries have Satanized nation after nation. Either the devil and his people rule Christians or Jesus and His people rule Christians and non-Christians. Which do you think God’s wants? There is NO third alternative.

Jim McCotter tells a great story about a communist student leader who came to know Christ. Soon afterwards he asked Jim, why are Christians not trying to take over the university’s daily newspaper? Not too long later, he and some of the other Christian students got control of the university’s daily newspaper! It was like a Christian revolution started. Over time thousands of students came to know Christ. But what was interesting was how this young former communist, soon after he became a Christian, had a more biblical vision of Christianizing the whole university and town than most traditional Christians ever thought of.

Jim has another story about another former communist who had become a Christian. But before being converted, he was the communist prime minister of Ethiopia in the 1990’s. After being head of state for five years, he began to question his communist way of thinking. When his fellow communists realized he was questioning communism, one night, they suddenly grabbed him and threw him in prison to never be seen again. After seven years in solitary confinement someone smuggled to him a small New Testament. He said that he had never seen a Bible before, nor ever heard the name of Jesus, nor ever met a Christian. However, when he soon read what Jesus said about Himself, he knew Jesus was who he was looking for all his life (John 14:6):

“Jesus said, ‘I am the way, the truth, and the life, and no one comes to the Father except through Me.’”

For the next five years, day and night in solitary confinement, he said that he never stopped reading his little New Testament. He said, when he was a communist, with 20 others they established a 1,000 small communist cell groups in homes all over the cities, like New Testament house churches. He said, that’s how they were eventually able to take over Ethiopia at that time.

When he was no longer a threat to the new government, miraculously he got out of prison after 12 years in solitary confinement. He said, the first thing he wanted to do was find the Christians and join them, and like the New Testament to now help take Ethiopia for Christianity, like he had previously done for communism. He said, “But I was shocked when I met the Christian leaders… having no zeal or vision to take over our nation for Christ. And I was further shocked when I saw their enormous expensive church buildings and they did not even believe in NT house churches.” May God convict us today to be all out to follow His Word, for His cause and glory.

“By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them” Hebrews 11:33

For more information on The Great Commission and the church as God intended, go to Jim McCotter’s website, http://www.jimsbookstore.com.

THE TRUTH OF BISHOP BUDDE’S SERMON TO TRUMP

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Kaeley Harms, an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, has a visceral response to emotional manipulation. This is her response to Bishop Budde’s sermon to President Trump.

One needs only spend a few minutes familiarizing oneself with the entire body of Bishop Budde’s work to realise that what she was really asking for is not mercy but capitulation.  She wasn’t asking Trump to use softer words.  She was asking him to pump the brakes on necessary policy changes that would protect the greater good.

Jesus loves people. He loves you. He loves me. He loves illegal immigrants. He loves kids who are confused about their gender. His heart is merciful toward us. But loving every person does not mean He loves every idea or every action. Mercy doesn’t look like capitulating to ideologies that lead to harm. Mercy looks like intervening to stop the harm from happening, and it’s precisely that intervention that Bishop Budde was standing staunchly against in her speech. She framed the whole thing as love, of course, but the brand of love she was peddling wasn’t love at all, and that’s why it vexes me.

You should be able to step foot in a Christian church and find that the leaders are pointing you toward Jesus and the truth that can save.

Jesus says, “Come as you are,” not “Stay as you are.”  Faithful Christian leaders lovingly encourage their congregants to surrender their sins to Jesus and allow Him to transform them from the inside out. To be a Christian is to be willing to change. It means your identity is in Him, not your sexual preferences or rebellion against the material reality of your sex. But false leaders like Bishop Budde encounter this necessary shepherding and shout, “Have mercy! Don’t tell people they need to change! That’s hateful.” And in so doing, they circumvent the very repentance that could bring the healing we all claim to desire.

Budde’s speech perpetuated both the myth of the “transgender child” and the histrionic belief that children will die if we don’t indulge their delusion about their bodies. There’s no such thing as a transgender child. Mercy and compassion for kids who are confused about their sex looks like lovingly helping them make peace with the immutable nature of it. It does NOT look like forcing the rest of society to play make-believe with the cult ideology that’s harming them. The price tag here is just too high. Kids are not dying because we refuse to tell them lies about their bodies. The suggestion is preposterous and harmful.

Conservative political commentator Mark Steyn blasted Episcopal Bishop Mariann Budde as “a tool of Satan” for pushing the idea of “transgender children” from the pulpit of the National Cathedral during her recent rebuke of President Donald Trump. There’s no such thing as a transgender kid,” Steyn said. “Some may think there is, and a confused 8-year-old boy or 11-year-old girl may think there is. But what it boils down to is you, the bishop, supporting slicing off the breasts of middle school girls. That makes you, the bishop, a tool of Satan. So you should be on a roasting spit in Hell for promoting that.”

Sadly, until very recently, the transgender movement has had all the institutional power. All of it. They’ve had a death grip on the entirety of mainstream media, big tech, big pharma, the medical industrial complex, academia, Hollywood elite, and, increasingly, of the now largely apostate church.

They have not been “powerless.”  Women have been powerless to stop them. How do you think female inmates raped by men in their prison cells feel when people who claim to be abuse survivor advocates defend their rapists in the name of God?

What does “mercy” look like to a physically castrated young man like Ritchie Herron who will never be a father because people like Bishop Budde encouraged the cult belief that they could be born in the wrong body? What does “mercy” look like to grieving parents whose children have committed suicide after the medical intervention experts promised what would make them happy failed to deliver?

I’m focused heavily on the trans element of Budde’s speech for obvious reasons: it’s been my soapbox for the past 10 years.  I’m so inundated with the stories of harm perpetrated by the gender cult that it keeps me up at night. 

GREAT COMMISSION PART ONE

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After Jesus’s resurrection but before He ascended back to heaven, Jesus repeated His Great Commission five times. Christians are to reach cities, nations, and the world! Every Christian, not just church leaders, were tasked with the Great Commission.

“Go and make disciples of all the nations” (Matt.28:19).

  1. “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation” (Mark16:15).
  2. “Repentance and forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem” (Luke24:47).
  3. “As the Father has sent Me, so I am sending you” (John20:21).
  4. “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts1:8).

The first Great Commission verse in Matthew in its entirety is foundational and covers the most, so we will look at it.

“Then Jesus came to them and said, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore, go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to obey all I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the very end of the age!’” Matthew 28:18-20

Let’s look at each point that Jesus said:

  1. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”

“ALL authority… on earth” certainly has to include all civil authority on earth in all nations. If you truly comprehend the first thing Jesus said here, we can stop right here. No one should need any more than this to see Jesus’s Great Commission is a civil mandate for all nations on earth.

The words “all authority” are also translated as “all power.” And you don’t need ALL power or ALL authority on earth to be able to disciple a few Christians! But you definitely do need all power and authority on earth to be able to do what Jesus then commands us.

  1. “Therefore, go and teach all nations.”

“Nations” are by definition: “A group of people led by the same civil government.” Nations are NOT a group of churches or a group of disciples. Nations are civil governments. Therefore, this is Jesus’s civil mandate, to go and teach all nations, exactly as the verse says. The rest of the Great Commission Jesus tells us exactly how to successfully accomplish His civil mandate.

  1. “Baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”

Contrary to what many assume, this sentence is NOT referring to water baptism for the New Covenant Believers, for a lot of reasons:

  • First, the context of the verse right before has no basis for being that.
  • Second, the pronoun in “baptizing them”, has to refer to a noun in the previous sentence. And in the previous sentence and according to the literal Greek, there is only one noun, and it is the word – “NATIONS”.
  • Third, but how do you baptize nations? In the Greek language, the word “baptize” is more often used in other ways than water baptism. It was used – “to immerse, to wash, to cleanse and even to overwhelm.” In fact, most of the time in the NT this word is NEVER used for water baptism new believers. For example, Matt. 3:11: Baptism of the Holy Spirit, Matt. 3:11: Baptism of fire, Matt. 28:19: Baptism of nations, Mark 7:4: Baptism of food, Mark 7:4: Baptism of cups, Mark 7:4: Baptism of pots, Luke 3:3: Baptism of repentance, Luke 7:29: Baptism of John, Luke 12:50: Baptism of suffering, Rom. 6:3: Baptized into Christ Jesus, 1 Cor. 10:2: Baptized into Moses, 1 Cor. 12:13: Baptized into one body, 1 Cor. 15:29: Baptized for the dead, Gal. 3:27: Baptized into Christ.
  • The ONLY time water baptism for New Covenant Believers was ever referred to in the New Testament was after Pentecost in the book of Acts. Moreover, every time it was used there for new Believers, the phrase – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – was NEVER said. The Book of Acts actually records what was said, and this is what was said every time: Acts 2:38: “baptized in the name of Jesus Christ”, Acts 8:16: “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus”, Acts 10:48: “baptized in the name of Jesus Christ”, Acts 19:5: “baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus”

Contrary to what some may think, Jesus’s Great Commission was not talking about water baptism of New Covenant Believers, but rather to cleanse and overwhelm “all the nations” with the teaching and authority of the whole God-Head – the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. So how then did Jesus tell them to cleanse and overwhelm all nations?

  1. “Teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Jesus did not say, teaching them to “to know all” but “to obey all.” That is exactly what is required for all civil law – “to obey all” that Jesus commanded. One of the first things Jesus commanded was to “do and teach” all God’s Law in His “Sermon on the Mount” (Mat. 5:17-19).

  1. “And behold, I am with you always, to the very end of the age!”

BEHOLD! The end of the age has not yet come — so God’s new Jesus Family today can and is to still carry out Jesus’s Great Commission – His national civil mandate!

BEHOLD! Jesus is with us today — to carry out His national mandate!

“Therefore, go and teach all nations… And behold, I am with you always, to the very end of the age!’”

To practically go and teach any nation, which by definition is civil government, and to obey all that Jesus has commanded may seem impossible. But Jesus said:

“With God all things are possible!” Matthew 19:26

In the next post, we will look at how successful Christians have been with the task they have been given – The Great Commission.

For more information on the Great Commission and the church as God intended, visit Jim McCotter’s website, http://www.jimsbookstore.com.

BUDDE KNOWS FROM SCRIPTURE SHE CANNOT BE BISHOP OF GODS CHURCH

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A female bishop, Mariann Budde, delivers a fiery rebuke to President Donald Trump, blending scripture with many hot topics. But does her interpretation hold up? In this video, Living Waters examines her claims through the lens of scripture and discusses why the Bible is clear on the role of women in teaching authority. Watch at the end to see Donald Trump’s response to her combative sermon.

JIMMY CARTER’S CHRISTIAN FAITH: WHAT WAS IT BUILT ON?

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At his own funeral and the funeral of his wife, Rosalynn, Jimmy Carter had Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood sing John Lennon’s atheistic ballad “Imagine.”

“Imagine” perfectly encapsulates a secular worldview: “Imagine there’s no Heaven / It’s easy if you try / No Hell below us / Above us, only sky.” Wow—no accountability. We can make up all the rules. We can live any way we want to, and we’ll never have to answer for it. As Church Lady ( Enid Strict, better known as The Church Lady, is a fictional character portrayed by Dana Carvey on American sketch comedy television show Saturday Night Live) might say, “How convenient!”

“Imagine” croons on: “Imagine all the people / Living for today … Imagine there are no countries / It isn’t hard to do / Nothing to kill or die for / And no religion, too.”

These lyrics are clearly at odds with Carter’s professed faith in Jesus.

In his January 10, 2025 edition of “Gary Varvel’s Views from the Right,” the syndicated political cartoonist comments: “The song, ‘Imagine’ is the opposite of what Carter said he believed. Look, I have some doctrinal issues with Carter’s position on abortion and marriage, but he claimed to be born again, which requires faith in Jesus Christ’s death, burial and resurrection. Based on that, I assume Carter also believed in life after death and a literal heaven. So why on earth would Garth sing the song, ‘Imagine?’” This seems like cognitive dissonance.

What Lennon and Yoko Ono’s song does is undermine the very solution to the problems that plague humanity. This has been demonstrated over and over by the atheistic utopian regimes (Mao in China, Stalin in the USSR, Pol Pot in Cambodia, etc.) that engineered the deaths of over 100 million people in the 20th century alone.

America’s founders and early leaders recognized the sinfulness of man and that God would hold us to account one day. That’s why the Constitution has proved so durable. Most of the original state constitutions, notes historian Bill Federer, author of The Original 13: A Documentary History of Religion in America’s First Thirteen States, required that those who held public office be believers in God, lest they advocate lawlessness. For instance, Federer cites the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1776, which required officeholders to acknowledge “one God, the Creator and Governor of the Universe, the Rewarder of the good and the Punisher of the wicked. And I do acknowledge the Scriptures of the Old and New Testament to be given by Divine Inspiration.” Ben Franklin signed this.

Federer told me, “Later, Pennsylvania’s 1790, 1838, 1874 and 1968 Constitutions contained the wording: “That no person, who acknowledges the being of a God and a future state of rewards and punishments, shall, on account of his religious sentiments, be disqualified to hold any office or place of trust or profit under this commonwealth.’” Knowing our accountability to God should change how we act.

Robert Winthrop, a Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives in the mid-19th century, once put it this way: “Men, in a word, must necessarily be controlled either by a power within them or by a power without them; either by the Word of God or by the strong arm of man; either by the Bible or by the bayonet.”

The problem with the song “Imagine” is that it is predicated on the goodness of man — a chimerical idea at best. One has to ask what did Jimmy Carter really believe?

FAMILY – GOD’S MASTERPIECE

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The number of married households in America has fallen from 71% in 1971 to 47% in 2022? When mothers and fathers cannot take their place in God’s order, and children lack the example of a working father, society sets young people up for a life of government dependence and wasted potential. This is the big challenge facing the new Trump-led government, a godless generation.

America’s retreat from work serves as an indictment of the US welfare system. After the Left purposefully throttled President Donald Trump’s red-hot economy in the name of COVID-19, Joe Biden’s $1.9 trillion spending spree gave workers collecting unemployment a $300 weekly bonus. That surplus gave approximately one in four workers more money than they could earn by working. One study showed that policy alone depressed employment by approximately 14%.

The report also shows the problems presented by counterproductive economic interventionist policies that destroy jobs and opportunity. Politicians promote tax hikes that raise prices, massive spending that fuels inflation, and subsidies for unpopular products such as electric vehicles — all of which distort the market — for short-term political gain. For example, a minimum wage, when raised too high, prices out the poorest and neediest from the job market. The CBO estimated a proposed minimum wage hike would give workers an average of $50 a week — and throw 1.3 million people out of the workforce, reducing GDP by $9 billion.

During the last four years of the Biden-Harris administration, all net job growth has gone to immigrants. Between 2019 and late 2023, 2.9 million immigrants took U.S. jobs, while 183,000 American citizens left the workforce. Mass immigration—illegal and legal—reduces wages, making a welfare check seem far more inviting than 40 hours of toil. 

Churches alone stand in the position to address the underlying issues that keep sidelined Americans out of the workforce — addiction, depression, lack of motivation, family commitments, lack of child care, etc. — and to elevate even seemingly mundane work to its true spiritual significance.

LISTEN TO WHAT MEL GIBSON SAYS ABOUT GOD AND THE L.A. FIRES

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Ray Comfort has been accused of mocking God more than Hollywood in light of the Los Angeles fires. But is there any truth to this claim? In the video “Hollywood Mocks God, and This Happens,” Ray clarifies his original position, explaining that while we cannot definitively say the LA fires are God’s judgment, we do know that God sends both rain and sunshine. It’s challenging to attribute God’s judgment of Hollywood to a single event. However, over the past 40+ years, Hollywood has consistently mocked God, distorted truth, glorified sensuality, and exalted sin. Could this be storing up the wrath of God, as the Bible warns?

SO CALLED CHRISTIAN PUBLISHING COMPANIES

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Zondervan Publishing has just released a new study Bible, The Upside-Down Kingdom Bible, with notes, essays, and book introductions that, according to the Amazon listing, feature “a diverse set of trusted Christian voices and explores difficult issues facing Christians today, with features that are honest, nuanced, and filled with grace.”

Should Christians use this study Bible?

Rather than showing how God’s Word is unique, giving us a set of glasses through which to view the world that is “upside down” to the world’s way of thinking, the writers take the world’s lenses of feminism, Marxism, evolution, and CRT and read the Bible through them.

Many of the notes I read were sprinkled with references to man-made climate change, terms like “forced migration experiences” and “systemic injustice.” From what I saw, these terms weren’t really defined, but all such terms are routinely used by “woke” and progressive Christians the same way the world uses them, so I think it’s safe to assume that the world’s definition is how they’re likewise being used here.

Also, this study Bible is supposed to be “nuanced,” and it certainly is. It’s so “squishy” on most controversial topics (but not certain “woke” ones—on some of those, the authors took obvious positions) that the notes lose any authority, turning into, “some people say this, and some people say that, but we can’t really know.” But in many cases, we can really know. For example, in Genesis, we can know how and when God created! We know He created male and female and established marriage and family as the basis of society. Homosexuality and transgenderism are abominations to Him.

Hence, this Upside Down Kingdom Bible from what was once a trusted Christian publishing company is just another end-times sign. The fact that Zondervan was acquired by Harper and Row, which is owned by Rupert Murdoch, may explain their departure from believing the Bible is inerrant.

TRUMP’S INAUGURATION SPEECH

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You need to watch and listen to Graham’s prayer and Trump’s speech. I was pleasantly surprised that most of his policies align with Scripture. For one, the law will acknowledge that there are only two sexes, male and female. The LGBTQ agenda in educational institutions will be eradicated. God will not be forgotten and be put back into His rightful place. “IN GOD, WE TRUST” on the USA banknotes will be meaningful again. The World has indeed just changed for the better.

The walls of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) that were built throughout the Biden administration appear to be crumbling right before our eyes. In recent days, numerous companies and institutions have been forgoing their DEI programs and offices. Shortly after taking office, West Virginia Governor Patrick Morrisey (R) used his new position to end all state-funded DEI programs. And now, in a decision opponents of DEI have long waited for, the FBI has officially announced that they closed their DEI office.

Trump’s reaction: Why is it that they’re closing one day before the Inauguration of a new Administration? Is the reason CORRUPTION!”

CHRISTIANS CONTINUE TO FACE PERSECUTION YET THE CHURCH CONTINUES TO GROW

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According to the latest report, 380 million Christians — one in seven worldwide — face high levels of persecution and discrimination.

As the organization has done for over 20 years, Open Doors US ranked North Korea No. 1 on its World Watch List. “North Korea continues to be a place that is incredibly difficult for Christians,” Brown stated. “Reports of violence have continued to escalate within North Korea, and it is expansive throughout the State.” Christians in North Korea could face execution or imprisonment in a labour camp if their faith is discovered, Open Doors warns. Despite the targeted oppression, however, the latest World Watch List reported that around 400,000 believers in North Korea are continuing to bear witness to the love of Christ. 

A North Korean Christian, Jung Jik (name changed for security reasons), who escaped imprisonment twice, is praying to see his child again and share Jesus with him, showcasing the determination persecuted believers have to keep God’s Word alive amid surges in anti-Christian violence across the globe. As Jung attested in the report, a large underground Church still survives in North Korea. “There’s still a large underground church. Because you pray, many people are miraculously healed, and they experience God’s power. They come to faith.”

Brown said Christians like Jung, who refuse to forsake Christ, are a model for Christ-followers in Western countries with the right to religious freedom. Throughout Christianity’s history, Brown stressed that the Church has continued to thrive, even when persecution is extreme. 

“There are places where the Church is, by all accounts, the life is being squeezed from it,” Brown said, citing the North African country of Algeria, which ranked 19th on the 2025 World Watch List, as an example. Per the report, “all Protestant churches [in Algeria] have been forced to close, and the number of Christians awaiting trial and sentencing is at an all-time high.” 

Other countries that have forced the Church underground include Afghanistan, which ranked No. 10 on the list. Due to the Taliban enforcing strict interpretations of Islamic law, converting from Islam to Christianity is punishable by death. Christians also face punishment or fear being murdered at the hands of their family, clan or tribe if they renounce Islam. 

“There are places where the Church is being forced deeply underground, and any visible expression of that presence is very difficult to observe,” Brown said. “But there are places where, in the midst of persecution, the Church continues to operate, the Church continues to minister.”

The latest report also found increased violence scores in 15 sub-Saharan countries since the 2023 World Watch List. The 2025 report noted that the sub-Saharan Africa region is the most violent due to Islamic extremist groups taking advantage of government instability. 

“Persecution is rising in countries such as Burkina Faso (20), Mali (14) and Chad (49), which enters the top 50 for the first time,” the report found. 

Christians in Yemen (3), Sudan (5) and Myanmar (13) are easy targets for persecution as anarchy and internal conflict within these regions grows, according to Open Doors. 

Nigeria, which ranked seventh on the list, stands out from many of the sub-Saharan countries, as there wasn’t much room for conditions in the region to worsen from previous years.

Christians in northern Nigeria are targeted by Fulani militants, Boko Haram and other extremist groups who murder or abduct people of faith. Thousands of Nigerian Christians have been killed in recent years. According to a summary of the 2025 report’s trends, “the measure of anti-Christian violence in the country is already at the maximum possible under World Watch List methodology.” 

Fortunately, we know from Biblical prophecy that Christian persecution escalates in the time before Jesus returns to restore righteousness and usher in His Millennial Kingdom. This Earth still has 1000 years before it is destroyed. The nation God raised up for His purposes, Israel, must fulfill its destiny, and it will with Jesus reigning the nations of the world with the raised, glorified Saints. They rule with a rod of iron, indicating that the curse has not been lifted. People are still being born and are dying. They still need to accept Jesus as their Lord and Saviour. Satan and his minions are bound for most of the thousand years but are released at the end, and he still raises an army of people like the sand of the sea to come against Jesus and the Saints. This says a lot about people who are given free will to choose. Sadly, like Satan and one-third of the angels, many want to be god and choose to rebel against God and His commandments.